Throughout the events, 38 conferences were held by senior executives from Google, TripAdvisor, Expedia, Moreturismo, Lucetti / Mackenzie, Expedia, and CATA’s Secretary General.
1.How to be more competitive through a digital tourism strategy
This presentation, carried out in all of the countries in the region, complemented the presentation of the Central American digital strategy, generating space for the participants’ identification of the advantages that the strategy offers and how the National Tourism Administrations, as well as the Small and Medium Enterprises, can take advantage of it to strengthen their projection, and through its implementation, increase their client portfolio.
This presentation was carried by out by Mr. Juan Miguel Moreno Magaña, CEO of Moreturismo. Moreturismo Internacional, company internationally recognized for its vast experience in tourism innovation, is in charge of the implementation of CATA’s 2018-2019 digital marketing strategy.
2. Appropriate use of OTAS and Collaborative Tourism
The rise of new forms of commercialization, in which platforms such as Airbnb are seen as strong exponents have brought new questions for more traditional tourism commerces. What can a tourism sector that maintains its traditional management schemes do to keep up? Expedia points out the keys to take advantage of travel platforms to convert these apparent disadvantages into opportunities and become more competitive.
The Expedia staff in charge of the conference were Mr. Raul Mamani, Senior Business Development Manager for Central and South America. He was in charge of the on-site Expedia conferences in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, as well as the virtual conference in Honduras. Mr. Alejandro Saborio Montero, Associate Market Manager for Costa Rica was Expedia’s keynote speaker of the conference in San Jose, Costa Rica. Ms. Fabiola Tile, Market Manager at Expedia Group Panama, presented on behalf of Expedia at the Panama event. Finally, Mr. Manuel Solano Associate Market Manager for Central America, gave the keynote address for Expedia at the Belize event.
3. The trip starts with Google
Data provides the best formulas to promote a destination in order to have a greater impact on the audiences in our social networks. This keynote address was helpfull to the regional tourism sector to make efficient use of data resources, which is a part of the strategy that Central America will develop with Google. Google presented how companies can be more efficient to find their best customers using Google’s machine learning technology
Mr. Sergio Calix, Manager of Automation Strategies for SMEs in the United States was Google’s keynote
speaker of the conference in El Salvador. Ms. Inés Peralta Agüero, Market Lead for the Central American Region & the Caribbean was Google’s keynote speaker of the conferences in Guatemala and Nicaragua. Mr. Luis Magaña, Accelerate Growth Account Strategist, was Google’s keynote speaker of the conference in Honduras. Ms. María José Güitrón, Account Strategist at Google Mexico, was the keynote speaker in the Costa Rican conference. Ms. Silvia Ariza Account Strategist at Google Mexico, was the keynote spealer in the Panama and Belice conference.
4. Key elements in being more influential through reviews
The reviews customers have about the brand has been an important factor for business success. Nowadays, online reputation is more relevant than ever, and it is precisely the tourism sector that is most positively and negatively impacted with the appearance of online opinions; as a result of technology, these are disseminated at the speed of light and reach a large number of people in seconds, significantly affecting the reputation of a business.
How to go from opinion to action? Generating a good reputation, knowing how to manage the opinions of customers, and increasing comments is vital, since it is at this stage that the customer buys the trip. During the presentations, the fundamentals of applications such as TripAdvisor for the decision to purchase a trip were presented, and the keys to take advantage of these opportunities were also analyzed.
The conferences were lead by Kristen Bonner, Senior Destination Marketing for Latin America for El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Belize. The conferences were carried out virtually.
5. Grant reason to emotion
The strategy for the creation and promotion of destination brands and tourism
products through the application of new technological tools. The conference was led by Mr. Jorge Alba Lucetti, CEO of Lucetti/Mackenzie in Nicaragua.
