TravTalk India Online Magazine
Danny Levy, General Manager, Worldwide Business Research (WBR) Singapore, the organisers of the recently-concluded Digital Travel APAC, talks about how within a year they have managed to establish the event as the best travel conference in the region and about continuing to provide the most inspiring content and quality networking to their audience.
PEDEN DOMA BHUTIA FROM SINGAPORE
Q) What is The Digital Travel APAC aiming to achieve through this summit?
Digital Travel APAC brings together 400+ VPs and Directors from Asia’s leading airlines, hotels and OTAs. These leaders gather to hear case study presentations and discuss common challenges during intense, small working groups to uncover practical solutions to their day-to-day pain points.
Q) How was the response to the summit this year compared to last year?
In 2016 we launched Digital Travel APAC and it brought together over 300 travel leaders and 20 sponsors. I’m delighted to say that in 2017 the event continued to grow with 400 travel leaders and 30 sponsors firmly establishing it as the region’s leading travel conference. We’ve already received some fantastic feedback from our sponsors and delegates.
Q) How much of a difference does a summit like this make towards the travel industry?
Digital Travel APAC provides a platform for leaders in the space to come together and benchmark against other brands over two-and-a-half days. At WBR we spend 12 weeks on the research and production of the conference agenda and a further 17 weeks on the marketing and audience development to ensure that we have the top decision makers from Asia’s leading airlines, hotels and OTAs speaking and attending. This ensures that our delegates walk away inspired and with a clear action plan they can implement when they get back to office.
Q) What are the latest technological trends in the travel industry?
Data analytics is the most dominant area of focus for Asia’s travel industry in 2017. Almost 80 per cent of business leaders report data analytics as an area of focus for the year. We’ve also seen strong demand for customer acquisition, cross-device tracking, mobile app marketing, re-platforming and mobile UX technologies.
Q) What are your plans for next year’s summit?
Our plans are to increase the size and quality of the travel leaders that speak and attend as well as continuing to grow the number of sponsors and exhibitors that partner with Digital Travel APAC. We feel that this year we firmly established the event as the best travel conference in the region and next year we’d like to make sure that we continue to provide the most inspiring content and quality networking to our growing audience of travel leaders.
Q) The Digital Travel APAC app was well appreciated, do you plan to make more additions to it?
We’re always looking to innovate and are exploring how our networking partner can be integrated more seamlessly. We are also considering companies that provide messaging services so that our delegates can message questions across to our speakers in real-time
“We feel that this year we firmly established the event as the best travel conference in the region and next year we’d like to make sure that we continue to provide the most inspiring content and quality networking to our growing audience of travel leaders” –Danny Levy General Manager Worldwide Business Research (WBR) Singapore
