WTM Social Travel Market 2012
Brought to you by our partners
By Steve Keenan and Mark Frary
It’s back, bigger than ever. There are 36 acts (er, speakers) in 13 shows (ok, seminars) over two days and held on three stages. It’s bigger than Billy Smart’s Circus.
But if for some extraordinary reason you can’t spare two full days (AND WHY NOT?), here we’ve dissected this year’s event to match your needs with the offerings on show.
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 8 SESSIONS
See the line-up for Wednesday
The conference opens at 10.15am. Registration not required for the seminars, so do turn up early to bag a seat - the room has expanded to cater for more than 300 this year. You will need to register to attend World Travel Market to get in.
The hashtag is #STM2012 for the sessions, #WTM2012 for the show
Free wifi will be available in all sessions on all stages - Username: STM2012, Password: Market
If you could only attend one session, this is best suited to…
THE EMERGING DMO
10.30-11.15 The Silk Road in 40 minutes: a social media campaign
Turkey stand, EM850
Speaker: Chris Richardson, RTWLabs.com
Moderator: Mark Frary
WTM Social Travel Market is this year offering bloggers and writers the chance to win a trip to The Silk Road (details to be announced shortly). The challenge will be to create a piece of content in words, audio, images or video, that promotes the Flavours of the Silk Road. As part of the preparations, I visited Azerbaijan in September to attend a Unesco World Tourism Organisation conference - and the material gathered will form the basis of a Flavours of the Silk Road campaign, to be built in WordPress in just 40 minutes. The brilliant WP engineer is Chris, who is a master of his craft. Sit back and be amazed at how effectively a Destination Management Organisation can create a project in such a short space of time - MF
THE WORRIED BOSS
11.20-11.55 #Travelfail: crisis management and social media
Turkey stand, EM850
Speakers: Jeremy Skidmore - Levantia.co.uk; Sarah Rathbone - Client Services Director, Siren Communications
Moderator: Andy Jarosz - 501Places.com
These are the possible scenarios: a hotel where lots of people are getting sick, an airport with planes stuck on Tarmac for hours or a DMO where a spate of tourists are getting mugged. The common thread is that the public are creating a Twitter firestorm, and the company/place is trending for all wrong reasons. Three speakers with wide experience of handling such a crisis create a live scenario where the SM manager has to decide instantly how to respond in a thrilling session. You daren’t miss this. Because one day, it could be you… - AJ
THE RESOURCEFUL DMO
12.00-12.30 Spain: marketing in the time of nada
Turkey stand, EM850
Speaker: Enrique Ruiz de Lera - Director UK, Spain Tourist Board
Moderator: Steve Keenan
Spain, Greece, Portugal, Italy… all are suffering from austerity measures and tourism budgets haven’t been spared. But these are also countries heavily dependent on tourism - so how to market yourself without the big budgets of the past? Social media is one huge answer, and in this session, Enrique will reveal how he is harnessing SM and digital to promote his country for 2013. A year into his stint in the UK - the biggest market for Spain - he was previously based in Madrid, where he drew up Spain’s digital strategy worldwide. If ever a man knows about SM and digital, Enrique does - SK
THE FACEBOOK FAN
1.00-1.30 Facebook: where does it go from here?
Technology Presentation Theatre (TT370)
Speakers: Neasa Costin Bannon - Facebook Global Marketing Solutions; Alfonso Giménez - Marketing director Europe, Palladium Hotel Group
Moderator: Mark Frary
With a billion users, Facebook is the social network where every travel company and tourism organisation needs to be. But how best to engage with users? We find out from Facebook themselves and a hotel using Facebook to great effect - MF
THE STUDENT OF SOCIAL MEDIA
1.35-2.10 DMO Case Study: Flanders - Why storytellers are ambassadors
Technology Presentation Theatre (TT370)
Speaker: Dr Frank Cuypers - strategic marketing consultant to Brussels Flanders
Moderator: Steve Keenan
Did you know that Flanders has more festivals per head of population than anywhere else in the world? So Flanders decided to make a song and dance about it and, this summer, invited 92 travel and music bloggers to attend. The bloggers were selected based on their personal passion and were matched with an event they would love. It was an intriguing experiment, not only in scale of ambition but in the way a destination is adopting social media wholesale as a central platform of an international marketing strategy. Here, for the first time, Frank reveals the results of the experiment… - SK
THE DMO ENTREPRENEUR
2.15-3.15 The best DMO innovations of 2012
Technology Presentation Theatre (TT370)
Speakers: Rachel Kershaw, VisitEngland Fan-in-a-Van; Miquel Alabern - Director of Promotion, Catalunya Tourist Board; Tori Pearce - International Business Development Manager, Think! Social Media; Nicholas Montemaggi - Social media manager, Blogville, Emilia Romagna; Dr Simone Kurtzke - Social Media Manager, VisitScotland; Kylie Clark - Head of PR and Marketing, Japan National Tourism Organisation
Moderator: Mark Frary
In a strong finish to the WTM Social Travel Market, we hear from six destinations that have used social media brilliantly during the past year. Learn about what these innovative campaigns cost, how they were received and whether they delivered results - MF
WTM Social Travel Market finishes at 3.30pm.
See the line-up for Wednesday
For more information on speaker biographies, and other social and digital media sessions running at World Travel Market, take a look at this page. And we look forward to seeing you all!