Awardees Honored for Innovative Ideas in the Travel Industry

At the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) Asia Education Conference in Singapore this past August, ACTE’s Board Member representing Asia, Kurt Knackstedt and ACTE’s Board Member representing Australasia, Georgie Farmer  announced the 2012 “Three Under 33” award winners for the region.  During its Australasia Education Conference taking place this week in Sydney, Farmer and Knackstedt once again took the opportunity to recognize these talented young professionals.

“Three Under 33” is an ACTE initiative designed to celebrate the next generation of industry leaders.  To qualify, nominees must be a promising industry professional, 33 years of age or younger.  This year’s outstanding “Three Under 33” winners for the Asia and Australasia regions are:

• Belinda Doery, Regional Meeting Strategy Lead, MSD, Australia
• Jake Hower, Managing Director, Business Travel Management, Australia
• Aditya Loomba, Director - Business Development, ECOS Mobility & Hospitality, India

“It is exciting to discover the brightest young professionals in our industry,” said ACTE Australasia Board Member Georgie Farmer.  “These award recipients are coming up with innovative approaches to ensure the industry’s evolution to embrace the challenges of today’s business traveller.”

Jake Hower, a graduate with Travel Industry Mentor Experience (TIME), was unfortunately unable to attend the Asia Education Conference in Singapore so he will be accepting his award for the first time at the Conference today in Sydney. 

The nominations were extremely competitive for this year’s awards.  Additional information on the 2012 ACTE “Three Under 33” award recipients for the region include:

Belinda Doery was recognized for leading the implementation of a global, regional and local strategic meetings management programme in China, Singapore and Australia. She was responsible for the planning and end to end process mapping for centralisation of Meeting Services in China. The project has made a significant impact on business operations as the new standardised process, meetings technology, preferred supplier agreements and direct pay capabilities have transformed the way meetings are conducted. In addition, Doery designed and implemented the enablers for success such as payment solutions, technology and data platforms, stringent compliance controls and cost saving measures.

Jake Hower successfully leveraged video technology to balance his SME clients’ desire for a more personalized level of service against the need to control travel management costs. By introducing video chat capability client service representatives are able to interact with clients and provide relevant targeted information to each of them, while being able to maintain human interaction and connection Thinking about client relationship management in a different way Hower has been able to reduce the costs of servicing clients needs and pass the savings on to them.