2012 Seminar Programme

How the internet will become a moving image medium and what this will mean for your travel business

Speakers include:

Mark Bloxham

Teletext Holidays

Marketing Director

Mark Bloxham Marketing Director

Mark Bloxham has joined the board of Teletext Holidays and been promoted to the position of marketing director. He joined Teletext Holidays as head of marketing in October 2009. He is responsible for building the Teletext Holidays’ brand as it moves towards a digital future through high profile online and offline marketing campaigns and partnerships. Before joining Teletext Holidays, Mark was head of marketing for Kaplan Professional UK, a subsidiary of the Washington Post group. He has held senior marketing positions within the financial services, recruitment and leisure industries including six years at Thomas Cook. He said: “Teletext Holidays is entering a new era and it’s great time to be involved in developing a new strategic direction for the brand. We are building a new website with market leading technology as we look to drive more business online. At the same time we are building partnerships with other retail brands such as Tesco which take us onto the high street for the first time.” “The Teletext Holidays brand has become synonymous with good value last-minute travel deals.We are a trusted and objective voice in the market and that gives us a huge opportunity to talk to customers directly through social networks and e-marketing.” Teletext Holidays can be accessed online at www.teletextholidays.co.uk and freeview channel 101 where visitors can search and compare from millions of holiday offers, including packages, cruises, flights, hotel and villa deals from over 200 of the UK’s leading tour operators.

Geoff Monk

SeeYourTravelAgent.com

Founder

Geoff Monk Founder

Geoff Monk is originally from Nottingham. He attended Leeds Metropolitan University where is gained an HND in hotel management. Starting his travel-related career working in hotels in the UK, USA and Australia, he left the hotel sector to become an agent member of the Global Travel Group in 1996. Initially selling a full range of holidays before identifying the niche potential of the Internet.This led him to set up GlobalCoachTours.com, focusing exclusively on escorted touring. He became a Skype voice user in 2004 and began using the video version soon after it launched in 2006.In August 2010 he registered the domain SeeYourTravelAgent.com and began to research the site. The site went live to the travel trade 1stAugust 2011 and the site has recently gone live with 15 UK agents.Geoff lives in the Derbyshire Dales town of Wirksworth with his wifeSue and dog Coco.

As more mature travel markets slowdown more and more travel firms are looking for growth overseas. What are the opportunities and dangers of exporting your model.

Speakers include:

Graeme Benstead-Hume

SiteVisibility

Digital Marketing Manager

Graeme Benstead-Hume Digital Marketing Manager

Graeme Benstead-Hume heads up conversion and data analysis at SiteVisibility. With 7-years of experience working across the digital industry in roles spanning from user interface design and development to digital marketing management and online conversion analyst Graeme has worked with a range of clients to help them to grow both search and social channels and capitalise on existing traffic sources.

Rob Stross

Directflights.com

Director

Rob Stross Director

Rob Stross is a Director at Directflights.com. Rob was previously MD of TNT Magazine and moved into the online meta search space 4 years ago, firstly at Global Travel Market and then Directflights.com. Directflights.com is the UK’s fastest growing meta search site having launched at WTM 2010. 2012 sees some exciting developments for Directflights.com including the launch of their app and expansion into overseas markets. Rob heads up the growing team at their west London base and lives in Hampton Court with his wife and 2 children.

Cloud Computing has revolutionised how technology is delivered to the business. The Cloud is here to stay and now is the time to leverage the many benefits and cost savings that are attributed to this technology. Come and find out from the experts and learn how the Travel Cloud could help your firm.

Speakers include:

Chris Kendregan

Commensus

Senior Cloud Consultant

Chris Kendregan Senior Cloud Consultant

With over 30 years experience working in the technology sector, Chris has seen all the major technology changes over the years. Drawing from his experience working for some of the world’s leading firms such as HP,Outsourcery, Sun Systems and Oracle, Chris today pioneers the Cloud Business Unit at Commensus.

Jonathan Greensted

Zolv

Business Development Director

Jonathan Greensted Business Development Director

Jonathan has inexhaustible energy for IT and a high level of expertise in troubleshooting, leadership & creating business miracles. Jonathan is able to draw on his industry connections and established partners to provide applications and solutions to business objectives; delivering on time and within budget. He operates at the highest level within Zolv, presenting a business savvy face to advanced technical solutions. Zolv’s Web Travel Platform has revolutionised the way online travel is sold and Jonathan’s experience is pushing Zolv forward and to the top of their game.

The next generation of web analytics promises to help websites develop more sophisticated customer service and retention capabilities driving up conversions.

Speakers include:

Graham Cooke

QuBit

Managing Director

Graham Cooke Managing Director

Graham founded QuBit in 2010 to help companies understand their data and ultimately solve marketing & website inefficiencies. Prior to QuBit, Graham worked at Google as the Global Leader on their eCommerce effectiveness strategy, focused on development of Google Analytics, as well as Google’s internal strategy to develop an ecosystem to improve websites. Graham is a technology enthusiast, with a fixation on how to bring great product development together with effective business solutions. He started at Google in the early days and worked on initiatives across the organisation to help improve the effectiveness of the AdWords platform for its customers. Prior to Google Graham ran a number of businesses from building technology specialised in transmitting video and music over IP to a record label.

Lawrence Hunt

lowcosttravelgroup

Chief Operating Officer

Lawrence Hunt Chief Operating Officer

Richard Singer

Travelzoo

Commercial Director, Europe

Richard Singer Commercial Director, Europe

Will your businesses survive to regret not grabbing the mobile opportunity in 2012?  The most recent meeting of the Travolution editorial advisory board heard mobile described as the glue that holds together all other marketing and communications channels. Mobile can not only act as an additional powerful sales channel but become the focus for social, call centre and customer service activity, driving up operational efficiencies and maximising returns. In this Question Time, brought to you in partnership with textlocal.com our panel of experts answer your questions about how your company should be approaching the integration of mobile into their business and what is at risk if the mobile opportunities the technology now offers are not seized.  Submit your question here www.travolutionquestiontime.com

Speakers include:

Joel Brandon Bravo

Travelzoo

Managing Director (UK)

Joel Brandon Bravo Managing Director (UK)

Lee Hayhurst

Travel Weekly

Head of News

Lee Hayhurst Head of News

Andrew Nicholson

Traveltainment

Managing Director (UK)

Andrew Nicholson Managing Director (UK)

Jason Palgrave-Jones

Textlocal

Business Development & Client Services Director

Jason Palgrave-Jones Business Development & Client Services Director

Jason leads the sales, business development and client services at the Chester Office. After studying Business Management & Marketing at the University of Wales, he has spent the past 20 years working in various senior management roles for brands like Capital Bank, Bank of Scotland, HBoS, Accor Services, and more recently as General Manager for Argos and Homebase as part of The Home Retail Group. In his spare time Jason is a keen sailor and runs a Cheshire based event management company, The Chester Treasure Hunt Company. You may find him out and about meeting new clients and presenting some of the brilliant work we do at Textlocal.

Dan Robb

Google

Industry Head

Dan Robb Industry Head

EasyJet.com is a high-throughput transactional e-commerce website servicing 7 million page views a day. In this presentation we will talk about vision of the overall programme of work, where the personalisation of the homepage fits and share some real world learning’s. Strategies discussed will include geographic location, buying patterns, search results, price data and campaign activity, with details of what worked, what didn’t, and how we measured success and what’s next for easyJet.

Speakers include:

Andrew Davies

True Clarity

Managing Director

Andrew Davies Managing Director

Andy has been building websites since ’96. As Technical Director at Euro RSCG Circle, where he worked with Peugeot, VisitBritain and Guinness, where he followed the dot com bubble up and down. For the past 9 years he has been founding director at True Clarity, a lean and agile technical agency, which works hard delivering large complex websites, mostly built on the Sitecore CMS platform for easyJet, Dyson, Sophos, The Conservatives and Saga Travel.

What happens when travel companies let developers loose on their code and product? What are the benefits to being open and where does it lead? Tnooz presents the best of the THacks from around the world and debates how ideas can breed creativity and innovation.

Speakers include:

Alex Bainbridge

TourCMS

CEO,

Alex Bainbridge CEO,

Kevin May

Tnooz

Editor & Co-founder

Kevin May Editor & Co-founder

Kevin O'Sullivan

SITA Lab

Lead Engineer

Kevin O'Sullivan Lead Engineer

John Watton

Expedia Affiliate Network

Director of Brand & Marketing

John Watton Director of Brand & Marketing

Christoph Klenner will discuss the benefits that independent travel distribution, in particular the GDSs and online travel companies, bring to business and leisure travellers alike. He will deliver some thought provoking points on how the robust GDS technology stands up against emerging business models, in particular when it comes to being a one-stop shop for business travellers and an unmatched tool for delivering transparency and unbiased travel data so that consumers can make truly informed choices. He will also shed light on how U.S. and European regulators are looking at the current travel distribution landscape, and which regulatory challenges - and opportunities - lie ahead.

Speakers include:

Christoph Klenner

ETTSA

Secretary General

Christoph Klenner Secretary General

Christoph Klenner is the Secretary General of the European Technology & Travel Services Association (ETTSA), which groups global distribution systems and major online travel companies. Previously, Christoph was a Partner at The Prisma Consulting Group, Brussels/Geneva. He advised, amongst others, Apax Partners, Boeing Co., the British Business and General Aviation Association, Expedia.com, Japan Air Lines, and P&O/DP World. Prior to that, Christoph worked in the CEO's office at MALEV Hungarian Airlines. A graduate of the University of Maastricht and Budapest University, Christoph is a member of the Royal Aeronautical Society, the European Aviation Club, the Chamber of Commerce Belgium-Sweden, and the Belgian-Polish Chamber of Commerce.

Jo Bradbury, Sector Paid Search Manager at TUI Travel PLC, joins Nick Crump from AdInsight to reveal some thought-provoking facts and figures about call tracking technology.

Speakers include:

Jo Bradbury

TUI Travel PLC

Sector Paid Search Manager

Jo Bradbury Sector Paid Search Manager

Jo has worked in several ecommerce roles over the last 13 years, starting online life at Virgin.net back in 1998. Six years ago Jo joined TUI Travel plc as online marketing manager responsible for web acquisition strategy across a portfolio of premium travel brands. More recently Jo moved on to a sector ecommerce role to take on the challenge of managing and advising on paid search strategy for TUI’s entire Specialist and Activity division – currently comprising some 105 companies. In this role Jo also identified an opportunity to create an internal search agency team to provide specialist resource to many of the brands within this sector.

Nick Crump

AdInsight

Sales & Marketing Director

Nick Crump Sales & Marketing Director

Nick has over 20 years of experience in sales and marketing, predominantly dealing in the technology sector. He has worked with businesses of all sizes from small businesses and start-ups to large corporations. He has witnessed first-hand the development of the internet, having worked with what was to become a major pan-European ISP at a time when inexpensive broadband connectivity for the home and quality streaming media were a dream and aspiration for the future. He now heads up the sales and marketing department at AdInsight, and believes that whatever the size of a business, quality web analytics data is the key to ensuring that digital marketing budgets are utilised as effectively as possible.

Speakers include:

Andrew Ace

OffExploring

Development Director

Andrew Ace Development Director

Kevin May

Tnooz

Editor & Co-founder

Kevin May Editor & Co-founder

Anthony Rawlins

Digital Visitor

CEO

Anthony Rawlins CEO

Anthony Rawlins is the CEO of Digital Visitor, an award-winning social media agency dedicated to increasing your online conversion rate driving traffic to your website reducing your customer acquisition cost. As one of the leading providers of social media applications for websites, and social media marketing services for travel organisations globally, Anthony and his team at Digital Visitor are having a big impact across the industry. This has been acknowledged and recognised by the distinguished awards Digital Visitor and Anthony have been nominated for, most recently winning Best Online Application at the 2011 Travolution Awards. Anthony is very active on the social media conference circuit most recently presenting at the Travel Distribution Summit Europe, the Online Marketing and Social Media Europe conference and chairing the destination social media track at the Enter 2011 conference in Innsbruck. In the past two years, he has spoken at major global events on all things social media in London, Prague, Amsterdam, Johannesburg, Nairobi, South Africa, and San Francisco. Digital Visitor is proudly working with some of the best brands in the travel and tourism industry including Virgin Holidays, Flight Centre, Multicom, Wazzamba, TopDeck, On Holiday Group, Warner Leisure Hotels, VisitBritain, VisitEngland, Cyprus Paradise, the French Provence tourism board, and many more travel companies and visitor attractions around the world.

Matt Rhodes

FreshNetworks

Strategy Director

Matt Rhodes Strategy Director

The session will talk about how travel companies can utilize technology to drive innovation- a business owner’s perspective rather a technology one. The session will start with a presentation on the latest trends and developments affecting the industry, followed by a panel discussion. What are the major innovations impacting the travel industry now, and in the near future ? (mobile, social etc) Who is driving these? Suppliers? Customers? External technology companies and movements (e.g locational social media, etc) Which sectors of the travel industry are best placed to take advantage of these? How does a travel company make innovation part of its DNA? Small vs large? Internal skills vs external partners? Culture? Investment structure?

Speakers include:

Nate Bucholz

Google

Travel Industry Head

Nate Bucholz Travel Industry Head

Based in Google's London office, Nate Bucholz has advised the company's largest travel clients for a number of years in North America and Europe. As Industry Head for UK Travel, he leads the air and car hire team, providing recommendations for advertising strategy and working with companies to profitably grow their business. Nate holds an MBA from the Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley.

Simon Ferguson

Travelport

Managing Director, UK& Ireland

Simon Ferguson Managing Director, UK& Ireland

Simon Ferguson joined Travelport in September 2011 as Managing Director for the UK & Ireland, Travelport’s second largest country territory. Prior to this he spent 20 years in business and consumer media, in a range of senior management positions. During 8 years as Chief Executive of the Travel Weekly group, he developed gazetteers.com, the UK’s largest online information resource for travel agents, and founded and launched Travolution, the leading media brand for the online travel sector. In 2009 he led a management buyout of Travel Weekly from FTSE-100 company Reed Elsevier. Prior to the travel industry, Simon spent 8 years in technology media, launching the UK’s first online B2B e-commerce platform for the IT sector in 1998. With a passion for travel, technology and media, Simon believes leading Travelport’s UK business into its next phase is one of the most exciting challenges in today’s industry.

Tamara Lohan

Mr & Mrs Smith

Founder and CTO

Tamara Lohan Founder and CTO

Guava discuss 10 things you should consider to successfully implement a multi-territory search marketing strategy.

Speakers include:

Paul Langston

Guava

Business Development Manager

Paul Langston Business Development Manager

Paul works for Guava’s search engine marketing team as a business development manager. For six years he has worked in various capacities within the technology sector managing relationships with clients and helping to deliver measurable results. This experience has given him an understanding of how to approach the business and technical challenges facing many companies in today’s crowded online market. Today, Paul focuses on working with Guava’s travel and entertainment clients has spoken at events including NMA Live, Travel Tech Europe and TFM&A

A panel session chaired by Julian Mills, CCO of Vibe Software Ltd, will discuss the future of content aggregation in the corporate booking tools arena.  With so much content required by the travel buyer and no one source for that content, Julian will be joined by Travelport GDS, Bouda Corporate Consultancy and a Corporate Travel Buyer to discuss the challenges and the solutions that are in the market both today and in the future.

Speakers include:

Simon Ferguson

Travelport

Managing Director, UK& Ireland

Simon Ferguson Managing Director, UK& Ireland

Simon Ferguson joined Travelport in September 2011 as Managing Director for the UK & Ireland, Travelport’s second largest country territory. Prior to this he spent 20 years in business and consumer media, in a range of senior management positions. During 8 years as Chief Executive of the Travel Weekly group, he developed gazetteers.com, the UK’s largest online information resource for travel agents, and founded and launched Travolution, the leading media brand for the online travel sector. In 2009 he led a management buyout of Travel Weekly from FTSE-100 company Reed Elsevier. Prior to the travel industry, Simon spent 8 years in technology media, launching the UK’s first online B2B e-commerce platform for the IT sector in 1998. With a passion for travel, technology and media, Simon believes leading Travelport’s UK business into its next phase is one of the most exciting challenges in today’s industry.

Julian Mills

Vibe Software

CCO

Julian Mills CCO

Julian Mills has over 20 years’ experience in the corporate, leisure, airline and travel technology industries. He previously held senior management positions with Seaforths Travel, TelMe Farebase, Amadeus and Travelport before taking up the role of CCO at P&P Group in 2011. Julian has played a major role in the introduction of online booking technology on a global basis to both the business and leisure verticals including the launch of the first UK based corporate booking tool in 1995.

Clare Murphy

Bouda

Director

Clare Murphy Director

During a successful career in the travel industry Clare has built a strong reputation as an expert specialising in sourcing strategic travel solutions. She spent 12 years at Travelport as Head of Customer Sales working with UK and Global Travel Management Companies to deliver leading edge technology for their corporate clients. More recently she held the position of Commercial Director at Capita Business Travel where she led the Account Management team to deliver excellent customer service to their customer portfolios as well as being responsible fo strategic product development. Since starting Bouda, a professional services company specialising in business travel, Clare has helped numerous corporations make the right decisions about suppliers, policy, processes and travel technology.

Speakers include:

Kyle Moser

Cornerstone

VP Business Development Global Markets

Kyle Moser VP Business Development Global Markets

Kyle Moser has been instrumental in helping Cornerstone achieve at least a 20% growth in sales each year since he’s been with the company. As Vice-President of Business Development and Consulting, he spends a great deal of time helping clients to leverage the full power of Cornerstone products. He is also one of the key drivers behind Cornerstone’s plans to establish new relationships and transition from a product-oriented company to a service organization. Kyle started his career in 1984 with Chase Manhattan Bank in New York. He went on to take positions with Republic National Bank of New York and Academic Management Services of Providence, Rhode Island. In 1992, Kyle moved to the Indianapolis area to serve as president of America’s Tuition Assistance Corporation, a subsidiary of USA Group, Inc. In 1996, Kyle’s entrepreneurial drive led him to form his own sales-process consulting company and eventually become a founding partner of Creating Buyers, LLC. In that capacity, he served as a sales consultant to Cornerstone in 2004 and liked what he saw. The following year, he joined the team. Kyle holds a bachelor degree in Business administration with a concentration in finance from Adelphi University and an MBA with a concentration in finance from Hofstra University.

Fragmented travel content and disparate processes negatively impact savings, visibility and convenience. How can a single platform for managing travel spend help enhance user experience, provide better analytics, save more and improve travellers’ lives. The presentation will include case study examples.

Speakers include:

Olivier Mindren

Traveldoo

Co-founder & Vice President Marketing

Olivier Mindren Co-founder & Vice President Marketing

As Vice President of Marketing at Traveldoo, Olivier Mindren is responsible for spearheading product strategy and product marketing. Olivier is regularly invited to speak at technology conferences for corporate travel and eProcurement. Olivier Mindren is a graduate in Electrical Engineering from Grenoble Institute of Technology. He also studied electrical engineering at McGill University, economics, finance and political sciences at Sciences PO Grenoble.

Travellers are voting with their feet and increasingly choosing high-speed rail as their preferred short-haul travel option. The convenience, comfort, environmental benefits and the dramatic reduction of wasted time are just some of the benefits that attract travellers to high-speed rail. However, for corporate and leisure travel distribution companies, the story is not so great. Accessing global rail has not been easy: it has been almost impossible. In this interactive workshop, we will contrast a real-life customer experience of high-speed rail relative to air travel, we'll highlight the opportunity in high speed rail for travel distributors as customers abandon air & car travel, and we will provide details on how SilverRail has solved the challenges and is making rail as easy to book as air.

Speakers include:

Aaron Gowell

Silverrail

Co-founder & CEO

Aaron Gowell Co-founder & CEO

Prior to founding SilverRail in 2009, Aaron built one of the largest travel technology companies in the US: National Leisure Group (NLG), a $1bn ecommerce leader in vacations & cruise. NLG pioneered several early online travel technologies including the cruise industry’s first online booking engine. Previously, Aaron honed his survival skills in US Army’s 82nd Airborne and at global management consultancy Bain & Company. Aaron was also a founding member of General Catalyst Partners, a leading venture capital firm in Boston.

Cameron Jones

Silverrail

VP Commercial

Cameron Jones VP Commercial

Prior to SilverRail, Cameron spent 7+years at Expedia where he held a number of positions in Asia Pacific and Europe focusing on both Supplier Relations and B2B Distribution.Most recently Cameron lead Business Development for EMEA for Expedia’s Affiliate Network. Cameron also served on the board of directors of Nasdaq-listed eLong,Inc.,a leading online travel provider in China, from 2004 to 2007.

Will Phillipson

Silverrail

Co-founder & CTO

Will Phillipson Co-founder & CTO

With a decade-plus of travel technology and product development experience, Will has built several cutting-edge travel technology products, including NLG’s dynamic vacation packaging system.Nearly anyone using web-based travel products today has seen Will’s genius. If you’ve booked a vacation or cruise through Yahoo Travel, Orbitz, Hotwire, Priceline or Expedia, you’ve touched Will’s technology. Previous to SilverRail, Will had taken the reins as the VP Product Strategy and technical lead at ITA Software.

How new developments in Semantics and Natural Language Processing can help you boost your online sales and reduce your customer service costs Recent developments in Semantics and NLP are allowing online business to start approaching their clients in a more innovative and effective way. The use of these technologies to communicate with online clients or prospects in combination with Virtual Sales Agents are demonstrating impressive results. Companies from the Travel and Hospitality sector like the Spanish airline Vueling have managed to recover up to 60% of online lost sales and reduced customer service costs by 40% with the use of these technologies. We will explain how they work, and how Vueling managed to improve their business with them.

Speakers include:

Bruno Rodriguez

anboto

UK & LATAM Sales Director

Bruno Rodriguez UK & LATAM Sales Director

Bruno Rodriguez is specialized in helping companies improve sales and lower costs by embracing cloud applications. He has over 15 years of experience in the IT sector, especially around Web 2.0, Software as a Service and Cloud business models. He joined Anboto in 2011 as Sales director, and previously had senior management positions in Panda Security, driving their Cloud business, and Euskaltel.

Speakers include:

Steve Rushton

Net Effects

Co-Founder

Steve Rushton Co-Founder

Steve has started and run a number of businesses and has worked within the travel industry for the past 15 years, firstly as CEO of Simply Travel and then post Simply Travel's acquisition as Change Director of SHG at TUI . As a non Exec Director of an Independent specialist tour operator over the past 8 years he gained an insight into the impact the internet had on travel businesses and solutions required. This led him to co found 'Net Effect' in 2010 which provides online solutions to Independent Travel Agents, building software solutions to automate difficult and time consuming processes that enable travel agent businesses to effectively compete in the market and creates a seamless distribution channel for Independent Tour Operators.

Mike Russell

Vertical Systems - Intuiti

Intuiti – Vertical Systems CEO

Mike Russell Intuiti – Vertical Systems CEO

Mike Russell gained a first class honours degree in engineering from Lancaster University. He then qualified as a chartered accountant and moved on to Corporate Finance and then on to a strategic role at United Co-op, now part of the Co-operative Group. This gave him his first taste of travel where he was responsible for commercial, marketing, finance and acquisitions. Mike then launched Holiday Experts in 2005, which was acquired by the Vertical Group in 2009 and remained as Managing Director before taking on the role CEO , Vertical Systems, early in 2011. Mikes’ role as CEO, Vertical Systems, has taken him back to his technology roots as he takes a hands-on approach to the business. His in-depth knowledge of the travel industry, strategic business development and technology is a unique blend which makes him ideally placed to drive the development and growth of one of the most well-known brands in the UK travel industry.

API integration can be time-consuming and difficult. How can travel firms take the pain out of this and what does the future of data feeds look like?

Speakers include:

John Howell

Multicom

Managing Director

John Howell Managing Director

John joined Multicom in 2006 as Operations Manager taking on his current role 4 years ago. John’s strong leadership and technical skills have been instrumental in Multicom’s sustained growth over recent years. His previous employment working as Systems administrator and developer gives him an unparalleled understanding of all technical aspects of the business: His ability to translate these intricacies into layman’s terms has led to many successful sales.

Giles Parnwell

Distribute Travel

Commercial Director

Giles Parnwell Commercial Director

Giles is one of the 3 senior partners in Distribute Travel. He is responsible for developing relationships to open new online distribution channels for UK tour operators and OTAs, including Thomas Cook, On The Beach,On Holiday Group and Lowcost Group. He is a proven travel marketer with over 20 years’ experience in the travel industry both client and agency side. His extensive knowledge of online marketing and travel technology has been key in Distribute Travel’s development of unique travel white label products that are currently being implemented across a network of leading online brands and publishers. His previous positions as Head of Travel at performance advertising network AffiliateFuture, and Head of Sales at Singapore Airlines gave him proven commercial experience at managing large business portfolio’s, as well as winning personal and company awards for services to the travel industry.

With the reliability of reviews on leading travel website Tripadvisor coming under increased suspicion, how can firms make sure their content is both unique and reliable?

Speakers include:

Duncan Horton

Gazetteers

CEO

Duncan Horton CEO

In August 2009 the acquisition of Travel Weekly from Reed Elsevier was completed and Travel Weekly Group Limited was formed, with Duncan Horton appointed as CEO – Gazetteers.com. In December 2011 Duncan was promoted to the role of Chief Executive of the Travel Weekly Group Limited. Prior to this, Duncan was CEO of Freeads Classifieds Limited, the UK’s largest independent online classifieds site. He has also held senior positions with lastminute.com and Holiday Autos. He has extensive experience in general management/online business development in the UK and across Europe, and wide experience within online travel and internet start-ups. Duncan has detailed knowledge of high volume e-commerce and search engine marketing and was a member of the Client Advisory Board for Hitwise for several years.

Andrew Mabbutt

Feefo

Managing Director

Andrew Mabbutt Managing Director

Real-time pricing, live availability and dynamic yield management are making the job of selling travel ever more complex , but those firms that get it right will have the competitive edge.

Speakers include:

Bernhard Ballin

Siteminder

Senior Business Development Manager EMEA

Bernhard Ballin Senior Business Development Manager EMEA

SiteMinder's is a multi award winning online distribution company whose products are trusted and used by thousands of accommodation providers in over 90 countries worldwide to help increase online revenue, streamline business process and drive down the cost of acquisition. The cloud based product suite continues to set the benchmark in online distribution technology by challenging conventional operating strategies. SiteMinder is redefining distribution.Bernhard is at the forefront of the distribution of hotel rooms, and has assisted many hotels, both chains and independents, to connect their CRS/PMS directly to the world’s leading booking websites to help increase online revenue potential whilst driving down the cost of acquisitions. He has seen SiteMinder grow from its Australian origins to a truly global player, with over 5,000 properties in more than 90 countries.

Robert Paterson

De Vere Hotels

Director of Revenue

Robert Paterson Director of Revenue

Speakers include:

Matt Cheevers

Youhotels.com

Managing Director

Matt Cheevers Managing Director

Steve Endacott

On Holiday Group

Chief Executive

Steve Endacott Chief Executive

Lee Hayhurst

Travel Weekly

Head of News

Lee Hayhurst Head of News

Benoit Jolin

Expedia Affiliate Network

Vice-President Global Product and Marketing

Benoit Jolin Vice-President Global Product and Marketing

Carsten Kraus

FACT-Finder Travel

Founder & CEO

Carsten Kraus Founder & CEO

The ability to take online payments securely impacts the growth of online travel more than any other factor. Barclaycard are a market leader and innovator in the payment services arena, having processed card transactions for over 40 years. We are one of the largest acquirers in the UK, processing 1 in 3 card transactions and have been a long term supporter of the Travel Industry. This session will guide you though the next generation of online payments, solutions to help you process payments securely and reduce the risk of fraud and disputed transactions.

Speakers include:

Jamie Evans

Barclaycard

Head of Open Market: UK Corporate Sales

Jamie Evans Head of Open Market: UK Corporate Sales

Jamie Evans has over 11 years’ experience of working within the acquiring industry, his current position, as Head of Open Market-UK Corporate Sales at Barclaycard Global Payment Acceptance, involves leading a team responsible for working with large multi – channel merchants. The previous eight years have been in customer facing roles within Barclaycard GPA. In this time Jamie has developed specialism’s across new business and relationship management with a specific focus on the Hospitality and Leisure sector, in particularly travel. Jamie’s last role involved developing new customer relationships for Barclaycard Payment Acceptance; working with our largest, strategic accounts from the initial discussion stage and throughout the tender and implementation phases.

Consumers' expectations in their interactions with organization’s today are getting higher. Understanding the whole journey your travellers take, what channels they like to engage,  knowing who they are and their requirements, is increasingly key to responding consistently and cohesively across channels . This presentation will outline the reasoning behind why delivering superior customer experience at every touch point is a key imperative in the travel business today.

Speakers include:

Lynn Barnhart

RightNow Technologies

Global Marketing Director for Travel

Lynn Barnhart Global Marketing Director for Travel

A true advocate for the customer, Lynn Barnhart is passionate about listening to the ‘voice of the customer’ for requirements to ensure products, programs and initiatives appropriately  raise awareness, drive demand, support the brand and articulate value propositions. Her 25+ year career in travel spans outside sales, strategic/business planning, marketing and product management experience which puts her in a unique position to successfully bridge communication from the technical stakeholders to the non-technical ensuring tangible, measurable and profitable results. Lynn has both delivered and enabled millions of dollars in revenue generating and/or cost saving products/ plans for billion dollar companies such as Sabre Holdings, Motorola and Freeman and is considered your 'go to' subject matter expert. She joined RightNow in May 2011 as the Global Director, Travel Industry Marketing and is responsible for driving market share leadership in these industry verticals. She earned her MBA from The University of Dallas and her bachelor's degree from Iowa State University while on a swimming scholarship.

Travel Technology Initiative together with the European Tour Operators Association have launched a revolutionary new hotel identification service.  Called TTIcodes, the service which will be fulfilled by GIATA GmbH offers unique hotel identifiers for every hotel used by tour operators, bedbanks and other subscribers. In this session, you will learn about how you can implement TTIcodes to avoid the confusion that is currently rife in the industry as it struggles with hotel names that are misspelt, wrongly translated or simply incorrect.

Speakers include:

Peter Dennis

Travel Technology Initiative

Chairman

Peter Dennis Chairman

Peter began his travel industry career 30 years ago as Southern area Sales Manager with Fred Olsen cruise lines and commenced his hotel career over 26 years ago with the former Norfolk Capital Hotels Group as Area Sales & Marketing Director looking after six prestigious country house hotels in the UK. In 1991 He joined Marriott International as Director of Agency Sales EMEA; responsible for corporate travel agency sales throughout Europe, the Middle East & Africa and in 1993 was promoted to the position of Interactive Sales & Marketing Director where he was responsible for Global Distribution System (GDS) connectivity and development of the Marriott.com Internet project throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.   In April 1998 Peter left Marriott to establish his own consultancy called “Time Communications Group” specialising in electronic distribution and yield and revenue management within the hotel and hospitality sector utilising new Internet and E-Commerce distribution technologies. Since 2005 Peter has held a number of senior positions within the travel industry including; Head of Corporate Travel Sales for Worldspan in EMEA and as e-Commerce Development Director for BSI (Booking Services International). Today Peter is one of the founding Directors of Travel Stream Limited and also holds a number of business interests and Executive Directorships. Over the course of his career, Peter has had many dealings with Hoteliers, Corporate Travel & Procurement Managers, Travel Agents, Travel Suppliers, Tour Operators and Destination Management Organisations worldwide. Today he is seen by many as a notable specialist in the developing world of Global Distribution Systems and the Internet, and the very important part that modern technologies are playing in the world of global communications and electronic distribution. He is a regular keynote speaker at international conferences and a popular chair/moderator at various travel related conferences, forums and events both in Europe and the United States. He has also been interviewed on international television and radio on a number of occasions. Peter was one of the original founders of the Europe, Middle East and Africa Chapter of the HEDNA organisation (Hotel Electronic Distribution Network Association). He was also chairman of T.I.D.S (Travel Industry Designator Service) IATA’s non-air working group for two years and a board member of IFITT (The International Federation of Information Technology in Tourism) for five years. He is currently chairman of the Travel Technology Initiative (TTI) www.tti.org

Peter Hazel

TTIcodes

Project Manager

Peter Hazel Project Manager

After graduating from Herriot-Watt University with an honours degree in computer science in 1972, Peter has spent almost his entire career in the Travel Technology sector covering cargo shipments, tour operating, airlines & hotels, including Meetings & Events. Throughout his career, Peter has had major involvement in numerous projects which have helped shape the industry. During his tenure with Pegasus, Peter has held key product management positions covering reservation services, representation services & distribution services. He was also very instrumental in the development of Pegasus’ web based commission payments service. In his role of VP of Product Management at Pegasus, Peter was very much to the fore in developing Pegasus next generation content management toolset offering a fully integrated multi lingual global solution covering textual content, still images and rich media to its thousands of customers across the globe.  Along the same lines he was a leading member of a group which undertook a study to define the Next Generation CRS and worked with leading Hotel companies and global technology players to articulate the architecture, functionality and modus operandus of the future CRS. Many of tenets developed as part of this study still hold good and demonstrate Peter’s ability to think out of the box & look towards the future whilst the retaining the business principles that have served well in the past. With technology continually changing, a key aspect of Peter’s role was working with partners to develop integrated solutions that enable customers to maximise the benefits of next generation technology. An example of this work is the development of a Smart Booking Engine which integrates voice, web & mobile channels into a seamless set of services for the traveller no matter where the traveller is located at a point in time, with the emphasis on selling the right product to the right customer at the right time, not necessarily the cheapest. Currently Peter is engaged on a number of projects. They include a project looking at the automation of Tour & Wholesale bookings, where Peter can marry his experience of the Tour Operator industry, where he played a key role in developing Thomson Holidays, TRACS, CRS system and TOP Viewdata system, a forerunner to today’s internet with his Hotel Distribution experience and expertise. He is also involved in a new project to provide hotels and meeting planners alike with a distribution tool to enable Meeting Planners to search for venues on-line plus the ability to not only obtain a quotation for a small meeting on-line but make the booking. He is also actively involved in developing a Smart Business Intelligence Solution for leading hotel companies and distribution companies.. Peter is also an active member of TTI and has recently served on a number of HEDNA committees, including the team evaluating Unique Global Identifiers. As part of his TTI work, Peter is very much to the fore in developing TTI codes which is similar to the UGI approach but very much focused on the Tour Operating – Hospitality market. Using his vast and broad experience of electronic distribution within the travel industry, Peter set-up his own consultancy in 2008 in order to apply his considerable skills to helping companies maximise their distribution capability within the hospitality industry

Andreas Posmeck

GIATA GmbH

Managing Director

Andreas Posmeck Managing Director

Andreas Posmeck began his professional career in investment banking in 1993, joining The Chicago Corporation in Chicago, USA. Working for them over a 5-year period, he was based in Chicago, Medellín and Berlin respectively. Between 1990 and 1993 he ran Posmeck & Görtz,a financial information software and marketing company. In 1993 and 1994 he published several trade papers on hedge funds including those for Die Bank trade magazine and one for the Gabler publishing house. In 1996 he founded GIATA GmbH in Kassel, Germany, and has been managing director since 1999. GIATA now employs over 140 staff in its Berlin office. As market leader, GIATA prepares digital text and image data for the majority of well-known tour operators and travel agencies. The company uses this data to create ready-to-use applications for the web, smartphones and iPads. The company has nearly 18,000 customers including tour operators such as TUI, Thomas Cook, Rewe, FTI and Alltours, all the global distribution systems, Internet booking engines such as Amadeus/Traveltainment, Sabre, Traffics and Travel-IT and online travel agents including Expedia, Unister, Opodo and Lastminute. With GIATA’s Real-time Catalogue, tour operators and incoming agents can place their clients' data online. Within a few minutes, content is distributed to reservation systems, websites, television channels and all travel agency branches. In addition GIATA also offers customers GIATA Statistics, a market research tool, which takes into account the current daily shifts in demand in the German market. Since November 2004, GIATA GmbH has also offered translation and copywriting services tailored to the tourism industry. These services are geared towards hotel chains, co-operations and brokers as well as tour operators, offering hotels located in various destinations and reaching out to different source markets. The hotel descriptions, written by native speakers of the given language, are translated into the major European languages, as well as some non-European languages. Since November 2006, GIATA GmbH has offered over 44,000 hotel text descriptions (in 8 languages) as well as Fact Sheets (in a further 39 languages) and hotel images via XML.

Paul Richer

Genesys - The Travel Technology Consultancy

Senior Partner

Paul Richer Senior Partner

Paul Richer is Genesys' founding partner. Back in 1994, he had a vision for a management consultancy that would offer the highest professional standards to specifically address the requirement for advice and project services relating to technology in the travel, tourism and hospitality industries. Paul's background is as a consultancy professional. After qualifying with a Masters Degree in Business Adminstration (MBA) from Cranfield School of Management, he joined Finite Group plc as a management consultant. Finite Group was a blue-chip strategic IT consultancy operating in the automotive, finance and travel industries. As well as management consultancy, Finite was involved in a number of leading edge IT initiatives. Paul rose to the position of Director heading-up Finite's consultancy division. He led some of the consultancy's largest projects for household, blue-chip organisations. As a result of his consultancy work for many travel, tourism and hospitality organisations, Paul has built an impressive depth of experience of travel technology that is arguably unparalleled in the consultancy world. With the advent of the Internet, Financial Times invited Paul to co-author a seminal piece of work entitled Distribution Technology in the Travel Industry. This report forecast much of what we now take for granted in the travel industry. Following this, Paul was commissioned by the World Tourism Organisation to write an in-depth report - Marketing Destinations Online - Strategies for the Information Age. This set the scene for tourism organisations moving into the online world. Paul has appeared on radio and television where his expert views on travel technology have been sought. He is regularly quoted in the press and chairs many of the industry's online and technology related conferences. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Travel & Tourism and a Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. Paul lives in London

Content is King. You’ve heard this time and time again, but are you really making the most with the content you are gathering by utilising opportunities provided through social media? In this session, Digital Visitor will share tips and advice on how you can make the most of your content through social media marketing. The session will look specifically at the following; Why do you need content? The benefits of gathering UGC ie. driving more traffic, improving SEO etc How will you get it? Tips on how you can gather quality UGC? How will you distribute this content far and wide? What methods can you use to share your content?

Speakers include:

Anthony Rawlins

Digital Visitor

CEO

Anthony Rawlins CEO

Anthony Rawlins is the CEO of Digital Visitor, an award-winning social media agency dedicated to increasing your online conversion rate driving traffic to your website reducing your customer acquisition cost. As one of the leading providers of social media applications for websites, and social media marketing services for travel organisations globally, Anthony and his team at Digital Visitor are having a big impact across the industry. This has been acknowledged and recognised by the distinguished awards Digital Visitor and Anthony have been nominated for, most recently winning Best Online Application at the 2011 Travolution Awards. Anthony is very active on the social media conference circuit most recently presenting at the Travel Distribution Summit Europe, the Online Marketing and Social Media Europe conference and chairing the destination social media track at the Enter 2011 conference in Innsbruck. In the past two years, he has spoken at major global events on all things social media in London, Prague, Amsterdam, Johannesburg, Nairobi, South Africa, and San Francisco. Digital Visitor is proudly working with some of the best brands in the travel and tourism industry including Virgin Holidays, Flight Centre, Multicom, Wazzamba, TopDeck, On Holiday Group, Warner Leisure Hotels, VisitBritain, VisitEngland, Cyprus Paradise, the French Provence tourism board, and many more travel companies and visitor attractions around the world.

Speakers include:

Rob Carey

Expedia Affiliate Network

Service Delivery Director

Rob Carey Service Delivery Director

Gillian Gibson

Travelport

Chief Marketing Officer

Gillian Gibson Chief Marketing Officer

Emmanuel Marchal

Acunu

VP Sales and Marketing

Emmanuel Marchal VP Sales and Marketing

Kevin May

Tnooz

Editor & Co-founder

Kevin May Editor & Co-founder

Ray McDiarmid

EMEA at Capita

Head of Travel Sector Development

Ray McDiarmid Head of Travel Sector Development

• Social Media
• Groupon & Co
• Mobile application

Speakers include:

Wilhelm K. Weber

Partner, Swiss Hospitality Solutions

and Head of the HSMAI European Revenue Management Academy

Wilhelm K. Weber and Head of the HSMAI European Revenue Management Academy

Wilko Weber has an extensive background within hospitality and education. He holds a Master in Science in Dynamic Pricing and Yield Management, has worked in executive positions at the Worldhotels and Lorange Institue of Business in Zurich. In addition to being a partner at Swiss Hospitality Solutions, he is also the Director of Business Development at GlobeRes, and lectures at the University of Salzburg Business School and the Swiss Hotel School in Luzern. Wilko is also the author of Dynamic Pricing.

How can brand differentiation be achieved using mobile technology? How can travel providers make effective investment in such a rapidly changing environment?

Smartphones, tablets and PCs each have their distinctive role within an overall mix of technologies. By taking an integrated, strategic approach that goes beyond the obvious scenarios, providers can improve the customer experience through their journey from research, deliberation and decision to purchase, travel and beyond. Mobile technology can make a real difference for customers at every stage, showing innovation and utility, making those providers stand out.

We will look at key technology and consumer trends and outline a strategic approach to mobile, including appropriate choice of platforms, the combination of relevant compelling content, and creating excellent design and usability to ensure maximum impact.

Speakers include:

Tim Johnson

Somo Ltd

Senior Technical Product Manager

Tim Johnson Senior Technical Product Manager

Tim's background is in software development, consultancy, and mobile product management. In recent years he has worked on some of the UK's most successful and popular mobile services in transport and travel for clients including Transport for London, thetrainline and Stansted Airport. His current activities are focused on defining and building a wide-ranging integrated suite of mobile products for Somo.

A guide to the functionality deployed in state of the art UK rail booking systems to meet corporate buyers’ needs. Leveraging the value of your rail spend and the MI to support it. The importance of Rail as part of a managed travel programme, the coalescence of trip planning and expenses management systems, and insights into future ticketing strategies.

Speakers include:

Jon Reeve

Evolvi

Trade Relations Director

Jon Reeve Trade Relations Director

Jon Reeve has worked in the business travel and TMC sector for 36 years and has wide ranging experience in all aspects of corporate travel management. He was one of the original design team behind the development of the Evolvi UK rail booking tool, a product focused on the business market with specific strengths surrounding on-line management information, travel policy compliance and ticket fulfilment methodology. As Trade Relations Director for Evolvi, he strongly believes that the inclusion of UK rail travel expenditure should be a key facet of any organisation’s travel programme and that systems technologies should constantly be striving to deliver convenient and cost effective access to the rail product category within a managed purchasing environment.

Speakers include:

Clare Morrissey

thetrainline.com

Head of account management

Clare Morrissey Head of account management

Clare has been in the travel industry for the last 10 years. She comes from a sales and marketing background in design led, soft furnishings and furniture. However, the lure of the rail industry proved too strong. She has been with thetrainline.com since the business solution was launched in 2001. She has a degree in fine art and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

Speakers include:

Kevin May

Tnooz

Editor & Co-founder

Kevin May Editor & Co-founder

Michael O'Connell

Sabre Mobile and Traveler Services

Director of Business Development,

Michael O'Connell Director of Business Development,

Timothy O'Neil-Dunne

T2Impact

Managing Partner

Timothy O'Neil-Dunne Managing Partner

Paul Saggar

HRG

Director of Technology and Product Development

Paul Saggar Director of Technology and Product Development

Management demands are up as business remains tough. Controlling costs is critical. Inaccurate and incomplete information makes it difficult to control rogue traveler behavior and to meet management's budget demands. Static data makes it hard to make smart decisions in order to meet objectives.  Here is some good news for you.  Cornerstone's C3 data management application gives you the information you need, quickly and easily.

Speakers include:

Kyle Moser

Cornerstone

VP Business Development Global Markets

Kyle Moser VP Business Development Global Markets

Kyle Moser has been instrumental in helping Cornerstone achieve at least a 20% growth in sales each year since he’s been with the company. As Vice-President of Business Development and Consulting, he spends a great deal of time helping clients to leverage the full power of Cornerstone products. He is also one of the key drivers behind Cornerstone’s plans to establish new relationships and transition from a product-oriented company to a service organization. Kyle started his career in 1984 with Chase Manhattan Bank in New York. He went on to take positions with Republic National Bank of New York and Academic Management Services of Providence, Rhode Island. In 1992, Kyle moved to the Indianapolis area to serve as president of America’s Tuition Assistance Corporation, a subsidiary of USA Group, Inc. In 1996, Kyle’s entrepreneurial drive led him to form his own sales-process consulting company and eventually become a founding partner of Creating Buyers, LLC. In that capacity, he served as a sales consultant to Cornerstone in 2004 and liked what he saw. The following year, he joined the team. Kyle holds a bachelor degree in Business administration with a concentration in finance from Adelphi University and an MBA with a concentration in finance from Hofstra University.

Fragmented travel content and disparate processes negatively impact savings, visibility and convenience. How can a single platform for managing travel spend help enhance user experience, provide better analytics, save more and improve travellers’ lives. The presentation will include case study examples.

Speakers include:

Olivier Mindren

Traveldoo

Co-founder & Vice President Marketing

Olivier Mindren Co-founder & Vice President Marketing

As Vice President of Marketing at Traveldoo, Olivier Mindren is responsible for spearheading product strategy and product marketing. Olivier is regularly invited to speak at technology conferences for corporate travel and eProcurement. Olivier Mindren is a graduate in Electrical Engineering from Grenoble Institute of Technology. He also studied electrical engineering at McGill University, economics, finance and political sciences at Sciences PO Grenoble.

Speakers include:

Eoin Landers

Concur in EMEA

Business Development Manager

Eoin Landers Business Development Manager

He has over 15 years of experience in the Travel industry and has worked in the Hotel, Airline, GDS, Travel Agencies and Travel Technology industries.  Today he leads a team of Partner Managers for the Travel sector in Concur EMEA and is based in Paris, France.