Almost 100 delegates packed into the Italian Stock Exchange last Thursday to hear high-caliber speakers discuss the key issues within the European and Italian travel and tourism industry.
Here, the inaugural World Travel Market (WTM) Vision ConferenceโMilan has been hailed a great success by the travel and tourism industry.
The conference started with the unveiling of the latest research from Euromonitor International. The companyโs travel and tourism industry analyst Angelo Rossini told delegates how the Italian tourism industry is set to outperform the wider Eurozone over the next two years. He also urged delegates to focus on the huge potential of the Chinese travel and tourism market.
The following session, Bournemouth University Professor Dimitrios Buhalis told delegates about the power of social media.
โAbsolutely everybody is now a journalist,โ he said. โPeople no longer write letters of complaint to their travel supplier. They take pictures, write reviews, and post them on the web saying โYouโre rubbish.โโ
He added, social media is not a fad and warned the industry his students communicate almost exclusively through social media platforms, described the phone as โso 70s,โ and email as โhow 90sโ.
The final session saw a distinguished panel discuss the Italian Outbound Market. The panel, including former TUI boss Dermot Blastland, concluded last yearโs Ash Cloud Crisis has increased the popularity of the bigger, well-known tour operators as customers experienced the support-networks and infrastructure these organisations have in place.
World Travel Market Chairman Fiona Jeffery said: โI am delighted with the success of the inaugural WTM Vision ConferenceโMilan. We have delivered on the brands promise of offering high-caliber speakers, analysis, and the latest statistics to the industryโs most senior professionals to help them run their businesses.โ
WTM Vision moves on to Dubai on May 3 at WTM sister exhibition Arabian Travel Market before return to London on May 25.