Not to be missed conference on 2 December
Maximum Occupancy 2014 Accommodation Industry Conference starts in less than three weeks. It’s on 2 December at the Rydges Soutbank Hotel in Brisbane.
Featuring Australia’s leading accommodation industry experts and speakers, the conference will cover the latest trends, case studies, industry data and presentations that will show how your property can create a plan to reach maximum occupancy.
Star Ratings | Star Power
Following a change of management on 1 January this year, an exciting new direction has been announced for the Star Rating scheme in Australia. Plans include a national marketing campaign to lift awareness of the ‘Stars’, consumer ratings and reviews to complement independent property reviews, and a more constructive approach to working with licensees and peak industry associations. Hear Damien share an update on the status of the new plan.
Speaker – Damien Hanger – General Manager, Star Ratings Australia
Google | Understanding Today’s Travel Shopper
Google does the travel and tourism industry a great service each year when they conduct and publish their Traveler Study, and 2014 is no different. Hear Google present the results and implications of the study including why multi-screen marketing is important for hotels – 55% of hotel bookers who use their smartphone for inspiration, book another way, trends in the online travel shopping journey – such as the decline of app usage, key statistics for understanding consumers – such as why hotel bookers watch travel videos during the early stages of the shopping journey.
Speaker – Henry Meagher – Google Australia
REPUTATION MANAGEMENT | Guest Feedback Comes of Age
Guest feedback has been around as long as hotels have opened their doors to customers. But as technology and guest preferences have developed, many hoteliers continue to employ the same methods they have been using for years to track guest satisfaction, and as a result, lose the revenue benefits that accompany modern solutions. Join Revinate to discuss how today’s guest feedback solutions can be used to not only improve operations and drive loyalty with guests, but also to drive revenue with new bookings.
Speaker – Nicole Wiener – Director of Sales, Asia Pacific, Revinate
REVENUE MANAGEMENT | Balancing Act
With so many different rates to manage across an ever increasing amount of channels and distribution systems, revenue management has now become more of a juggling and balancing act. In the session you will hear the director of the peak RM industry body Melissa Kalan from the Australian Revenue Management Association provide you with the state of revenue management in Australia and show you how to best juggle your rates to optimise revenue.
Speaker – Melissa Kalan, Director at Australian Revenue Management Association
MOBILE | The Rising Tide of Mobile Bookings – How to Stay Afloat
With more people now using mobile devices than desktop devices in Australia and nearly 16% of hotel bookings coming from tablet and mobile devices, the tide of mobile bookings has certainly risen. In the presentation learn how to stay afloat and increase bookings from this irreversible trend. Learn how hoteliers must invest in and take advantage of this multichannel, multidevice world we live in.
Speaker – Adrian Caruso – Chief Strategist, Fastrack Group
CUSTOMER VALUE | Unlocking & Creating Customer Value
Creating value in today’s digital environment requires new paradigms. Learn about techniques being adopted in the airline and accommodation sectors that are unlocking hidden and unrealised value. Join Moira Scerri from SEPIA Consulting who will introduce you to contemporary service innovation methods such as customer journey mapping, service atomisation and drip servicing that will enable you to achieve breakthrough results through increasing customers’ willingness to pay.
Speaker – Moira Scerri – Founding Partner, Sepia Consulting
INNOVATION | Learn from Australia’s most innovative hotels
Listen to Australia’s most innovative hotels and what they are doing to stay ahead of their competition by constanting innovation every part of their business. Learn why innovation doesn’t have to cost much but can be your deadly weapon against your competitors.
Speaker – To be advised
EMAIL MARKETING | Why it’s still a marketers best friend
Email marketing is alive and kicking. It continues to thrive and prove its worth through advanced segmentation, in depth analytics and strategic integration with other channels. But it’s not enough to just send a tired and dated email so staying up to date is imperative. PLUS an update on the Privacy Act and SPAMing
Speaker – Belinda Walsh – Marketing Manager, Vision 6
GUEST DATABASE | Segmentation not Spamation
On a daily basis hoteliers collect guest data however very few do little else with it. In this presentation hotel data experts InTouch Data will show you the gold mine that is sitting in your guest database and shows you why you should never spam your entire database. By segmenting it hoteliers can transform that data and how to enrich it.
Speaker – Peter Johnson – CEO, InTouch Data
SOCIAL MEDIA | How to make it work in 2015
Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest….which one is the best one for hoteliers? How do I know if its working? How are travellers using social media and how does this shape my content? Did you know 48% of Australians use social media before they go to sleep at night and 71% access social media via their smartphone. Learn what this means for your social media strategy as well the whys and hows of social media marketing.
Speaker – Holly Galbraith – Tourism Marketing Professional, Go Future Media
WEBSITES | Revealed! The highest converting hotel websites
A profitable hotel website is not just about slapping a few pages of text and room pictures together online. In the presentation leading hotel website development company Fastrack reveals the highest converting websites. Having created over 150 hotel websites over the last 12 years for accommodation businesses of all sizes and types and markets, find out which ones are the highest converting and what key features a hotel website needs to convert browsers into bookers.
Speaker – Adrian Caruso – Chief Strategist, Fastrack Group
DAILY DEALS | Cut rate or an opportunity for new customers?
Are daily deals website offers a thing of the past that forced you to heavily cut your room rate? Or is it an opportunity to attract lots and lots of new customers. Listen to Scoopon, part of Australia’s leading ecommerce group Catch of The Day, show you how to best manage your business when negotiating with group daily deal companies and how to turn daily deals in profits instantly.
Speaker – Gordon Bayne, Head of Travel – Scoopon
CHINA | Attracting the Chinese Traveller
Over 100 million Chinese travelers venture beyond their borders, becoming active tourists around the world. While these numbers are impressive, the growth projections are even more staggering with analysts predicting that outbound tourism in China will reach 200 million by the year 2020. This indicates that the numbers will double over a period of six years. This overall shift is likely to have a palpable impact on tourism industries worldwide. Hoteliers in tourist hot spots should take note and consider how best to appeal to Chinese millennial travelers in order to benefit from this unprecedented growth.
Speaker – TBA, Tourism Queensland
ONLINE TRAVEL AGENTS | Friend or Foe?
As the industry knows, online travel agents bring additional bookings to hotels, but while doing so, the hotel pays a commission that it could otherwise have avoided via a direct booking on its brand website. So, in this context, is the OTA a friend to the hotel? Or an enemy? Or are they frenemies as of now? In this session we hear from one of the world’s largest OTAs on how you should approach this issue.
Speaker – TBA, Booking.com
ONLINE VIDEO | The New Powerhouse in the industry
The information is overwhelming, the content is tedious and the competition is growing exponentially. So how do you effectively make sure your hotel grabs the attention of potential guests and stand out amongst the crowd? By leveraging a marketing powerhouse: video. Leading online travel video company Travel Reel shows how to use video to stand out and make people book your property instantly.
Speaker – Nic Hawkins, Director – Travel Reel
