New-look Travel Convention details outlined

ABTA president Justin Fleming has outlined details of this year’s new-look Travel Convention, admitting that the event had been “a bit slow to change”.

The three-day conference in Tenerife in November has undergone a top to bottom overhaul with what ABTA sees as improved content and better networking opportunities.

Sessions include distribution,the new generation of web-based technology, luxury travel, green travel, the impact of the global economy and the previously announced opening session on consolidation which has brought four main UK tour operators down to two.

Registrations have so far reached 720, with travel agents making up about 25%-30% of the total. Total delegate numbers are expected to reach 1,500, with a higher proporation of agents than in immediate past years.

Fleming (Classic Collection Holidays) said: “The convention is about content, if you can’t get the content right you won’t have a convention.

“I genuinely feel you will be looking at a different convention this year,” he added, admitting: “We have been a bit slow to change.”

Referring to the opening sessions when five industry leaders will quizz Thomas Cook boss Manny Fontenla-Novoa and his rival Peter Long from TUI Travel, Fleming said: “That will make Dreagon’s Den look like London Zoo’s panda’s sanctuary.”

An advisory panel has been used to help form this year’s event in an effort to make the convention as revelant and topical as possible.

Panel member Richard Carrick, CEO of Hoseasons, said: “We are at a bit of a tipping point in the industry where a hell of a lot of things are changing. ABTA has changed and the convention has changed in the way people are being encouraged to engage in the convention.”

Carrick said a determined effort had been made to make the event reflect the changes in the marketplace which are “the most profound in the last 10 to 20 years”.

He added: “We want to make it the single most important travel confernece of the year. Historically there has been too much focus on the operator-agent axis, that has been broadened.”

Outside speakers lined up include Jonathon Porritt, co-founder fo Forum for the Future, top economist Douglas McWilliams and retail and marketing guru Clive Humby.

The convention business sessions take place on November 28-30.

*TravelMole will be providing an online rolling news service direct from the Travel Convention.  

By Phil Davies