The first Travel Distribution Summit for the Middle East region was held on Tuesday & Wednesday (June 17, 18) at the Jumeirah Beach Hotel in Dubai. Organized by EyeforTravel, which also runs the popular TDS conference in London and other locations, this first-time event was well organized and a closer reach for most in the Middle East region. The event was moderated by Mona Faraj, previously with Rotana (and now with the new One to One Hotels in Abu Dhabi) and attended by a little over 100 attendees from a wide cross section, including eCommerce managers, eBusiness managers, revenue managers, distribution specialists and other corporate hoteliers.

The focus of the conference was undeniably on the hotel industry, with a token session on the airline industry that included Qatar Airways and Air Arabia. Also present were a sprinkling of OTA representatives and other travel suppliers, including WAYN co-founders Peter Ward and Jerome Touze, who seem quite eager to take on emerging Travel industry social media spend. It was heartening to see that more hoteliers in the corporate office are getting e-savvier about the role and importance of e-commerce and Web 2.0. Not many hoteliers seem sure about just what to do about these trends yet though...and there was very little concrete talk of cutting edge approaches or the sharing of existing best practices (possibly due to fear of competitive leaks in a shaky new environment!?).

Some great presentations included that of Richard Lewis (Jebel Ali Hotels / General Manager Hospitality for DUTCO) who started the summit with his great overview of the Web 2.0 phenomenon in travel and Ananya Narayan (Senior Vice President Global Stratefgy for Preferred Hotel Group) who presented a wonderful top-down picture of distribution and the basics to consider before jumping in head-first.

Overall, though the forward-thinking and positivity of most good speakers was heartening and this was a good start, with future events hopefully improving in terms of depth, focused tracks and more sharing. It'd be interesting to see how things develop in the region after all the rhetoric...often changing perceptions and overcoming inertia is far more difficult in the hotel industry!



tags: tds, tds-me, travel, distribution, summit, eyefortravel, dubai, middle-east, 2008, jumeirah, hotels, resorts, revenue, managers, conference, review, travel, ota, tourism, hospitality