Webinar Series: DMOs & Recovery Readiness

By Wendy Olson Killion

May 15, 2020

As part of our continued mission to help our advertising partners and the travel industry navigate the COVID-19 crisis, we recently held the second installments of our COVID-19 webinar series.

Building on the initial webinars that explored the role of destination marketing organizations (DMOs) during this unprecedented global crisis, the second webinar explored “DMOs and Recovery Readiness” in each of the major regions. The hour-long discussions featured insights from our destination partners on how they navigated past crises, their current work during COVID-19, and how they plan to inspire travelers and revitalize tourism when the time is right.

We held three regional webinars on this topic, each hosted by Monya Mandich, including an:

  • Americas session with Jennifer Andre leading the discussion with Leah Chandler, Chief Marketing Officer for Discover Puerto Rico; Staci Mellman, Chief Marketing Officer for VISIT FLORIDA; and Fletch Brunelle, Vice President of Marketing for Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) – click HERE for the full on-demand recording.
  • Asia Pacific session with Andrew van der Feltz leading the discussion with Manoharan Periasamy, Senior Director of Advertising & Digital Division, Tourism Malaysia; and Lim Shoo Ling, Director of Brand, Singapore Tourism Board – click HERE for the full on-demand recording.
  • European session also led by Andrew featuring Dennis Englund, Market Director UK & US, VisitDemark; and Dalma Horvath, Regional Head of Business Development, Hungarian Tourism Agency – click HERE for the full on-demand recording.
Each of these industry leaders offers a glimpse inside recovery efforts during various previous crises and highlights key learnings on how travel marketers can navigate the current COVID-19 crisis.

The webinar also focuses upon an important trend: While travel may have slowed, dreaming of travel hasn’t. In fact, the majority of Expedia visitors (42 percent) are thinking about their next trip while 26 percent are actively shopping.

Discussion topics included:

  • How travel marketers can meaningfully connect with and inspire travel audiences, including virtual tours, soundscape videos, and virtual vacations.
  • Approaches for sharing industry-facing and traveler-facing safety-first business re-opening tips and current travel safety information.
  • How past crises led to greater crisis preparedness, strengthened stakeholder relationships, and helped provide greater agility to mobilize resources.
    center.

Even as we continue to navigate these unprecedented challenges, travelers are still shopping and investigating future travel. Travel is essential to people, businesses and economies around the world, and tourism will always play a critical role in reinvigorating the economy and supporting destination recovery after disaster strikes.

“DMOs and Recovery Readiness” combines both a pragmatic approach to disaster response as well as strategies on how DMOs can continue to authentically connect with travel audiences, and ultimately, prepare for recovery. We invite you to watch the full on-demand webinars from any or each of these regional sessions, and welcome you to join our upcoming webinars as we continue to explore the quickly shifting travel industry and advertising landscape in our COVID-19 webinar series.

You can also find out more by visiting our COVID-19 Resource Center.

Wendy Olson Killion

Senior Vice President, Expedia Group Media Solutions

Wendy Olson Killion is senior vice president of Expedia Group Media Solutions, the travel advertising platform of Expedia Group, and leads the business including product, engineering, strategy, operations, and partner-facing teams. Prior to this role, she was vice president of business development, where she oversaw the global teams responsible for managing advertising partner relationships and campaigns across the portfolio of Expedia Group travel brands. She previously directed global product development and marketing for the entire suite of advertising products, including display, email, social and mobile solutions. Before joining Expedia Group, Wendy led product management of the emerging channels and brands at Cars.com, including their mobile offerings. Wendy also previously spent five years at J.D. Power and Associates where she managed a suite of publications aimed at defining automotive marketing online, and co-founded the Automotive Marketing Roundtable conference. Wendy serves on the HSMAI Americas board and on the VisitBritain Tourism Advisory Council board. She is a graduate of the University of Puget Sound and lives in Washington state with her family.

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