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ENTER2010 - conference report

I recently attended a Travel IT conference called 'Enter 2010' in Lugano, Switzerland. The conference brought together the finest academic researchers in the world with cutting edge technology companies such as Google and Expedia. 200 delegates gathered from as far away as Australia and New Zealand, Canada, China, U.S and all over Europe. It felt more like a United Nations delegation for the travel industry. I heard research into 'second life' and how destinations may work with this website to enjoy virtual travellers to their destination (who by the way pay real money for clothes, food, spa visits, sight seeing and hotel accommodation for their Avatar in this virtual world!!. Second Life people, who number 16 million, spend around $30million per month in the website!!) I heard how google is creating an app, so that one person can call another in one language and the words gets translated in the receivers language (probably would sound like a robot calling, but I'm sure they'll work on that!) I saw how Philips will be revolutionising the experience of shopping (research says this is a very popular activity for travellers - no kidding!) You will be able to visit a shop window and the technology will read your facial expressions or finger pointing to display information about what you're looking at and even allow you to reserve an item if the shop is shut! A very bright PhD student also demonstrated his work in creating an augmented reality app where you point your phone at an object or outdoor space and see how something looked 100 or even 1000 years ago! Perfect for English Heritage! I am now fully conversant in 'google goggles' and 'google buzz' as well as knowledgeable about 'UGC' (user generated content) and the growth of social networking and 'earned reputation' brands for those companies getting good comments! You can also ask me about semantic web and social web, but I'd just be showing off (I'll probably forget next week and have to look at my notes!) Why was I there? Well apart from being fascinated about the future of travel, I gave a talk about our sister company - Online Travel Training, which has grown exceptionally fast in the last 2 years to 30,000 registered learners. We had over 15,000 courses completed last year by Travel Agents and if you haven't already improved your CV with some free product training, then what are you waiting for? - http://www.onlinetraveltraining.com Keeping uptodate with technology is no longer a 'nice to have', its essential. The world is changing at such a fast pace that google said we haven't even begun to see the changes. So it's vital you keep your skills and product knowledge cutting edge to continue your rewarding career in the exciting business of travel, tourism and hospitality. It's our job at New Frontiers and Online Travel Training to help you to do just that!!