The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) has revamped its industry training scheme and named it the GBTA Academy.
The business travel body has appointed two new staff members to run the academy – Amanda Cecil as dean and Heather Trusty as the director of certification.
Cecil said the mission of the GBTA Academy is “to elevate the profession of business travel management.”
A GBTA scheme was already in place to offer certificates for business travel professionals at three different levels, but under the GBTA Academy these have been broadened, according to Paul Tilstone, GBTA Europe’s managing director.
The content of the courses has been made “far deeper” and the standards “more robust”, said Tilstone.
“The academy is a global project,” he said, “so wherever you are in the world if you take a GBTA training course or you go through the GBTA certification process then you will understand that that is a globally recognised standard.”
Tilstone said it is important that the certification process and testing process is “robust enough that it actually means something”.
“Provided it does, and that has been the whole-hearted approach of GBTA, it will start appearing on CVs, on job descriptions,” he said.
“It means somebody who has little knowledge of the business travel industry will be able to recruit a consultant in the full knowledge that GBTA recognises they have the right skillset.”
The courses at associate level, recommended for travel buyers and suppliers with less than three years of experience in travel management, focus on what are the key elements of a managed business travel programme.
At the next level, manager level, the courses are designed to enhance the management or development of a travel programme, focusing on how travel is integrated into the global business environment.
Manager level courses, for executives with between three and seven years’ experience, will be run in partnership with a university – in the US it is the University Of Virginia Darden School of Business. The European university has yet to be announced.
Meanwhile, courses at the top level, leader level, continue to be run in partnership with the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.