ARC gears up for third annual TravelConnect Conference

ARLINGTON, VA – Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), the premier driver of intelligence and commerce in the air travel industry, is readying the company’s third annual and highly acclaimed TravelConnect conference. Registration is open for the 1½-day meeting that will take place in Washington, DC, October 6–7 at the JW Marriott hotel.

TravelConnect is designed for travel professionals interested in the industry’s latest trends, advancements and issues surrounding airline ticketing, travel agency ticket processing and the use of data in making smarter business decisions.

Holly Hegeman, publisher and editor of PlaneBusiness Banter, will have a conversation with Jeff Katz, founding chairman and CEO of Orbitz and presently CEO of Journera, LLC, and Jay Walker, founder of Priceline and now chairman and CEO of Upside. Katz and Walker will discuss travel distribution disruption and the role of innovation within the travel sector. They will offer their views of the next major trends that will affect industry professionals and the travelers who rely on them. Hegeman, an expert on airline issues, will also give a keynote address about airline industry trends at TravelConnect.

Other keynote speakers this year include Wayne Best, chief economist at Visa, who will delve into global tourism and the three key megatrends that are driving its change. Additionally, Shawn Achor, Harvard researcher and author of The Happiness Advantage, will share the results of his 10-year study on positive psychology with attendees. Achor’s TED Talk about his research has registered nearly 14 million views, one of the most viewed TED Talks of all time.

TravelConnect will also include a panel titled A Single Record of Truth: How ARC Data Can Work for You, with participants discussing how corporations, travel agencies and airlines can use ARC’s trusted data to manage and enhance their relationships. Moderated by ARC’s Managing Director of Product Doug Mangold, the panel includes Scott Gillespie, managing partner of tClara, Joe Tibble, director of sales programs and products at United Airlines and Jeffrey Blaszyk, senior director of supplier relations at BCD Travel.

More than 155 travel industry companies were represented at last year’s conference including those from airlines, travel agencies and global distribution systems. Ninety-five percent of those who attended TravelConnect in 2015 rated it positive, while 97 percent said they planned to recommend that a colleague attend.

Tiare Fujitani, sales audit manager at Hawaiian Airlines commented of her TravelConnect experience: “ARC is the foundation. Where else would we all come together? It’s great that ARC stepped up and made this happen—bringing the airlines and agencies together.”

In addition to keynote presentations, TravelConnect will feature breakout sessions on effective agreement management, the current state of debit memos, strategies to prevent chargebacks and leveraging ARC data as a single record of truth. General sessions will focus on understanding and fighting fraud and the shape of airline content distribution today.

“This year’s TravelConnect theme, ‘OutThink,’ is a perfect description of what we have in store for our attendees,” said Lauri Reishus, ARC’s chief operating officer. “Our agenda promises to ignite new ideas that participants can absorb and take back with them to help their organizations better collaborate, get closer to their customers and outthink the competition. ARC looks forward to welcoming attendees once more at TravelConnect and seeing vibrant networking across the many industry players.”