Following a tight race, readers of The Beat selected Carlson Wagonlit Travel senior vice president of global marketing Nicholas Vournakis to deliver a keynote address at The Beat Live on Wednesday, Sept. 30, in Arlington, Va.
Vournakis won with a pitch to explore distribution fragmentation, the growth of disruptors and changing business models in the travel business. His keynote will delve into whether the industry is changing for the sake of change__or for the better. His winning pitch can be viewed here. Congratulations to Nicholas.
The Beat received compelling pitches from 11 other industry players, five of whom made the cut to present their topics during a panel moderated by Phocuswright's Tony D'Astolfo on Thursday, Oct. 1.
Those runners-up, in alphabetical order: Travel and Transport's Brian Beard on The Future Of Travel Technology, tClara's Scott Gillespie on Why Our Industry Must Adopt A Total-Cost-Of-Travel Model, Executive Travel's Steve Glenn on The TMC Of The Future: Moving To A Retail Model With No Fees, tripBAM's Steve Reynolds on The Dysfunctional Relationship Between Corporations And The Hotel Industry and Rocketrip's Dan Ruch on Why Hasn't The Sharing Economy Disrupted Business Travel?.
Congratulations to the runners-up and thanks to everyone who submitted a pitch.
Find the full agenda for The Beat Live here and register here. We'll see you Sept. 29-Oct. 1 at The Westin Crystal City in Arlington, Va.