BPA Terminates Business Travel's Membership

The Guangzhou, China-based title is accused of violating various BPA bylaws, including refusing to allow the audit staff to complete its Dec. '09 audit.

By Chandra Johnson-Greene
Thursday, June 10, 2010

BPA Worldwide announced today that its Executive Committee has voted to terminate the membership of Business Travel, which is published by Guangzhou, China-based Beijing Business Traveler Advertising Co., Ltd, for making false statements to the audit bureau staff and then failing to allow them to complete the title’s December 2009 audit.

During a meeting on May 26, the committee concluded that Business Travel violated Section 10.1 of the BPA Worldwide Bylaws during an on-sit print run check of the April 2010 issue. Members of BPA’s audit staff were presented with taped boxes allegedly filled with over 210,000 printed copies of Business Travel, which, upon further inspection, were empty. BPA Worldwide confirmed 13,360 copies were printed. The average print claim for the twelve-month period ending December 31, 2009 was 210,347.

The publisher refused access to complete the twelve month ended December 2009 audit, including access to printer records to verify the printed number of copies for all 2009 issues. According to a BPA spokesperson, the publisher’s reason for refusing access was “declining business.” Therefore, all issues beginning January 2009 remain unaudited.

“Business Travel passed its initial audit back in 2008 (three months ended December 2008),” the spokesperson wrote in an email to AD when asked whether there were previous auditing problems with Business Traveler. “It was the next audit after that initial one in which we ran into the challenge.”