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Reporter's Notebook: NBTA Elects Maguire, Fosters Dialogue.

Article Excerpt
Boston-At the National Business Travel Association International Convention & Exposition here last month, buyer direct members elected director of travel for the Expedition Development Co. Kevin Maguire president and CEO of the association for the next two years.

Maguire said his short-term goals center around building and continuing global partnerships, especially after the Institute of Travel Management, one of NBTA's Paragon Partners, withdrew its involvement from a planned joint educational event in London in September. "I would like to strengthen those and expand to look at Central America and other parts of Europe and ways to make it a good match for everybody that's involved, and as part of that really expand our international education programs because I believe we are a little deficient in that area," Maguire said. "We need to tie in programs that are global in nature, that work not only for American companies, but European companies."

A long-term goal of Maguire's is building the prominence of NBTA globally and tailoring education programs for specific geographic regions, as well as for global travel buyers, so members can obtain the full benefits of being part of the association.

"I would like to see NBTA recognized throughout the world as the number-one source for travel information and we're not there yet," he said. "I would really like to look at the tangible benefits so that when somebody says, 'I belong to NBTA,' they can comfortably rattle off a list of things and show it to themselves, their employers or somebody else. I think we are close to that."

One aspect of Maguire's election platform was bridging the gap and creating open dialogue between NBTA buyer and supplier...