Content marketing, experience design, gamification, storytelling, sports events and much more, for what promises to be the busiest show in educational terms in BTC’s history.
22 SEPTEMBER 2014 –BTC, Italy’s events exhibition, due to be held in Fortezza da Basso, Florence on 11-12 November, has announced a second list of sessions for the education programme. This new slot includes eight sessions (one of which lasts a full day, with panel discussions and seminars for the hotel industry), in addition to the 13 already announced at the beginning of July, and confirms the huge range of topics that sets this edition of the show apart.The offer has never been so extensive in BTC’s 30-year history, both in terms of quantity – with even a third slot still to be incorporated – and quality: the BTC education programme, organised by Margherita Franchetti, content manager of the show and editor-in-chief of industry news website Event Report, presents topics of interest to both demand- and supply-side operators, able to stimulate all players in the value chain, and for this reason it does not relate solely to conferencing in its strictest sense.
Events and their organisation
The first topic is Experience design, or the design of events to make them significant and memorable experiences; this will be explored by Dario Cherubino, partner of agency Azimut and chairman of Site Italy (the Italian chapter of the Society for Incentive Travel Excellence). Donatella Consolandi, chair of Unicom (the national union of communication companies) will talk about events of the Public Administration, as opportunities for direct contact with the target and not as self-congratulatory shop windows for the promoting agency.
Gabriele Gamberi from non-profit foundation ASPHI will tackle the topic of special needs for elderly and differently-abled guests, at a meeting with a highly evocative title: how to create an event “possibly” for everyone.
Marketing and regions
Alessandro Fregni, digital sales & inbound marketing manager of Yocrowd, will explain content marketing for destinations: how to generate content through events and participants’ experience. In the session Sport as a value for the region, Giammarco D’Orazio, marketing consultant and founder of the Festival del Basket [Basketball Festival], and Luca Corsolini, Sky journalist and editor of Basket Magazine, expert and lecturer in sports communication, will illustrate techniques to create, communicate and finance sports events.
Company events
Gianluca Fiscato, vice-chairman of Frogmarketing, will hold a seminar on Gamification and Storytelling, responding to companies’ need for new solutions to stimulate internal creativity. MPI Italia (the Italian chapter of Meeting Professionals International) and Cisalpina Tours are meanwhile organising a panel discussion for the second year in a row, dedicated to Expo 2015 and company events: opportunities, growth and implications for the corporate world. Speakers will be Cisalpina Tours marketing manager Rosemarie Caglia, Quality Travel editor-in-chief Giulio Carloni, Vorwerk Folletto communications & events manager Luca Corsi, Cisalpina Mice director Maria Guadalupe Lucasevich, and Mice consultant, author and chair of MPI Italia Olimpia Ponno.
Hotels and web marketing
Finally, the full day entitled Hotels and web marketing: what to do in the current market environment, organised by tourism consultancy and training agency Sicaniasc, represents an important part of BTC’s education programme. It will begin with a seminar on the Cloud used for hotel management, given by Giuseppe Pellegrini (GP Dati); there will follow a panel discussion on disintermediation, with the following speakers: Tina Ingaldi (GP Dati), Gianluca Piras (Expedia), Vito D’Amico (Sicaniasc) and Simone Puorto (WIHP), moderated by Armando Travaglini (DMT); there will then be a seminar on revenue management, by Vito D’Amico, followed by another panel discussion on Wifi and web marketing, with Vincenzo Ricciardi (Koobi), Diego Orzalesi (Hootsuite), Armando Travaglini (DMT) and Luca Tarullo (InLine), moderated by Vito D’Amico.
The afternoon session will be kicked off by Gianluca Laterza (Tripadvisor) with the seminar A simple move to convert visitors into paying guests. Thereafter, Gianluca Piras and Salvatore Lo Re, both from Expedia, will hold a session entitled From data to strategy: the key is differentiation, in which they will explain how to optimise revenue and online distribution policies in light of the variety of customer segments targeted. The day will close with a panel discussion on Product marketing: USP (Unique Selling Point) and target, with speakers Vito D’Amico, Gianluca Laterza and Gianluca Piras, moderated by Simone Puorto.
Associations
In conclusion, this year sees a strong convergence of industry associations and the mar-com sector, each of which will present at least one seminar at BTC. This slot includes MPI, Unicom and Site, while we will talk about all the others in a future press release.
Online registration to attend the seminars will open on www.btc.it in October. Entrance is free of charge.
