Posts
I love the idea of the SMILE Conference, somewhere for tourism sales and marketing professionals to come together and network and learn in a positive and enlightening environment. I have also had the pleasure of working behind the scenes with Islandbridge (Ger Tannam and Christine), Cyril McAree of Hotel and Restaurant Times and another one of my favourite people, Alex Gibson of DIT. I looked at the line-up and was really looking forward to hearing Marc Charron from TripAdvisor.com - but didn't really expect to be as impressed as I was by the entire day.
The programme was packed and the day superbly chaired by Orlaith Blaney, whose informal and relaxed manner whilst keeping up a mighty impressive pace was a lesson to us all. Marc Charron gave a fascinating insight into how hotels and most importantly hotel customers are using TripAdvisor.com. He was followed by Dave McKeirnan of Java Republic who took us through all the trials and tribulations of developing not only market share, but a new and innovative product and company. We also heard from Anne Marie Whelan how the renovations are going at the Shelbourne, and then were blown away by Stuart Fogarty of AFA O'Meara Advertising.
Stuart's presentation was more than memorable for it's honesty, creativity and absolute on the button-ness (OK, so I just invented a new word...) on the subject of how hotels and hospitality are having to be hugely inventive to market themselves in the current age. Advertising appears to be dead... product placement, relevance, experiental marketing are all the buzz words du jour.
Brilliant job done by the Storehouse, as always and I know that many people had the opportunity to try and blag a guest pass to one of the Mandarin Oriental Hotels from David Spooner - Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Mandarin - in the Gravity Bar afterwards. He was a fantastic speaker as well, and the images of the Mandarin Five Star properties left us all drooling! As well as grinning and smiling... roll on SMILE 2007!
You can listen to an interview with Marc Charron of Tripadvisor on Alex Gibson's Persuaders Marketing Podcast www.thepersuaders.libsyn.com
Smile 2006 presentations are available for download at: www.eventznet.ie/ev/ac/smile/thesmileconference2006/Downloads.aspx
To get back to our site: www.actionrecruitment.ie
