The European business travel community gathered last week in Milan for a new kind of conference: Crossroads Milan – Paragon Business Travel Conference & Expo. Under the umbrella of the Paragon Partnership – the global alliance of buyer-led business travel associations – 11 business travel associations partnered to create the first pan-European, buyer-focused conference for business travel professionals.

The industry responded enthusiastically: more than 350 industry leaders took advantage of the education, networking and trade show offered at the first-ever Crossroads. Attendees came from more than 20 countries, and more than 100 participants were buyers.

Lively debates and discussions focused on finding the solutions to challenges shaping the European business travel industry today and tomorrow, such as:

• content fragmentation
• creating effective systems for measuring and reducing the environmental impacts of business travel
• developing and implementing enterprise-wide strategic meetings management programmes

Crossroads Milan provided a perfect platform for industry leaders such as Dale Moss, Managing Director, OpenSkies, and Charles Petruccelli, President of Global Travel Services for American Express, to address the European business travel community. Moss spoke about his personal experience building a new airline -- OpenSkies -- backed by British Airways. He spoke the day after the U.S. Department of Transportation approved OpenSkies to begin operations. Petruccelli explained his perspective on the current state of the business travel industry and his expectations for the future.

The Expo gave attendees the opportunity to meet with 50 partner suppliers to learn about new products and services in the market.

At the close of the conference, attendees learned that the site selection process is underway for next year’s conference, and that their feedback will help determine where they will go for Crossroads 2009.