Conference Agenda

Conference Day 1

7:30: Coffee and registration

9:30: How is Social Media going to change the way your customers buy travel products?

Asia has some of the world's highest usage of the mobile web and social media interaction. But what do the billions of mobile and social interactions online regarding the topic of Travel actually mean to us as Travel brands, can they really help sell and what steps must you take today to maintain market share and you prepare your business for the future?

• What key trends are fuelling change in the pan Asian social media space?
• Facebook is the most popular network in most of world but what networks do you need to be working with to communicate with key markets of China, Korea and Japan?
• People will always interact online but as the growth of major social sites such as Facebook start to slow, what does the future hold for social media? Will niche sites become influential? How will consumer interactions change and progress?
• Information overload - social giants are filtering the information presented to consumers according to their behaviour. What does this mean for your brand?
• Google - Is Google+ here to stay? What about new sites such as Pinterest?

Shashank Nigam, Consultant, Simpliflying

10:00: What happens to your travel customers when social and mobile meet?

The overlap between social media and mobile is proving to the sweet spot for both travel suppliers and intermediaries.

• You are now able to know more about your customer's likes, dislikes and location than ever before. How can travel brands take advantage of the convergence of social, mobile and the opportunity to offer targeted local deals?
• How can the features of the smartphone - such as locations services, cameras, messaging - be tied into your social media campaigns?
• How do blogs fit into these new channels, what should be the goals and objectives
• How can on-site mobile communications be used to drive positive social media engagement and maximize Word of Mouth and brand awareness?
• Use Social Media and Mobile to maximize consumer spend

Ian Bahri, Executive Director, Flywithme
Sean Seah, Managing Director, Groupon Travel Asia Pacific
Naz Musa, GM Travel, Living Social
Jerome Thill, CEO, Sprice

11:15: Coffee break

11:45 How are Key Developments in Consumer-Facing Technology going to change your customers research and buying habits?

We are now dealing with an always on, always connected consumer. Many consumers are shifting away from the desktop to mobile devices and beyond.  For your business to survive, you need to understand what technology your customer is using and how it's influencing their behaviour.

• What platforms will consumers be using in the next 2-5 years?
• With such a diverse range of customers in Asia how can you prepare to impress even the tech savviest customer and deal with the millions who aren't?
• The rise of the tablet- as tablets look set to stay, how will they influence the way you communicate with your consumers?
• Mobile video - where is mobile video a reality in Asia, how can you use it to sell travel and when will mobile video become mainstream across the region?
• The Future of the OS - Will Microsoft catch Apple and Android?

Lorin Kobashigawa-Bates, Technical Director, Expedia

Jens Thraenhart, President, Dragon Train Intercative

12:30: Lunch

13:30: Should you invest in Apps or mobile web? - Find out what Really Delivers Success for Travel Brands

• Is your website mobile ready? If not why not?
• What features do your customers want in a mobile app?
• How do for apps for tablets differ?
• Should you write Web and/or Native Applications?
• Is HTML5 good enough to support your rich media travel initiatives?
• App overload - with so many apps on the market - don't fall at the first hurdle. Hear top tips to market your app and encourage app downloads at every opportunity
• Will the Apple store continue to dominate the app landscape? What plans do other players have?

Wilfred Fan, Managing Director - North Asia, Agoda
Ika Nursila Dewi, Corporate Digital Marketing Manager, Parador Hotels and Resorts

14:30: How can the travel industry use local Search, location based services and NFC technology

• How is local search going to change how your customers find you and the product you can sell
• Can NFC really be the security, payment and service solution it's been built up to be?
• Is mobile your solution to increase or influence on trip customer spend

Frederick Demopoulos, Founder at Queen's Road Capital, Former CEO, Qunar
Steven Pang / ???, Chairman, Youbibi.com

15:00: Mobile strategies in low 3G countries

Asia is made up of very different worlds and from an investment perspective mobile demonstrates this rather too well! 90% of Singaporeans now have a smart phone and access to the mobile web. In Thailand it’s around 15%.

• What can you do in low mobile web markets to develop the mobile channel?
• Can you make your web site mobile friendly with low bandwidth?
• How do you ensure your number gets found?
• Design your sites for mobile Wi-Fi - understand how travellers use Wi-Fi on their mobile devices and how you can use this drive your business
• Mobile broadband is coming what lessons can be applied now when is this likely to happen
• The role of SMS in selling and servicing travel

Bonamy Grimes, Co-Founder, Skyscanner

15:30: Coffee Break

16:00 Mobile & Social Media Innovation in Travel Awards

• Best social media campaign / strategy - Achmad Alkatiri, Community Manager, Indonesia, Wego
• Best mobile strategy and Best mobile solution - Zoe Chan, Senior PR Manager and Gabriele Menozzi, Head of SEO, Hotels.com; Rohit Garg, Business Development Manager, International Markets , Makemytrip.com
• Best social media solution David Urman, CEO, Touristlink.com

4 companies will pitch again before our distinguished panel of judges to be named winners of the SMOBS

Networking Drinks

Download the Full Event E-Brochure

Receive more details straight to your inbox, including deadlines to book your discounted tickets.

Day 1 Day 2 Back To Top

Conference Day 2

10:00: How the region’s top Social Networks want you to use mobile and their networks to target the Asian travel consumer?

An estimated ¼ of all social media interaction are done in China. Innovative local networks (Renren, Kaixin001, Qunar, Youku and Weibo) have flourished and dominate. However, in other key marketsYoutube, Facebook, Twitter and Mobile are growing fast. With such fragmentation how can the travel industry engage with the consumer.

• What do you need to do to engage with regions travel consumers on the different networks?
• What regions do the YouTube and Facebook dominate and how have travel companies really succeeded in inspiring and converting Asian customers
• How will these major players look to monetise their fast growing mobile users
• How key is mobile engagement and how does this change your tactics
• Can you have a uniform content strategy across different networks and regions
• Chinese travellers value shopping on their trips very highly. Can you develop a social media and payment strategy profit from this trend?
• What should be the role of role of C-Trip Qunar in your social media campaigns?

Kevin Lee, Senior Marketing director and Agency Development director, Ren Ren
Roy Graff, Managing Director, China Contact
Stella Cheung,Sales Director,Google Hong Kong, Google

11:00: Coffee Break

11:30: How to really communicate and engage with your customer through social media

Your companies' ability “to chat” is now business-critical and it's not just what you say -it's the way that you say it. Social media means opening your organisation up so your integrity is equally important

Part 1 - Getting it right internally

• Humanize Your Brand: What sort of a face do you want to show to your public?
• Authenticity: How do you create a transparent external voice that reflects the culture of your business and does not make you sound like characterless robots
• The Real Time Environment: Don't just be reactive, but make sure you are on time and ensuring you stay constant in your approach to customer service exchanges

Part 2 - Get the right content - Hear inspiring travel case studies

• How to maximise customer satisfaction and potential revenue through the complete customer experience - Understand how to drive engagement pre-, during and post the customer's trip
• Viral Social Media - what works, what just gets you traffic?
• New product launches - can social media be used to drive excitement around new product launches?

Robert L. Solomon, Senior Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer, Outrigger Enterprises Group

Karen Tam, Assistant General Manager, Harbour City Hong Kong

Sylvia Lee, Digital marketing & e-commerce, Sands China Ltd. ????

Edward Perry Global Senior Director of Social Media, OTA Partnerships & Innovation Projects, World Hotels

Adrian Tan Head of APAC Trave, Groupon

Jayne Leung, North Asia director, Facebook

13:30: Lunch

14:30: The future of review sites

Few topics can make the average hotelier boil quite so quickly as review sites. They sell your product but when they go wrong they drive you mad. ASA investigations into fake reviews along with unscrupulous companies offering to post positive reviews for hotels caused many to re-address the value of user reviews.

• As the market becomes more and more saturated by user reviews, what does the future hold? Do consumers still find them useful?
• How can you make them more relevant to the consumer in the planning process?
• How do you use the unique review sites loved by the Chinese customer?
  

Video Presentation by Lily Cheng ???, VP, Strategy & Product Management, TripAdvisor China (DaoDao.com)
Frank Lin ???, CEO & Co-Founder, Affordable Luxury Network ???

15:00: Closing session - What is the future going to hold? Get your questions answered.

The finalround table. Make sure you leave the event with your questions answered. Tweet or pass on your questions to Tim and we will try and get them answered in the last session of the day?.

Shashank Nigam, Consultant, Simpliflying

15:30: Coffee

Pre and post event workshops

Pre event master classes 19th of November 16:00 - 18:00: An introduction to Social Media in Travel

This 3 hour master class will give you 50 social media case studies and 5 free basic tools. The master class will enable you to start using social media to build your business as soon as you return to the office. This is the most cost effective way to make a big splash in this increasingly important channel.

Shashank Nigam, Consultant, Simpliflying

Post Conference master class 16:45 - 18:45: Social media master class for advanced users

This 2 hour master class, illustrated with 40 case studies will allow you to benchmark your social media activity against your competition, give you a complete update on free and paid for tools and how to measure your ROI. It will also give you the knowledge to plan the resources you need to grow.

Shashank Nigam, Consultant, Simpliflying