Business Travel News Europe hat den Verband Deutsches Reisemanagement e.V. erneut in seine Hotlist 2022 aufgenommen. Damit würdigt das Geschäftsreisemagazin die Verbandsarbeit und Lobby-Erfolge in der Politik und bei Anbietern.
Laut BTN Europe "betreibt der VDR weiterhin Lobby-Arbeit bei Anbietern und Aufsichtsbehörden in einer Weise, die von keinem anderen europäischen Verband auch nur annähernd erreicht wird." Wir freuen uns sehr über diese Auszeichnung und Anerkennung. Dank der Expertise unseres Präsidiums mit Christoph Carnier, Inge Pirner und Hans-Ingo Biehl hat der Verband 2021 unter anderem erreicht:
- Ausweitung des Pay-as-you-fly-Angebots der Lufthansa für alle Firmenkunden und über alle Tochtergesellschaften hinweg
- Ausnahmeregelung für Geschäftsreisen während des Lockdowns
- Beendigung der Zusammenarbeit der Lufthansa mit dem US-Datensammler PRISM nach jahrelanger Kritik des VDR und seiner Mitglieder
BTN Europe schreibt:
"German travel management association VDR has had a number of significant lobbying successes on the back of sustained pressure on government and suppliers. Lufthansa's decision to expand its Pay As You Fly offering from a handful of its largest customers to all corporate clients and across the airline group was directly attributable to intense lobbying from VDR. The campaign was fronted by president Christoph Carnier, who has been VDR president since 2019 and director of travel, fleet and events at Merck since 1992, working closely with chief executive Hans-Ingo Biehl and vice-president Inge Pirner, the travel manager for Datev. Carnier and his colleagues lobbied not only Lufthansa itself but also the European Commission and the German government, which applied pressure to the German carrier when it was in a difficult position to refuse, having accepted more than €3 billion in state aid to weather Covid. PAYF was not the only lobbying success for VDR in 2021. The association helped persuade authorities in Germany to exempt essential business travel when entering a lockdown in January and was delighted when Lufthansa announced its exit from US data platform Prism following long-standing criticism from VDR and its members. "VDR continues to lobby suppliers and regulators in a way I don't think any other European association gets near to," said one Hotlist panellist."
