I had the chance to present to a large gathering of airport and airport retail professionals today at the TFWA Asia-Pacific conference in Singapore.

My main theme was around the connected traveler – who has access to the internet throughout every single phase of travel – from the taxi he takes to the airport, to the airport lounge and duty-free areas, to in-flight wifi. And how this changes the dynamics of customer engagement for airlines and airport retailers and revenue opportunities. Below, I share the presentation for your viewing pleasure and would love to hear your comments on it too!

 

TFWA 2012 on Prezi
*Photo Credit: Brett Henry

 

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to deliver a presentation on passenger tracking at the American Association of Airport Executive’s (AAAE) Annual Conference in Phoenix, AZ.  As always, the conference was a hit and I was honored to be a part of this important annual industry event.

The theme of the panel session was on Passenger Tracking and how new technologies are providing benefits to airport operators, concessions operators and passengers. I shared the panel with Kristin Shaw of SITA, Inc. and Faith Varwig, of the Faith Group, LLC, who spoke of some of the ways in which technology is being used to implement passenger “flow management” in airports.

Beyond these emerging technologies, I shared in the presentation that it is also important to remember that there are many (free) ways that airports can also begin to track passengers through social media tools and airport website booking engines. By working these tools into a strategy and using what we have at our “social fingertips” airports can begin to get a feel for passenger behaviors and patterns. Pairing these social tools with the mobile and GPS/Bluetooth technologies that are up and coming can help airports to get the most …

 

I had the opportunity today to deliver a keynote on how airlines and travel brands are driving social media ROI at the Eyefortravel Travel Distribution Summit in London.

The theme was on driving ROI from social media efforts for travel companies – airlines, airports, hotels etc. And as with all my presentations, I’m posting the presentation here for your viewing pleasure. A video will be shared as soon I get it from the organizers, meanwhile, you can watch my previous presentations or enjoy the presentation below.

Feedback welcome, and if you’d like to engage us to help you with your social media strategy – just drop us a line.
DRIVING ROI FROM SOCIAL MEDIA FOR AIRLINES – THE PRESENTATION

Here’s what Live audience were saying…
[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/thompsonjones/status/192267631447916544"]
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[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/nesetdereli/status/192243010396880899"]
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Last week, I delivered four speeches, sat on four panel discussions and ran two MasterClasses. It’s been quite an exhilarating experience speaking to multiple groups of senior aviation executives. And more than ever, just being a sponge and soaking up knowledge from the other speakers has been very rewarding as well.

One of my best received speeches this week was the one I delivered at the Low Cost Airlines World Asia Pacific at Singapore last week. Previously, we’ve spent quite a bit of time talking about the changing face of loyalty as social media takes root in the minds of customers. Late last year, we even did a three-part special series (download pdf) on LCCs and loyalty. The first part offered five compelling reasons to start thinking about loyalty. The second part provided three easy ways to track loyal customers. And the final part offered five nearly no-cost solutions to drive loyalty.

In this presentation, I presented a culmination of our thoughts on this issue and presented the thesis that light-weight loyalty programs based on social advocacy bear immense opportunities for low-cost carriers. Since many of …

 

I delivered a speech today at the Airline Retail Conference 2012 in Singapore, around the topic of driving revenues and engaging customers using the latest in-flight entertainment and connectivity technologies. The focus was around leveraging three key shifts:

Gadgets in-flight – personal and those supplied by the airlines
The connected traveler – and how to drive engagement and revenue
Learning from other retail models – in this case Kuala Lumpur International Airport and Tesco in Korea

Sharing here my Prezi presentation. The recorded video will be available soon too, so please do check back!

The future of in-flight enternainment and technology on Prezi

(Photo Credit: Sergio Mello, Satisfly)

 

I had the opportunity to deliver a presentation and a MasterClass at the ACI Airport Exchange in Abu Dhabi, on the road ahead for social media for airports around the world.

While I focused on key business goals like driving customer service and non-aeronautical revenue, I shared case studies from this year’s SimpliFlying Award winner London Gatwick and nominee Changi, among others. During the half-day MasterClass, I shared in-depth case studies and gave the participants a feel of how using free tools like socialmention.com and Geochirp.com can make their job easy when trying to engage customers.

I share with you here my Prezi presentation from the conference. A video recording will be posted up soon as well. Would love your comments on this.
 

ACI on Prezi

[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/msjolund/status/141784071645835265"] [blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/Simillonpat/status/141775861463515137"] [blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/ACI_EUROPE/status/141841776901242880"]

 

It was an amazing day today, at the Social India Conference, in Bangalore, where my  presentation generated much appreciation and buzz. It was geared towards lessons learnt from the airline world, which can be applied to Indian context, as well as social organizations like Akshaya Patra, a beneficiary of the conference.

Sharing here my presentation (Prezi) and some of the tweets from the conference.
 

[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/happiestkhan/status/135245627306151936"] [blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/LHInsights/status/135248990504615936"] [blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/Thilak/status/135250466736050176] [blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/kapgup/status/135239383958818816"] [blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/ACertainSen/status/135239178349842432"] [blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/anish3075/status/135251624716288000"] [blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/SeoHelpz/status/135361896248377344"]

 

Yes, you read that correctly. I did not write Web 2.0. Of course, that’s not because it’s not relevant – it’s terribly relevant – but because this newer term encompasses Web 2.0 and then some. So what exactly do I mean by Mobile 2.0 and why is it important? Cutting to the chase, here are some things we all know: first, ordinary feature phones are dying a fast death and smartphone shipments are rising as iOS and Android become increasingly popular with others, such as Windows Phone 7, hot in pursuit. Second, people are increasingly using their phones to do tasks they earlier used their laptops or desktops for: hotel search, ticket bookings, banking, emails, etc. Third, smartphones are creating an all new category of the always connected traveler – a web-savvy, social-networking geek who isn’t afraid to declare to his virtual networks what he’s thinking or doing.
The future is mobile
Given the rapidly changing interactional/behavioural habits of the traveler, it has become important for airlines to target them where they can be found. Close your eyes and think for a moment about what the word mobile phone means to you: I’m quite certain that most of the readers here …

 

Last week in Amsterdam, in addition to hosting the annual SimpliFlying Awards, I delivered a presentation on how the traveler lifecycle is evolving and how airlines and airports around the world are engaging travelers before, during and after travel.

I’m sharing here the presentation, with examples of how SAS Scandinavian gets their frequent fliers to start dreaming, how jetBlue helps plan and validate trip plans and how Estonian Air empowers travelers to share memories of their trips on Facebook. Enjoy!

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A couple of days ago we released an exclusive infographic on how The Future of Loyalty Programs will be powered by Social Media. Given the excellent response it has received on Twitter as well as the blogosphere, we thought we’d go ahead and offer some more detailed insights into the current loyalty game and how social platforms are becoming increasingly important to it. Before we move on to the presentation, I’d like to share a few thoughts on the state of social media with respect to loyalty programs and even vice-versa.

Navigating an increasingly connected world
The internet has ensured that the times we live in are constantly changing. Everything about the world, even the beacons we hold sacred on the internet are restless, dynamic, shape-shifting. At the heart of all this change lies the virtual socialization of human society: more than ever before we are interacting with each other and with businesses online. And the most important part of this change is the growth in two-way conversations instead of one-way advertisements; the instant and spontaneous back and forth between a company and its customers rather than force-feeding pre-determined messages; most of all, the ability of social networks to amplify …