The Institute of Travel Management for the UK and Ireland (ITM) and the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) have called off their planned merger.
In a joint statement, the two bodies said they had “mutually agreed to set aside a formal merger in favour of increased mutual co-operation.”
They said “operational challenges” to bringing the two sides together made an alliance “more appropriate.”
Plans for a merger were announced in February at the Business Travel Show in London and were backed by the ITM board and later the ITM members who voted overwhelmingly for the union with 81% of buyers and 98% of suppliers backing the proposal.
Just over 50% of ITM's 1200 members voted.
Commenting on the break down of talks, ACTE president Greeley Koch said: “Rather than rush through a complicated period of transition simply to meet an arbitrary merger agreement date, we've decided to pursue mutual objectives as two separate organizations.”
ITM chairman Tom Stone said: “The ITM and ACTE boards have mutually agreed to set aside the merger for the foreseeable future.
“This new cooperation agreement will allow ITM to fulfill its members' educational, networking and career development needs even more effectively, and will increase ACTE's profile in the UK, without affecting either organisation's core values.”
The two bodies said the merger talks would now be extended into a partnership “focusing on specific industry issues and objectives such as security, IATA reform, privacy, and airborne disease containment.”
Both associations said they would actively support each other by sharing expertise, research, speakers for industry events and other member benefits including reduced rates for attending educational programmes, access to local research and communications.