Broadcaster to return to Advantage conference

The broadcaster and political commentator Andrew Neil is to make a keynote speech at the Advantage Travel Centres' conference for the second successive year.

The former editor of the Sunday Times, who now presents BBC programme This Week, so impressed the consortium's members last year that they demanded he was invited back.

He will talk to delegates at the conference in Lucerne, Switzerland, on May 21-23, about the economy and the repercussions of the general election result.

Colin O'Neill, sales and marketing director of Advantage Travel Centres, said: "As we are likely to have wrapped up the general election by the time of the conference, it will be interesting to see how many of Andrew's predictions have come true, what his current views are on the economy and the impact the results of the general election will have on us all."

Neil said: "Since I last spoke, the economic landscape has continued to change at a pace and I am grateful to be able to present my personal interpretation of what has happened and what I predict will happen in the future."

Former Carlson Wagonlit Travel boss Richard Lovell will moderate an Advantage Business Travel version of the BBC's Question time at the conference.

Kevin Mitchell, of the US-based Business Travel Coalition, will be joined on the panel by Continental Airlines' UK boss, Bob Schumacher. Other panel members have still to be confirmed.

For more information or to register for the conference, visit: www.advantageconference.co.uk.