High speed rail, a topic that has increasingly dominated the Guild of Travel Management Companies (GTMC) agenda is to be the subject of a GTMC hosted conference session for Business Travel Market conference at Excel on 22nd June.

Anne Godfrey, GTMC, Chief Executive will moderate the session which will include panellists Tony Berry, Director, Industry and Fare Distribution, HRG, and a GTMC Executive board member; Nick Mercer, Commercial Director, Eurostar and Sabah Kahoul, EMEA Travel Category Manager, Microsoft.

With the GTMC calling on the Government to extend HS2 beyond the proposed Birmingham route to Scotland, the session is expected to focus on the potential that HS2 can bring to the world of business travel in addition to bursting many of the myths, positive and negative, about the project.

Distribution within the rail sector, another area of rapid developments and significant challenges will also be examined by the panel.

“I expect there to be a frank and robust discussion of all the issues surrounding rail travel in the UK and beyond” said Anne Godfrey “including why the current rail network, stations and ancillory services still fall so short of the business traveller’s expectations”.