The Guild of Travel Management Companies (GTMC) has unveiled a string of high profile senior industry speakers for its annual overseas conference, taking place in Abu Dhabi 13th – 15th May 2011.

With “Future Insights” as its theme, the GTMC conference will feature prominent speakers from organisations from every segment of the business travel sector including Chris Crowley, president of The Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE), Yves Galimidi, global travel purchaser for IKEA, the privately held, international home products company, and David Trunkfield, the senior travel sector analyst from global professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The conference will also include keynote addresses from Etihad Airways CEO, James Hogan and Travelport global head of operations & supplier relations, Bryan Conway.

Among topics to be debated will be the future role and business models of travel management companies; the impact of technology on business travellers, TMCs, and suppliers; GTMC lobbying in the new political landscape, future trends in regulatory and taxation and a series of high level panel discussions around content, rail and aviation.

In addition, the GTMC’s 20/Twenty Group, the TMC managers of tomorrow, will be presenting a follow up to their “Rise of The Digital Native” presentation of two years ago. Their presentation, entitle “Digital Natives Revisited” will reveal key insights on future technology and buying behaviours of business travellers complete with recommendations on what the TMC community needs to do to maximise future opportunities.

Commenting on the programme, Anne Godfrey, GTMC chief executive said: “This years GTMC Overseas conference promises to be one of the most interesting and insightful conferences for many years. We have a host of new faces from within the TMC community presenting, as well as new speakers from outside the sector – add to that the panel debates on the hot topics of the industry, from content to technology and from regulatory to rail, aviation and hotel and you can see that the quality of this years event will truly be second to none”.

The conference delegates will be made up of chief executives, managing directors and senior managers from the UK’s leading travel management companies and supplier partners including airlines, rail companies, car rental and hotels.