PICTURE: ISTOCK
DESTINATIONS TRAVEL TECHNOLOGY
As official media sponsor of Travel
Technology Europe, Travolution
will bring you unrivalled coverage:
M Daily news alerts and online news
M Travolution is also hosting four
seminars, with a top line-up of
speakers confirmed, including:
Feb 9: Social Media – What Next?
Dan Caplin, Click With Technology
Seamus Conlon, Cruise.co.uk
Feb 9: Is this the Year for Mobile?
Clare Messenger, Orange
Richard Dennys, Digital Divinity
Adam Winterflood, Travelbuddy
Feb 10: Big Debate
Travolution’s executive board
Feb 10: European Travel Trends
Chris Loughlin, Travelzoo
Francesca Ecsery, Cheapflights
TWgroup chief executive Simon
M
Ferguson will be welcoming
delegates at the VIP conference
daily routine with a focus on
lower costs.
Jonas Sprenger, online marketing
manager at pixell daten and design,
winner of the Travel Technology
Show’s Innovation Award last year,
says: “The buzzword at the moment
is ‘crisis’, so everybody is looking
for strategies to keep their business
running. Instead of a scattergun
approach, everybody is interested in
efficient marketing campaigns.”
There is also an increasing call this
year for visitors and exhibitors to be
more realistic. Andy Keeley, director
of sales at intuitive, says: “Time is
often wasted because suppliers want
to get as many leads as possible,
so will oversell to a potentially less
technological trade visitor who has
high aspirations.”
SOCIAL MEDIA STILL THE BUZZ
Exhibitors agree that social media is
still a big topic for those attending the
event. Peter McCormick, co-founder
of ExactTarget, says: “The show offers
a huge variety of different solutions to
engage with this audience. Visitors
should take time to visit the stalls and
seminars to learn about them.”
Over the past year, travel companies
such as Expedia, Hotels.com and
Icelandair have built admirable oneto-one
communications programs
through email and social media,
with encouraging results for repeat
purchasing.
FOCUS FOR THE INDUSTRY
One of the areas that will be a big focus
will be the rise of mobile services,
especially with the rising penetration
of the iPhone and other smart devices,
the importance of which was recently
highlighted by Worldchoice chairman
Colin Heal at the Tourism Society’s
Prospects for 2010 event.
Last year, discount travel site Kayak
launched a free iPhone application
that allowed it to raise £145 million
in investment, due to its ease of use.
Craig Dean, CEO of Web Applications
UK, says: “It’s not hard to argue the
importance of mobile phones as a
sales end point going forward.”
Brian Harmes, director of marketing
at Cornerstone Information Systems,
says: “There are more than 2,000
mobile applications available for
the travel industry now and this will
be a top growth category this year.
Location services will be a central
theme behind this growth.”
According to Theresa Quinn from
Datalex, the use of mobile phones in
travel has yet to live up to the hype.
“However, it has happened and
people are using their smart phones
on the move. This year will be about
leveraging mobile devices and
providing better shopping tools.” TW
As well as the
exhibition, there
is a wide range of
seminars that
delegates can
sign up to
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