The Canadian Alliance of Business Travel, the leading Canadian corporate travel industry association, sponsored a luncheon of the Canadian/American Border Trade Alliance’s conference – Canadian/U.S. Border: A Unified Focus – taking…
The Canadian Alliance of Business Travel, the leading Canadian corporate travel industry association, sponsored a luncheon of the Canadian/American Border Trade Alliance’s conference – Canadian/U.S. Border: A Unified Focus – taking place in Ottawa. The luncheon featured Senator Jerry Grafstein, Co-chair of the Canada/U.S. Inter-Parliamentary Group. The conference is designed to raise awareness and advance the dialogue surrounding issues of trans-border travel and commerce between Canada and the United States.
The Can/Am Border Trade Alliance is an organization of businesses, private and public sector organizations, and individuals involved in U.S./Canadian trade and tourism. It seeks to ensure continued growth of two-way trade along the U.S./Canadian border and assure efficient, productive border crossing capabilities. The Canadian Alliance of Business Travel and its affiliate in the United States, the National Business Travel Association (NBTA), are working with the Can/Am Border Trade Alliance to help ensure the healthy conduct of business travel and commerce between the two nations, each of which is the other’s most important trading partner.
One key issue for all three groups is the United States’ Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI). WHTI is a program that will require all U.S. citizens, Canadians, citizens of the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda, and citizens of Mexico to have a passport or other accepted secure document to enter and re-enter the U.S. by January 1, 2008. Currently, U.S. citizens, Canadians and some citizens of other countries in the western hemisphere are not required to present a passport to enter or re-enter the U.S. when traveling within the western hemisphere.
The Canadian Alliance and NBTA work together on both sides of the border to advocate for changes to WHTI designed to eliminate problems the program is likely to pose for Canadian and U.S. businesses. Most recently, NBTA expressed the two groups’ views to the leadership of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, which held a hearing on WHTI last week.
Canadian Alliance President, Tanya Racz, CCTE, said of the Can/Am Border Trade Alliance conference, “The Canadian Alliance of Business Travel is pleased to support the Can/Am Border Trade Alliance conference. Our research shows that Canadian corporate travel managers oversee travel for an average of 269 trans-border travelers within their respective companies. As the voice of the Canadian business travel industry, we want to ensure the border is secured using systems that facilitate the safe and smooth passage of those travelers, whose work helps drive the economies of two nations.”
NBTA will sponsor a Canadian/American Border Trade Alliance conference in Washington, D.C., in September.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
