Leaders in Travel Returns for 2019: Slides and Overview

Yesterday we hosted the second Leaders in Travel Digital Summit event at the The British Library in London. Curated by the Blueclaw team, the event was designed to offer a day of networking, talks and insights from some of the world’s leading travel brands.

This year, we were fortunate enough to have over 60 attendees and speakers from brands including Secret Escapes, Expedia, Travelport    and many more. Sponsored by our partners at Influencer Marketing Platform, Tailify.

For those of you who weren’t able to attend on the day, and those who are interested in travel marketing insights, we’ve pulled together the following round up of all the talks and takeaways:

Michelle King, Strategic Sales Director – Digital Media EMEA, Travelport:

Michelle took us through the digital trends, customer insight and growth markets within the travel sector in her slides. She stressed the importance of transparency and control, and discussed the ways in which technology influences consumer decision making within the travel sector. Find her full presentation here.

Adrian Vella, Sales Director and Rebecca Connee, Sales Executive, Tailify

For most of the marketers in the room, one topic seemed to dominate discussion across the day – Influencer Marketing. Key discussion points were how best to utilise this for your brand, and how to deliver ROI for your efforts. Our event sponsors Tailify, influencer marketing experts, were on hand however to discuss how to achieve this – you can find the talk in more detail via the link here.

Josh Colbeck, Head of Biddable, Blueclaw

Next up was Blueclaw’s Josh, demonstrating the opportunity for travel brands within the paid space, using some of our travel case studies alongside his best practice tips for optimising your retargeting strategy, check out his slides here.

Steve Paine, UK Country Manager, SISTRIX

Steve’s talk offered a deep dive into the search space for travel, he outlined the winners and the losers within the SERPs for travel, the keywords that are driving the most visits and even had the chance to include some last minute stats on Thomas Cook and the impact their recent administration is likely to have upon travel rankings. Read through his analysis in full here.

Mike Gomez, Head of SEO, Blueclaw

Mike took to the stage next to talk through our award winning case study for Royal Caribbean Cruises, giving the audience a step by step guide for how best to use competitor analysis to deliver a market leading search strategy.  Read the slides in full here.

Iannelli Dyer, Area Manager – South of England, Expedia 

Unfortunately we are unable to share Iannelli’s slides, however for those of you who didn’t make it Iannelli’s presentation included a run through of the challenges Expedia is facing currently and how they are planning to use technology to offer better customer experiences across all platforms, building a brand for the future. 

Caroline Bremner, Head of Travel Research, Euromonitor International

Drawing from extensive data sets, Caroline began her talk by taking us through the rise of S-Commerce and how consumers are currently responding to the “buy now” feature on social media channels such as Instagram and Facebook. She specifically highlighted that when it comes to Instagram, the engagement travel brands receive significantly outweighs their reach. Find her slides here.

Simon Kingsnorth, Chief Marketing Officer, City Relay

Working within the Short Letting sector, Simon provided some great insight into blending the physical and digital world together in a very human age. Stressing the fact that while the digital landscape continues to grow, consumers still value human interaction and desire both physical and digital experiences when they interact with companies within the travel and tourism sector. Find his presentation here.

Glen Davies and Hayley Stansfield, Online Media Relations and PR Managers, Blueclaw

Delivering PR for your brand has never been harder, with brands fighting for limited headline space. Glen and Hayley provided the tips you need to get the cut through in this hugely competitive space, outlining key publications for you to target, and how to build a 

stand-out headline opportunity that journalists just can’t say no to. Get their slides here. 

Rumyana Miteva, Head of Performance Marketing & Revenue, Secret Escapes

In Rumyana’s talk we were given an immersive presentation into how AI can be used within travel advertising. She covered a number of examples within which you can use AI fo free across Google Ads and Facebook and outlined how by doing this Secret Escapes reduced Cost-Per-Lead By 38% – read the ppt in full here. 

What AI learning is and how to start using it. There were practical examples which can be utilised for free across Google Ads and Facebook such as Dynamic Search Ads and Responsive Search Ads. 

Nicholas Cooper, Head of Market UK, HolidayPirates

Stressing the importance of building an authentic, transparent, relevant, and inspirational social media strategy, Nick provided insight into the best ways to use “likes” to convert sales and grow a multimillion B2C travel brand. Get Nick’s slides here.

Jennifer Cormack, Marketing Director, Windermere Lake Cruises

Jen closed out the day with fantastic insight into how her and her team engage global audiences through inbound marketing. Touching on markets such as China and Japan, her slides include what platforms she utilizes and how to make an impact within different cultures. Find Jennifer’s slides here. 

The event was free to attend, however we did ask all delegates to donate a small amount to Mind, and thanks to their generous donations we were able to raise just under £1,000! We’d like to thank all of our delegates for their support in helping us hit this target!

We’re already planning the next event, likely to take place in early 2020. If you’d like to register your interest ahead of this then please let us know by emailing [email protected] so that we can add you to the mailing list.