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How to create and grow your business in times of changing customer perception, increased legislation and increased costs
There is little doubt that climate change will have a huge influence on consumer choices in the 21st century. It's already forcing top travel executives to turn their heads and assess how they will do business in the near future. The event will give you the heads-up on what direction climate change is taking your market and your business and how your business can benefit from early action. Its clear that the travel industry and especially airlines are under attack and could very easily have to pick up an huge share of the bill for the world's environmental woes.
Travel Futures (a new publication from Eyefortravel) is organising a conference, not to determine the travel industry's role in climate change. There are far more qualified forums to do that. Instead we will examine just how you can create a travel company, be it an airline, hotel, business travel service or complete holiday that can thrive in this time of unprecedented change.
People always remember who was first to act and our conference will seek to give you the information you need to run with the pioneers.
The conference will focus on the three environmentally led challenges that will help you identify the business opportunities and take steps to provide and market a travel product that will sell in the future
- How will the existing travel industry be affected by constantly increasing climate change legislation and where will the opportunities for growth now lie?
- How can you find fertile growing markets as customers' perceptions change?
- What will happen to the travel business if experts' predictions of peak oil come through and that rocketing fuel prices become a reality and which travel products will work?
The goal of this conference is to ensure all attendees leave with:
- A far reaching, accurate forecast of future legislation and how it will directly affect your business.
- The climate change facts you need to share with your customers to prove you are planning for the future.
- The low down on the best communication skills and methods for proving your carbon credentials - carbon auditing and offset schemes.
- A firm idea of which new travel products you should invest in and how to sell those products.
- An insight into how you can target environmentally aware customers and how fast this market is growing.
- A rounded view of the cost implications generated by peak oil - when will fuel prices be affected and by how much.
- A network of industry partners with the common goal of providing safe future-proof travel products... potential partners to invest in your future products now!
Below is the conference agenda.
"What new climate legislation will hit the travel business in the next 2 years?"
How is the existing travel business going to be affected by new legislation and how can you exploit this era of upheaval, change and potential growth?
- With politicians desperate to appease voters, it is no longer a question of if, but when legal restrictions will hit the existing industry.
How hard will this be felt?
- How can the industry survive increasing climate change legislation?
- Identify the main drivers of this legislation - can you predict who will get their opinions made into law?
- As an international business, how will different countries' legislation impact you?
- What will stricter legislation and increased costs do to the market and where should you invest to take advantage?
- Jonathan Green, Department of Environment, Defra
"Consumer reactions to climate change campaigns"
When and how will environmental news affect your customers' travel buying habits?
Time and time again climate change is the headline grabbing issue. The environmental horror stories scare the pants off of us but is it just a single startled scream. When do the headlines continue to haunt us enough to actually change our buying habits?
- 82% of us want to be green - but what is the level of your consumer's interest when they buy a travel product and how rapidly is it growing?
- What will be the impact of the 'I Count' Campaign?
- Climate change is an incredibly complicated issue - who will the consumer be turning to for answers and what do they want those answers to be?
- Will they be looking at your level of accountability? What size is your Carbon Footprint and how is it affecting the man on the street or the man in the Sahel?
- What will your customer be looking for when they see your Footprint?
- What climate message do consumers want from a travel company?
- Geoff Lane, Partner Sustainability and Climate Change, PriceWaterhouseCoopers
- Tobias Webb, Founding Editor, Ethical Corp and Climate
Change Corp
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Paul Bennett, founder ,
Context Travel, writer , National Geographic, panelist
, National Geographic Sustainable Tourism Initiative
"Corporate reputation and climate change - how in danger is your brand?"
Tipping points - Will respected travel brands be reviled? What can you do to create a travel brand that's loved and used by all?
We've all seen it, one minute top fashion models are revered the next they are too thin and the scourge of the Earth. Will your business be reviled or held up as an example to all? We will help you identify what you need to consider...
- Will you be in firing range if the public picks up arms?
- What impact will it have on the status of your brand and profits?
- What does it mean to be a front runner for change? Opportunity to prove your credentials or invest in the wrong solutions?
- When the message goes wrong - how can you stop the crowd turning on you?
- Rohit Talwar, Futurologist, FastFuture
"Carbon Offsets. Can they win customer respect and reduce future financial risk?"
Carbon offsets - what are they - which ones will work?
Carbon offset now and you could well be benefiting your company as well as the environment. They could give you the respect and trust of your customers. Alternatively you could be investing in a scheme that is about to be massively discredited so ruining your carefully nurtured brand and making you look like a "family orientated" politician in a strip club.
- What carbon off sets schemes actually work and are credible to customers?
- What strategy can be employed to show you in the best light but not break the bank?
- How long will it take to make an offset strategy a reality?
- Exactly how much in terms of cash and time will this require?
- Who can provide you with the help you need to develop an offset strategy?
- How easy are the programmes to sustain?
- How do you publicise your progress and when will you see the fruits of your labour?
What is ‘Peak Oil’ and how could it impact the travel industry?
- Oil and a society structured to its increasing use.
- Understanding energy density and the uniqueness of fossil fuels, especially oil.
- When is Peak anticipated? How can we be sure?
- Implications for the future – are there alternatives?
- Is ‘powerdown’ inevitable?, review the facts and decide.
- Karl Skerstins, Manager, FCm Travel Solutions
"Government aid -What money and expertise is out there to help green up my company?"
Source money and expertise from the public purse to help you grow a envirometally conscious travel company
All the major parties are trying to prove how green they are. With public money being pumped into climate change will any help you to change and stay in business?
- Where can I find these available funds?
- What do I have to do to get them?
- What areas will they be able to offer me advice in?
- Who are the experts willing to talk to me?
- Will they still love me tomorrow? Are we talking long term or short term help?
- Do I really need my hand held?
- Reijo Kemppinen, Head of Representation, European Commission (tbc)
- Peter Ainsworth, MP, Shadow Environmental Secretary (tbc)
"Will good climate change credentials enhance my brand?"
How do you show your green cred and make it pay
Climate change is like a looming monster and you need to be able to demonstrate that you are ready for battle. However, let's face it we are here to make money. You need plan how you can use this to market your credibility to sell your product.
- Climate credentials that show you care more than the rest
- Standing out from the crowd. Reporting on dangers to raise your corporate profile
- Tackling customer 'short-termness'. How do you keep customers buying whilst sustaining your customer education for long-term change
- Emma Stratton, Director, Bedruthan Steps Hotel
- Roger Kemp, Professor of Engineering, Lancaster University
"Emission disclosure and auditing - How do your make emissions figures add up?"
The pros and cons about auditing emissions
It could soon become essential for a business to be up front about its emissions. Currently 225 institutional investors have put their names on the Carbon Disclosure Project Report and a massive 91% of the FTSE 500 companies have responded. It is important, when being open, that people ike what you are revealing.. So...
- Why is knowledge of your emissions data so vital at the moment?
- What harm can it do to reveal yourself to customers and investors?
- How to report your disclosures - accounting requirements to disclose carbon emissions
- Who will notice if you don't tell? How nondisclosure can be harmful too
- Who is going to use the information and for what purposes?
- Surely governments like audits as it means more tax - why help them?
- Ian Millborrow, Partner Sustainability and Climate Change, PriceWaterhouseCoopers
"What travel products will SELL SELL SELL !!?!!"
How to create travel products for a green market
One of the most important visions of the future is which travel products will be successful and which will fall flat on their face. Here is a glimpse of the future...
- Is there such a thing as a real green flight product and will it get off the ground?
- How will businesses promising their customers they are carbon neutral (or will be soon) affect your corporate customers' demands and requirements?
- What you need to do to add carbon friendly holidays and business travel to your portfolio of products.
- Weekend breaks are being held up as the most damaging holiday. Could that lead towards a trend in longer and fewer holidays?
If so where, what and how?
- The New Orleans Riverside may have stopped adding ice to its urinal. But what are the more effective and prominent ways for hotels to provide a carbon friendly stay?
- What scope is there for taxis, trains and ships to join the carbon friendly party?
- Who do you need to partner with now for a better tomorrow?
- Paul Tilstone, Executive Director, Institute of Travel
Management
- Daniel Pawlyn, Sales & Marketing Manager, Intrepid
Travel
-
Paul Bennett, founder ,
Context Travel, writer , National Geographic, panelist
, National Geographic Sustainable Tourism Initiative
"Targeting the green consumer"
How do you get your travel products on the environmental shopping list
It's all very well saying we have to turn green but in order to stay in the black you have to be successfully targeting and selling your new product.
- Exactly how big is the green market?
- How fast is that market growing?
- How do I recognise my customer?
- How do I help them to recognise me?
- Knowing how you are going to sell to Mr and Mrs Green.
- Dorothee Guthrie Vogel, Analyst European Commerce, JupiterResearch
- Mary Mulvey, CEO, Greenbox
Can you create a green airline?
How to create future proofed flight products and brands
David Cameron and the media have singled out airlines as the bad guys. What are the airlines doing wrong, what can they do to improve their brand and can they create environmentally responsible and acceptable services?
- When the established airlines talk about being green people start to yawn - how can you seize the opportunity and what do you have to do to be a "green" airline?
- With nearly 92% of a plane's energy going to waste when taking off, can aviation ever be green?
- Talking up new planes - are they really the answer and how can airports and hotels manage and reduce their carbon emissions
- Will the airline lobby group block climate change legislation and if so for how long?
- How will climate change obligations change routes - what routes are greener and how can this complex idea be explained to the consumer?
"How fast can environmentally conscious travel intermediaries grow"
How can you create and sell an environmentally friendly holiday
So what about the travel agents. The major tour operators seem pretty confident they are holding the correct climate credential cards but is it all a bluff? Are they right to be sure of themselves and if they are what can you learn from them?
- What's on the agenda? How do the major players see things shaping up?
- What is a carbon neutral holiday?
- If planes are not seen as green by the consumer how does this impact on the whole holiday?
- Is carbon neutral a realistic and achievable goal?
- How do they plan to sell the virtuous ideal to the luxury hungry customer?
- When will green holidays really start to make a mark on the public?
- Is it worth the risk? There is always risk attached to new products, just how dangerous would it be to put more than one egg in this basket?
- Deidre Bounds, Founder, i-to-i
- Ajay Sodha, MD, Key Travel
- Dan Jonasson, CEO, Nature's Best
- Justin Orchard, Director, ResponsibleTravel.com
- Stephanie Draper, Deputy Director, Forum for The Future
- Daniella Meilmann, Environmental Officer, Tourism Partnership
(tbc)
- Steven Larkin, VP Sales, G.A.P Adventures
How can the right hotel product and message see your sales grow?
Provide a great hotel service that won't cost the Earth
Hotels seem to be very eager to talk about carbon auditing. So if they are beginning to include the tail of their carbon in the accounts how do they plan to use it to up their bottom line?
- A new breed of hotel?
- What are they doing to 'upgreen' the old ones?
- How is Accor improving its environmental performance? What actions have been or will be implemented to deal with global warming issues?
- Are we all going to hell? Just how sinful is a stopover stay in the average hotel?
- Who is standing out from the crowd and why?
- Is the public really lobbying for a green bed or do they just care about how they get to it?
- How easy is it? Simple ways for hotels to go climate friendly.
- How will hotels be demonstrate that they should be in our good books?
Is this the 2nd age of the train?
How can non flight transport providers with greener products take a lead?
In an air obsessed world do other transport providers now have a fighting chance to take the lead? They were bringing up the rear but now could the good old fashioned forms of transport come back into their own?
- Does climate change mean a boom for other transport providers?
- How will ferries, trains and buses do battle for the green consumer?
- How can you utilise the green appeal of other transports and incorporate it into your product?
- Already the demand for domestic holidays is picking up... so apart from Devonshire farmers who can cash in?
- Nick Coad, Head of Group Environmental Policy, National Express Coaches
- Simon Pielow, Founder, TrainChartering.com
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