Some key achievements for the first year of the ASTM
In October 2019 the ASTM was officially founded in Zurich as a Swiss association under Swiss law. The launching festivities took place in Geneva on December 3rd with a memorable launching event at the Hotel N'vy. With encouraging words from Michel Dieleman, President of our partner association AFTM and great feedback from roughly 30 buyers and suppliers we were happy to make our first steps. We also announced four conferences for 2020. Of course not a single conference could take place. However 2020 will still go down in ASTM history as a successful first year. Here are some reasons as to why.
Numbers, regions, growth, sectors
> 300 members across all geographies and sectors
> 500 followers on our LinkedIn page
Zurich is where we managed to grow most: 28% of our members are located by the Limmat
Geneva is our second hub in Switzerland with 15% of our members
Online, offline, hybrid events
Thanks to 6 webinars that we produced with great support from our partners to make up for a long period of no face to face exchange we have managed to build up a pan-European reach with members in Germany, France, Belgium the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
Another fantastic highlight of 2020 certainly was the hybrid event that we produced together with our partner citizenM to celebrate the opening of their Geneva hotel. While ASTM members were onsite they were all in the safety of their room and the event was streamed through the hotel and across Europe. We have developed more ideas along these lines and there should be more news on this coming very soon.
We would again like to thank citizenM for this opportunity and our panelists Frederic Claus, Manager Administration Services, Global Fund, Nathalie Ansermoz, Senior EMEA Travel Manager, Parker, Peter Grover, Managing Director, TRIPBAM, Marion Dargaud, Meetings and Events specialist, EY, Virginie Rouault, Manager Sales, citizenM for their contribution. An extra special thank you goes out to our moderator Marc Zuber , Global Travel Category Head, Nestlé.
Governance, innovation and more brain power
It is also with great joy that we can announce the Advisory Board with buyers Marc Zuber (Nestlé), Nathalie Ansermoz (Parker), Reto Keller (Uefa) and three more colleagues to be announced shortly. The Industry Circle is set up with Andreas Schneider (Kuoni Business Travel), Virginie Rouault (citizenM) with new industry figures set to join very soon.
Year end, welcome 2021
Thanks to a vaccine which will be available very soon there has most recently been a pick up on air travel. Lufthansa Group reported sales are up by 400% week over week. At the same time Carsten Spohr announced that all of Lufthansa Group's key corporate clients are reporting a high level of "catch-up" travel just waiting to happen. In a call today with the ASTM a procurement director from a global pharmaceutical leader confirmed the same.
With all of this in mind we again would like to thank you for your support, wish you a safe winter break and an optimistic start into 2021.
Stay safe!
Sabah Kahoul, Dominic Short
ASTM Leadership Team
