Online & Congress

With the collaboration of


In the framework of the training offer of BTO (Buy Tourism Online), the revolutionary workshop devoted to online tourism distribution to be held in Florence on 17-18 November, a convention addressing the theme of convention tourism will be organized, the initial details of which we provide below.

Expectations are mounting around the first edition of Buy Tourism Online, the new annual event addressed to the demand and supply of online tourism: the applications to attend come from both the supply (portals and web operators) and the demand (hoteliers and reception facilities representatives).

The event will feature a display area, a lavish array of product presentations, a workshop and pre-fixed appointments between representatives of the tourism distribution sites and hotel owners and managers, as well as two convention initiatives: a forum on the state of the art of online tourism distribution and a convention on the relation between the web and convention tourism.

This convention, which will be held on the morning of 18 November and has been organised in close collaboration with the Firenze Convention Bureau, represents a groundbreaking opportunity for a sector such as the meeting & incentive industry, that has always been parallel and complementary to tourism and hence similarly involved in the revolutionary sales mechanisms introduced by the web.

The convention is entitled Online & Congress.

It will be introduced by Gerri Martinuzzi, Area Sviluppo delle Imprese e del Mercato of the Florence Chamber of Commerce, and moderated by Henrik von Arnold, senior project manager of the consulting firm HvA & Co.

Below are details of each of the big names that will be present and the issues that will be addressed:

Online&Congress Programme

Tuesday 18 November 2008

Click on to open the profile of the speaker!

9,30 am Opening: Gerri Martinuzzi - Area Sviluppo delle Imprese e del Mercato of the Florence Chamber of Commerce

Moderator: Henrik von Arnold - Senior Project Manager HvA&Co.

Oscar Cerezales - Group PCO Sales Director MCI GROUP
Oscar Cerezales, global congress sales director of the MCI group, one of the leading companies organising conventions and major events in Europe, will talk about the PCOs in the era of electronic commerce in travel (the so-called “Travel 2.0”): how has their approach towards the hotel supply changed? Are they still partners, allied in the service of a common customer, or has something in the relationship altered?

Maria Carmela Colaiacovo - Park Hotel Ai Cappuccini
Maria Carmela Colaiacovo will address a similar topic from the hoteliers’ angle. She will talk about congress price protection: is it genuinely possible for a hotel to protect the rates reserved for the PCO (Professional Congress Organizer) agencies that increasingly find better rates online than those agreed?

Christian Mutschlechner - Director VIENNA CONVENTION BUREAU
Christian Mutschlechner, Director of the Vienna Convention Bureau will dwell on the role of the Convention bureaux in the new “web-oriented” market. How does the co-ordination and promotion of the local supply evolve?

Peter Müller - Managing Director EVENI
Peter Müller, CEO of Eveni, a company specialised in the development of online platforms to support the organisers of corporate and scientific events, conventions and fairs, will round off the meeting with a provocative question: are the PCOs turning into tour operators? Or at any rate, in the era of rapid electronic transactions is this the future that is being mapped out for them?

Special Guest: Giuseppe Lepri – President and CEO NEWTOURS
Angelo La Riccia – Director of the Sales & Marketing Department of UNA Hotels & Resorts

THE «ONLINE & CONGRESS» CONVENTION

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