Comment: AITO conference

Fiona Marshall, general manager of AITO member KE Adventure Travel, gave TravelMole her thoughts on this year’s annual AITO tour operators’ and agents’ conference in Madeira.

"The 2012 AITO conference in Madeira was of a good vintage!  Both operator and agent members attended, which makes for a heady mix of networking, exchange of ideas and discussion.

Business sessions included excellent presentations from former Times Online editor, Steve Keenan, and marketing expert Allister Frost, both focusing on the power of digital media and marketing. At KE we are already adding video content to our website, but are encouraged to do more after Steve’s talk. Using Pinterest to show images was not something we had considered, so we will look at this along with making our website iPad and mobile-friendly as both speakers told us that more holidays will be booked this way in future. We’ll also be trying to do more with our Facebook page and to experiment further with Twitter. I liked the suggestion of adding bucket lists of different types of holidays to Facebook, particularly as the journalists all told us that they like to feature such lists as they work well in the online editions of their newspapers and magazines.

Panel discussions concentrated on "going global", with AITO operators sharing their own experiences of selling their products in overseas markets. KE already sells successfully in the US, but we will now look to find more overseas travel agents to work with in other countries as a result of hearing how this has worked for other operators.

A session on ATOL reform at 9am was perhaps a bit of a shock to the system after the late night before, but reminded us to keep up to speed with the new rules. I think everyone agrees that the changes are for the good, but that airlines need also to be included in the ATOL system to make it fair. KE has already started sending out agent agreements, but the session reminded me to check how far we have got!

In the bar, discussions were partly dominated by football and a jubilant crowd of England supporters – myself included – was delighted when the TV was switched on so we could all watch the England match! There was also a lot of talk in the bar about the eurozone problems, hopefully allayed by this week’s positive news from Greece.

The keynote speaker, Deirdre Bounds, told of how she took i-to-icom from a bedsit in Leeds to global success and entertained us with stories of some of the mistakes she made along the way, including the £100,000-plus ad campaign in the London Underground which featured a competition asking for text message entries. A week into the campaign, with very few text entries received, someone remembered that there’s no mobile signal on the Undergound.

We were warmly welcomed to the island by the Madeira Promotion Bureau and, after the business sessions had concluded, we were able to sample some of what Madeira has to offer, with delegates choosing various activities.  I went on a whale-watching tour – sadly, we saw no whales, but we did manage a dip in the sea. The glass of bubbly and the strawberries on board helped us get over any disappointment!  The fireworks in Funchal on the last night brought the conference to a suitably theatrical close.

With a theme of "Keep Calm and Carry on Travelling" the conference was both energising and informative, and I think all delegates have returned home with a renewed enthusiasm for taking business forward in troubled times.

On a separate note, holding the conference in Madeira allowed us here at KE to check out one of our own holidays: Madeira Walking Week.  Director Tim Greening and I enjoyed a blissful day walking between the island’s two highest peaks – Pico Ruivo and Pico do Ariero!
 

Wednesday June 20th 2012