How to Think Like an Inventor to Generate New Ideas
Product Development
Payroll is your biggest expense. Why not utilize the collective brain power you’re already paying for, and let your employees have some fun at the same time. Inventor and innovator Julie Austin shows you how to turn every member of your organization into creative problem solvers. This is a high energy speech with some fun and interactive exercises.
The Art of Curating A Group Experience
Marketing/Sales
With experiential tourism on the rise, make your destination or attraction stand out with a curated group experience. Join cultural leadership expert, Dr. Angelique Feaster Evans as she shares the art of creating authentic and diverse group experiences. Learn about experiential tourism including types of experiences, components of group experiences, and designing experiential products. This engaging speech will inspire you to create a one-of-a-kind group experience masterpiece.
Excel Under Pressure & Thrive in the Game of Business
Management/Service, Marketing/Sales
In a world where we lose one out of every four customers each year and only close one out of every four sales opportunities, the session provides a guide to driving sales and deepening relationships powered by the Market Force Global Styles framework.
Closing Lunch
Little things make a big difference in customer experience. In this keynote presentation, Stan shares the key ingredients of creating signature added value. Stan is very engaging and will challenge you to think about how to position your services/service experience to customers in some new ways.
How to Use the Travel Story Format to Reach Today's Traveler
Communications
From Spotify to TikTok to Instagram stories and reels, the story format has captivated the minds of consumers, travelers, and marketers. Join this session to learn how to take advantage of this popular visual format to get in front of travelers, increase engagement, and drive traffic to your destination.
Travel Counselor Lunch & Learn
*Current & past Certified Travel Specialist (CTS) participants only
Service-oriented organizations know and apply certain practices that other companies overlook differentiating them from the pack giving them a leading edge. These companies solve issues before customers even know they exist – they fill needs before customers know they have a need – they offer value without hesitation – the understand the customer is not always right and that the customer often doesn’t know what they want until they see it. Join Rita to hear more about how customer service is not a department - it is an attitude - a culture - an exception vs. the norm.
How To Get Media Attention
Communications
Not getting the media coverage you deserve? How To Get Media Attention provides an overview of the media, details about what journalists look for and what they consider news, and what executives and marketing leaders can do to gain valuable exposure through news outlets, both online and traditional.
The Art of Belonging
Professional Development
Travel, tourism and events are on the rise! Great news, right? Whoa! Wait a minute, we’ve been through a lot. We’re a little burned out, stressed out, short staffed, we’ve lost jobs, found new jobs and some of us are still dealing with some difficult emotions and overwhelm from the unpredictability of the past couple years. How do we move forward when we’re still bouncing back?
The key to resilience, wellbeing and happiness is belonging. All human beings have a fundamental need to belong—and the pandemic intensified it. We have more responsibility, less connection, increased burnout and a significant rise in mental health issues. So what will fuel us personally and professionally as well as positively impact our day to day experience? Belonging.
When we feel like we can be ourselves, we feel valued and appreciated for who we are; we are happier, we feel more comfortable: and we feel safer. We feel like we belong, and that’s good for each one of us as well as our collective experience. When we feel like we belong, we show up better for each other.
Let Shelley take you on a journey and inspire you to make a difference and build true belonging that starts from each one of us.
Local Advocacy Panel
Management/Service, Professional Development
In this session moderated by New Orleans & Co’s Walt Leger, our expert panelists Former Louisiana Speaker Chuck Kleckley, Livingston Mayor JT Taylor, hotelier Chris Landry and Monroe-West Monroe CVB President Alana Cooper will teach you the importance of building local stakeholders. The discussion will center around working with mayors, building local partnerships, building a brand for your community and more.
LOT General Session
A panel of the Louisiana Office of Tourism’s international reps will give market updates from the UK, Germany, France, Brazil, Netherlands and Canada, and discuss how the international visitor’s expectations have changed in recent years.
Intentional Inclusion: How to Create Welcoming Places for All
Management/Service
Timothy Bush and Sophia Hyder Hock will have a candid discussion about what it takes to cultivate community and a sense of belonging within a DMO, how to genuinely attract diverse visitors, and common pitfalls of DEI. They will address DEI-related scenarios and curiosities that DMOs are working through and provide insight on how emotional intelligence can create meaningful impact moving forward.
How to Hire & Market Like a Generational Genius
Marketing/Sales, Management/Service
Anyone can become a “Generational Genius” in today’s tourism climate. The Millennials are the largest generation in human history and already playing a major role in successful management and marketing strategy, but they present challenges that have never been faced. McDonald's, Starbucks, Wendy’s, cable tv, Fiat, Target and many other corporations are attempting to reach this group in the way they uniquely hear and communicate. They use social media, are mobile in every possible instance and have distinct marketing needs and language. And with Gen Z coming of age, you can be sure…Millennials and Gen Z will be running your travel/guest business one day!
The Transformation of Visitor Centers
Product Development
Are visitor centers still relevant? For every destination that shutters its visitor center, another expands or innovates, so maybe the right answer is — it depends. In this panel, we’ll discuss innovative strategies for evolving visitor centers into the next era — and when it might be time to change course completely.