New shifts in online travel for Africa

ue to popular demand this year's event #eTas15 is expected to be the biggest yet - now held in two cities with sessions in Cape Town on the 17-18 September at the Cape Town International Convention Centre and Tshwane on the 21-22 September at 012 Central.

Both events will once again be bringing together some of the world's leading online tourism and travel experts including Facebook, Trip Advisor, Expedia, Twitter, Instagram and a fresh new set of local and international innovative speakers and solutions. South African Tourism is the title sponsor of the summit along with VISA a lead sponsor.

Damian Cook, the CEO of E-Tourism Frontiers, emphasised how this year's event will be different.

"This promises to be our most engaged and interesting event yet and we will be bringing new and important issues for the travel trade into this two-day discussion. This will include the growing revolution being brought about by Airbnb and UBER, both of whom will be taking the stage for the first time to discuss their businesses and the potential opportunities they present for Africa with the audience.

Cook also emphasised how this year the audience will be very much part of the discussion.

"Discussions will look at the evolving landscape for online travel and assess the impact of new technologies and media and where business owners should best invest their time and money- looking at search, social, video, bloggers and user reviews. This will not be a one sided discussion. Our most important speaker this year will be the audience themselves. We are using a specialized app to allow our audience to actively participate in every session and answer questions, vote on topics and pose their questions. The Summit will show case the latest tools and trends on how to best leverage social media for your travel and tourism business factoring in the vast growth of smartphone usage in the travel space. This year's Summit will also focus on offering practical training and solutions to grow and improve your day to day business." Cook explained.

The E-Tourism Africa Summit (Cape Town) will be held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre on the 17 and 18 September 2015. And the E-Tourism Africa Summit (Tshwane) will be held at 012 Central on the 21 and 22 September 2015.

Registration for the E-Tourism Africa Summit - Cape Town and Tshwane is open now: www.etas.co.za