For 2010 We've moved

After the founding of Avantless and the establishment of the company in Cyprus, theEtourism Forum Cluster Initiative was borne out from a strategic relation with the Cyprus Tourism Trade Organization where our content strategy has allowed out to focus our efforts in changing Tourism Policy and promotion is executed in Cyprus.


Best regards and linking up: Etourism Forum Group

Let’s Meet in Cyprus, meetings and events under the sun

The Cyprus Tourism Organisation is preparing full speed for the up coming IMEX 2009 in Frankfurt. Cyprus is a great place for meetings of all kinds. The island offers a variety of Hotels that have all sizes of Meeting facilities with very good technological infrastructure to meet the needs of all kinds of meetings. The small distances and the great climate, especially now when rain came back again and the country is totally green, give the opportunity to the attendees of the meetings events you have to enjoy some time off the business agenda.

Meet in Limassol, Paphos or Agia Napa and in the afternoon visit the coffee shop of a “remote” village like Vasa Koilaniou near Troodos. Enjoy a home made sweet in the square of Omodos and then drive back to your hotel for a cocktail. In the evening you can continue your meeting at the old port of Limassol or in the fishing port of Paphos enjoying some fresh grilled fish.

Meet with the hotels and the DMCs from Cyprus to prepare your meeting plan. They will be there at (stand No C480.)

Hotels:
GRANDRESORT, LIMASSOL
GOLDEN BAY HOTEL
LE MERIDIEN LIMASSOL SPA & RESORT
INTERCONTINENTAL APHRODITE HILLS RESORT

DMCs:
A.D.A. TRAVELSCOPE LTD
HONEYWELL TRAVEL
OM DESTINATION MANAGEMENT
INCEMA TRAVEL
NEON CONFERENCES & INCENTIVES LTD

Ask for a meeting with them here

This post is published from www.emergence2009.com

Dot Travel - No Clues as to how to move on with a concept

Confusion still reigns over dot-travel via kwout

"Since when are TUI and Thomas Cook standards sustainability of the industry? When is it that they have been moving their business models beyond price, mass tourism and pure transactional webs. [·]Travel was born with the travel 2.0 concept and embracing the idea that content and conversations are most pertinent. If you belong to the travel industry and aim for meaning, 4 seconds ain't a lot of time to be credible and propose value, and surely not achievable today with the scarcity of valid names in the dot com arena. Issue is that the industry still struggles with things like SEM, SEO, domain strategy and post-click marketing - and these are the true barriers of adoption because business wise it makes sense to use .travel. Whole countries like Canada and New Zealand are today true beacons of integrated concepts applied to communication online - would you want to guess what their strategies guided them to use as domains?

lychnos-etravel-awards

lychnos-etravel-awards,
originally uploaded by etourismforum.

In limassol at the etourism forum, the first Lychnos etravel awards were given in a ceremony that made the cloenda of the 2day event hosted by the cyprus tourism organisation and organised by Avantless. For the occasion an international panel discussed issues challenging the travel and tourism industry.

Prizes were only give to 3 of the five categories:

- Online Brand category was offered to CapoBay, for the renovating efforts undergoing in their strategy and online presence
- Destination Product/Theme was given to the Short Escapes program of the Cyprus Tourism Organisation for efforts in stimulating internal tourism deman and creating a platform for whole sector to benefit from
- Promotion to Cyprus was attributed to best content site driving most inquiries and visits to Cyprus, the Visit Europe site which is maintained by the emarketing team of the Cyprus Tourism Organisation.

etourism forum springboard

E Tourism Forum Emergence2009

View more documents from Patrick Denis. (tags: destination-marketing emarketing-tourism)

People moving people, achieving our endeavours in 2009

Our appeal for 2009 may be unconventional, simplistic but certainly life-changing.

We are now more than ever, exposed to unpredictability and despite recent events, we believe that embracing change is still a remedy for moving ahead with our business challenges and the imposed financial limitations to growth.

For the occasion we have created the emergence 'lending team’ through Kiva, which enables entrepreneurs to fund ideas and initiatives to sustain small businesses globally. This is a unique opportunity for us to use Micro-lending as a collaborative effort to empower people to execute life-changing projects in a sustainable way.

Time after time we are witnesses of the surprising and magical potentialities of being interconnected and we hope that with the gesture, we will individually also be answering to the need of restoring confidence for moving ahead in 2009.

New territories for exploration in [dot] travel

New realities require new type of explorers: entrepreneurs and companies capable to observe beyond commerce and conventional spaces for relationships, often too focussed on the most exacerbating mercantilism. When everything appeared to be discovered, they wonder into virgin territories. Is it possible in the sea of webs and blogs (of which there are 155.585.825 millions) that there can be anything left to be discovered? Yes.

Our Gift of Hope for 2008

Intimately bound at this time of giving are Children, Gifts and Hope.

On the eve of our journey into 2008, with more than just stars to guide us, we wanted to showcase a project that symbolizes our capability to promote, project, create and interact in a mutually beneficial manner.

In our monthly reviews, weekly seminars, client interviews, writing and discussing, we never cease to over-emphasize the importance of connectivity and access, associated to a change in mentality, habits and learning.

In essence, One Laptop Per Child Project should have the merit of us all in a more sustained manner all year long. Despite obstacles and criticism, reaching to 2 billion kids is a feat enough to make even the boldest of us blush.

This is how we come to dedicate to you, to your families and to children around the world, thrilling experiences with opportunities for exploration, experimentation and expression in the New Year 2008.

Echo for network weavers

Human contact is valuable for effective relationships, since it provides us with important relationship cues, far more tangible than the written or the spoken word.
Today's relationship and networked economy requires us to evoke much of the same principles in our virtual networks. Responsiveness and trustworthiness have adopted new and more organic forms to enhance human contact in most unexpected and wonderful ways. Support your relationships, weave your digital network. Ed/

Charting for sustainable

While taking part in WTM’s World Responsible Tourism Day, we clearly shared the message about what it takes to making a difference. This does not necessarily mean undertaking a massive or complicated initiative, involving millions of people or thousands of kilometers of beautiful coastline – It’s for anyone that can contribute to and be involved following the
principles that define responsible Tourism. It is a start to cultivate our awareness and our our decision making to create initiatives that can be sustainable economically for all.

The common sense starting requirements are these:

• Minimises negative economic, environmental and social impacts
• Generates benefits and access to the industry for local people
• Involves local people in decisions-making that affect their lives
• Contributes to the conservation of natural and cultural heritage
• Enriches experiences and understanding for more meaningful local connections
• Provides access for physically challenged people
• Is culturally sensitive, encourages respect between tourists and hosts, and builds local pride and confidence

...and there will be more to follow as we take it upon ourselves to take upon this issue beyond the buzz. Elmp/

Travel decisions and the environmentally conscious

We are currently experiencing a rebirth of environmentally conscious decision making, at least lots of entities are willing to compromise themselves with a clear agenda on the issue. As we are attending Philoxenia this year, we wanted to take the temperature on this issue within the context of Meeting & events in Southeastern Europe and the Mediterranean. So we invited Theodore Koumelis, co-organiser and responsible of hosted buyers program along with Helexpo, to express his opinion on the matter.....

Who is your client?

Today I reconciled myself with how an ordinary client feels, just as a client of any company happy to remind me of how good it is and how fast they can respond to any need that ‘I’ may have. Their personalized solutions are based on the knowledge they have about me; my company’s name, my position, an e-mail address and most of all their vast experience and unmatched service, adjusted prices and high quality.
Which company are we talking about? You name it.
The hard thing is to discover companies with arguments and messaging driven towards relationships - to know, to exchange, in other words, to demonstrate a true client orientation, beyond a mere commercial communication void of any personal expectations and how we can contribute as clients to their competitiveness.
Todays client is wise and seasoned, so much that he has the capacity to ignore any messages not intended for ‘him’ which is not based on honesty, sincerity and empathy. Client’s criteria are driven by values and this requires a change in strategy, messaging and relationship. The new objective is anticipation and learning about needs through open exchanges. In other words, it means that the new model is based on listening, converting ourselves in receptors and not transmitters in order to reach an understanding of the client’s singular reality.
Listening is becoming valuable, an indispensable virtue which some will be possess to offer anticipated propositions to ‘its clients’, which are fast and personalized, not only adapted to the moment but attractive without being opportunistic.
This model requires managing the core, the form and the tempo suggested by the client, when we listen carefully. Only then will information arrive, which we will transform to knowledge and finally to perceived value and preference.

Are potential users willing to try your services?

If so, can you adapt them for more genuine customer experiences?

Your competitiveness may well depend on it - watching leading consumer companies seeking out their next potential customer or wanting to keep their actual customer base. Dazzled by dynamism of the actual marketplace and influence of social media, engaging seasoned customers is currently a problem for which there is no quick fix. It’s more a more demonstrated that increasing the hype, can just be the wrong tactics and no effective remedy for the uncomfortable lack of predictability and control. As we become confronted with commodization and market fragmentation on a global scale, listening to the customer is a virtue that some will possess, and adaptive anticipation another – but of true worthiness, is being able to influence positively on the perceived value of our service for the customer.
Hype-inflated products and services simply do not provide the necessary basis for meeting the customer needs with a transparent and trusted dialogue. It’s very visible the change of what customers value but much less is how to meet their potential needs. Shouldn’t you want to be considered the valued one?

Time meets accuracy

How diagramming helps focus on key planning issues

Preparation and organization is elemental for any successful client management process, however facing reality in the service industry is quite distinct. Client satisfaction is too often a direct measure of how well we adapt to unplanned situations, where time saving technologies today are of the essence. Nothing can be more valuable in the planning stages for an event than tools that allows us to tackle clients' needs without doubts on precision of our diagrammed set-ups or our estimations. This capacity converted into flexibility makes overcoming last-minute requests a true bonus for mutually rewarding relationships.