Industry gets the e message with ANTOR

A sell out audience at the ANTOR eMarketing Seminar at the Westin Sydney yesterday heard from four leading industry internet specialists that many industry operators and agencies were not maximising the business generating power of the internet. 

In addition to the excellent and very revealing presentations, with Carolyn Reid, an expert in gender savvy communciation giving an insight into “What Wired Women Want; Caroline Brunel, eMarketing and Internet Manager for Tourism Ireland guiding the attendees through the role the internet plays in the travel decision and how to make the most of it; David Smith, MD of ComTel Resources giving an extremely valuable insight into his experience in setting up an e strategy and web site for Papaua New Guinea; and Andrew Woodward, Director Corporate Relations Visa International, telling us what tourists are acually spending their money on, The Mole also took the opportunity of digging a little bit deeper!

(Above from left:- David Smith, Andrew Woodward, Caroline Brunel and Carolyn Reid)

Carolyn Reid, told The Mole that while the Australian travel industry talked about attracting visitors to Australia for experiences, their marketing seemed destination dominated, whereas travellers were looking for experiences, adding that research shows that travel today is all about experiences not about destinations and this was increasingly becoming the case through the growth of experiential tourism.  

She recognised Tourism Australia was doing some work in this area and that she looked forward to the result.  Carolyn also expressed her concern regarding the inconsistency of language across the web sites, with many companies not realising or appreciating the importance of achieving language consistency which was only possible using professional writers.

Caroline Brunel, told The Mole that the industry needed to more carefully consider its targets for internet marketing and take a scientific approach, with operators needing to decide the purpose of the site and its content, for example is it for the trade or for consumers, and while it can be across the areas of Brand Awareness, Data Collection and Driving traffic, defining the objectives at the outset was crucial.

Caroline also said that the industry needed to look at the continuity of their sites, how they operated and that in reality what was happening was that they were building a community.  By doing that and to retain that community you had to communicate with them, which also provided the opportunity to measure business generated much more effectively. 

David Smith, MD of ComTel Resources told The Mole that his work in Papua New Guinea had been a highly enlightening experience with the resulting web site available at www.png-tourism.com. Accessing the site tells the story better than The Mole ever could and will give an insight of how a web strategy and site should be delivered with all the associated sections, in addition to using smart graphics, moving video and even pidgeon English!  Check it out!

Andrew Woodward, Director Corporate Relations Visa International really blew everybody’s socks off by giving an insight into how much Visa actually knows about our buying habits, but also the amazing strength of Visa in travel transactions. 

He quoted to The Mole that there are 1.4 billion Visa cardholders, 27 million acceptance points, 1 million ATM’s and 100m transactions daily!   Visa has a 62% market share in Asia Pacific with 6 billion transactions, 24% of Asia’s tourism revenues and one in every four dollars spent by foreign visitors in Asia Pacific being done so through Visa!   It gets even better in Australia with two in four dollars!

Visa’s research can be viewed at www.visa-asia.com.

A great day indeed and well done Simone Shepherd, ANTOR Chair and Philip Thornily, ANTOR Executive Director, left, enjoy a well earned rest after the seminar.

Report by the Mole