LT. GOVERNOR'S BREAKFAST
A state of the industry address is the best way to kick-off Summit and inspire your efforts moving forward. Learn how Lt. Governor Nungesser, working with the Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, is elevating the state in the world marketplace.
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.
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.
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.
Are You a Leader or Manager?
Management/Service, Professional Development
Are you leading or managing? Are you helping employees stay alive and engaged in their work? Are you role-modeling the behaviors you want to see? Do you have defined internal and external service guidelines? Is motivating employees on the front burner? Shifting one’s mindset of being responsible for the job to being responsible for the people who are responsible for the job, is vital in today’s challenging workplace. The leader’s role is to create a supportive workplace environment which will, in turn, increase productivity, improve morale, and help recruit and retain top talent. This session will provide tips to help grow your leadership skills with a focus on boosting employee engagement and provide practical strategies to help motivate your team.
Travel Counselor Lunch & Learn: Revisiting the Visitor Experience..A Fresh Focus
*Current & past Certified Travel Specialist (CTS) participants only
Travel trends continue to emerge, and a renewed sense of urgency, for visitors to ‘hit the road,’ is at an all-time high. According to Expedia, we’re in the “Year of the GOAT – Greatest of All Trips,” so it is prime time for travel counselors to refresh, reenergize, and renew their skill sets to help create a memorable experience. This session will emphasize how staff engagements influence visitor engagements and impact social media reviews The strengths and challenges of Louisiana’s Visitor Centers will be discussed with a challenge to replace ‘best practices,’ ‘better practices.’ Join Rita and learn more about the vital role you play in creating a positive and contagious Visitor Experience.
Tourism Matters to Your Local Stakeholders
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.
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.
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.
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.
Letting Louisiana Shine Through Litter Prevention
In this session, hear about the latest efforts from Keep Louisiana Beautiful, the state’s anti-litter and community improvement organization. With momentum from a very successful Love the Boot Week, the organization has launched the “Let Louisiana Shine” campaign. Learn how you can get involved and help beautify your community to make it more welcoming to visitors.
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.
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 destination, how to genuinely attract diverse visitors, and common pitfalls of DEI. They will address DEI-related scenarios and curiosities that travel businesses 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!