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4 ITB CHINA CONFERENCE Top-Line Speakers, New Focus Areas Not to be missed sessions at the 2018 ITB China Conference A power packed programme at the ITB China Conference includes sessions by Ctrip, Tencent, Visit Finland, Wyndham Hotels and many more, with three new areas of focus: Customised Travel, Business Travel and Education & Job Day. The conference runs parallel to ITB China, taking place from 16 to 18 May in Shanghai, and will form a key element of the B2B show focusing on Chinese outbound tourism. Co-hosted by TravelDaily, the travel think tank will invite business leaders and experts both from China and abroad to share their expertise and ideas on market hotspots in the industry. Top Speakers from major travel companies, such as Ctrip, one of the biggest online travel agencies in China, as well as Visit Finland, Wyndham Hotels, Tencent, Meituan, China Tourism Academy will provide exciting insights into their expanding markets in the conference of the second edition of ITB China. This think tank of Chinese travel, co-hosted by TravelDaily will provide key insights in seven areas: “Destination”, “Travel Tech”, “Corporate Travel & MICE”, “Online Travel”, and - for the first time – “Customised Travel”, “Business Travel” and “Education & Job”. The ITB China Conference in 2017 had high levels of attendance, driven by the quality its content. There was a total of 2,700 attendees for lectures, discussions and keynotes delivered by 70 industry speakers. This year again, leading travel organisations and tourism officials active in the Chinese market are expected at the ITB China Conference. In addition, other top companies such as CITS American Express Global Business Travel, Carlson Wagonlit Travel and BCD Travel, Merlin Entertainments, Mafengwo, Lushu, and Abercombie & Kent will be sending speakers to the ITB China Conference. ITB CHINA NEWS • Wednesday 9 th May 2018 The first sessions of the ITB China Conference will kick off with opening keynotes by James Jianzhang Liang, Co-founder & Executive Chairman of the Board at Ctrip; Eduardo Santander, Executive Director of European Travel Commission will talk about the “EU-China Tourism Year: A Year of Opportunities”; Leo Liu, President, Greater China, Wyndham Hotel Group gives a talk on “The Invariable Innovation and Crossover”; Yiyi Jiang, Head of International Tourism Research, China Tourism Academy discusses the “Trend of China Outbound Tourism Market” and Paavo Virkkunen, Executive Director, Business Finland Oy & Head of Visit Finland, will speak about “Sustainability and Responsibility, Fundamentals in Travel Industry Development”. The afternoon sessions of 16 May are dedicated to “Destination” and “Customised Travel”. Moderated by Phocuswright founder Philip C. Wolf, the “DESTINATION” SESSION will feature a panel discussion on “EU-China Tourism Year” (ECTY). Panellists from major European destinations will discuss how to upgrade the attractiveness of Europe as a whole to Chinese tourists. ITB CHINA CONFERENCE DAY 1 Fan Zhang, CEO, Mioji; Steven Shu, CMO, Meituan Dianping; Sunny Wang, Tourism Industry Director, Tencent Online Media Group, Tencent, and other guests will further probe into the topic of destination marketing. Joseph Wang, Chief Commercial Officer, TravelDaily China, will moderate a panel discussion on “Connecting Destinations with Chinese Millennials”. Jenna Qian, CEO of Destination Marketing, Ctrip as well as panellists from Merlin Entertainments, the Ministry of Tourism of Brazil, Turismo de Portugal and the Israeli Government Tourism Office will look at marketing strategies targeting Chinese millennials. For the first time, the ITB China Conference will feature a dedicated session on CUSTOMISED TRAVEL, which has become an important fast-growing market. Iris Cai, Co-Founder, UniqueWay will talk about “The Implementation of AI and Big Data in Customised Travel” and Executives from Abercrombie Kent as well as Lushu will present interesting keynote speeches on “How to design customised travel products”. Following this, ITB China and Qyer will host the “IT’S MY WORLD Travel Award Ceremony”. www.itb-china-news.com
ITB CHINA CONFERENCE 5 © Messe Berlin ITB China 2017 ITB CHINA CONFERENCE DAY 2 ITB CHINA CONFERENCE DAY 3 “Corporate Travel and MICE”, “Travel Tech”, “Online Travel” and “Business Travel” will be on the agenda for the second day of the ITB China Conference. The morning sessions of “TRAVEL TECH” will be presented Beijing Babel Technology CEO Lei Guan, with the topic of “The Innovative Application of AI Translation in Cross-border Tourism”. Allen Chen, Vice President, JIGUANG will talk about “Big Data Application of Tourism and Analysis Practice of Tourist Behaviour”, and Jarhead Gai, CEO, Yundijie. com will deliver a keynote on “Reform of Scientific and Technological Innovation in Supply Side of Customised Travel”. Industry experts from WeHotel, WebBeds, Hotelbeds, Jinling Hotels and DerbySoft will participate in a panel discussion about “The New Dynamics of Hotel Distribution” from 11 to 11.50 am. Bin Du, Vice President of Mafengwo.com will open the “ONLINE TRAVEL” sessions with a presentation on “The Strategy of New Tourism: How to Grow Business in the Time of Great Changes” followed by a keynote by Fliggy Vice President Wells Zheng. Following this, Fisk Yu, CEO, Haoqiao.com will discuss “The New Roles of the Travel Agencies in New Internet Era”. These sessions will conclude with the second “ITB China Startup Awards” recognising travel-related start-ups having introduced innovative products and solutions over the past year. The winner will be awarded with a complimentary stand at ITB China 2019. The jury is comprised of industry veterans, including Philip C. Wolf, Founder, Phocuswright; Shiwei Zhou, Vice President, Ctrip Investments; Herry Han, Partner, Lightspeed China Partners; Jay You, Partner, Yuantai Investment Partners Evergreen Fund; and Fei Ye, VP of Strategic Investment and Capital Market, China Lodging Group. BUSINESS TRAVEL DAY: The Business Travel Day will kick off with a panel on “How Technological Innovations Are Transforming Business Travel”. It will be moderated by Jonathan Kao, Managing Director from Greater China/ BCD Travel followed by discussions with Robert Öhrnberg, General Manager Greater China, Finnair; Huilian Duan, Vice President Sales & Marketing, APAC, Maritim Hotels, Giles Yang, Chairman of the Board & CEO, Fanjia International and Charlie Xu, Director of New Business Development, Greater China, HRS. This year’s exclusive partners are CITS American Express Global Business Travel, Carlson Wagonlit Travel China and BCD Travel. MICE SESSION: Alicia Yao Hong, Regional Vice President, PCMA ICESAP will set the scene for the MICE session featuring a keynote speech and a case study on the “Belt and Road Initiative – How Does It Affect the Business Events Industry in China?”. Moderated by Philip Pang, Marketing and Membership Manager, PCMA ICESAP, the following speakers will contribute to an intensive exchange: Ivanka Xu, Founder & CEO, Merak; Shane Ullman, Managing Director, Travel Events Asia; Ike Zhang, Vice President, Corporate Services, Tempus Group and Eugene Lin, Asst. President, Shanghai Jin Jiang Travel. BUSINESS TRAVEL: Sessions of “Business Travel” will give insights on the topics of innovations in business travel, unmanned services and digital intelligence applications, such as “The Belt and Road Initiative – Powering the Business Travel Globalisation” hosted by Kevin Tan, Vice President & General Manager, CITS American Express Global Business Travel. ITB China 2018 is in search of tomorrow’s talents: The third Conference Day, 18 May, is dedicated to the new area “Education and Job”. THE JOB DAY takes plays throughout the day and consists of a dedicated area in Conference Room B with more than 40 companies, institutions and universities, such as Ctrip, JinJiang, Huazhu, BTG-Homeinn, Sabre, Carlson Wagonlit Travel China, Wyndham Hotel Group, Utour and CAISSA Travel presenting themselves in the fully booked Job Area. The morning sessions in Conference Room A will deal with in-depth content sessions about Education organised in partnership with globally renowned educational institutions, focusing on topics of tourism education and executive training This year’s honoured partners of the Education Day are the Fudan University Shanghai, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and The Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI). More than 120 renowned experts from the Chinese and international travel industry will impart their knowledge at the second ITB China Conference, taking place from 16 to 18 May 2018 in Shanghai. Presentations for EDUCATION DAY will include a keynote by Yunlong Sun, Project Director of MTA Program at Fudan University, on “Flexibility and constancy in the cultivation of tourism professional”, while Mo Zhang, Project Director, QIJIAN Tourism Planning and Design, will share his ideas on “Straight A at the office, CEO in ivory tower”, followed by a panel discussion on “Career development and cultivation of cultural personality” with Li Han, SVP, Utour Group; Navy Wang, Founder & CEO, Atour; Tao Jin, Vice President, Shanghai Shendi Institute and Ms. Laurie Cheng, Director of Human Resources, The Peninsula Shanghai. Another not-to-be-missed keynote, on the “Current and Future of Tourism Education” will be delivered by Professor Cathy Hsu, Chair Professor of Hospitality and Tourism Marketing School of Hotel and Tourism Management – Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Full details of the conference programme are now available at: www.itb-china.com/conference/conference-program/ ITB CHINA NEWS • Wednesday 9 th May 2018
