An early start to the expo floor kicked off day 3 at the conference. The 9am start time proved to draw less traffic than the previous days as many GBTA-ers were still recovering from the many parties the night before.
Booths were accommodating, offering coffee and even freshly fried donuts (we smelled those from all the way across the expo floor). We made a few rounds and grabbed a small stack of business cards before the expo closed for good at 11:30am.
What was left of the 6,000 attendees made their way to the convention theater to catch the last CEO panel entitled Mavericks of Business. The panel was made of Gary Kelly, President & CEO of Southwest Airilines, Gamal Aziz, President & CEO of MGM Hospitality, and Robert Stephens Founder & COO of GeekSquad slash CTO, Best Buy, Inc. What a resume! The panel was kicked off and moderated by Bill Taylor, Co-Founder of Fast Company Magazine.
The panel was a hit, covering points on company culture and positioning. Gary Kelly received a huge round of applause for Southwest's no bag fee policy and Robert Stephens a lot of laughs for his many jokes on consumer demand.
In closing was the final general session luncheon where final GBTA housekeeping was made giving Craig Banikowski his exit as GBTA president (he was almost in tears). Sean Penn took the stage a little prematurely during Vic Pynn of Amadeus' introduction, but was very well received by the audience.
Pynn asked Penn questions on his life and how he feels about business travel. Penn made a comment about how airplanes used to be a way to stay out of contact stating, "you [business travel community] will find a way to f**k that up!" jokingly, of course. Penn described his work in Haiti and how he wishes to speak in front of more groups to get people involved in his humanitarian efforts.
Sum up: great conference GBTA and a much, much better location than last year. We once again made priceless contacts and learned as much as an Airbus A-380 can hold. Thanks for having us and we are looking forward to Boston in 2012.
GBTA Conference Day 3
Events - August 25, 2011 - 8:23am by thines
An early start to the expo floor kicked off day 3 at the conference. The 9am start time proved to draw less traffic than the previous days as many GBTA-ers were still recovering from the many parties the night before.
Booths were accommodating, offering coffee and even freshly fried donuts (we smelled those from all the way across the expo floor). We made a few rounds and grabbed a small stack of business cards before the expo closed for good at 11:30am.
What was left of the 6,000 attendees made their way to the convention theater to catch the last CEO panel entitled Mavericks of Business. The panel was made of Gary Kelly, President & CEO of Southwest Airilines, Gamal Aziz, President & CEO of MGM Hospitality, and Robert Stephens Founder & COO of GeekSquad slash CTO, Best Buy, Inc. What a resume! The panel was kicked off and moderated by Bill Taylor, Co-Founder of Fast Company Magazine.
The panel was a hit, covering points on company culture and positioning. Gary Kelly received a huge round of applause for Southwest's no bag fee policy and Robert Stephens a lot of laughs for his many jokes on consumer demand.
In closing was the final general session luncheon where final GBTA housekeeping was made giving Craig Banikowski his exit as GBTA president (he was almost in tears). Sean Penn took the stage a little prematurely during Vic Pynn of Amadeus' introduction, but was very well received by the audience.
Pynn asked Penn questions on his life and how he feels about business travel. Penn made a comment about how airplanes used to be a way to stay out of contact stating, "you [business travel community] will find a way to f**k that up!" jokingly, of course. Penn described his work in Haiti and how he wishes to speak in front of more groups to get people involved in his humanitarian efforts.
Sum up: great conference GBTA and a much, much better location than last year. We once again made priceless contacts and learned as much as an Airbus A-380 can hold. Thanks for having us and we are looking forward to Boston in 2012.