Spotlight on China Spotlight on Jens Thraenhart - Canada-e-Connect eTourism Conference 2010

Today is Jens Thraenhart's birthday. Happy Birthday Jens.

Jens Thraenhart is a global eTourism visionary and global strategy expert who, in a previous life, was the Canadian Tourism Commission's Executive Director, E-Marketing/ Directeur exécutif, Marketing électronique. Jens also has extensive experience in the hotel space. Since leaving the CTC, where, by the way, he conceived the idea of a Canadian eTourism Strategy Conference which became Canada-e-Connect, Jens went East. Far East. He now lives in Beijing most of the time, where he works as chief strategist for DragonTrail, and in Vancouver (less of the time), where he founded Chameleon Strategies. When he's not in China or Canada, Jens travels all over the world. He's a sought after speaker at various eTourism and Hospitality conferences.

Jens will be a featured keynote speaker at Canada-e-Connect Montreal 2010 focusing on the potential of the outbound Chinese tourism market. Having recently been granted Approved Destination Status by the Chinese government (or at the very least opened the door wide open for it after Prime Minister Harper's recent visit to China), the Canadian tourism industry now has a unique opportunity to increase brand awareness and connect with the most lucrative consumer and travel market in the world. With his first-hand knowledge of the online landscape in China, Jens Thraenhart will provide insight into the complexity of this fast-growing tourism marketplace, and show how businesses can approach its 340 million Internet users by leveraging their social media, technology, and marketing strategies.

See you in Montreal,

Jaime Horwitz MBA
Co-Chair Canada-e-Connect eTourism Strategy Conference Montreal 2010 27 - 29 January

Tom Griffin, CEO of TravelScream a leading eDistribution travel company will be a panellist at Canada-e-Connect 2009

TravelScream is an innovative digital distribution company in the eTravel space. Travelscream has developed partnerships with leading online publishers to present their clients' travel deals and special offers to engaged, targeted and trusting audiences. Some of TravelScream's partners include Fodor's, New York Magazine, National Geographic, Orlando Sentinel.com and Spa Magazine.

-

Recently I had a brief conversation with Tom Griffin, CEO of TravelScream and asked him a couple of questions that may be of interest to the readers of this blog:

-

JH: Regarding your social media toolkit, is there any particular feature that is most popular with clients, e.g. video, blogs, maps? TG: I would say that our RSS application is the #1 application utilized from our toolkit, blogs 2nd, guest book 3rd, maps 4th. We haven’t really been promoting the video application the way we should. We are starting to be more aggressive on our mapping product next year with the implementation of our walking and driving directions, which should be complete within a couple of weeks.

-

JH:Can you tell us anything about your business model? Is it a PPA, PPC, CPM, a combination model or is it tailored to different clients? TG: Premium pricing for home page widgets, annual pricing for list views and going to a CPM model in 09. We have a several destination guides that we are launching in 09, which should provide us with a Low Impression rate but a higher conversion. In addition our new Geo-targeting product will be introduced in the new year.

-

Tom Griffin will be one of the distinguished experts participating in the eDistribution Panel at Canada-e-Connect 2009. There are a few weeks left to register, so if you are interested in attending and networking with experts like Tom, register now at Canada-e-Connect registration.

-

cheers,

Jaime Horwitz MBA
Chair Canada-e-Connect 2009

How versed are you in eDistribution? Canada-e-Connect's panel on eDistribution

Canada-e-Connect's edistribution panel will include, Tom Griffin, CEO of TravelScream, Sean Shannon, Managing Director, Expedia Canada Corp, part of Expedia Inc., the largest OTA (online travel agency) in the world which happens to own TripAdvisor, the largest travellers' reviews website; and Andrew Van Luchene, President & CEO, JackRabbit Systems, a relative newcomer in the eDistribution space. Andrew was a lead inventor at Walker Digital, the think tank that created Priceline.com, where he filed over 150 patent applications. Andrew also helped to launch RetailDNA, Priceline Perfect Yardsale, and Priceline for Gasoline. Moderated by Patricia Brusha, one of the principals at A Couple of Chicks e-Marketing, this panel session promises to bring an update of what has been happening in the eDistribution space. Companies like Expedia are starting to look like media companies selling ad space to complement their travel transactions revenue. New innovators like JackRabbit (I previously mentioned TravelScream) are taking travel deals from their clients and partners and making them travel via widgets, RSS and other technologies. Expedia has also entered this portable aspect of eDistribution - notice the travel offers on this blog (from an RSS of Expedia deals).

-

Where is your hotel, tourism attraction or destination in the eDistribution world? Are your deals travelling in the blogosphere? Is your hotel promotion bookable via a widget and available for distribution on a multitude of web properties and possible mobile platforms?

-

Don't miss Canada-e-Connect's eDistribution panel. Thursday Jan 22, 2009 11:30 AM. Register at www.canadaeconnect.travel