The Inbound Report

Covering the Inbound Tourism Industry Since 1996

Taylor Swift’s Chinese Social Media company to present at RTO Summit Digital Day

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AdamWhat do Taylor Swift and Brittany Spears have in common with RTO Summit?  The head of their China social media team, Adam Roseman (pictured here) will present at RTO Summit’s Digital Day on new ways tourism marketers can reach and influence China’s emerging group of FIT travelers.

Adam Roseman, is the Co-Founder & CEO of China Branding Group and its Chinese consumer brand Fans Tang, the largest non-studio provider of multi-platform Western content into the China market across online video, social media and live on the ground events, as well as the owner of China’s largest Western content data analytics platform used by customers including major Hollywood studios, talent agencies, advertising agencies and international brand marketers is now moving into the travel vertical with Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board as his first DMO client.  Among the many celebrities for whom FansTang conducts social media marketing in China are Taylor Swift and Brittany Spears.  See their video here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVHm6louE10

Adam will be one of a host of speakers at Summit West on February 17, the first of three “Digital Days” to be held in conjunction with NAJ’s RTO Summits in 2016 designed to provide traditional tour and travel marketers with new online international marketing skills.

Other topics include “How to Use Google Predictive Analytics to Forecast International Intent to Travel to Specific Destinations from A Variety of Source Countries” to “Apps That Tour Operators Would Love…if Only They Knew about Them.” Participation in the day-long Symposium is included in the cost of registration for the RTO Summit.  It is also available on an a la carte basis for tour and travel professionals who wish to attend. For more information on the program and the Summit visit:
http://www.rtosummit.com/rto-summit-west/rto-summit-west-agenda/

See the full Agenda here.
http://www.rtosummit.com/rto-summit-west/rto-summit-west-agenda/

The Inbound Report’s Top Ten for 2015

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Top-10-Gold-LogoHere are the ten most visited articles from the Inbound Report during the year of 2015.

  1. Is Hotelbeds up for Sale? (October 28)

https://www.inboundreport.com/2015/10/28/is-hotelbeds-up-for-sale/

 

  1. Seven Trends to Watch for at ipw in Orlando (May 20)

https://www.inboundreport.com/2015/05/20/seven-trends-to-watch-for-at-ipw-in-orlando/

 

  1. Brazil Sinks into Recession just before IPW—How Will it Impact 2016-17 and Beyond? (May 27)

https://www.inboundreport.com/2015/05/27/brazil-sinks-into-recession-just-before-ipw-how-will-it-impact-2016-17-and-beyond/

 

  1. Annual China Outbound Travel Trends Report from Chinese International Travel Monitor: Part 1 (July 21)

https://www.inboundreport.com/2015/07/29/annual-china-outbound-travel-trends-report-from-china-international-travel-monitor-part-1/

 

  1. Bankruptcy of Brazil’s Second Largest Tour Operator Sends Chills throughout Distribution System (October 7)

https://www.inboundreport.com/2015/10/07/bankruptcy-of-brazils-second-largest-tour-operator-sends-chills-throughout-distribution-system/

 

  1. New Hotelbeds Group—More Than Just Hotels (January 31)

https://www.inboundreport.com/2015/01/31/new-hotelbeds-group-more-than-just-hotels/

 

  1. Which Are the Top Buyer Delegations at IPW? The List Might Surprise You (May 27)

https://www.inboundreport.com/2015/05/27/which-are-the-top-buyer-delegations-at-ipw-the-list-might-surprise-you/

 

  1. DERTOUR Parent Company Acquires Kuoni-branded Travel Companies across Europe (July 1)

https://www.inboundreport.com/2015/07/01/rewe-group-consolidates-its-position-in-europe-with-kuoni-acquisition/

 

  1. TUI to Dissolve Thomson, First Choice and other Brands in Favor of Single TUI Über Brand (May 13)             https://www.inboundreport.com/2015/05/13/tui-to-dissolve-thomson-first-choice-and-other-brands-in-favor-of-single-tui-uber-brand/

 

  1. IPW 2015 Report: Seven Top Takeaways (June 10)

https://www.inboundreport.com/2015/06/10/ipw-2015-report-seven-top-takeaways/

NAJ to Stage First Digital Day at Its RTO Summit West

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RTO WestAt the Inbound Symposium Feb. 17 the first of two days of the RTO Summit West at the Ritz Carlton Marina del Rey, Calif., the NAJ Group, publishers of the Inbound Report, will host a “Digital Day”—a full-day digital marketing immersion targeted to traditional international sales professionals. Program segments include topics that range from “How to Use Google Predictive Analytics to Forecast International Intent to Travel to Specific Destinations from a Variety of Source Countries” to “Apps That Tour Operators Would Love…if Only They Knew about Them.” Participation in the day-long Inbound Symposium is included in the cost of registration for the RTO Summit. It is also available on an a la carte basis for tour and travel professionals who wish to attend. For more information on the program and the Summit, visit:  http://www.rtosummit.com/rto-summit-west/rto-summit-west-agenda/

New for the NAJ Group in 2016, eTourism for International … NAJ CEO Cutting Back to Give Back

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RTO SummitBeginning in 2016, The NAJ Group, publishers of the INBOUND REPORT and hosts of the RTO Summit series, will be entering a new phase of the group’s evolution—helping its clients advance in their careers through the content it provides at all NAJ events.

To launch the initiative, explained NAJ founder and CEO Jake Steinman, “We plan to replace the existing market intelligence and trends found on the first day of our NAJ RTO Summits—all of which can now be found in the INBOUND REPORT—with digital marketing information designed to arm our attendees with new skills that will make them more relevant to their organizations and help them justify an increase in compensation and promotion.”

Etourism SummitWhat will this look like? In 2016 NAJ will leverage the contacts built from 16 years of the eTourism Summit to develop what will amount to an “eTourism Summit for International” that will be available to existing attendees who have registered as part of their registration fee and on an a la carte basis to those who only wish to attend the first day of the event.

Content for the event will focus on how to use the tools provided by Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, WeChat, TripAdvisor and a host of other platforms—including influencers– to reach international consumers and tour operators. Each of the three events in the RTO Summit series will include content tailored for a different part of the world: While the RTO Summit West in Los Angeles will focus on digital marketing toAsia, the RTO Summit Orlando will offer a concentration on Latin America and the RTO Summit East in New York will introduce marketing for key European source markets—UK and Germany.

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Other Milestones for NAJ in 2016:  

TheTouroperator.com turns 15:  NAJ will celebrating by changing the name of our website to Touroperatorland.com, and will hold a big 15th anniversary celebration as part of the RTO Summit event in New York on May 2-3.

Jake SteinmanSteinman to Scale back to Three Days a Week during Q1 of 2016: The founder and chairman of The NAJ Group, Jake Steinman told Inbound that he is transitioning to a new phase of his career and, on an experimental basis, will work only Monday through Wednesday during January through March for NAJ.  For the remainder of the work week, he will make himself available for pro bono consulting to anyone in the industry who requests it, whether they are NAJ clients or not. “It’s my little way of being able to give back,” said Steinman. “I owe a real debt of gratitude to this industry and I think I can use my experience and contacts to help people market their products.”  On Thursdays and Fridays he will only be reachable through a private e-mail jsteinman390@gmail.com, for those who wish to arrange an appointment.

RTO Summit Orlando Take-Aways, Part 2

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Tourico’s CEO gets Feisty about US Hoteliers and their Ridiculous Dependency on OTAs

Uri ArgovThe founder and CEO of Tourico Holidays, not known as one who is timid or shy—Uri Argov is known by many as the travel industry’s original disruptor—was feistier than usual when he spoke recently during his participation in what was supposed to be a panel discussion on the impact of the weak euro on the outlook for U.S. inbound travel from Europe.

Instead, even though there was some allusion to the subject (referred to later in this article), Argov unleashed an unusually aggressive attack on hotel pricing practices during a session at NAJ’s recent RTO Summit in Orlando. And there was no disagreement from the other panelist in the discussion, Peter van Berkel, president of Travalco, although van Berkel’s tone was more restrained.

Perhaps because Argov, whose degree in computer science and whose background includes work in intelligence activities when he served in the Israeli Defense Forces, has a more formidable knowledge of the mechanics of hotel pricing practices than most travel industry executives regardless, his criticism was blunt and sometimes mocking.

It should be noted that, earlier in the RTO Summit, van Berkel had started by being sharply critical of the practice by hotel revenue managers to rely on dynamic pricing. “We have to educate the hotels,” he said, adding, “keep in mind … that hotels that only work in the dynamic (pricing) way are limiting their ability to have their product included in our packages.”

How Much is a Bottle of Coke Worth? Then, Argov—in the past, he has described the hotels’ practice of rate parity “a fundamental violation of human rights”—weighed in by illustrating just how dynamic pricing online has made it difficult for B2B receptives to package and sell product that includes a hotel room. “It’s all about dynamic pricing,” he said, going on to use as analogies the way we purchase soda from a supermarket or a movie ticket from a theatre.

Suppose, he said, one were to go into your favorite grocery store to get a bottle of Coke that was posted at a price of $1.99 only to reach the checkout counter and find that the price had just gone up to $2.49. Or, he added, suppose one went to a movie theatre, only to learn that a ticket that had been advertised that morning at $7.50 had increased to $9.00 that afternoon.

“You would never come back again,” said Argov.

And now, he noted, “so many hotels have taken the American way of traveling and tried to impose it on the world”—implying that dynamic pricing in an overseas B2B marketplace alienates the buyer and creates that perception that the hotel is a bait and switch practitioner.

“Every revenue manager in New York City needs to change the price five times a day,” he suggested. He said that, in selling to overseas markets of France, Germany and China, “if the price changes, they will go someplace else.”

The principal culprits, he asserted, were the largest online travel agencies (OTAs), such as the Priceline Group and Expedia which, through their advertising, suggest to the consumer that there is considerable competition among online travel sites when, Urgov said, in reality, there is not because of rate parity.

The Weak Euro Has Hurt, and Will Continue Hurt, the Inbound Industry: Because the euro has been at levels ranging from 25 to 35 percent below 2013 levels, “we definitely see a decline of 10 to 15 percent (in sales volume) in western Europe,”even though actual reservations are experiencing small increase,” Argov told RTO Summit delegates, explaining that, at Tourico, “we charge in euros, then pay in dollars … It hurts a lot.”

Van Berkel, too, acknowledged that the weak euro has had an impact on his company’s business. But he suggested that receptive tour operators can help counter the slide in activity by recognizing that the U.S. is not a budget or economy product for consumers most affected by the weaker euro, but is a luxury product.

He also indicated that Europeans now seem more interested in destinations that are “beyond the gateways,” and that there is an increase in interest in U.S. national parks. As well, he noted, the U.S. is perceived as a safe destination.

And one more thing … Just prior to the panel discussion by van Berkel and Argov, Malcolm Smith, senior vice president of business development and general manager of IPW for US Travel, spoke to summit delegates and he pointed to the growing importance of the MICE market in western Europe as one way in which U.S. travel suppliers can supplant lost business from the leisure sector. He noted that increased MICE traffic to the U.S. last year helped to more than offset lower leisure visitor counts from France and Spain. There were 100 more MICE buyers at the 2015 IPW in Orlando, and another increase in MICE buyers is expected at the 2016 IPW in New Orleans.

 

 

 

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