Canada.travel : la destination Travel 2.0 ! Interview de Jens Thraenhart, Executive Director of Marketing Strategy and Customer Relationship Management
La commission canadienne du tourisme est en pointe sur les nouvelles tendances marketing du Travel 2.0.
Jens Thraenhart, Executive Director of Marketing Strategy and Customer Relationship Management nous explique sa vision d'Internet et les innovations qu'il compte mettre en place pour positionner le site canada.travel à la pointe du Travel 2.0 afin d'être bien en phase avec les attentes et l'interactivité de plus en plus forte des internautes.
Un interview passionnant et très enrichissant.
N'hésitez pas a laisser un commentaire et a donner votre avis.
> Jens , can you tell some information about you?
I am currently the Executive Director of Marketing Strategy and Customer Relationship Management for the Canadian Tourism Commission ( www.canada.travel). In that capacity, I am responsible for overseeing the development and implementation of approaches, programs and initiatives to ensure the effective management and expansion of integrated solutions to e-marketing, e-business, campaign management, customer relationship management, and technology development initiatives aimed at increasing the penetration of Canadian tourism in targeted markets. Prior to joining the CTC, I headed up E-Commerce for Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, as well as Marketing and Owner Relations for Fairmont's Vacation Ownership and Residences division, Fairmont Heritage Place. I was the founding chair of the HSMAI Travel Internet Marketing Organization (TIMO) and sit on the Board of Directors of the Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI – www.hsmai.org). In my sparetime, I run the Tourism Internet Marketing Blog
You can find out more about myself at http://jensthraenhart.com/cblog/index.php?/pages/background.html.
>What do you think about the social networking travel sites, like Real Travel, TripHub, Homes & Abroad and other? Do you agree about potential partnership between this new travel site and the DMO's world?
I think we all agree that a balance between branded destination content and user-generated content creates trust and confidence in consumers – and trust being the gold-dust of the Internet, it is vital to create a strategy that aggregates content from industry partners and enables users to share their past travel experiences. We are working on a very exciting and innovative initiative with Real Travel (announced at the last Phocuswright Conference) that will launch in the next few months.
> Roger Carter, managing director of TEAM Tourism Consulting, speaking at Wired Travel Asia, said DMOs and tourism boards had to change or perish . In fact DMO's need to change and be more flexible and open on the market trends (Travel 2.0 and other). What do you think about it?
I couldn't agree more, and we are working on a lot of projects that will satisfy the changing demands and travel research and booking behaviors in order to stay relevant to the consumers (and our travel industry partners), as well as to be able to sustain in an ever increasingly competitive marketplace.
> In France, people and DMO's are not aware about .TRAVEL. What do you think about this DNS, thanks to your experience with Canada.travel and other .travel web site ?
Europe is the region that has not fully embraced the dot travel iniative, even though the major destinations and countries have secured their dot travel domain names, including http://www.france.travel/. However, they are not promoting it in marketing campaigns such as Canada, Utah, some of the Caribbean Islands, and countries in Asia. I was interviewed by Tralliance on our dot travel strategy ( http://travel.travel/PDFs/Jens_Spotlight.pdf), and I have written a couple blog entries on that topic:
- The importance of registering .travel domains
>Internet is going faster and we talk now about Web 2.0 and Travel 2.0. What do you think about this evolution in the tourism & hotel market place ? Word-of-mouth marketing and User Generated Content are the big trends for Travel 2.0 ?
Web 2.0 is just another buzz-word, but yes, absolutely – I believe that the consumer is in control, and more and more demanding in consuming information. I think the next pieces that will concern tourism marketers are the evolution of media convergence (consuming content via different media channels – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_convergence) and bringing meaning to the web and making it easier for consumers to make sense cut through the enormous amount of information available on the web. Merging the concepts of social networking, media convergence, and the semantic web will be the key to success.
> Ecotourism seem a trend in tourism industry and we see some great initiative like EcoMilles or other Tour Operator who have specialized their products.
What about Canada.travel ? What do you think about this trend ?
I personally believe that Ecotourism will grow significantly in attention, as consumers are becoming more and more concerned about environmental issues. I just recently wrote a post on my blog about this topic after watching "An Inconvenient Truth". My former employer Fairmont Hotels & Resorts has been very progressive when it comes to environmental issues.
> DMO's and Tourism Board in France and other countries put their path in Online reservation system? What about Canada.travel ?
As many national tourism organizations all over the world hurry to provide hotel, air, car, and package reservation capabilities on their websites, either by building their own booking engine or by partnering by one of the major OTAs (Online Travel Agencies), it poses the question of the role of National Tourism Organizations (NTOs) or even state, provincial, regional, and teritorial Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs). By talking to different NTOs and DMOs over the past year, I learned the following: It really depends on the mandate and structure of the organization, as well as the situation of the destination itself. For some NTOs and DMOs it may make sense in going with a booking engine, but certainly not always. I found the EnglandNet debate in the UK interesting however .
At the moment we are not planning to add a booking engine to Canada.travel, however we are working hard in improving the online experience for consumers to plan their trip to Canada – however we believe we do not have to become another intermediary.
>What are your personal taste for:
>Travel:
One of the very special trips that I was lucky enough to experiences was Heli Hiking in the Bugaboos in British Columbia, Canada. We stayed in a mountain lodge, and every morning a helicopter picked us up to hike in the Canadian Rockies.
>Travel destination:
I have been lucky to visit many special destinations, having lived in Europe and North America. The Greek Islands are very unique, the food, the people, and the weather are all outstanding. My parents live at Lake Constance in Germany, which is a beautiful region bordering to Switzerland and Austria. Working for the Canadian Tourism Commission enabled me to travel a bit all over Canada.
>Hotel :
There are so many amazing hotels, but I have to point out the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise.
>Business:
There are lots of great business hotels, but a pre-requisite for me is high-speed internet access. Many upscale hotels still charge for internet access – I like Fairmont Hotels & Resorts as they don't charge Fairmont President's Club members, and becoming a basic member is free and can easily be done online. A true loyalty driver…
>Did you see something funny or very original in the Travel 2.0 world?
All the time…where do I start? It is definately amazing how many mash-ups are created utilizing Google Maps (51% of all APIs used are Google Maps APIs according Web. A great site to check the latest mash-ups is http://www.programmableweb.com/.
>Any advises for people who think for a trip to Canada!
Keep Exploring! There is so much to experience – it is not the cold and vast country that people sometimes think it is. The diversity of this great country is amazing – from Cape Breton in Atlantic Canada (recognized by Conde Nast as one of the most beautiful islands in the worlds), the culture of Quebec City and Montreal, the urban bustle of Toronto, the majestic landscape of the Canadian Rockies with the spectacular sites of Banff and Lake Louise, to the north of Yukon and Northwest Territories, and finally Vancouver , where I am based now – one of the most scenic cities in the world with easy access to skiing in Whistler. Visit www.canada.travel for more information!
>You have the micro
I think we are really in an interesting period where we need to realize that it is not about the Internet, but about customer touchpoints. Convergence being one of the hot buzz words, it is about leveraging media in order to break through the clutter of information on the web. I would say true media convergence happens when you create a flow of content pieces by leveraging different media channels – some people refer to it as Tripleplay. What I am trying to say is, we as marketers have to learn how to leverage media channels based on content consumption without duplication of content.
Vous invite a laisser un commentaire sur ce post important sur le sujet du Travel 2.0 pour les institutionnels et de faire un tour vers le blog de Jens.
February 12th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
A very interesting interview – merci!