The inaugural Direct Booking Summit: Asia-Pacific will take place in The Fullerton Hotel Singapore on February 27-28. The event, hosted by Triptease, will bring together hoteliers from across the region to discuss practical strategies to increase the number of bookings that come directly through the hotel website (as opposed to through online travel agents, or ‘OTAs’). The conference will specifically address regional challenges such as the problem of rogue wholesale rates, mobile UX challenges and the struggle to maintain rate parity in a fragmented OTA market.
“We’re excited and honoured to be hosting the first ever Direct Booking Summit in Asia at the incredible Fullerton Hotel Singapore. The Fullerton is a valued partner of ours in the Direct Booking Movement, and we know the hotel will be the perfect setting for the amazing content and speakers that we’re bringing to Singapore in February.” – Alexandra Zubko, Chief Customer Officer, Triptease
The Direct Booking Summit series has been running for three years in Europe and the Americas and consistently scores higher than 90% on delegate satisfaction surveys. The Asia-Pacific event has been launched to bring the same exceptional standard of discussion and debate to this unique region.
“I give the event and its speakers 5 stars out of 5. I appreciated the opportunity to hear from so many speakers – they provided a panoramic perspective on how to fight or get along with OTAs.” – Ayudh Nakaprasit, Eastiny Group of Hotels and Resorts, Thailand
As well as revealing the venue that will play host to the Direct Booking Summit, Triptease is today announcing the first confirmed speakers for the event. Joining hosts Charlie Osmond and Alexandra Zubko so far will be:
- Sunish Sadasivan, VP E-Commerce & Revenue Management, Chroma Hospitality
- Blessy Townes, Group Director Digital Marketing, Discovery Hotels and Resorts
- Chetan Patel, VP Strategic Marketing & E-Commerce, Onyx Hospitality Group
- Michael Belanger, VP Revenue & Distribution, GCP Hospitality (Gaw Capital Group)
- Marc Bichet, Chief Marketing Officer, GCP Hospitality (Gaw Capital Group)
- Laura-Marie Arens, Team Lead Hotel Ads APAC, Google
- Grant Colquhoun, Senior Director of Account Management APAC, TripAdvisor
- Jeff Baars, Group Director of Marketing & Digital, Quest Apartment Hotels
- Thomas Wenger, Managing Director, Enderun Hospitality Management
- Aida Merdovic, Director of Online, Hamilton Island.
Sunish Sadasivan will be presenting on ‘The wholesaler challenge,’ referring to the common occurrence of wholesale rates appearing on OTAs and breaking rate parity with hotels.
Google’s Laura-Marie Arens and TripAdvisor’s Grant Colquhoun will be appearing on a panel focused on ‘Driving more direct through metasearch’. The speakers will discuss how hotels can take advantage of this fast-growing advertising channel.
The Summit’s twenty sessions will cover a diverse range of topics, from conversion analytics to advice on personalisation. Hoteliers and vendors can register for tickets now at www.directbookingsummit.com/register. Hoteliers can save $200 on a full-price ticket until the 30th November.