Summary of the 6th eTourism Futures forum...

 

I was invited Monday and Tuesday to speak at the 6th edition of the eTourism Futures Forum held at the University of Surrey (UniS in Guilford, UK.

This forum was organized by the course director Dr Dimitrios Buhalis who kindly asked me to present "Blogs in the Tourism industry" (I will share this presentation on a further post). I was very pleased with the content of those 2 days. Only 30 people were in the room discussing and debating about the future will be made of in the tourism industry. What I like the most was the mix of the audience: students, PhD candidates, teachers and executives who work for the industry. If you are interested about the programme, it's here.

I have met fascinating people from Dr Hilary Murphy who teaches at the famous Lausanne Hotel School, Euan Mitchell who works at Marriott on their eCommerce initiatives, John Seaton who is the VP - Sales & Account Management at Utell/Pegasus, Roberto Daniele who teaches at Queen Margaret University, Soren Langelund who works for Mobile Travel Technologies or Nick Doran, ex British Airways director and many more.

There were particularly 2 interesting and challenging projects presented to us:

- VisitEurope.com brought up by Prof Hannes Werthner from Vienna University of Technology - a European portal to let people explore what to do in European countries
- Europeforall.com presented by Victoria Eichhorn and Elina Michopoulou from UniS - which aims to be the Number 1 European portal for tourists who value accessibility as part of their holiday or business travel experience – and for those providers who seek to serve them.

Thanks again Dimitrios for inviting me. I will be happy to join you on the 7th edition of the Forum.

Technorati Tags: etourism futures forum, unis, university of surrey, dimitrios buhalis, marriott, lausanne hotel school

Comments

[Jon Cockerill]

I would like to echo Guillaume's view that this was a very stimulating event. The world of travel is at a place that seems to me as interesting as it was 12 years ago when the web was just arriving, and it was good to take time out and scan the horizon.

Oh, and thank you for an interesting presentation Guillaume!

Jon

[Guillaume]

Hi Jon,

Thanks for your kind words. I am also quite excited about what Travel will be about in the next coming years.

Need to check your blog.

Cheers.

Guillaume

[Rcon Franchesca Pascua]

The VisitEurope.com program sounds really interesting. I mean, it is really a fine online portal that travelers can rely on information about the tourism in Europe.