Global Passenger Network Bi-Annual General Meeting took place in Cyprus from 20th to 23rd March

This time, Aeolos hosted the 24th Global Passenger Network Bi-Annual General Meeting that took place in Limassol from 20th to 23rd March. Our Member in Cyprus, Aeolos, captained by Xenios Xenophontos and supported by a talented team, welcomed the GPN Members and Partners in Cyprus, one of the most beautiful islands in the Mediterranean Sea.
During this conference, GPN has continued the excellent work done at the last meeting in Athens in November 2017, holding successful best practises sessions, panel debates, industry presentations and offering to its members and partners, as usual, a wide range of networking opportunities. Amongst the exciting sessions held in Cyprus, we can highlight the “Speed Dating” Session, a member exchange session, where in a fast and fun way every GPN member learnt a little bit more about each GPN member’s business, the sector where they are in and their history.
GPN has also continued with the panel sessions introduced in our last Autumn meeting. In this occasion, there were 4 panel sessions. Amongst them, they were especially successful, a panel session focused on technology and another one focused on Safety. The panel focused on Safety and Risk Management of the coach vehicles was led by our Strategic Partner, Scania. In this panel, formed by 3 speakers, all of them selected from our GPN Partners (DAFO, Idrive, Bridgestone), we learned about their high-level overview of where safety is evolving as we look forward to the next 5-10 years. Then, we held a panel session focused on Technology, led by our Strategic Partner, VDL. The speakers at this panel were also selected from our partners (BusRadar24, Fanzone, Azimut and Tom Tom Telematics). The goal of this panel was to provide our members with some compelling thoughts to consider technology for their businesses and the investment and/or savings that the implementation takes.
In this occasion, we had the honour to count with the visit of Mr Ian Hay, TUI’s Head of Cyprus, Malta, Turkey, Egypt and Middle East. He explained to the audience a little about TUI, the world’s number one tourism business, about the company’s structure and strategy and he provided thoughts on what TUI looks for from a coach provider in the different countries.
In terms of partnership, GPN welcomed a new Strategic Partner in its family, Brusa Seats, a fully integrated seat manufacturer. The partners within GPN continues growing, welcoming very soon at our next General Meeting, the Spanish familiar coach body builder company, Beulas.
And last but not less important, we had also the honor to count with Mr Jan deMan, Busworld Academy’s CEO to announce to our members the future close collaboration that GPN and Busworld will hold from now onwards. They were searching for a partner who is able to manage the “Passengers Debate” at the Busworld Academy congresses that took place around the world, and GPN will chair this passenger debates providing leading inputs on passenger needs and wishes.