EIBTM's travel company contract terminated by mutual consent

The contract between EIBTM and Genesis Motivation, the business travel company that organised flights and ticket administration for Hosted Buyers at the 2002 event in May, has been terminated by mutual consent.

The news comes after an immediate, high level internal and external investigation by EIBTM into the different reasons why some Hosted Buyers were unable to travel to the event.

EIBTM is now urgently looking for a new travel company to manage  arrangements for flights and ticket administration for Hosted Buyers.

Rigorous new mechanisms and internal and external management controls have been put into place by EIBTM to prevent problems in the future.

Mr.Tom Nutley, Managing Director of Reed Travel Exhibitions, organisers of EIBTM, said: “EIBTM is a major international business event of the very highest calibre and it is vital that all aspects of our customer service is excellent.

“I want to assure everyone involved in EIBTM that we view the circumstances that led to this year’s problems very seriously indeed and that we have now taken the appropriate management action to address these issues.”

He stressed, however, that less than 100 Hosted Buyers out of a total of more than 5,000 visitors did not attend EIBTM because of travel problems.

“To say we were concerned about these problems does not describe our horror and frustration that some people were inconvenienced. Saying sorry was simply not enough.

“We will also continue to develop and enhance our technology already in place for the Hosted Buyer Programme. For example, 12,000 one-to-one online appointments were made by approximately half of the Hosted Buyers and our goal is to increase the use of the online diary to close on 100%.

“It is imperative that we improve the online facilities in order that they are clear cut, concise and user-friendly and will ensure that this service is delivered to you within the required time frame to be an effective business tool.

“Although the majority of Hosted Buyers and trade visitors travelled to EIBTM normally, I want to apologise once again to those who were affected and to assure them that this was an uncharacteristic problem in an otherwise highly successful and established event, where significant business was conducted.

“Once we were made aware of these problems, every member of staff from RTE worked to minimise the inconvenience, ensuring that we were still able to deliver the kind of volume and quality of visitors to exhibitors that we had promised. Thanks to their professionalism and dedication, we were able to solve most of the problems beforehand or on site at Geneva.

“Where we were not able to solve a travel problem, we agreed to immediately reimburse Hosted Buyers, who had made their own way to Geneva.”