The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA)—the voice of the global business travel industry—today announced several new initiatives in the Australia/New Zealand region, following a recent announcement of the appointment of Welf Ebeling as Regional Director for Asia.

In addition to kick-starting initiatives which have proved successful in Europe, such as an Australia/New Zealand Advocacy Group and a regional Strategic Benchmark Group for large corporates, GBTA Chief Global Development Officer, Paul Tilstone’s visit to Sydney on 22nd of February will also see the beginning of an interview process for candidates for a new General Manager role for the region.

The developments have been planned since GBTA Australia/New Zealand began operating over a year ago and represents a focus by GBTA to see a significant increase in activity for the region in 2012 and beyond to represent the interests of the buyer community.

Talking about Paul Tilstone’s visit, Chris Telfer, GBTA’s Australia/New Zealand Chair and senior contract manager for the Australian Federal Police, said,” We are delighted to welcome Paul to Sydney and have a full programme planned for him but we also have some time set aside for engagement with potential partners or innovators who would like to support the regional board’s work to lead the buyer agenda.”

Mr. Tilstone said he saw lots of opportunity in the region for engagement with the government and key suppliers on developments which affect the buyers and the opportunity for large corporates to share best practices and benchmark their strategies with each other locally and other benchmark groups globally.  In addition, Tilstone has plans for an event dedicated to companies in the exploration and mining sector on the back of the success of a European Oil, Gas & Marine Travel Forum introduced in Europe in 2011.

He said, “Buyers in the region need to be heard more and GBTA can help them do that.  Plus, those in the exploration and mining community have a unique set of issues they need solutions for and the creation of sector specific networks is a particular focus of ours moving forward.  We will announce more details about all of these initiatives, especially the regional Exploration & Mining Travel Symposium, in due course.”