The one day event – held on the 7 April at the CCH – Congress Center Hamburg in advance of World Travel Catering & Onboard Services Expo (WTCE) 2014.
A series of seminal stakeholders, thought-leaders and analysts within the onboard hospitality and service sector have confirmed their participation in the Passenger Experience Conference Programme. The one day event – held on the 7 April at the CCH – Congress Center Hamburg in advance of World Travel Catering & Onboard Services Expo (WTCE) 2014 – will open in the morning with two plenary sessions before splitting into four simultaneous afternoon breakout streams; one of which will focus on ‘Hospitality & Service – making the onboard experience memorable’.
The stream aims to motivate new ways of making the onboard experience more personal and relevant to the tastes of each passenger; balancing the need to reduce costs with the benefits derived from a bespoke service.
Anthony James, Editorial Director at Aircraft Interiors International magazine will welcome delegates to the session and will then hand the stage over to Andrea Schollgen, Senior Strategy Consultant at designaffairs, who will focus upon ‘Multi-sensory branding: opportunities to forge emotional bonds with your customers’. Examining lessons which can be learned from sectors outside the rail and aviation industries, Ms Schollgen will offer a range of ideas for brand development in an effort to break out from the existing price-dependent paradigm.
The next session, ‘Extending the comfort zone: innovative approaches to well-being’ will be steered by Ariane van Mancius, Co-Owner of Zoomwise.nl. Her enlightening talk will analyse: how comfort is perceived through service, equipment and food provision; how to enhance a passenger’s comfort at all points of the travel process (i.e. from pre-boarding and travel duration to disembarkation) via cross-over technologies derived from other sectors; and importantly how concepts of comfort can be transposed into brand development. A brief question and answer session has then been scheduled in order to foster innovative thought and provide an arena in which the audience can examine the speakers’hypothesise.
The Vice President of Sales at Boxever, Ultan O’Brien, will then shift the focus of debate to the extremely topical subject of big data. In a session entitled ‘Harnessing the power of big data to deliver great service’, Mr O’Brien will examine the latent potential embedded within the pre-existing customer data available to operators. This contemporary, yet controversial subject will analyse what big data is, its potential to instigate new development initiatives and its unexploited ability to personalise the in-cabin experience to improve customer service.
The agenda will then move on to focus upon ‘Understanding customers’ expectations to deliver exceptional on-board service by discovering passengers’ latent needs’ and will be hosted by Jerome Felici, Chief Executive Officer at Servair Solution Italia, before he takes part in a high-powered panel discussion entitled, ‘Using the power of the crowd to tap into and meet your passengers’ expectations and desires’. This interesting session is set to analyse the emerging profiles of travel consumers, examine latent passenger needs and demonstrate the ability to go beyond passengers’ immediate service expectations. Mr Felici will be joined by Ultan O’Brien and Jeremy Clark, Airline Catering & Onboard Services Consultant, JC Consulting.
The stream’s final presentation will delve into ‘Innovation in action – anatomy of creating a memorable experience’. Mohsen Abduljawwad, Head of Cabin Interiors at Saudia, and Gerrie Smith, Managing Director at Honour Branding, will reveal the challenges and solutions that moved Saudia beyond a me-too product to a memorable passenger experience when it came to its onboard flat bed offering. Customer experience versus brand experience versus memorable brand experience will also be discussed and both speakers will look at which airlines, retailers and hotels are doing it well and importantly what lessons can be learned.
“The calibre of experts assembled for the Hospitality & Service stream epitomises the quality of informed opinion secured throughout this year’s Passenger Experience Conference programme”, said Archana Sharma, WTCE Exhibition Manager. “Consequently I have no doubt that this year’s event will build upon the success of 2013 and will provide a comprehensive and varied agenda attended by key stakeholders from across the supply chain”.
Tatiana is the news coordinator for TravelDailyNews Media Network (traveldailynews.gr, traveldailynews.com and traveldailynews.asia). Her role includes monitoring the hundreds of news sources of TravelDailyNews Media Network and skimming the most important according to our strategy.
She holds a Bachelor's degree in Communication & Mass Media from Panteion University of Political & Social Studies of Athens and she has been editor and editor-in-chief in various economic magazines and newspapers.
