ELITE TRAVEL TRENDS Alex
ELITE TRAVEL TRENDS Alex Sharpe President and CEO, Signature Travel Network Richard Lebowitz Senior Vice President, Hotel and Resort Program, Signature Travel Network PERSONALISATION KEY TO MARKETING Signature Travel Network hammers home “as unique as you” message at Las Vegas event Signature Travel Network’s 2018 Conference at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas was the occasion for travel professionals to learn about a new digital communications platform, and to have the message reinforced… that each is unique. The conference brought together Signature travel advisors, agency owners and preferred suppliers to network, learn and share best practices. “Our theme this year is ‘As Unique as You’ and that has always been Signature’s mission,” says Alex Sharpe, Signature’s President and CEO. “Each of our members is unique and serve unique clients. Personalisation is the key to marketing to right products to the right clients, keeping their brand foremost and insuring that their clients have the best travel experience possible, especially created for them.” Signature, a leader in technology solutions for their members, announced a first-in-industry digital communications platform. Karen Yeates, Executive Vice President, Information Technologies for Signature, shared that they are partnering with a company that allows clients to send messages to their travel advisor from a variety of products including text, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, iMessage, and others. “Those messages will be sent to a central processing cloud where Signature will push them to a web application (or app) so that advisors can answer clients from a desktop,” said Yeates. “Clients will receive answers back in the app from which the original message was generated. Moreover, messages will be stored in a central location within the application for historical access and activities will be sent back to ClientBase to ensure you have a SINGLE location to track all communications with clients.” Signature also shared their new hotel partnerships, including adding 100 hotels and resorts to its portfolio. “We’re excited to add 100 properties to the 2019 Hotels & Resorts program,” said Richard Lebowitz, Senior Vice President of Hotel and Resort Program. “Travel Advisors can offer their customers valuable benefits at over 1100 hotels, resorts, villas, lodges and unique places to stay in 2019.” Over 2,200 attendees participated in over 50 workshops, one-on-one appointments, a trade show featuring over 1000 supplier partner booths and pavilions. Additionally, there was an inspirational keynote address from Amy Van Dyken, a 6-time Olympic gold medal champion swimmer. Van Dyken made history as the most successful athlete at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia and the first American female athlete to win four gold medals in a single Olympic games See also our exclusive interviews with Alex Sharpe and Richard Lebowitz online – on www.hotelandtourismonline.com
EUROPE Hotel & Tourism SMARTreport #41 2019 Winter Edition 25 25 THE IMPORTANCE OF TOURISM IN EUROPE: MORE THAN TWO MILLION BUSINESSES IN EU LIVE FROM TOURISM Over two million businesses are dedicated mainly or partially to tourism operate in the EU, most of them small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), employing some 12 million people. For individual EU economies, the direct contribution of tourism to GDP is as high as 11%. UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili says “Tourism is a key pillar of the EU strategy for jobs and inclusive growth and I am confident that our strong partnership with the European Union will continue to drive the quality, sustainability and competitiveness of the European tourism sector forward”. EU tourism is driven by both domestic and international visitors. Accommodation establishments in the EU offer over 31-million bed-places. In the following pages, we look at some of the latest travel trends on the old continent. Antalya, Turkey
