9.15 - 9.45 - Presentation and Debate

More than just Ancillary Revenue. Analyze how Travel sites are evolving towards becoming key retail players.

The customer demographics of airlines and other travel supplier are something most retailers yearn for: a captive audience with substantial spending power, namely business people and travellers who are already ‘relaxing their wallets’. This coupled with the fact that leading European travel brands feature in the top 20 most visited UK websites presents a vast opportunity for travel suppliers to sell more.

• Debate how travel companies can leverage the huge volume of traffic coming through their sites
• Can they realistically evolve to become major retail players? What are the opportunities and limitations involved?
• Is the industry leveraging the full potential of ancillary revenue to add real value to the bottom line?
• In light of the recent economic turbulence, how important a role will ancillary revenue play?

• Arthur de Perthuis, Director, Experts Marketing

9.45 - 11.00 - Presentations and Debate

Get the Right Ancillary Revenue Strategy for your Business and Reap the Rewards

Ancillary revenue is not only about focusing on the ‘next big product‘ or leading edge technology. There needs to be a clear end to end strategy as to how it will be implemented and what best suits your brand and consumer base.

Key considerations include;

Do you go for:-

• A high volume site packed full of all the products/services a consumer could be looking for OR
• A site with carefully selected integrated products and services highly targeted to your consumer?
• Will offering ‘everything‘ dilute the travel provider´s brand equity, and ultimately the ability to deliver?
• Who should manage your ancillary revenue and partnerships projects?
• Should you centralise all ancillary activities under one senior manager? How can you work with various divisions to deliver on clear KPI´s and revenue targets?
• How can you get company buy-in from all departments?
• When using white label services, how much information is passed back to the airline or hotel? How can white labels be managed more effectively?

• Georgia-Lee Cleland, E-Commerce Ancillary Revenues Manager, Eurostar
  
• Gareth Gaston, VP & MD, Octopus Travel
• Cameron Jones, Director of Business Development EMEA, Expedia

11.30 - 12.45 - Create successful partnerships

Understand how to build strong, mutually beneficial partnerships

• What do airlines and other travel providers specifically look for in a partner?
• Hear top tips to identify the right partner that offers the most relevant products/services for your brand and consumer base
• How do you manage conflict between partners on your site?
• Consider where the risk of implementation lies - iron out who “owns” the customer relationship and how to deal with any problems that may arise. For example, where should you direct customer queries about partner products and services?

• Iain Pringle, Head of Customer Insight & Loyalty, The Mileage Company, British Airways
• Sergio Mello, CEO, Satisfly
• Iain Hildreth, Director of Marketing, The Trainline

14.15 - 15.45 - Presentations and Panel

Actively Promote your Ancillary Products and Services at Every Opportunity

It´s all very well offering ancillary products and services on your site but what is the best way to promote them? Can you rely on the traffic to your site finding such products or should you develop a strategy to actively promote them outside of your website?

• How can you effectively manage the real estate of your website and balance core product vs. non core product offerings?
• Should you keep all the marketing for your ancillary products within your website or should you push external marketing? Can you rely on the cross-sell?
• Understand how to actively sell your ancillary products to the customer throughout the booking path and travel experience - which touch points offer the highest conversions? SMS, call centres, check-in desks, on board sales etc.?
• If you choose to promote your partner´s products what happens if you end up competing in Google with your partner´s own direct site?
• What new technology is on the horizon to give you the opportunity to sell more?
• What are the advantages of implementing the appropriate incentive mechanisms for internal staff to sell throughout the customer experience?

• Sharon Lee, Head of Product Development, Avis Europe
• Vic Darvey, VP Distribution EMEA, lastminute.com
• Nick Monaghan, Director of Distribution, Booking.com
• Bobby Healy, CTO, CarTrawler

16.15 - 16.45 - Case Study

Customer Segmentation and Personalisation of the Offer

Creating a unique, highly relevant, compelling offer is a proven way to increase customer spend on your site. Working with different ancillary partners however can complicate the personalisation process.

• Is it possible to make the products and services sold through your site relevant to each and every customer? How can you use the data available to you to predict your consumer' wants and needs?
• How can you ensure that the most relevant ancillary product or service is offered to your consumer at the best time? What are the real advantages in doing so?
• How far should you segment and personalize your offering? Can you assume certain demographic groups want the same products? Does the opportunity exist to up-sell based on previous behaviour?
• What technology is available to enhance the personalisation process? How can distribution and technological barriers to offering a fully personalised product to the consumer be overcome?
• Will all suppliers at some point be able to dynamically offer real-time availability?
• When will the Super PNR needs to become a reality? What would be its likely impact?

• Daniele Beccari, European Vice President, isango!

Day Two - 9.15 - 10.45 - Presentations and Panel

Managing the Opportunities and Challenges of Unbundling

Many airlines are now dependent on revenues generated from unbundling their products and services and giving the customer the opportunity to tailor the product to their needs.

• What are the limitations involved in unbundling? How much is too far? What valuable lessons can the whole travel industry learn from the airline experience?
• What impact would new regulations from ATPCO on unbundled products sold by airlines have?
• How are the GDSs evolving to support advances in unbundling/bundling products?
• When will the GDSs have the capabilities to sell unbundled airline products separately to give the agent and thus the customer the best available price for their requirements?

• Henriette Thilert, Head of Ancillary Revenue, Aer Lingus
• Ornagh Hoban, VP Marketing and Strategy, Datalex
• Hamish Broom, Managing Director Airline Distribution, EMEA, Sabre Travel Network

11.15 - 12.15 - Presentations and Panel

Putting the Customer first - The Importance of Experience. Use Ancillary Revenue to enhance the Customer Experience and Foster Loyalty whilst Increasing Revenues

• Understand how you can use ancillary products and services to inspire your customer, enhance their travel experience, increase web and brand stickiness (and in turn resulting in higher revenues).
• At what point does selling ancillary products/services become damaging to your brand and the customer experience?
• Since ancillary products are fragmented, it is more challenging to own and control the customer experience. How can this problem be overcome?
• Find the right balance between offering a high revenue product vs. a relevant product to your customer

• Daniel Kerzner, Regional Director, Marketing, Starwood Hotels & Resorts

• Lesley Lindberg, Vice President, Marketing, Hertz Europe Ltd

14.00 - 14.25 - Case study

Customer Loyalty Programmes - Where´s the Revenue?

In turbulent times, the importance of loyalty becomes ever more apparent.

• What are the advantages and pitfalls of developing a customer loyalty programme?
• What are the opportunities to make incremental revenue from them?
• Air Canada reduces your fare if you opt not to collect Air Miles - what other strategies are airlines and other travel suppliers using?
• How can frequent flyer kiosks develop ancillary revenue opportunities?
• Who´s looking to sell their frequent flyer programme?

• Duncan Berry, COO, Choice Hotels Europe

14.25 - 15.00 - Panel Discussion

Get the Right Technology for Seamless Integration and Direct Connectivity

• XML, dynamic packing, in-house systems vs. outsourced systems, white labels, gold labels etc. Navigate through the technology minefield to find the right technology for your business
• What new technology exists to provide seamless integration and connectivity with your partners? Is dynamic packaging the Holy Grail?
• How can complications caused by integration with traditional legacy systems be overcome?
• How can you create synergies between various platforms to package products fast - and seamlessly - to your end users?
• Can XML direct the customer to the most relevant product from the portfolio of products available from the ancillary partner? It may be cheap and easy to maintain but is there a more effective way to direct connect than XML?
• What are the advantages of developing the right technology systems for your business in-house?
• Can you build a toolkit to allow partners to merchandise, integrate, service and sell all products in a consumer-centric way

• Gareth Gaston, VP & MD, Octopus Travel
• Daniele Beccari, European Vice President, isango!
• Niki van Wijk, VP e-commerce, transavia.com

15.30 - 16.30 - Presentation and Panel

Increase Conversion Rates - Ensure you don't lose the customer in the booking path. What can you do to keep the customer on your site and boost conversions?

It´s become common knowledge that integrating the ancillary product into the booking path significantly increases conversions. What key top tips do the experts have to increase conversions?

• Analyse your web traffic - where do your customers leave your site? How can you keep them?
• How does booking behaviour differ between different demographic groups?
• Make your website sticky - use ancillary products and services in innovative ways to keep customers on your site
• Where should your product be inserted into the booking path? How many products are too many to be inserted into the booking path? Should they be packaged?
• For the airline or travel supplier, is there a risk of losing the customer in the booking path if too many ancillary products and services are offered on partner sites before purchase?
• From the point of view of the ancillary partner, what would be the trade off between being inserted higher up the chain vs. the increase in cost? How much would this improve conversions and would it be worth it?
• Understand the importance of a number to call, a review or an FAQ page to provide customer support along the way

• Niki van Wijk, VP e-commerce, transavia.com
  

Product Box - Day One - 16.45 Prior to the Evening Networking Drinks Party

Payment solutions, credit cards, insurance, translation services, protection for flight delays etc There is an abundance of options available to you. Which products have the highest commissions? Which are most relevant to your consumer base and add value to your site? The quick fire product box will save you weeks of meetings and research, help you select the right partner for your business and keep you up to speed with the innovation products and services available to you.