The Travel Tech Track 2018, an initiative by OTM Mumbai and TravHQ to celebrate the growth of travel-tech industry in India, witnessed a panel discussion between some of the top travel bloggers in India on how influencers are helping companies operating in the travel industry use different digital marketing tactics.

The panel featured Roxanne Bamboat, food and travel features writer and blogger at The Tiny Taster; Kaushal Karkhanis, digital expert and travel blogger at Exotic Gringo; Divyakshi Gupta, freelance travel writer and blogger at The Quirky Wanderer; and Ajay Awtaney, founder of Live From A Lounge that is an international network of frequent flyer writers.

From L to R: Roxanne Bamboat, Kaushal Karkhanis, Divyakshi Gupta, Ajay Awtaney and Daksh Sharma.

The future of influencer marketing in India looks bright, given the country’s growing digital infrastructure. According to Divyakshi Gupta, barriers to technology have become non-existent as Indian influencers are beginning to connect with more and more foreign bloggers. “However, the point of differentiation is diversification, which has not really set in for Indian influencers. For a long time, they thought partnerships only meant sponsored trips and freebies. Right now, brands and influencers are realising that diversification is key. Brands are partnering with influencers to create content not just for the latter’s page, but for themselves as well.”

At the event, the panel also discussed some of the issues and trends involved in both affiliate and influencer marketing. One of the biggest requirements is disclosure, where influencers are now letting consumers know they’re receiving compensation for posting about a particular brand or product, irrespective of the format of the content or the kind of compensation. Commenting on another major trend for the year, Kaushal Karkhanis stressed on the rising importance of ‘short-form content’ with videos. “These are really interesting, captivating bite-sized videos that tell a story in the most authentic way, because you can’t really fudge something you’re doing in a video format. Video is going to be a key-player going forward, in the content space.”

The panel also presented their opinions on a plethora of ways of operating in the travel domain – from talking about the rise of the micro-influencer, to zeroing down on the significance of having a certain number of followers, from discussing the changing landscape of the travel industry, to creating a niche and negotiating with brands to create the best value for both parties.

Watch the full video here:

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The rules of engagement for the travel industry have altered drastically in the last few years. Travel bloggers have fast become more influential than review websites for people looking to escape for a dream vacation to dreamy destinations. However, one thing that marketers and travel companies have a tough time cracking is how to tap into the vast array of influential bloggers for sponsored content, without discrediting their brand’s authenticity.

The Travel Tech Track 2018 holds all your answers. This initiative by OTM Mumbai and TravHQ to celebrate the growth of travel-tech industry in India, will have a bloggers panel that will help travel companies understand the nitty-gritty of influencer marketing. The panel will feature Roxanne Bamboat, food and travel features writer and blogger at The Tiny Taster; Kaushal Karkhanis, digital expert and travel blogger at Exotic Gringo; and Divyakshi Gupta, freelance travel writer and blogger at The Quirky Wanderer.

Roxanne Bamboat

Roxanne is an internationally-recognized writer based in Mumbai whose main interests are food and travel. She expresses her love for all things edible, along with all her travel tales on her blog. A freelancer, she spends most of her time sampling the city’s food offerings and reviewing them. Apart from her own website, she write for various publications and lifestyle websites about food and travel. She’s worked closely with various tourism boards, airlines and other hospitality partners on several projects and campaigns and has travelled extensively. She’s currently the chapter leader in Mumbai for Travel Massive, a global initiative to bring the travel community closer, and a curator for the Kalaghoda Arts Festival’s food vertical for the past six years. She’s also curated and hosted several events in the F&B space. Roxanne is currently the lead critic at Mumbai City for EazyDiner, a restaurant reservation site spearheaded by Vir Sanghvi.

Kaushal Karkhanis

Kaushal Karkhanis is a travel blogger and has been inspiring people for more than 18 years to ‘travel exotic & live simple’, via stories told through words, photos and videos on his blog. Kaushal is a creative strategist and travel blogger with two decades of experience in the field of design solutions and 10 years of travelling as a digital nomad. By consciously choosing a lifestyle that allows him to travel and work at the same time, he loves inspiring and helping others to travel to their heart’s content.

Divyakshi Gupta

Born in Punjab, brought up in Mumbai, Divyakshi Gupta spent all her summer vacations in a tiny town, nestled in the hills of Himachal. A self-confessed door lover, who has a penchant for architecture, she loves long road trips and travels to offbeat places to explore different cultures, meet locals, discover stories and in the process, herself. She started her career in advertising as a strategic planner, and is currently a freelance travel writer and blogger who narrates her stories on her blog, and also works as a social media consultant. Divyakshi was the first Indian travel blogger to be interviewed by WordPress.com. She has also collaborated with several travel portals, tourism boards and hospitality clients.

Are you ready for some interesting insights from an explosive session?

Ajay Awtaney

Ajay’s expertise over 20 years spans from investment management to mileage management. As a banker, then investment manager, Ajay first got on the pointy end of a plane in 2006 and was hooked to business travel ever since. On the road for more than 100 days in a year, he founded LiveFromALounge.com in 2011 in association with BoardingArea which is an international network of frequent flyer writers. Here, he shares insights on maximising value for luxury travel with miles and points for the global Indian traveller. He has also been a writer in the area of travel, lifestyle and technology since 1996. He currently writes for publications such as Conde Nast Traveller, National Geographic Traveller and GQ. Over the years, he has emerged as a pioneering voice focussing on aviation, loyalty and business travel for the Indian traveller, and his expertise has led him to work with many airline and hotel brands over the years.

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Any brand now has more platforms than ever to communicate with their audience, each one slightly different than the other. Social media platforms hold a significant spot in the entire marketing map of any brand yet their relevance has changed over the years. Some have gained an even more important spot while some have lost their lustre. To complicate matters further for the brand, audience now prefer even simpler channels like messaging to be in touch with the brand. The likes of WeChat are already giving plenty of sleepless nights to the social media giants and the trend is likely to continue. Who would have thought things will be promoted and paid for via a chat app?

The change isn’t just limited to the platforms where the users are but how rapidly existing formats are gaining momentum and new formats are coming in. While we haven’t seen the pitch, we are quite sure that video wasn’t something that Mark Zuckerberg focused heavily on when he first pitched Facebook to Peter Thiel. And yet, the platform is now full of videos and is taking the fight against the video giant. YouTube on the other hand now has a large array of 360 videos and VR is the talk of the town.

But where does that leave the marketers? It is an everyday fight between maintaining the momentum on already popular platforms and identifying where the action is shifting. While it is easier for brands with a global scale to allocate resources to experiment, it isn’t the same for startups. And the challenges extend much further.

For almost two years, we have been actively meeting and getting acquainted with entrepreneurs in travel industry. Each one of them building something unique to address the pain points of travellers. Some of them carry strong experiences of working in marketing roles and teach us a trick or two while many others are tech superheroes who rise up to challenges with code. However, irrespective of the expertise, they have to do a bit of both to minimise the required resources in the early days.

We are trying to make the job a little bit easier for the second type of entrepreneurs by bringing together the best marketers, tourism boards and content creators from across the country to share their knowledge with them during TravelNEXUS. For the first type of entrepreneurs who have cracked the marketing code, we are offering a platform to showcase their work and share their learnings with others (Sign up here, we want you there).

We have an array of discussions and keynotes lined up where domain experts will join to share insights. There will be discussions on how travel and hospitality companies can unlock the maximum potential of conventional social media channels as well as identify the upcoming ones or how brands can maximise the impact of their campaigns among many other things. The event is supported by hospitality partner Ramada Gurgaon Central and travel partner Plush Escapes. Leading social media news portal Social Samosa will also bring its expertise to the event. You can read more about TravelNEXUS here.

Full Schedule

The event was originally scheduled to be held on March 25, 2017 at Ramada Gurgaon Central however, we have to push it further due to some unavoidable circumstances. New event date will be updated soon. We know you want to put your every penny towards your business which is why we have kept the registration costs as low as we could. You can reach us through our social channels, mail or use the comment section for any queries you may have.

Registration link.

Update March 17, 2017- Event date to be rescheduled.

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Marriott Traveler, the award-winning digital magazine has come together in collaboration with Star Alliance to release a content series ,”Round the World” featuring photos, videos and articles of eight notable travellers who had recently circumnavigated the globe.

For the content series, Marriott worked closely with Star Alliance to develop themed itineraries for notable travel bloggers, vloggers and social media influencers as they leveraged Star Alliance’s new Round the World Ticket. This ticket enables travellers to explore multiple destinations in more than 192 countries for the price of one fare. The series will document every aspect of the influencer’s trips that included destinations like Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Chicago, Dubai, Istanbul, New York City, Rome, Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo, Toronto and other locations.

“This project is exactly the way we want to explore the world – through the eyes of locals and travellers visiting a country for the first time,” said Marc Graser, editorial director, Marriott Creative + Content Marketing. “We were excited to work with Star Alliance to send this amazing group of travellers around the globe.”

Eight travellers who were chosen to share their journeys with Marriott Traveler readers:

• Karen Day: Editor at Large for Cool Hunting
• Justin Carmack: The creator of travel blog True Nomads
• Mark Wiens: A food blogger and video creator for Migrationology
• Megan & Mike Jerrard: Journalist and Photographers for MappingMegan
• Mr Scott Eddy: Creator of the luxury travel blog MrScottEddy
• Oneika Raymond: Creator of travel site with teaching elements at OneikaTheTraveler
• Michael Schulz: Travel photographer and owner of Berlinstagram

The content would be debuted on both Marriott Traveler and Star Alliance’s “Round the World” itinerary planning site.

To enhance traveller experience and participation in the competition, Star Alliance is offering a Round the World Ticket in Business Class for two. The participant just needs to go to http://www.staralliance.com/en/whereintheworld and correctly identify the locations of the seven bloggers’ photos. They then can submit their completed entries by September 30, and can win tickets for themselves and their companion. Marriott is going to offer the two travellers Platinum Elite Status in their Marriott Rewards loyalty program. The entries are open to anyone above 18 years and the winning entry would be announced on October 31, 2016.

See full terms and conditions here.

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The upcoming B2B travel trade show, OTM Mumbai will not only offer great opportunities for exhibitors but also allow the travel trade visitors to be a part of interesting discussions at TechForum@OTM. Contributing to that, TravHQ will be hosting two panel discussions that will offer insights for travel marketers.

The first panel will feature Lata Subramanian, Ex-CMO of Sterling, Sesh Seshadri from Lonely Planet India, Prashanth Rao Aroor from IntelliStay Hotels and Hanisha Lalwani from Marriott International. The topic of discussion will be “Leveraging Content to Inspire Travellers”. The panel will discuss about the right content strategies for tourism brands, utilising different forms of content for promotion and some successful content marketing campaigns in travel. The session will start at 1300 hours on Feb 18, 2016 at the event venue Bombay Exhibition Centre.

The topic of second panel discussion will be “Leveraging Online Influencer Relationships in Travel & Tourism”. The panel will feature Siddharth Joshi, leading travel blogger, Vineet Rajan from Indiblogger, Kavitha Gnanamurthy from Skyscanner India and Shelly Singh from Thursday Premiere. They will discuss about how brands should work with travel influencers, how to measure success while working with influencers and whether blogger fam trips are fruitful for the brands. The session will start at 13:00 hours on Feb 20, 2016 at the event venue.

Along with these sessions, the finalists of Travel Startup Knockdown will also pitch in front of the judges on Feb 19, 2016. The entries are open till Feb 7, 2016 so you still have a chance to take the stage to present your idea. You can find the full details here.

Keep watching this space for more updates on the event.

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