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Day One – 3rd May 2006
Opening Keynote Presentation:
Changing the Game in Travel Service Marketing
- How is Orbitz changing the global playing field in travel service marketing?
- Hear how Orbitz is leveraging its heritage of innovation and service to differentiate its brand
- See how Orbitz has applied best practices to improve its game and how you can identify opportunities to win customers through service marketing
Randy Wagner, Chief Marketing Officer, Orbitz / Lodging.com / Cheaptickets.com
Session One: Presentations and Panel
Create the optimum balance between your offline and online marketing
- How should you balance and integrate your online and offline sales and marketing strategies?
- In today’s marketplace, how do your combine email, web, mail and print marketing to ensure you sell more products and services?
- What proportion of your marketing budget should you spend online?
- How do you know where to invest your money online, which channels have he greatest profit potential, and what return to expect?
- If online advertising becomes too expensive, how will the model change? Will more money be invested in offline advertising?
- How can offline and online brands be successfully integrated? How do you maintain brand identity and values across multiple channels?
- What are the implications of applying a performance-based approach to offline marketing? How can you track the performance of your offline marketing?
- Evaluate which online/offline model best fits the needs of your particular business
Del Ross, VP Global e-Commerce, Intercontinental Hotels Group
Michael Gross, CEO, Global Travel International
Jill Howard-Allen, Director of Interactive Marketing, Southwest Airlines
Paulo Boni, CEO, VFM Interactive (panel only)
Networking coffee break and exhibition
Session Two: Presentations and Panel
Evaluate the success of the meta-search model to-date: What value do they bring to your business?
- What additional value, if any, can meta-search companies provide to consumers and suppliers? What value do they bring to a consumer purchasing a hotel room?
- Recently several leading travel companies have changed their stance on partnering with MSE. Why is this – do they see the real value of MSE or are they just afraid of being left behind?
- In the USA the tendency has been for MSE to invest in keyword buying, but does this really serve the supplier or is it simply creating competition? Could this factor limit the growth of MSE?
- How, as a supplier, do you measure the performance of your meta-search partnerships? Do they generate incremental traffic, or do they just attract customers who would have found your site anyway through keyword searches?
- Have meta-search engines served to further commoditize online travel or is this being driven by the customer? Are conversion rates dropping because customers are learning to compare more?
- How have the European meta-search engines fared to their US counterparts? What are the differences in terms of their business model and the technology they employ?
- Is Google planning to invade the Meta Search space? What impact will this have on the advertising model?
Russ Lemelin, CEO, Sidestep
Keith Melnick, VP Business Development, Kayak.com
John Swanciger, Senior Director Marketing and Business Development, Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide
Hugo Burge, Vice-Chairman and Head of International, Cheapflights.com
Networking lunch break and exhibition
Session Three: Presentations and Panel
Discover how to improve your email marketing performance and maximize sales
- Email marketing is undoubtedly a cost effective way to reach your customers. But how do you make sure your email promotions reach your recipients and the message is read? What kind of conversion rates can you expect?
- According to Return Path 21% of permission-based emails did not get delivered in the USA in first half of 2005. How do you ensure your email gets delivered in spite of blacklists, firewalls and enhanced spam-filters? How do you encourage your customers to add you to their whitelist?
- Find out the latest e-mail marketing techniques
- Get professional tips on managing email marketing as part of the marketing mix, measuring your success, acquiring customer data and segmenting your market
- What is the future for email marketing? Could technology, such as RSS or blogs, signal the end of email marketing?
Kelly Niehoff, VP Interactive Marketing, Grand Circle Travel
Rom Hendler, VP Strategic Marketing, The Venetian Resort Hotel Casino
Rick Miller, Director e-Marketing, The Mark Travel Corporation
Keith Wardell, CEO, Exmplar (panel only)
Networking coffee break and exhibition
Session Four: Presentations and Panel
Decide if the destination marketing approach is right for your particular business – will it really generate extra revenue?
- As a supplier, what role can you play in promoting a destination alongside your product? And what’s in it for you?
- Find out how hotels and intermediaries can form lucrative partnerships with Destination Marketing Organizations
- What is the potential growth of this market? Could partnerships with DMOs be the next generation of distribution online?
- Identify your destination.com clients – how can you effectively market to them and use them to differentiate your product
- See how search can be used to stimulate demand to certain destinations
- Discover the best search strategy for DMOs to adopt – how do you create a globally successful destination marketing strategy?
Dale A. Brill Ph.D., Chief Marketing Officer, VISIT FLORIDA
Howard Lefkowitz, President, VEGAS.com
Michael Gehrisch, President and CEO, Destination Marketing Association International
Dan Pulcrano, Chairman of the Board, Associated Cities LLC
Mark Wiser, VP Marketing, Club Med
End of Day 1 – Cocktail Party
9.00am – 5.00pm Day Two – 4th May 2006
Session Five: Presentations and Panel
Implement tools to boost customer retention and accurately measure the ROI of your CRM campaign
- Learn how to retain customers through personalization, loyalty schemes, user testing, better tracking and an effective website
- See how an integrated approach to CRM across all your distribution channels could really pay dividends
- Innovative ways for you to communicate with your online customers and build loyalty
- What impact does the strength of the internet have on declining customer loyalty? How can a loyalty scheme create additional value for your customers?
- Cendant have linked all brands under one loyalty card so ROI can be more accurately measured. Affinia Hospitality measure results of CRM campaigns using a control group. How should you measure the ROI of your CRM and loyalty campaign? Which method most suits your company?
- Hear examples from companies who have built effective loyalty schemes both on and offline
- Is personalization really an effective way of increasing online sales? What are the practical challenges is designing and implementing a more personalized approach?
- How can cookie-based personalization foster relationships with your customers?
Laura Johnston, VP Customer Relationships, Travelocity
Jim Von Derheide, VP CRM Strategies, Hilton Hotels Corporation
Jill Noblett, VP Loyalty and Direct Marketing, Cendant Hotel Group
Jeff Robertson, Managing Director – Sky Miles Program, Delta Airlines
Bernard Louvat, CEO, inQ (panel only)
Networking coffee break and exhibition
Session Six: Presentations and Panel
Understand the importance of content in the purchasing process and hear best practices for content management
- As search becomes more content-focused, how do you optimize your content to ensure your place in the search results?
- Discover the importance of a user-friendly website and content in driving bookings, and see how you can you measure its effectiveness
- Content plays a critical role for consumers purchasing travel products. But how do you ensure consistent coverage of content across all your distribution channels?
- How can improvements in standardization and connectivity fuel the exchange of content?
- Should you outsource your content management? Discover the advantages and disadvantages of the various content management business models
- Tips on integrating third party content sites with your products booking site
- How do you measure the return of your content investment?
- What content is most relevant to your particular customers?
- Get advice on how to make your e-commerce offerings culturally relevant for a global market place
Marc Rosenberg, VP Sales and Product Distribution, Air Canada
Mark Burgess, CEO, Sandiego.com
Scott Brandt, Managing Director, Sales Strategy and B2B Pricing, United Airlines
Peter C. Harders, e-Commerce Manager, Travel Guard International (panel only)
Networking lunch break and exhibition
Session Seven: Presentations and Panel
Find out how your company can profit from consumer generated media
- Understand the importance of consumer generated media and its role in the purchasing process. How can you manage online reviews in terms of content and CRM?
- How can consumer generated media become more commercialized – how should you form partnerships with these sites?
- Discover how creating an online community can provide your customers with targeted content and advertising, and increase repeat business and loyalty
- How can technology such as RSS, blogs and map based searching help you understand your customers, provide them with relevant content and steer them to your website
- Understand the benefits of RSS feeds and blogs in terms of capturing data, choice of content and instant updates
Ken Leeder, CEO, RealTravel
JR Johnson, Co-Founder and CEO, VirtualTourist.com
Jim Donelly, Co-Founder and VP Marketing, IgoUgo
Networking coffee break and exhibition
Industry Analysis
Understand the behavior of your online customer
- Howare consumers researching travel online? What drives online travel researchers to websites?
- How are travelers using general search engines and meta-search engines?
- Does loyalty exist or has it become an illusion in this competitive space?
- From best rate guarantees to consumer created content: What websites features do consumers find the most useful?
- Is the buzz around dynamic packaging translating into sales?
Diane Clarkson, Travel Analyst, JupiterResearch
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
