The Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) and Business Travel Market (BTM) have reached a landmark agreement according to an announcement made today by ACTE's Executive Director Ron DiLeo. The terms of the agreement name ACTE as the exclusive provider of educational content for Business Travel Market's conference, while BTM will exclusively manage the execution of the soon to be transformed TransACTE program.

"This is a logical confluence of the unique core strengths of two well-established leaders in the business travel management profession," said DiLeo. "ACTE has been the primary source of professional business travel education and training in Europe for more than 20 years. Our events are some of the best-attended, and most often cited, educational programs in any given region. This is our forte. This agreement will now extend the quality of ACTE programs to a greater audience in the United Kingdom, while putting the power of the BTM team behind the TransACTE concept."

Business Travel Market has quickly become one of the most successful and innovative travel trade shows in the UK by developing Europe's only fully hosted programme for corporate travel buyers. This expertise is anticipated to raise the bar even further with the TransACTE program.

"BTM has created a niche for itself in the market by bringing together the leading buyers and suppliers to network, and do business together in a unique environment." said Paul Robin, BTM's Founder and Event Director. “Our hosted buyers require the highest possible return from their time investment, so having ACTE design our educational agenda is a perfect fit. Our partnership with ACTE will greatly enhance our offering and scope, especially where access to global research is concerned. We'll match that contribution by bringing our trade show expertise to TransACTE.”

The TransACTE program is already radically different from traditional business travel industry trade shows. It offers an opportunity for vendors to maintain a visible presence and presents networking opportunities in a trade show-like atmosphere, but without the expense of transporting theme-related booths.

"ACTE's primary focus has never been on trade shows but the need for creating a networking environment has always been recognized as being important to our members and sponsors." said DiLeo. "The BTM format inside TransACTE will provide the right mix of rich content that our members so enjoy about ACTE and a dynamic networking environment unique to BTM."

The joint development between ACTE and BTM is already underway and attendees are expected to experience the new TransACTE format sometime during 2011.