14 EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
14 EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE WE’RE FACED WITH IS TO CHANGE THE GROUP TRAVEL BUSINESS FROM A “REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL (RFP)” APPROACH TO A “DIRECT BOOKABLE” APPROACH. Bas Lemmens CEO, Meetings.com Bookings Co-Founder Takes On New Role at Meetings.com Exclusive Interview – Bas Lemmens – CEO – Meetings.com Meetings.com, the premier site for information on meeting, hotel rooms and banquet venues worldwide, recently announced the appointment of Bas Lemmens as the company’s new CEO. With Lemmens’ background in a number of major OTAs, and his work as cofounder of Bookings, we asked him what his thoughts are on this next challenge with Meetings.com and how this compares to what he’s done in the past. I look at my experience at Booking.com as the perfect segue to what I’m now doing at Meetings. com. Both companies operate on a foundation of incredibly robust technology that seamlessly connects the end user to a world of options. At Meetings.com, our goal is to be the premier site for information on meeting and banquet venues around the world. My personal experience will allow Meetings.com to further its mission to find clients the perfect space and the best price. Because of this, in addition to the wonderful relationship our team has with its clients and hotel partners, we’re well on our way to servicing one million groups in 2018. You are settling into Amsterdam as a new European base for the company. Why Amsterdam? Our company already has an office in London and over 15 people spread out throughout Europe. I live in Amsterdam and see the new talent it’s attracting every day and want Meetings.com to be at the forefront of this innovation and creativity. Also, some of the best online travel companies are based right here on the Canals. What are the biggest challenges in the group travel sector today? The biggest challenge we’re faced with is to change the group travel business from a “Request for Proposal (RFP)” approach to a “Direct Bookable” approach. Our clients want to make and confirm direct individual bookings quickly and easily. Hotelplanner.com was a pioneer in this space and has continued success with this approach.” What is your vision for the future of meetings and events technology? It is critical that we continue to invest in robust booking technology for the MICE business. We invested more than 15 years in very good booking technology for Groups, Events and Meetings and now want to make it more accessible and easier to use for all businesses in the market. A good example of this is our leading SaaS technology for meeting and event planners. By taking advantage of our technology, these planners don’t have to invest in their own and can focus on doing what they do best, which is finding the best venues at the lowest price for their customers. How do you add value for properties and how is this evolving going forward? We add value to properties by giving them more groups business, while at the same time, helping OTA’s convert their group request into hotel bookings. And for the end clients? End clients have easy access to a large portfolio of hotels and meeting spaces worldwide. And our firstto-market AI technology will book them in a space with ease that fits all of their needs. We are the only company in the world with enough recorded group booking conversations and transactions for such a development. Drawing from historical data spanning nearly a decade and half, as 3,000 groups per day interact with suppliers around the globe, our AI technology will be optimised for success. How important is ITB Berlin for you as a platform to promote what you’re doing? It’s very important to us, as all of the companies we want to do business with are present in one place. From hotels, OTA’s, and the big event players across the world, it is the premier travel event of the year ITB BERLIN NEWS • Thursday 8 th March 2018 www.itb-berlin-news.com
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW 15 Gina Bunton Chief Operations Officer, Tahiti Tourisme 17 VERSIONS OF THE NEW WEBSITE HAVE BEEN LAUNCHED BY TAHITI TOURISME AROUND THE WORLD – THE LATEST ONE IN CHINA LAST MONTH The Islands of Tahiti: Intimacy Remains a Key Asset Statistics for 2017 up until October, show a rise of 3.1% in tourism in the Islands of Tahiti compared to 2016. We asked Gina Bunton, Chief Operations Officer for Tahiti Tourisme how this fits with her organisation’s strategy. We’re not seeing huge growth, but we’re seeing sustained growth, and we are looking at this to continue for 2018, especially with the new airlines coming in. It must be underlined that the Islands of Tahiti is not a mass tourism destination. It’s never been our strategy. One of the pillars of our communication is privacy, and this is also the experience we want to be able to give visitors: that feeling of being alone. The maximum number of tourists we have targeted for the moment is 200,000 for the year. So, we get as many tourists in a year as Hawaii would get in a week. We want to continue growing, but in a sustainable way that’s going to be respectful of our population and of our environment as well, but that’s still going to be good enough to distribute the wealth and the financial input for everyone in the islands. Culture is an important part of your message. What’s different in The Islands of Tahiti in this respect? There are a number of other tropical destinations with overwater bungalows. It’s not proprietary any more. But nobody can copy our people; that is something that’s unique to us. And the mix we are going to be able to create with that… that’s going to be the dream, and that is going to be something that can’t be replicated anywhere else. And that’s where the idea of including culture and including the people in our communication and in our campaigns came from. And it has paid off, because the local population, the stakeholders, engage a lot more with this campaign than ever before. They said ‘It’s the first time we recognise ourselves in one of the campaigns the tourism board is putting out there’, which is amazing. But also, it’s showing that unique side - a different side of the islands compared to what we were showing before, which was basically couples, romance, overwater bungalows in the lagoon. We are still showing that, as it’s a strength and part of the beauty of the destination. We have just added different layers and we are trying to show the diversity. There are more islands than the ones you already know about. We have 118 islands and there are many different kinds of accommodation. It’s not just overwater bungalows or expensive resorts. There’s a whole mix out there of guesthouses, where, if you want to engage with the locals, if you want to be closer to the culture, it’s a more private way and more affordable way to visit the islands. Then there’s cruising and yacht charter – either with or without crew – that are interesting alternatives. Villas are becoming very strong, and that’s a great solution for families or people who just want more privacy and want to feel ‘at home’. It’s up to you how you want to discover the islands of Tahiti! You recently launched a new website strategy. What’s different with the new version? The website has been built to be more consumer friendly, around the consumer experience. 17 versions of the new website have been launched by Tahiti Tourisme around the world – the latest one in China last month. New articles are being posted every month based on what trends are being indicated to us by Google. We also have a “Tahiti Specialist” section where people can be put in direct contact with agents who can create custom itineraries for travellers. So the message is “diversity”? It’s been the message for some time now. The Islands of Tahiti, it’s not what you’d expect. It’s not what you think you know. There are more sides to the destination than most people could imagine… until they come and discover the islands for themselves ITB BERLIN NEWS • Thursday 8 th March 2018
