Greeley Koch has just taken over from Ron DiLeo as ACTE’s new executive director. He talks to BBT editor Paul Revel about his plans for the association
ACTE’S NEW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR was, it seems, born to live and breathe travel. “I was a young kid, around ten or twelve years old, and – this shows how nerdy I was – I had subscriptions to those OAG guides. That gives away how old I am,” says Greeley Koch. “When we were going on a trip I’d research these booklets – they listed all sorts of information, such as movies and meals – and I’d recommend flights and aircraft to my dad. We’d all go down the travel agency together to book our trip.
“When we got to the airport, my sister and I would run around all the airline desks and collect their timetables, and I’d keep them in a little filing cabinet... Oh, you’re recording this – I should keep quiet,” he laughs.
The travel bug was to last beyond childhood. After graduating, an interest in politics saw Koch working for the state governor of Illinois. After a few years a position arose on “something called the governor’s travel control board. I thought: ‘That sounds interesting.’” His new role saw him setting per diems and negotiating air fares and hotel rates for the 90,000 employees under the governor’s jurisdiction. “It’s where I learnt the art of the deal, working with legislators and different members of the party. We were on the Republican side, and worked with Democrats – unlike today, we had bipartisan ways of making things happen.”
To read this article on your tablet, phone or desktop, download the Buying Business Travel app from the Apple or Android Store. To get a preview, click here
Koch then gained experience as a corporate buyer with companies including Bank of America. “I wanted global experience, and they were rolling out a global programme at the time.” He later went to the supplier side of the industry, including taking senior roles at the TQ3 Navigant travel management company (since acquired by Carlson Wagonlit Travel) and travel software firm TRX. His next move was to join consultancy Acquis.
In the meantime he had joined ACTE in 1998, as a result of a golf outing – “Remember when people had time to play golf?” – and I took various volunteer roles including planning global conferences, and serving as president for over two years.
Of his new position as executive director, Koch says: “When this opportunity came up I thought: now is the time. I know ACTE from the volunteer side, and I can use my buyer and supplier experience. At Acquis, I honed my listening skills – we would go to clients and really understand their landscape before we’d propose solutions – and I think that’s helpful for me in this role. That’s what I’ve been doing: travelling the world and talking to our stakeholders – members, sponsors and the ACTE team – asking where we should be focusing and what we could be doing better.”
What are his plans for ACTE? “We ask ourselves: ‘What is our core offering, what do we do really well?’ and then we focus on those core strengths,” says Koch. “It comes down to education, networking and advocacy. Those areas are where we get the strongest feedback from members.”
Global concerns
What are Koch’s buyer members currently most concerned about? “Today, inventory access and booking is becoming a global issue,” he says. “And issues spread faster today than they did in the past.
Our members are saying: ‘We know accessing inventory and making bookings is going to change; we need to get ready for that.’”
He adds: “They’re also focused on the ever-changing workforce; younger folks are coming in and doing everything on their mobiles or iPads. Buyers are concerned about how to get compliance to policies and supplier agreements so they can continue their cost-saving programmes.”
Koch says this issue is reflected in the education programmes for the New York and Barcelona conferences later this year. “We’re focusing on habits, and how you can achieve compliance by engaging with your employee base, rather than the old command and control style.”
Should buyers be concerned that the debate around air distribution means there is a danger of losing transparent price comparison? “I think the jury is still out, though I know there’s a lot of noise on this. But what’s also important is duty of care. Yes, everybody wants the best price possible, but they also want to be sure of traveller tracking and security if people are booking via alternative channels.”
He won’t be drawn on whether mooted GDS alternatives such as New Distribution Capability (NDC) are a good thing or not, but does say: “We want to make sure that when these new systems come up, people understand what’s involved for corporations to adopt them. There are so many things linked together that need to be addressed, such as if you change a booking process, how will it impact on a company that’s already built up a system? Accounts payable, expense reporting tools – they’ve already got infrastructure in place for that particular method. There is cost of change, there is the change-management aspect all the way through the process... We want to make sure suppliers and buyers are aware of the downstream impact of proposed changes.”
Equal platform
ACTE is one of several professional associations open to travel buyers: what differentiates it? “We’re celebrating our 25th anniversary this year. We were the first global travel association, first with a global board and global education programmes – it’s that vantage point that differentiates us,” says Koch. “And we were created to have an equal platform between buyers and suppliers – we think that’s the best way to have open dialogue.
“Travel buyers want to talk to their peers – the world is changing, and they want to know: has somebody faced this issue and how did they solve it? We’re going to do more matching people up to peers who have successfully tackled issues and challenges – we’re rolling something out at the New York conference that will address this. Watch this space.”
He adds: “Sometimes we’ve done creative and innovative things that people questioned at the time. I was proud to see British Airways win the CSR [corporate social responsibility] award at the Business Travel Awards: back in 2006 we created and hosted the first ever carbon neutral travel conference in Barcelona in conjunction with British Airways. It was pretty amazing for a travel entity to be focused on carbon neutral. People said: ‘Why are you doing this? You’re drawing attention to the issue.’ We said that as an industry we need to show people we’re addressing it from a positive standpoint.”
Changing times
Koch believes the role of the travel buyer is evolving. He gives an example of when, as a consultant, one of his clients said her company was shutting a virtual conference suite because it didn’t get used. “I asked her: ‘Are they opening new ones?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Where?’ ‘I don’t know.’ I told her they should be reaching out to her about the most frequent routes, who’s flying them and where to invest in virtual conference rooms.”
He explains: “As a travel manager I would take advantage of this and say: ‘I’m in a unique vantage point where I can see across the whole company – I will pull this virtual conference programme together.’ This is a powerful message from the travel buyer to his company: ‘I’m not here to encourage travel – I’m here to encourage and maximise productivity.’ I think buyers who embrace that will have a tremendous future.”