Events like Digital Travel help to broaden your perspective

They take you out of your comfort zone and offer you a higher field of view. You can see in detail the challenges that other teams in your organisation might be facing – ones that you're not necessarily working on, while also keeping an eye on what innovations are taking place in the industry and in customer experience generally.

As part of my presentation I've discussed the evolution how brands interact with customers and the role that social can play in a wider digital marketing mix, and the importance of social as a means to excite customers about your customer offering and your business generally.

I've had a number of pre-arranged introductions here at Digital Travel

It means that while attending the conference you're maximising the benefit you get from it and you're seeing the people that you want to see rather than the ones that you happen to bump into on the day.

As an airline business we were pretty early to get into the digital space

We get a huge percentage of our bookings coming through our website upwards of 90% now, so it's a space we've been active in for a long time. Similarly in the social space we're working hard to make our social presence engaging, interesting and useful for our guests.

We've noticed significant shifts of guests contacting us on social

We've found that customers are increasingly making the shift from traditional contact centre channels, such as email, phone, live chat. They want convenience, they want a channel of their choosing. Social media are very comfortable environments for them, and for us. We've noticed significant shifts of guests contacting us on social in relation to existing bookings and changes they want to make, questions around baggage allowances or upgrades or whatever it may be. So we're seeing increases of 30-40% year-on-year. It's certainly an area we're investing in.

Things like this conference will help you see the bigger picture and help you to see opportunities you never knew existed

When we work within our own areas day-in-day-out I guess you get blinkered by what challenges are most urgent for you. Some opportunities will pass you by.

Digital Travel: Creating Connected Experiences

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