October 20, 2011 -  All hospitality professionals involved in sales and marketing will not want to miss the Pennsylvania Tourism & Lodging Association’s 2011 Sales & Marketing Conference on Thursday, November 10, 2011, at the Radisson Hotel Harrisburg.
 
The theme of this year’s Conference is “The Tides Are Changing.” The program features a sea of outstanding speakers that will offer presentations on a variety of timely and important marketing topics for all levels of hospitality sales professionals.
 
The Conference program will kick off with a session titled “R.A.W (Relate And Win) Relate to your clients and win more business” presented by Maryellen Ferring, UpSellTraining. During this interactive session, attendees will learn and use skills to negotiate a deal. They’ll discuss the various outcomes to understand the best results and why. Attendees will walk away with an understanding of negotiation skills, how sales skills and negotiation skills work together to create the deal, the flexibility one has during negotiations, being creative in offers and how to create long term relationships that result in long term business.
 
The next session will be presented by Brian Payea from TripAdvisor and is titled “Making the Most of TripAdvisor And the Changing Online Travel Market.” Consumers are increasingly turning to online resources for every step of the travel planning process. In this strategic and tactical workshop, Attendees will review what travel professionals can expect in the changing online travel market--including shifts in traveler interests and behaviors, and the growing impact of mobile and social media channels. Payea will review essential online marketing strategies and tools to help businesses reach TripAdvisor’s 50 million unique monthly visitors. Attendees will learn anticipated trends ahead, as well as practical advice to maintain a positive online reputation, enhance their TripAdvisor presence, and continue to attract customers.

The last session before lunch will be Roundtable Discussions, where attendees will have an opportunity to share ideas, network, and learn from each other’s success stories and challenges.
 
After lunch, which is included in the price of registration, the session will be “Building a Guerrilla Marketing (Battle) Plan with a REAL ROI (Return on Intelligence)” presented by Michael “Doc” Terry, Ph.D, CHA, CHE, Hospitality Futureworks. The difference between Marketing (knowledge collection) and Sales (knowledge application) is significant. It starts with a Marketing Plan based on the latest industry and consumer research, and needs to demonstrate credibility for your bottom-up marketing plan… the important issue is the return on the investment of each line-item. The seminar demonstrates how to intensify your marketing plan by making smart marketing decisions based on today’s and tomorrow’s trends. The session is designed to educate attendees (who have a basic understanding of a Marketing Plan) to intensify the collection of adequate competitive and internal and market information: and to learn what GMs, CEOs, COO’s and Owners are thinking – ROI !
 
Kim Walsh-Phillips from Inside Out Creative will then present “The Secret to Driving Sales Through Social Media: If you’re not going to dive in, you need to at least get your toes wet.” Attendees will review how to skyrocket their number of Facebook and Twitter followers and FourSquare checks-ins to DRIVE SALES.  No more wasting time on “building awareness.” If it doesn’t drive sales, don’t waste your time doing it. Attendees will also learn how to change the way they use social media sites, instantly increasing page visits and followers as well as how to target the RIGHT people worthy of their time, energy and marketing efforts. In addition, attendees will learn the secrets of the pros- how they got their pages to work for them and how it can work anyone.
 
The closing speaker for the Conference will be David W. Sheatsley, U.S. Travel Association who will present “The Rough Seas of The Travel Industry: Where we’ve been, where we’re going, and what does it mean?” David will take attendees on a journey from the pre-recession highs to the post-recession travel environment and describe what changes have taken place in travel patterns and the psyche of American travelers.  Here’s a hint…over half of U.S. adults still don’t feel like the recession is actually over.  What does this mean for domestic travel over the coming years and how do international visitors fit into the equation.  The crystal balls and Ouija boards are working overtime to keep track of the changes.
 
This one-day event is loaded tools and information to help your sales and marketing efforts ride the waves rather than get pulled under! For more information and to register, visit www.patourism.org/sales.

The PA Tourism & Lodging Association is a private, non-profit, membership-based association that exists to advocate, support, promote and enhance the tourism and lodging industry within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It provides lobbying, education and professional development opportunities, information and other resources as well as value-adding services to its members to ensure their—and the industry’s—ongoing growth and success.