Smile 2009: Speaker Lineup Confirmed

SETTING THE SCENE: THE MARKET FORECAST SESSION

9.00am Sarah Duignan
STR Global

What Lies Ahead: A brief from the global benchmark specialists on the latest travel trends from Ireland, Europe & the US.

CRUNCHING THE NUMBERS: THE REVENUE MANAGEMENT SESSIONS
It’s never been more important to re-visit your revenue and pricing strategies. In these sessions, you’ll get answers to all your revenue and pricing questions, benchmark your strategy against your others in your market and prepare your company for the year ahead.

9.30am Patrick Landman
CEO
Xotels.com

Under Your Nose: While most revenue management activity focuses on room revenue, you may be missing the opportunities that are right under your roof in conference & banqueting. In this session, Patrick identifies the other sources of revenue available to you in-house and in-reach.

10.10am Kate Varini,
CEO
BetterRevenue.com

The Bottom Line: Under scrutiny many revenue management strategies prove misguided. In this session, Kate Varini takes a closer look at this exacting area and examines whether your activities are helping or hurting the bottom line.


10.45am Coffee Break

OPPORTUNITY CLICKS – THE DIGITAL SESSIONS
The digital era is a transformational one, where your customers are as responsible for creating the product, brand and experience as you are. The Digital Session brings together some of Ireland’s best brains in digital.

11.15am Brian Harte
Head of Customer Engagement and eMarketing
Tourism Ireland

Web Masters: Being online is no longer enough – you’ve got to really engage your audience. In this presentation, Brian Harte outlines some of the innovative approaches Tourism Ireland are taking to putting Ireland at forefront of the new conversation.

11.50am Richard Delevan
Digital Client Services
McConnells

The Golden Thread: With a career that spans journalism, politics and advertising, Richard Delevan has both made and reported on the news. In this hot-off-the-web session, Richard takes his passion for all things digital to help you unravel the strands of this new-tangled media!

12.30pm Rob Shine
Cybercom

Digital Case Study: With experience working on high-tech solutions for clients across all sectors, Rob will demonstrate some practical examples from hospitality of how to go end-to-end seamlessly using the latest technologies.

1.00pm Lunch

1.30pm Bobby Kerr
Insomnia Coffee and RTE’s Dragons Den.

What’s The Buzz? This leading entrepreneur throws down the gauntlet and offers his thoughts on how to be bold in these challenging times.


CHANNEL CROSSING: THE DISTRIBUTION STRATEGY SESSIONS
Choosing the correct distribution strategy is central to marketing effectiveness – in these sessions, we examine a number of key issues around making the right choice.

2.05pm Des O’Mahony
Founder
Bookassist

Go Direct: They say turnover is vanity, profit sanity; in this session, Des outlines how you can lower your cost of sale and increase customer loyalty through more effective direct booking strategies.

2.45pm Iselin Skogland
E-Hotelservices.Com

Who Dares Wins: The electronic distribution landscape is no place for the fainthearted. In this session, international expert Iselin will equip you with the necessary insights and strategies to make the most of the opportunities that exist.

3.15pm Coffee break

OVER THE LINE: THE SALES PRESENTATION SESSION

3.30pm Richard Newman
M62

Clinching The Deal: Now that you’ve secured that meeting, how will you bring that new business across the line? In this session, master marketer Richard Newman will offer communications tips on making a winning presentation.

TAKE IT FROM THE TOP: THE LEADERSHIP SESSION

4.00pm Panel

Voices Of Experience: We wind up the day with a panel discussion led by Alex Gibson to explore a number of the key issues in marketing with leadership professionals.

Speakers TBC

BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER: OPEN NETWORKING

4.45pm Open Networking Event