Amphitrion Holidays hosted the 23rd Global Passenger Network Bi-Annual General Meeting that took place in Athens from 8thth to 11th November

Global Passenger Network (GPN), established in July of 2006, is the first international passenger transportation organization of premium national motor coach networks or private companies which enjoy national recognition. GPN members meet twice a year in different cities around the world to discuss the direction and goals of the organization, initiate and monitor programs that benefit all members, coordinate and improve cooperation between members, plan marketing and technology interventions that ensure GPN’s success, and confront regional issues and regulations which influence the motor coach industry as a whole.

This time, Amphitrion Holidays hosted the 23rd Global Passenger Network Bi-Annual General Meeting that took place in Athens from 8th to 11th November.

During this conference, GPN has introduced some exciting new features to our meeting to enhance networking and discussion. Amongst its great enhancement, there was a session called “Market Place”, a partner exchange session set to create more business discussions between our current 26 GPN partners, such as VDL, Scania, Tom Tom, Brigdestone and many more and our 38 countries members. The session lasted two hours, the first hour worked like a “speed dating” Partners were seated at tables and GPN Members moved around the room to have their meetings. All appointments were pre-scheduled and each lasted 5 minutes. The second hour, GPN members went back to those partners they wanted to expand on the discussions.

This new enhancement done for the first time within GPN, was a great success for both partners and members who found it an extremely enriching experience and a perfect format for networking, social and create more business opportunities.

Another new session that GPN introduced in this meeting has been the panel sessions. The panel session topic was the Future Trends & Challenges of the coach vehicles and it was formed by four speakers, these four were selected from of our GPN Strategic Partners (VDL, UNVI, Scania and DAF). The goal of this panel was to provide global perspective around the Future and Challenges of our coach vehicles, based on their experience in the coach industry.

In terms of membership, GPN is expanding its global presence to other continents, further than Europe and North America. At this meeting, we welcomed two new nations: After the welcoming at the spring meeting in Vienna of India and Mexico, now it’s the turn to Australia with the company Coastal Liner and also France, represented by the company Clamart Cars. GPN enjoy at the present 38 members countries and is also currently evaluating potential member companies in Japan and South America. As a result, GPN is developing into a key partner for the tourism industry and for motor coach manufacturers.

The participants have classified this meeting as the best General Meeting in the GPN history, because of its content with so many new features to enhance engagement, discussion and help GPN grow into the future.

During the next months, GPN will deal with the challenges and opportunities arisen by its growth. The Board of Directors’ lead by its Chairman, Luis Pedrero (Cartour’s CEO), will move forward with all the new projects that came out during the successful meeting in Athens and will start the preparation of its next General Meeting that will take place in Cyprus in Spring 2018 hosted by our member Aeolos.