Originally posted on GovLoop by Andrew Krzmarzick.
A couple months ago, an article on the Federal Times caught my attention as it declared, "GSA cancels 2014 Expo, SmartPay goes virtual." Curious, I reached out to the GSA SmartPay team to learn more about their move from in-person to online for this event. Below is a summary of my interview with them.
Q1: How did you make the decision to move the GSA SmartPay training forum from in-person to online?
Originally posted by TravelMole
Federal government travelers cut their spending by more than a billion dollars so far in 2013, largely by cutting down on conference spending, the Federal Times reported last week.
Travel-related charges to the SmartPay charge card program fell 17%, from $7.3 billion to about $6 billion -- and more than 40% from the $9.6 billion government workers spent on travel in fiscal 2011.
Originally posted by Josh Hicks on The Washington Post
The General Services Administration canceled the last of its national conferences scheduled for this year due to a lack of demand from agencies facing budget constraints, the administration announced Monday.
The GSA said it suspended its FedForum, which the agency had planned for July 16-18 in New Orleans, and its SmartPay training event, slated for Aug. 6-8 in Chicago.
Acting GSA Administrator Dan Tangherlini.
The cancellations mark the second time in less than a month that the agency has called off major events due to a lack of demand. In February, the GSA suspended its annual expo and training conference.
"In the current fiscal climate, agencies and businesses alike have been forced to make tough spending cuts," the GSA said in a statement Monday. "After carefully reviewing the projected spending and attendance for this year's conferences, GSA will suspend both in an effort to use our resources more responsibly."
SmartPay is the federal government's charge-card program. Last year, more than 6,400 people attended the GSA's SmartPay training event in Las Vegas, but only 151 people had registered so far for this year's event in Chicago, according to the agency.
FedForum is an annual GSA training event relating to acquisition, motor vehicles, aviation, transportation, boats, real property, personal property, and green buildings.
GSA said only 192 people had registered for this year's event, compared to 211 at around the same time last year.
GSA spokeswoman Mafara Hobson said the agency was still determining how much savings the cancellations would create for the federal government.
Last year, former GSA Administrator Martha N. Johnson resigned, and a host of other top agency officials were fired or placed on leave amid reports of lavish spending at a regional conference near Las Vegas.
(Image by Alex Wong -- Getty Images)
Although conference cancellations continue to trickle in, don't get discouraged. For every one cancellation, there are hundreds of new event opportunities that can provide the valuable training and education often garnered at these large conferences. In fact, as of today (March 14, 2013), 1,090 new conferences, training events, and webcasts have been posted to GovEvents since the start of 2013, and thousands more will be added throughout the year.
A frequent request from our members is an updated list of event cancellations and postponements, so here is the latest list we have. If you know of any others, please shoot us an email: info@govevents.com
Postponed:
Cancelled:
Cancelled Events Earlier this Year:
