Direct Booking Summit: Asia-Pacific: Triptease selects architectural icon as event hosts

The Fullerton Hotel Singapore has been unveiled as the host location of the inaugural Direct Booking Summit: Asia-Pacific, by event organisers Triptease, this week.

Taking up residence in the hotel over 27-28 February, the thrust of the Asia summit will be to specifically address regional challenges such as “rogue wholesale rates”, the challenges of mobile and how to maintain rate value in the OTA market – as well as, of course, provide guidance on how to best increase bookings directly from the business’ own website.

“We know the hotel will be the perfect setting”

Discussing the upcoming summit’s location, Alexandra Zubko, chief customer officer of Triptease, said: “We’re excited and honoured to be hosting the first ever Direct Booking Summit in Asia at the incredible Fullerton Hotel Singapore. The Fullerton is a valued partner of ours in the ‘Direct Booking Movement’  and we know the hotel will be the perfect setting for the amazing content and speakers that we’re bringing to Singapore in February.”

Bringing together hotel professionals from across Asia, the summit features 20 presentations focusing on a diverse selection of hot topics concerning the modern hotelier including conversion analytics and how to get the best out of personalisation.

Along with the Direct Booking Summit’s location, Triptease has also published its first confirmed speakers for the event. Joining hosts Charlie Osmond and Alexandra Zubko so far will be:

• Sunish Sadasivan, VP of e-commerce & revenue management, Chroma Hospitality
• Blessy Townes, group director of digital marketing, Discovery Hotels and Resorts
• Chetan Patel, VP of strategic marketing & e-commerce, Onyx Hospitality Group
• Michael Belanger, VP of revenue & distribution, GCP Hospitality (Gaw Capital Group)
• Marc Bichet, chief marketing officer, GCP Hospitality (Gaw Capital Group)
• Laura-Marie Arens, team lead of hotel ads APAC, Google
• Grant Colquhoun, senior director of account management APAC, TripAdvisor
• Jeff Baars, group director of marketing & digital, Quest Apartment Hotels
• Thomas Wenger, managing director, Enderun Hospitality Management
• Aida Merdovic, director of online, Hamilton Island.

Sunish Sadasivan will be presenting on ‘The wholesaler challenge,’ referring to the common occurrence of wholesale rates appearing on OTAs and breaking rate parity with hotels.

Google’s Laura-Marie Arens and TripAdvisor’s Grant Colquhoun will be appearing on a panel focused on ‘Driving more direct through metasearch’. The speakers will discuss how hotels can take advantage of this fast-growing advertising channel.

Click here for more information and to register for tickets.