Conference on Global Travel Insights conducted by the global giant in travel portal, TripAdvisor was held on 28^th January 2016 in ITC Maurya Hotel, Delhi, India. 9% from the global revenue comes from tourism sector in the world GDP and there is a huge potential in promoting tourism in the modern competitive context said Martin Verdon Roe, Vice President Global Display Sales, TripAdvisor. He further stated that India has shown a tremendous 35% growth related to Trip advisor and South Asia has identified as an emerging market place in global tourism context.

Online marketing has created new opportunities to reach small and medium enterprises to reach the global market at the minimum cost and government of India supports to enhance the informational technology all over India due to this reason voiced Mr. Vinod Zutshi delivering the opening remarks of the conference. Adding to the fact, he proposed the hotels and destination promotes 360 degrees holistic approach to the tourism sector said Mr. Zutshi. The importance of IT infrastructure developments in hotels and facility developments for travellers to browse internet while their stay in the destination is crucial at this point. “A good advisor should be more accurate and reliable, So I have no hesitance to recommend TripAdvisor to the global” was said by Mr. Zutshi ending his speech on online tourism.

TripAdvisor has shown an incredible development over the past few years and the recent promotions “Plan and have the perfect trip” was made tremendous success for TripAdvisor. At present TripAdvisor operates over 126,000 destinations in the world and there are 190 active users are on site every minute according to their latest statistics. TripAdvisor has shifted towards new dimensions and strategic partnerships to have a sustainable growth in destination promotions. Lafourchette, Viator, UBER and the latest Insight Book which facilitates the transactions via credit and debit cards have created more updated strategies. Mr. Verdon stated that according to Oxford Economics Studies, 11% from the travel markets online while influencing 1.9Billion tourist nights in 2014. It further claimed that 64Billion US$ would not happened without TripAdvisor.

Conference was focussed on the best practices in digital media towards successful online tourism. Social media influence was explained through age categories as such as 40-60years are more on twitter sharing information and links while 30-40years are hanging on Facebook sharing stories. The 20-30 individuals are more towards sharing their moments via Instagram, blogging and even 10-20years crowd use to create moments via WhatsApp. The most experiences in travel was boasted while the travel and most of the traveller want to express their actions in a different destination to the others. These channels may recommend the attractions physically to the world. Rise of Mobile was discussed by Mr. Nikhil Ganju addressing the audience. Sarah Mathews was lead the conference and this supported many other countries to re-look at their strategies on Tourism.

Mrs. Shirani Weerakoon, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Tourism Development & Christian Religious affairs and Harshi Abyenayake Assistant Director Brand Communications from Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau was represented from Sri Lanka for the session. Sarah Mathews from TripAdvisor stated that Sri Lanka should promote their thematic product lines online to be more live in the context. The next conference on Global Insights on Travel will be held in Sri Lanka on 2nd February by TripAdvisor. This conference will be a tester session for TripAdvisor arranged under the theme of Evolution of Travel, Embracing Social Media and Global insights to Sri Lanka. Damian Cook, Chief Executive Officer & Founder from e-tourism frontiers will be sharing his expertise on Destination Brandings in the online context. This is the first conference to be held in Sri Lanka by TripAdvisor which is aiming at conducting more practical and productive online sessions. The conference will be held in Hotel Monara with the participation of all leading hotel and travel trade in Sri Lanka for the purpose of inculcating the best online practices applicable for Sri Lankan travel sector. This conference was initially decided to held in Sri Lanka this year as a result of the discussions had with TripAdvisor at their last conference held in Marina Bay Sands, Singapore.