In Tourism, innovation, training and collaboration can turn Crisis into an Oportunity

The internet has become the first ally of Tourism Companies to fight Crisis. In the last months there is an increased interest from Cypriot travel companies to get trained on E-Marketing.

This interest is mainly visible among the big travel related companies who are keen to have their top level marketers trained to face the new challenges using The Online as  Major Business tool.

From our experience we see companies such as Louis Group, the Amathus Hotels, Stademos Hotels, the hotel Four Seasons in Limassol, the Aphrodite Hills Intercontinental, the Hotel St. George, the Capo Bay Hotel, the small Pefkos Hotel in Limassol, the Hotel Grecian Park, the travel agencies Elpis Travel, A.L Mantovani, CTT, Sunhouse and many others including the newly renovated Napa Mermaid (which already is managing its online reputation in a more active and effective manner), to have great interest on Online Marketing training. They want to create the adequate circumstances within their organisation so as the online becomes part of their dayily management routine.

This is the line the Cyprus Tourism Organisation is following as well. After the in house training the staff of the CTO received from October 08 until March 09 they have realised the need to manage their Online Reputation effectively and this is the reason that from this moment we will be able to see and feel online actions with direct and indirect reflections on Cyprus’ good name online.

This innovative initiative is the result of long training and change in the way the CTO sees Online tools. The seed was planted in October 08 and grew especially during the first E-tourism Forum (www.etourism-forum.com) that took place in Cyprus last February. Speakers from all over the world, experts in Online Marketing, have given their views on Tourism from very different, interesting and practical points of view.
Probably is the first time in the history of Cyprus that the Public Sector leads on the online world and this is the greatest opportunity for the Private Sector to join and create a strong cluster of collaboration with the objective to fight crisis and come out of it stronger and more competitive tourism wise.

Cyprus Tourism Synergies

I must say that the 18th and the 19th of February have been the most intense days of my life after the birth of my twins.

I have had the privilege to share conference panel with the most distinguished e-Marketing specialists in the world. Dr. Natasa Christodoulides, Gerd Leonhard, Richard Sedley, Ged Carroll, Andrew Gordon, John Horsley, Theodore Koumelis and the statistics brain of the Cyprus Tourism Organisation Constantinos Chappas.

Thank you Natasha for your methodology and level of information, Gerd for your vision and charm of the masses , Richard for your persuasion and artistic vein, Andrew for your humour and your fantastic realistic approaches, Ged for your online “honesty”. Thank you Theodore for landing the Emergence2009 flight smoothly, John for making us see that networking is social, Constandinos for showing us the bright side of the crisis. Special thanks to my colleague Patrick for standing me for 3 weeks and for being the master mind of www.emergence2009.com , last but not least, thank you Alex for being there observing the event and later giving me your wisdom and vision of the market oportunities.

I would also like to thank the whole industry of Cyprus that without them this event would not have been possible. Thanks to all the travel agents, hoteliers, guides, technology companies, and all the rest who understood that the world is now googleable and that facebooking brings real people close.

Hasta la vista …