Business travel show gets to grips with social media
The Business Travel & Meetings Show will include a session at this year’s conference dedicated to social media and its potential to reduce costs, enhance customer service and increase competitiveness in the business travel market.
The session – called ‘Socialising Travel Management’ – is the Closing Panel Debate at the show, which runs at Earls Court, London on 8-9 February 2011. The panellists will debate:
- How social networking can be used as a tool to source preferred vendors and traveller services
- Whether it can unlock more competitive rates and services
- The impact of the array of new traveller-friendly tools on the corporate traveller
- How the corporate travel industry can keep pace with the latest consumer technologies
- The real effect of social networking on procurement policies and practices
- Its potential impact on managed business travel
Event director David Chapple said: "The leisure travel market may have been the first to spot the potential of social media – with travellers using it for information sharing and suppliers as a new marketing tool – but the business travel sector is also increasingly embracing the opportunities social media offers.
“On the management side, it is a valuable procurement, marketing and customer service tool. With Facebook recently valued at $50 billion dollars, social media simply can’t be ignored by anyone – especially a global, customer service led industry like corporate travel."
To register for a BTMS visitor pass, BTMS Connect and any of the 26 conference sessions, please visit www.businesstravelshow.com.
By Linsey McNeill
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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