The Association of Corporate Travel Executives president offers insights into creative learning and leadership
BTE: As ACTE enters its fourth decade, what can we expect to see that’s new and different coming from the association?
BOCHICCHIO: We celebrated 30 years last year and our vision really hasn’t changed. We are all about curating content, building learning and connecting people. It’s the way we’re delivering it that’s changing. We’ve always been an event-driven organization and we will always continue to provide events. But to ensure we have the best event – that we provide the right level of learning – we also need the right content. We’ve made significant investments in the ACTE Center, a division of ACTE, which is focused on providing state-of-the-art research to develop educational content, which in turn feeds into the event experience.
BTE: How can we expect to see that content implemented at the Chicago conference and beyond?
BOCHICCHIO: A couple of different things are happening. We’re introducing a new program called Brain Dates. This is crowd-sourced content where our audience is actually figuring out what they want to learn. We’re providing a web-based platform for them to connect with others at the conference, and set up either one-on-one sessions or group sessions from 10 minutes to 45 minutes, depending on the information they want. That does two things for us: Number one, it allows the audience to figure out what information they really want to get if it’s not available in the other venues. And two, it’s almost like mini-research for us, because we get to learn what people are looking to learn about, and we can use that at upcoming events or other things we’re doing.
This conference is also a very different venue. We’re using an open-space format for the whole event, except for a very teeny part of it, so everyone will be in one very, very large space. You’ll have the main stage, the Brain Dates section, four learning zones, where we’re leveraging the silent disco technology, and InterACTE. For the most part, 95 percent of the conference is going to be in this one big room, which means the focus is on building the community and connecting people.
We’re also continuing our partnership with Steelcase to provide a more enhanced environment for learning. We first experimented with that in New York about three years ago, and we learned that people liked that new environment.
BTE: It sounds like you’ve taken a very different approach to traditional conference programming.
BOCHICCHIO: Believe me, we don’t sit around in a room and say, “Hey, we should do a program on XYZ.” We really make sure for these regional conferences we have groups of people involved in deciding what’s really important. Because there’s only so much content that you can create, whereas this allows us to address a lot more travel buyers’ needs in a very different type of environment.
BTE: What are some of those new challenges for travel managers, and what is ACTE doing to support them?
BOCHICCHIO: Today it’s all about the traveler and their experience – and how do you really measure whether they are getting a good experience? One of the things we’re doing is creating standards around quality metrics. We will be announcing the next phase of a research project sponsored by a TMC that will become the basis for an initiative to create standardized metrics of quality within the industry. We’re going to really hone in on the definition of those quality metrics and develop implementation strategies that an organization can put in place. With these tools, travel managers will be able to speak confidently within their companies and show how they’re driving value for travelers and the company and their program.
BTE: So for you personally the focus is on creating events that deliver strong educational content?
BOCHICCHIO: Absolutely. I’m really involved in the learning side of it, and I’m also involved in business process improvement. I actually started my career in the corporate payment space and when I moved on, I was in travel sales. I took a role with Mastercard in our corporate product group for global products. I got involved in the association and I’ve been on the board for a number of years. I’ve also changed careers throughout. So I really evolved my career and as that’s happened, there was always a match back to ACTE, because we are an education organization.
My current role at ACTE as president is less because of my industry knowledge – because I’m no longer in the corporate travel space – but more because of my education background.
BTE: Why is it important for travel managers to have these kinds of educational opportunities?
BOCHICCHIO: It’s critical because this industry is always changing. And what we really try to do is stay ahead of those changes to make sure that we are supporting travel managers to help them succeed.
BTE: Speaking of changes, ACTE has had a leadership change recently. Can you give us an update on the search for Greeley Koch’s replacement as executive director?
BOCHICCHIO: We are very sad to see Greeley go. He’s been a tremendous asset to the organization. With that said, we’re definitely engaged in the executive search. We hired a third-party company to conduct the initial portion for us. We’ve had a number of great candidates.
BTE: Anybody we know?
BOCHICCHIO: I can’t say, but we’re getting close.