The one-day conference featured more than 22 speakers, seven compelling presentations and 14 practical workshops. Conference attendants were offered numerous opportunities to meet and network with industry leaders, exchange knowledge and best practices as well as learn how to innovate and grow their business within the highly dynamic tourism environment.
The 7th annual Tourism Conference was one more successful event organized by the South Australian Tourism Industry Council (SATIC) on the 1st of June 2016.
The conference started with the announcement of excellent tourism figures for South Australia (SA). In his opening address, Hon Leon Bignell MP (Minister for Tourism, SA) reported that South Australia has achieved exceptional growth – ahead of the national average – both in terms of visitors’ number and spending. The Chinese, USA and European markets have shown the greatest increase. Increased visitors’ numbers from these regions are expected to grow further due to the increased air connectivity to Adelaide; Qatar Airways was recently introduced into Adelaide (and this has opened connections to more than 140 international destinations), while a MOU between South Australia and China Southern Airlines opens up the opportunity of direct flights between Adelaide and Guangzhou. In addition, infrastructure (such as the redeveloped Adelaide Oval and the Convention Centre) and the continuous development of (sports and cultural) events are putting South Australia on the map creating a very appealing destination and attractive destination image. Tourism is one of South Australia’s key economic drivers, which is why the State Government committed $35 million over two years in the 2015/16 State Budget.
According to Mr Shaun de Bruyn (GM of SATIC) “Each year, the SATIC Tourism Conference has a reputation for presenting impressive speakers and relevant workshops, and 2016 is no exception,”. The one-day conference featured more than 22 speakers, seven compelling presentations and 14 practical workshops. Conference attendants were offered numerous opportunities to meet and network with industry leaders, exchange knowledge and best practices as well as learn how to innovate and grow their business within the highly dynamic tourism environment. The conference presentations and workshops were centered around four key critical themes: Service Excellence, Business Development, Nature-based Tourism, Marketing and Storytelling.
Presentations in the Service Excellence stream focused on providing guidelines and sharing best practices on how to best serve and address the needs of three critical and emerging markets: the Chinese tourists, the disable market and the technology empowered traveler.
Presentations in the Business development stream analysed management issues related to human resources and technology change. Tourism is a human intensive industry that is also subject to constant transformation due to the continuous technological advances. Managing the life cycle of employment in an era of an ageing and multi-cultural population as well as addressing the technological challenges are two issues that affect all types of tourism firms irrespective of size and sector of activity.
The stream of Nature based tourism also featured three very interesting presentations providing insights into the characteristics, profile and wants of this tourism market, the infrastructure that needs to be developed for developing and exploiting this market opportunity, and the ways to develop appealing and sensory nature based tourism experiences.
The presentations of the marketing stream paid increased attention into the critical issues of tourism distribution, online marketing and the power of social media for crowdsourcing tourism content and developing appealing tourism marketing campaigns.
However, it does not only matter how well you are running your business and/or how you distribute and promote it; what also matters is to have a compelling story to use in order to sell and promote your business as well as design and deliver your customer experiences. The presentations in the Storytelling stream focused on this specific issue and provided very valuable insights on how to develop a business story by: writing and leveraging content; engaging and communicating with a target audience; and developing a business brand.
The sharing economy is here to stay. That was the conclusion of the closing workshop of the conference whereby representatives of the ‘traditional’ economy (accommodation, destination and taxi sector) admitted that tourism firms have to get adapted to the new reality and develop coopeting strategies (in order to cooperate with the ‘new competitors’). The sharing economy is also changing consumer behavior by developing customer expectations of authenticity and sociality. These are the new type of experiences that traditional players would need to develop for competing in the sharing economy. Simultaneously, governments also need to develop the appropriate policies and regulations so that the traditional and the new sharing economy players compete with equal terms and conditions.
Overall, the conference presentations confirmed that the following three factors continue to be the major game changers in tourism: technology, experiences, and human needs.
Dr. Mariana Sigala is Professor in Tourism and Director of the Centre of Tourism & Leisure Management (CTLM) at the University of South Australia Business School.
Professor Sigala has a PhD from the University of Surrey as well as a Certificate of Advanced Academic Studies from the University of Strathclyde and an MSc in Tourism Management from the University of Surrey.
Professor Sigala is a widely published authority in the area of Service Operations Management and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) applications in Tourism and Hospitality. She also has an interest in e-learning models and pedagogies, having published several research studies in these areas. Professor Sigala’s research is multi-award winning featuring several best paper awards in international conferences and academic journals, such as papers published in the International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management and the International Journal of Hospitality Management.
Professor Sigala is the current Chair of the ICHRIE Johnson and Wales Case Study Competition and Publication Series . She is also currently the co-editor of the international journal Journal of Service Theory and Practice, the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Management and the editor of the International Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Cases.
Professor Sigala has also served on the Board of Directors of the International Federation of Information Technology, Tourism and Travel (IFITT) (as Membership Director); the International Council on Hospitality, Restaurant and Institutional Education (I-CHRIE) (as Research Director, 2008 - 2010); the Hellenic Association of Information Systems (HeAIS) (as Publicity Director); and the Executive Board of the European Council on Hospitality, Restaurant and Institutional Education (EuroCHRIE) (as President, 2004 - 2005).
Professor Sigala joined the UniSA Business School in 2015 and brings more than 13 years of international academic and teaching experience to the UniSA Business School and the School of Management.
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