Travel industry defends junkets as job creators

The travel industry, hit hard by the public uproar over lavish company getaways, has been pushing back, and its message is essentially this: You say junket, we say jobs.

In a lobbying effort spearheaded by the U.S. Travel Association, industry representatives have met with President Obama, released a flurry of statistics about the economic contribution of meetings and events ($101 billion in spending, 1 million jobs) and have even established a "rapid-response war room" to address "false accusations against legitimate travel activities."

"It's causing a huge unintended consequence — namely, all those organizations that have received government assistance, and many that haven't, are canceling meetings like crazy because they don't want to be seen as excessive," said Roger Dow, president of the travel association.

The public anger started to rise last fall, when the American International Group held a luxury retreat for employees shortly after getting $85 billion in bailout funds. The travel association said companies representing a fifth of the market lost $220 million in room revenue in January and February from event cancellations.

The travel industry is lobbying against a Senate bill hat limits "luxury" spending for corporate travel by companies getting federal bailout money. And it has been working with the Treasury Department, which, as part of the bailout legislation, has been asked to determine what qualifies as an "excessive" or "luxury" expenditure.

The U.S. Travel Association and other industry groups have come up with their own guidelines on how to make sure events serve legitimate business objectives. The suggestions include making sure that at least 90 percent of those attending incentive programs are not senior executives from the host organization and — for events attended only by top executives or board members — requiring participants to pay for "nonbusiness-related activities."