Thirty-two years after its founding, the Association of
Corporate Travel Executives has ceased operations and will file for Chapter 7
bankruptcy, according to a notice on the association’s website. As such, ACTE
will liquidate its assets and disband.
In the statement on its website, ACTE cited not only the
Covid-19 pandemic but also the cancellation of the August 2019 ACTE Global
Summit in Macau due to the protests that roiled Hong Kong.
“The dual impacts of the cancellation of the Asia conference
due to the security situation in Hong Kong and the Covid-19 pandemic
cancellations have been blows that ACTE, as a small, nonprofit association, has
not been able to withstand,” according to the ACTE statement.
ACTE this year also had canceled its New York Global Summit,
which was to have taken place in April.
The vast majority of ACTE’s revenue was generated through
conference fees. In 2018, for example, the most recent data available,
conference fees comprised nearly $5.1 million of the association’s total annual
$5.5 million in revenue, with membership fees the bulk of the remainder,
according to a December 2019 ACTE filing with the Internal Revenue Service.
ACTE indicated that it had sought to “find a home for the
ACTE community within a larger organization,” but the organization was unable
to do so.
“Our discussions have been broad and deep with strong
indication that we would be successful, but recent Covid-19 spikes have made
investors and partners justifiably pessimistic around the viability of
event-based organizations for some time to come,” according to the statement. “At
this stage, the fiscally, and morally, responsible next step for us to do, is
to cease operations and defer to a trustee to determine the distribution of
payments to creditors.”
ACTE also said it had “worked tirelessly to reduce costs,”
and the association in March announced a suspension of activities through May.
“For our members and sponsors, we want to say how deeply
disappointed we are that we have not been able to continue our operations”
according to the statement. “When we opened ACTEConnect for the whole industry,
we were inspired to see the resiliency of our community and the determination
to rebuild. We regret we have not been able to find a lifeline to allow ACTE to
continue to play a role in your recovery.”
ACTE was founded in 1988. It claimed more than 2,000 members
at the time it ceased operations.
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Source: Business Travel News