In the early years of ETC there were several regional annual "grass roots" roundtables to discuss programming ideas for upcoming ETC Conferences. These meetings always proved to be a great networking resource for travel planner and tour operator colleagues alike. The information and ideas shared proved invaluable for ETC programming, and colleagues loved the window of opportunity to informally talk shop. Picking up on this tradition we elected to start these regional meetings again in 2006.

Annual programming meetings are now held regionally to plan for the upcoming conference. Locations for the meetings include: Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Montreal, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, DC. These roundtable agendas focus on recommendations for powerful keynote and signature speakers, as well as specific session topic and speaker suggestions for ETC. Attendees also complete a pre-meeting worksheet listing the top three issues facing their travel program/organization and the top three issues facing their job directly. We have compiled this information into an ETC Program, Organization and Job Related Issues report which can be viewed in the ETC Library.

We would like to recognize the individual roundtables and the valuable contributions made collectively to create the upcoming ETC program experience.