E-Tourism Frontiers, the organisers of the 5th annual E-Tourism Africa Summit, announced today that international presenters from both Facebook and YouTube will be speaking at the Summit in Cape Town on the 13th and 14th of September. Roel Spree a travel specialist from Facebook will be presenting as a keynote speaker and Will Rocklin, a global brand specialist will be presenting for YouTube.
South African Tourism is the Title sponsor of the event and William Price, the Global Head of E-Marketing, said SAT was delighted that social media superstars Facebook and YouTube would be presenting at the event.
With Facebook set to have one billion users by the end of 2012 and YouTube increasing its content to over 30 billion hours of online video each month, it is absolutely vital that our tourism sector know how to manage and leverage these two super powers of social media, said Price.
This years E-Tourism Africa Summit, will feature a host of new speakers including presentations from Wanderfly, a fast growing global travel site that seeks to inspire travellers and allow them to use content and recommendations to find their ideal travel destinations and suppliers. Another new speaker will be Humanity TV- a new web based travel series that showcases destinations via engaging and entertaining travel experiences.
Damian Cook, the CEO and Founder of E-Tourism Frontiers, said video was a big theme for this years event. Travel is all about the visual. Whether someone is posting a photo of their trip on Facebook or publishing a video of their travel experience on YouTube, there will be a much greater level of connection and engagement with a photo or video than text. We will have a host of sessions on how tourism and travel businesses can use and manage multi-media, edit and upload photos and video content and we will also be giving away some GOPRO cameras that are great for action experiences, said Cook.
Also returning for this years summit will be Expedia, Trip Advisor and Justin Reid, the former Head of Digital for Visit Britain and now with Betapond, a preferred Facebook developer. Justin be hosting a special session on how tourism companies can better manage and have more success with online travel focused campaigns.
William Price from South African Tourism went on to say, the focus on visual and the outstanding line up of international speakers will give the industry a real boost.
South African Tourism is very excited to be sponsoring the E-Tourism Africa Summit. It is fantastic that our industry will have access to speakers from the worlds biggest social media platforms. We are also very pleased that visual is a key theme for this years event. As a destination we have so many incredibly beautiful, not to mention, action packed and exciting travel experiences. I am thrilled our industry will be able to learn and understand from the summit, how they can turn real life experiences into online visual experiences that can be shared around the world for the benefit of both local tourism businesses and for South Africa, said Price.
The upcoming E-Tourism Africa Summit will take place at the Cape Town International Convention Centre on the 13th and 14th of September. The 1st day of the summit will feature a packed program of international speakers and the second day of the summit will be an optional day of training seminars on digital marketing, social media, mobile solutions, real time reservations and e-commerce. All delegates attending the summit will also receive the updated online tourism textbook – E Tourism Frontiers Guide to Online Tourism the South African Edition which is sponsored by South African Tourism.
Registration for the E-Tourism Africa Summit 2012 is open now: www.e-tourismfrontiers.com
