SPOKESPERSON: Alexander Rauser - CEO Connect
1. Why is your company participating at ATM 2010?
The ATM 2010 organizers approached us to take part in the leading annual travel and tourism trade show in the Middle East region. At the show will be sharing our knowledge & expertise in online advertising and best practices. From working with different Hospitality players in the region & monitoring the demand in the marketplace, they have a lot to gain & leverage from online & interactive marketing to communicate their brands and offerings to target audiences. We hope we can evangelize hospitality business owners to use digital media to improve their online communication & gain a greater mind share of their audience’s attention.
From speaking with people in the industry, many companies are still unclear on how they can best leverage or use digital media communications; we look forward to engaging with businesses and discussing with them on how to best utilize the web and answer any questions they may have on digital marketing.
This is our first time to take part at ATM, and we believe that its an annual event that is key for Connect to be present in.
2. What does your company hope to achieve by appearing at ATM?
Being one of the leading events for the travel and tourism industry in the Middle East, we are excited to be exposing companies in the industry to the online/digital platform and showing them the value behind it.
We are also looking forward to networking and interacting at the event with industry players from across the region and give them a better insight into online marketing and hopefully open their eyes to the growing importance of online marketing initiatives as part of their marketing mix.
We do not believe there is ‘a heal all package’, but by sharing knowledge and ideas we hope to stimulate business owners.
3. How does your company feel about the online presence of the Middle East Travel and Tourism Industry?
Big names in the industry are already utilizing online marketing tools well; they have strong presence on social media websites; such as Twitter & Facebook where they engage with their customers on a more instantaneous & direct way.
At the same time, we believe that smaller brands could benefit from a stronger online strategy overall, as it is a low cost marketing method and is very effective.
4. Is online marketing an effective method for the region's travel & tourism industry?
Yes, definitely. More and more users go to the net first and search online for their travel related enquiries, places to visit, restaurants to eat, and hotels to stay. If your competitors are online and you are not, that's a disadvantage & immediate opportunity lost for being one of the choices decided upon by the consumer.
The advantage of having a strong and interactive online presence is that there are many ways of promoting a business, services, promotions offerings and more and a direct way to engage, influence and bond with customers, both in the short-term & long-term.
During ATM 2010, we will be sharing a variety of methods and tools to help businesses in the travel & tourism industry to start thinking about their online presence, we will also discuss social media, mobile and online advertising and explore the relevance of these tools for the travel & tourism industry. In addition we will showcase some tools that corporations can use to measure the success of their online activities.
