Keynote speakers announced for Travolution European Summit 2018

Keynote speakers announced for Travolution European Summit 2018

Registrations are open for the Travolution Summit 2018 with three senior keynote speakers confirmed and a new venue Continue reading

Registrations are open for the Travolution Summit 2018 with three senior keynote speakers confirmed and a new venue

Delegates who register between now and July 31 can grab an early bird rate £299 for the day-long conference that will take place on September 26 at The Brewery in east London.

In recent years, The Travolution European Summit has grown in stature and reach, attracting increasing numbers of delegates and speakers from across Europe. The re-positioning of this pan-European event for 2018 also paves the way for Travolution’s  expansion into territories beyond Europe, most notably Asia, EMEA and the US.

Headlining this year will be three speakers representing the world’s biggest cruise line, one of the world’s biggest travel companies and an up and coming new entrant that is setting tongues wagging.

John Padgett, chief experience and innovation officer at Carnival Corporation, is the man who developed the Disney MagicBand for the Disney World resort in Florida.

He will talk about his work to developer and introduce similar wearable technology, the Ocean Medallion, into cruise at Carnival, initially with Princess Cruises, bringing an Internet of Things approach to something as large and as complex as a cruise ship.

Padgett will explain how this will transform the cruise experience as the operator uses opted-in consumer data to tailor their product to the specific requirements of individual guests.

The Ocean Medallion was first unveiled at CES in Las Vegas in 2017 by Carnival chief executive Arnold Donald, the first travel executive ever to give an opening keynote at the annual consumer electronics show.

In a fire side chat with Travolution editor Lee Hayhurst Ariane Gorin, president of Expedia partner solutions, will give her take on the state of the travel sector from the perspective of one of the glove’s biggest players.

She will talk about how Expedia sees value in creating and nurturing mutually beneficial partnerships throughout the travel eco-system whether that’s through technology, supply, media or affiliate relationships.

Gorin, who is based in London, joined Expedia in 2013 as vice president of Market Management for EMEA and led the regional team in rapidly expanding the hotel network in the region.

Prior to Expedia, she spent a decade at Microsoft in various sales, distribution and marketing roles and before joining Microsoft, she was a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group, both in San Francisco and in Paris.

The final keynote will see the founder of one of the most talked-about new entrants in travel explain why taking a content-first approach will help it become a powerful new OTA.

Former psychiatrist Kris Naudts founded Culture Trip in 2011 to pursue his passion for global culture and creativity, and to build a technology company in that largely unexplored space. Culture Trip started as an online bookstore, where users could search for a location and find books and movies by local authors and directors, but once its broader potential became clear, Naudts began working relentlessly to ensure that it is realised.

This year it announced its intention to become an OTA leveraging its huge catalogue of articles and audience of travel and culture-loving millennials to drive customers to hotels and destinations featured in its content. Soon after it announced an $80 million seed B funding round.

Travolution editor Lee Hayhurst said: “We’re delighted to have secured three keynote speakers who will bring something different to this year’s Travolution Summit and an extremely high-level view of the digital travel sector today.

“We’ve conducted third party research into topics for this year’s event and from that we are working on the details of an agenda that will focus on emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, machine learning and blockchain, and the use of data in marketing.

“The event will also see the launch of the second annual European Travel Market Report supported by Mastercard and AIG that will give a detailed insight into the state of the travel sector both in the UK and on the Continent.

“As usual we will strive to provide delegates with content they don’t get at the other travel conferences and as well as featuring top experts from the travel sector bring in insights from other comparable sectors from which travel can learn and draw inspiration.”

Get more information and secure your place at travolutionsummit.co.uk