Wrapping up ITB Berlin 2019

The beginning of March sees travel and tourism brands from around the globe make the annual trip to Berlin, Germany to visit ITB, the world’s largest travel trade show. Expedia Group Media Solutions was there in force this year, with over 35 of us attending the show to meet with travel partners, share knowledge, and learn about new travel trends.

During the event, we had the pleasure of hosting our first European Insights Summit of the year. This was an opportunity to present data from our latest custom studies, share case studies and discuss how our travel partners can better understand global travelers.

Myriam Younes presents research

It was standing room only as Myriam Younes, Director, Business Development at Expedia Group Media Solutions walked the audience through two of our recent custom studies, which focused on Gen Z travelers and the growing trend of bleisure travel.

Our Insights Summits are also an opportunity to hear from our travel marketing partners and the hour-long event at ITB saw a stellar line-up of destination marketers take the stage during a panel discussion to share their thoughts on a range of travel related topics.

Media Solutions partner roundtable

Joining us this year was Alexandra Brandau, Director of Media Management at the German National Tourist Board, Anna Németh, Deputy CEO of Marketing and Sales at the Hungarian Tourism Agency and Adel El Fakir, Chief Executive Officer at the Moroccan National Tourist Office. The panel session, moderated by our VP Business Development, Wendy Olson Killion covered everything from the smart use of traveler data, to the growing importance of younger travelers to destinations.

ITB Berlin was also an opportunity to present our annual Partner Awards to this year’s winners from the Europe, Middle East, and Africa super region. The awards honor some of the most innovative campaigns from 2018 and we look forward to sharing more information about the winners very soon.

ITB Berlin is one of our favorite events of the year and we hope to see many of you there next year! In the meantime, you can stay up to date with our latest news and research by subscribing to our blog using the form above. You can also follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Andrew van der Feltz

Global Senior Director, Business Development, Expedia Group Media Solutions

Andrew van der Feltz is global senior director of business development for Expedia Group Media Solutions. His team works closely with agencies, destination marketing organizations, hotel and airline partners on advertising opportunities and campaigns across the portfolio of Expedia Group brands. Prior to joining Expedia, Andy was the director of business development and operations at the Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions (NBTC) since April 2011. Prior to this, he also worked at NBTC in the London office as country manager for the UK and Ireland. He started his career at NBTC as marketing manager, after his role as an international marketing manager at VisitScotland. Andy studied Marketing and French in Scotland, continued his postdoc education at the Institute of Marketing in Edinburgh, and attended the Executive Educational Programme in General Management at the London Business School.

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