TTA Worldchoice has announced the line up for its Strength & Vision Conference, taking place at PortAventura from September 23-25.
p>TTA Worldchoice has announced the line up for its Strength & Vision Conference, taking place at PortAventura from September 23-25. Following the Welcome Party at Salou's Yacht Club on the Friday evening, the business sessions will begin on the Saturday morning at conference centre at the PortAventura resort. The Group's senior management team, Simon Hargreaves, Gary Lewis and Ellis Cain-Jones will open the main plenary with a market update, a review of the Group's performance for 2011 and its business plans for the future. It is expected that Simon Hargreaves will also announce a number of new key strategic initiatives for the Group.
Three of the industry's largest brands will then address the conference, including: Ian Ailles, CEO, Thomas Cook UK & Ireland; Conrad Clifford, the newly appointed CEO at Monarch; and Derek Jones, Vice President Distribution and Operations at Kuoni. The speakers will be giving their views on the current state of the market and sharing their plans for supporting the TTA Worldchoice Group, and the independent sector going forward.Delegates will also hear from RCCL's Jo Rzymowska, associate vice-president and general manager UK & Ireland.
With over 60 of the Group's commercial partners signed up to attend, there will be a number of Business Partner Forums staggered throughout the Saturday giving delegates an opportunity to meet with the Group's key suppliers. The conference Gala Dinner will be hosted at the luxury Termes Montbrio Hotel on the Saturday night. During the evening Awards will be presented to the Group's business partners that members feel are the 'best in class' for their sectors.TTA Worldchoice's management team will also present a special award to the TTA and Worldchoice member who they feel have demonstrated real 'strength & vision' in what has been another very challenging year for the industry.
The business agenda on the Sunday will be centred around workshops and external key note speakers. Adrian Johnson will open the main plenary on the Sunday morning, leading a session on using social media for business. Former journalist Adrian Johnson owns PR and social media agency Umpf - a top ten UK social media agency.
The Sunday Workshop sessions will be themed around: Customer retention, acquisition & local marketing; and Using social media to engage with customers. There will also be a session devoted to ATOL, which will be facilitated by Andy Cohen, the Head of ATOL Licensing at the CAA. The Conference's closing speaker will be Jo Fairley, pioneering co-founder of Green & Black's Organic Chocolate. She will talk about her personal experiences and insights into building a company that she saw grow from being a niche organic and fair-trade brand to a global chocolate name, and recently voted 'coolest food brand' in the UK for the third year running by Coolbrands.
Simon Hargreaves, managing director, TTA Worldchoice said: "We have a robust agenda with a number of excellent speakers both from within the trade and outside. The agenda has been designed to ensure that those attending get as much practical and tangible output as possible, and I am confident that they will leave PortAventura feeling inspired to use new marketing techniques to reach new customers, whilst building even stronger relationships with existing ones."
