New brain trust to focus on challenges and opportunities facing destination marketing organizations, hotels, restaurants, and other tourism stakeholders.
TUCSON, ARIZ. – Simpleview, the global leader in software and services for digital destination marketing, has established the Future Tourism Group. This dedicated think tank will focus on destination development through a lens of tourism stakeholders and their digital presence. Simpleview has retained industry visionary David Peacock to head up the initiative.
"Travel and tourism has faced enormous disruption over the last decade, from the launch of Airbnb and Uber to voice-driven search and new travel aggregators," said Simpleview CEO Ryan George. "All of these changes impact how visitors find and connect with hotels, restaurants, attractions and other tourism assets. The charter of the Future Tourism Group is to help identify, prioritize and proactively respond to those changes."
Spearheading the effort will be David Peacock, who transferred executive experience in international television and electronic media to destination development at Ontario's Regional Tourism Organization 4 (RTO4), which he has led since 2011. “His track record in growing and strengthening tourism economies, as well as his work with Destinations International and DestinationNEXT, make him an ideal fit to lead the Future Tourism Group initiative,” George said.
Peacock describes the Future Tourism Group as a vehicle for industry leaders to prioritize issues and participate in creating and beta-testing tools and processes to address them, with much of the work mirroring strategies he successfully deployed at RTO4: creating sustainable destination management networks, developing channels for distributed marketing and storytelling and strengthening stakeholder competencies.
"Our industry has done a tremendous job at recognizing and aligning around the pressing challenges that these stakeholders face. At the same time, we're just getting started on identifying the opportunities in those challenges and developing actionable solutions," Peacock said. "Future-proofing the tourism industry is the challenge that inspires me everyday."
Later this spring, the Future Tourism Group will announce initial partner destinations, additional group members and initial projects focused on stakeholder engagement, digital excellence and distributed reputation management.
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales.
She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
