Up to 50 leading minds influencing the development of online travel will come together on March 26-27 in Dubai to debate the trends and issues impacting one of the world's leading growth markets.
WIT Middle East, held at Sofitel Dubai Jumeirah Beach, will field speakers from Europe, the US, Africa, India, China, Japan and Singapore who will share the stage with local experts from the region.
Senior vice president - business technology solutions of Emirates Group IT, Dr Nejib Ben Khedher, will lead the roster of industry leaders in the region. He will address the topic of airline distribution and how Emirates is looking to technology to drive the next phase of growth for one of the world's most-watched airlines.
Two other speakers from Emirates - Sameer Poonja, head of digital technologies, and Sanjay Sharma, manager-IT innovation - will shed light on what the airline is doing in mobile, and how it is innovating and fostering start-ups respectively.
Innovation and entrepreneurship will be a key area of discussion in line with WIT's purpose of supporting the start-up eco-system.
Four founders of leading online travel companies - Rolf Schromgens, Trivago; Stephan Ekbergh, Travelstart; Keyur Joshi, MakeMyTrip and Kei Shibata, Travel.jp - will open the conference to talk about their own story as well as their views on how they see the industry changing.
There'll also be a focus on investment. Fritz Demopoulos who, after making his exit from Qunar, has set up his own fund, Queen's Road Capital, will talk about investor sentiment and where he sees the opportunities globally while Paul Kenny of Emerge Ventures will speak specifically to the investment climate in the region.
Beyond the technology trends, there is no doubt the Middle East is emerging as a key inbound destination and outbound market and discussions will focus on the plans by Dubai and Abu Dhabi to develop inbound growth as well as how to attract the new digitally-savvy travellers from the Middle East.
Boost in Middle East travel to UK expected following visa waiver scheme
VisitBritain, whose regional general manager, Asia Pacific & Middle East, Sumathi Ramanathan, will be speaking at WIT Middle East, is expecting a boost in GCC visitors this year following the decision by the UK government to grant visa-free travel to Emiratis.
Visit Britain reported that a record 530,000 visitors from the GCC landed on British shores in 2012, a 6% increase on the year before. Visitors from the GCC are also among the highest spenders, with an average of US$3,417 per person per visit and the UK is the second most visited destination by UAE residents.
Europe can also expect a boost following the February vote by the European Parliament to exempt Emirati nationals from needing a Schengen visa.
Said Yeoh Siew Hoon, editor and founder of WIT, "The guiding principle in designing the programme for WIT Middle East is how best to blend global expertise and local insights. You'll see that thread throughout all the discussions.
"Whether it's about airline distribution, hotel distribution, social media and mobile, and destination marketing, our content is driven by the appreciation that while online travel is a global industry, it is deeply local and everyone has to be mindful of the unique characteristics of each market."
According to an IPSOS study in 2013, studying sharing habits - % of respondents indicating they share "everything" or "most things online" - Saudi Arabia emerged as the biggest sharer, followed by India, Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey.
Smartphone penetration and high adoption and usage is also a distinct characteristic of the region, and the increased activity by players such as Cleartrip, Musafir and hotelscombined is leading to increased consumer awareness of booking travel online.
"The whole market is developing in very interesting ways and while we see some parallels between the markets in Asia and the Middle East - for example, both regions are very social and highly mobile - there are very distinct individual characteristics and that's what we want our event to uncover," said Siew Hoon.
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About WIT
Web In Travel (WIT) was launched in 2005 to create a new marketplace around the internet and how it had and would change travel in Asia Pacific. It wanted to focus thought, ideas and inspiration around the fastest growing and changing segment of travel. Over the years, it's grown not only in numbers, but in quality of attendance and speakers. It attracts top global and regional speakers in online travel distribution and has become the event for the who's who in online travel technology, distribution and marketing.
For more information, please contact:
Angeline Rivera
Web In Travel Middle East
c/o BizGate Marketing and Consultancies
P.O. Box 234558, Dubai, UAE
Tel.: +971 4 2981775
Email: angeline@webintravel.com
© Press Release 2014
