DAY 1 - 20 MAY

9.00 CHAIRMAN'S WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION:

• Steve Pinchuk, VP Profit Optimisation Systems, SAS Institute

9.15 - 10.30 Presentations And Panel:

Understand how to use forecasting to optimize revenues in periods of high and low demand

• What is the role of the forecast in a comprehensive Revenue Management strategy? Learn how to create an accurate forecast and how to avoid the most common pitfalls
• Hear about different measures of forecast accuracy for the different methods
• How do you measure forecast error?
• How do you divide time to provide a good basis for a forecast?
• Learn about different forecasting methods in terms of data treatment. How do you select data?
• While a small data set may prevent from exploiting the seasonality phenomenon, too many periods makes the forecast unresponsive and not dynamic enough. How do you get the balance right?
• How do you create demand? What is the best strategy during periods of low demand?

• Nicolas Robbe, Head of Revenue Management, Thalys
• Terje Roli, Head of Revenue Management, SAS Norway
• Brian Berry, Regional Director of Revenue Management, Starwood Hotels & Resorts
• Joerg Esser, Head of Yield Management and Business Development, Thomas Cook

10.30 COFFEE & NETWORKING

11.00 KEYNOTE STRATEGY DEBATE (PLENARY SESSION)

Monetising Web 2.0 - Who now controls your customer's online buying behaviour?

• The way your customer interacts with the web is changing. How can you continue to reach and influence online travelers in a dynamic, user led web 2.0 environment?
• Social media as a distribution channel - how big can it get?
• Which companies are set to control your customers and how do you need to work with them to ensure that you get your message to these fast growing, influential audiences?
• As your customers communicate with each other in increasing frequency and numbers online, how do you become part of this dialogue?
• Will search advertising retain its dominance over online advertising spend, or should you be diverting your resources into the viral advertising strategies associated with social media sites? And will the social media site owners let you when their revenues will mostly be advertising led?
• Social distribution - are trusted referrals, viral campaigns, widgets and social media applications really the future of web distribution or just passing fads?
• When things get nasty - how do you deal with negative publicity on the Web and ensure one angry customer doesn't ruin your brand?

• Daniel Robb, Head of Travel, Google UK
• Ian McCaig, CEO, lastminute.com
• Richard Lewis, Industry Expert
• Tom Griffiths, Founder, gapyear.com
• Blake Chandlee, UK Director, Facebook

12.45 - 14.00 LUNCH & NETWORKING

Presentations And Panel:

Align your customer data with your revenue management and pricing strategy

• Hear why it is so important to shift the focus from products to customer centric data and what impacts customer decisions
• Getting your segmentation correct is the key to customer centric revenue management. Hear how to use segmented data to increase average booking revenue
• Learn how to interpret data and prioritize data in order to make real time decisions that will benefit your company.
• Find out how to classify needs of customers like price and product and provide them with variety of choices
• Make the right pricing decisions by understanding why your customers buy from you
• Examine the price elasticity of customers by their consuming patterns based on past data.
• What are the best cost-effective technologies to integrate vast amounts of customer data into your revenue management science?
• Should you try to influence your customer behaviour or simply price your product according to their previous behaviour? Should you flexibly propose an alternative product?

• Kate Varini, Senior Lecturer, Oxford Brookes University and Director, betterrevenue.com
• Roberto Daniele, Senior Lecturer, Oxford Brookes University
• Steve Pinchuk, VP Profit Optimisation Systems, SAS Institute
• Ian Brown, Partner, Oliver Wyman Consulting

15.30 COFFEE & NETWORKING

16.00 Presentations And Panel:

Apply effective revenue management across all your distribution channels

• How revenue management can be applied through all your distribution channels?
• How do you manage prices across multiple channels?
• Do you have sufficient tools to track each revenue stream in each channel?
• And How should you use 3rd party sites to distribute distressed inventory without compromising your rate integrity?
• Despite BAR (Best Available Rate) pricing hotels rates are rarely consistent over all distribution channels. How do you maintain rate parity and rate-integrity?
• Should your revenue management rules vary depending on your distribution channel?
• How do you measure your performance across various channels and streamline your processes to effectively implement revenue management?

• Chinmai Sharma, VP Revenue Management, Wyndham Hotels
• Tobi Kuhlang, Vice President of Revenue Development, Accor Hospitality
• Alex Gisbert, Regional Director of International Strategic Accounts EMEA, Expedia
• Regina Mylan, Senior Director of Revenue Management, GTA by Travelport
• Jason Houle, Vice President Travel Solutions, Lixto

17.30 END OF DAY ONE: SPEED NETWORKING AND DRINKS RECEPTION

DAY TWO: WEDNESDAY 21ST MAY, 2008

CHAIRMAN'S WELCOME

9.00 Presentations And Panel:

Understand the product and pricing strategies needed to maximise ancillary revenues

• Hear about tried and tested products to get your ancillary revenue strategy off the ground. Get industry insight into what consumers are buying so you can expand your product mix with new highly-profitable products as well.
• Unbundle the travel experience - how to give flexibility to your customer to tailor the product to their needs? Find out how to achieve the perfect balance between offering flexibility and overwhelming your customer with too many options that will distract from your core product.
• Touch your customer in the right way to maximise conversions. Do you know what touch points offer the best conversion rates? Learn how to understand the booking habits of your customer and what level of selling they will tolerate.
• What solutions should you use for full dynamic integration with your partners? Hear about essential technologies that will enable cost effective integration when you expand your product mix.

• Henriette Thilert, Head of Revenue & Pricing, Aer Lingus
• Cory Garner, Manager International Distribution, American Airlines

10.30 COFFEE & NETWORKING

11.00 KEYNOTE STRATEGY DEBATE (PLENARY SESSION)

Where to invest - and on what? Which travel products will be making the money next year and how will you be selling them?

Arrival of OTAs, the LCC revolution, Direct 2 consumer bookings, the evolution of search - all have rocked the industry and shifted the balance of power within the travel supply chain. Over the next 12 months, what are travel leaders looking at investing in and who are they looking to partner with?

• What products will sell next year? Who will you need to sell them?
• What is going to be the next big change in travel distribution - and how do you prepare for it?
• Recruitment and retention. As competition for talented employees hots up in the global marketplace, how can you ensure you have the right people on board to exploit these changes?
• How is the ongoing instability of the US economy likely to affect our business in 2008-09? What should you be doing now to protect your company against a downturn?
• Is scale the key to success? If so, will the high level consolidations witnessed in 2007 continue in 2008?
• Research is pointing to a drop in revenue from online travel in the US for the first time. Is Europe likely to follow this trend? Will we really see a dramatic resurgence of the high street travel agent?
• Where is man in charge of the fastest growing privately owned travel company (boasting 284.23% annual sales growth) going to invest in 2008?

• Glen Fogel, MD International, Priceline
• Brian Pratt, VP e-Commerce EMEA, Starwood
• Paul Furner, MD, Travel Republic

12.45 - 14.00 LUNCH & NETWORKING

INTERACTIVE WORKSHOP

The next generation in revenue management - using market demand, competitive rates and business intelligence to optimise financial results

Session attendees will learn:

• Historical approaches to Revenue Management - advantages, disadvantages and limiting factors
• How to overcome limiting factors - hear about the latest industry and technology innovations
• Adoption of the Next Generation in Revenue Management - the key integrated, market-based information components
• How you will benefit and what have been the early results using the Next Generation

• Hosted by The Rubicon Group

INTERACTIVE WORKSHOP

Global revenue optimisation - technology update and future trends

• Taking a view of rms history & developments
• Get up to date with the latest technology to leverage your business potential
• Hear about total hotel revenue management - determining overall value to the property
• Update on dynamic pricing - top tips from global hospitality leaders
• Your competitive set performance - the tools necessary to compete

• Hosted by IDeaS

15.30 COFFEE & NETWORKING

INTERACTIVE WORKSHOP

Making the most of IDS as part of your Revenue Management strategy

• How IDS impact the way hotels need to view revenue management
• "To position or not to position..." - Parity versus maximizing opportunities at producing IDS
• Where when and why do you book your travel and how do you do it?
• Recent booking trends and the impact on revenue management
• Summary: Right time, right place, right price. Revenue Management in a world wide web.

• Hosted by eRevMax

17.30 CHAIRMAN'S SUMMARY & END OF CONFERENCE