5th Annual E-Tourism Africa Summit Announced
Biggest and Best African Event yet
This
year marks the 5th anniversary of the E Tourism Africa Summit. The
first summit was held in Johannesburg in 2008 and each year we have attracted
more delegates and an increasing number of world-class speakers and presenters.
This
year’s summit is back at the Cape Town International Convention Centre and it
will be held on the 13th and 14th of September. We
already have a packed programme of the world’s leading experts on online
tourism including Trip Advisor, Wanderfly,
Expedia, Humanity TV, Facebook developers and a
host of new and innovative speakers. This year will feature both presentations by leading international speakers and a selection of practical workshops and seminars.
New sessions will cover Facebook campaigning for Tourism and Mobile Travel Apps. South African Tourism is the title sponsor of the summit, with Cape Town Tourism as the host sponsor.
The summit will focus strongly on the use of social media to leverage and convert online bookings. With online tourism sales set to double to over US $300 billion by the end of the year and Facebook to have one billion users in 2012, it is critical that tourism players in the sector make better use of the internet and social media to market and manage their destinations and businesses.
Mr. Damian Cook, the CEO of E Tourism Frontiers, said it was vital that all tourism players continue to increase both their understanding and investment into the online sector.
“Online travel bookings continue to soar, the latest statistics show that travellers will book more than half of the world's travel sales online by the end of 2012 and online leisure/unmanaged business travel bookings are expected to grow twice as fast as the total market, to surpass US$ 313 Billion this year. The great news for emerging markets, such as Africa, is that online travel and tourism is poised to experience solid growth over the next five years - with the Middle East and Africa leading the way in percentage terms, according to Euromonitor,” said Cook.
The E Tourism Frontiers CEO went on to say, “With figures like these, it is clear that online is now the arena of choice for travel sales, but we need to look at how we can also use technology to build growth in challenging markets and make our industry more sustainable. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are vital tools when researching travel. However only a small number of African Tourism companies are really accessing and using these tools to their full potential. The summit will include training sessions designed to show them how to do this, ” said Cook.
William
Price, Global Manager: E-Marketing at South African Tourism, said that the Summit will be a
great opportunity for the tourism sector to catch up with all the latest online
technology. “We are delighted to be the title sponsors of the summit, we want
to continue to show the tourism sector that shifting their business online is
absolutely crucial. We want to make
moving online accessible and practical and the summit will be a great
opportunity for everyone to learn what works online and the new trends and
innovations that will help build our business for the future”, said Price.
Registration for the E Tourism Africa Summit 2012 is open now and there is a special early bird price of only US $250 per ticket for the two day summit if you register and pay before the 31st of July 2012. The price will increase to US $350.00 from the 1st of August.
A full listing of speakers and complete programme will be available soon.
For full information and registration please click here.
