Smarter Life and Work with NFC

 -- Take a look at MWC 2014

From 24^th to 27^th February, the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2014 had been taking place in Barcelona at the venues of Fira Gran Via and Fira Montjuïc. Like previous congresses, this year, with almost two thousands of exhibitors showcasing their new products and technologies on site, experts and analysts in the mobile industry reported the present of the industry and discussed the future trend of mobile application technology. One of the event highlights this year was the NFC experience on the congress.

Near field communication (NFC) technology is no longer stranger to people nowadays with their smart phones in daily life. This technology is embedded in millions of mobile phones and helps realize the instant and wireless connection and file sharing easily. To this year’s MWC, NFC technology is used during the event for attendees to experience the high-efficient transferring process. It is SIM-based NFC service, offering attendees the event information by them using their handsets to place near the ‘Tap-n-Go’ points set on the venues. What’s more, attendees could use this NFC service to pay for their meal at the venues and even share contact details with each other.

Few months before the congress, there was a NFC challenge set by the GSMA to discover the best ideas of NFC future applying. People can submit their ideas to the committee on how they would use NFC on mobile to interact with people and improve the business. All the submissions are posted online on the website of MWC 2014 and people who won the grand prize got a gold pass of the congress.

For people who has a view even further, NFC is not only a mobile thing. Mikko Nikkanen, the segment development director of SMARTRAC technology group said that it’s a promising future for NFC, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi team together to “form a technology trio of power forwards”. Based on the fact that NFC technology has already embedded in millions of smart phones and there are a huge amount of consumers using different electronic devices, combined with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, NFC will achieve a more efficient and connected system which for example, will include many of devices possessed by everyone in a family. More detailed, people will use this advanced NFC technology to enable rapid, seamless paring, access Wi-Fi networks in public and private locations, switch on devices, transfer content, authenticate products, provide instructions, etc. On another word, it will make your life and work smarter.

In this year’s WMC, we have taken a look at how the NFC technology apply into a big event. With further exploitation of NFC technology and more application integrated with it, event organizers will have plenty of high-tech tools available for smoothing an event. The key to benefit from this is to keep up with constantly updated peak information and apply those that fit the customers’ desire and real needs.

Sources: 

http://mday.mobileworldlive.com/MobileWorldDaily/2014/Preview/index.html

http://www.mobileworldcongress.com/2014-event-highlights/

http://www.mobileworldcongress.com/2014-exhibitors/

Picture1:  http://mobileworldcapital.com/en/article/152

Picture2:  http://mday.mobileworldlive.com/MobileWorldDaily/2014/Preview/index.html

Posted bySang ZHAOandSiqi ZHANG

Online Registration Software : Activeregonline.com

In this 21th century, technology spoils us with its convenience, speed and options. In event industry, technology plays a big part in the all design process and in the decision making process for the client such as the event organisers and planners.

Registration Online software has been created to facilitate those processes. Event companies are now able to offer to their customers a faster and more convenient registration and service as they no longer need to query a face to face registration. This development of technology offers large choices of services. For instance, one of the active Network Business Solutions technology company (Activeregonline.com) proposes to their customers: online event registration, creation of a professional website but also event data measure results management. Additionally, these software´s features are divided into three main parts as followed;

      Event marketing and promotion 

-          Website designer

-          Social promotion tools

-          Email marketing tools

-          Free promotion listings

      Event management and registration

-          Flexible online registration forms

-          Attendee management, including mobile attendee management

-          Hotel and venue sourcing tools

-          Secure payment processing

-          Free of charge mobile event application

      Event surveys and reporting

-          Custom reporting and surveys

The selling point of this software is clearly towards time and money saving process. Through those different services, it helps planners and organisers to manage each event in the better way. This software also reduces the complexity of each event management process starting from the first step of marketing and promoting, to the result measurement as the last step of the event.  

In the event companies ‘point of view, we think this software is considered as a very useful tool to ease the different events processes.  Many advantages can be mentioned for the wellness of companies such as ROI measurement, creating professional look by designing the website and all aspects of the organisation of events with high technologies tools Furthermore and non-negligible it’s the decrease of cost employment due to the registration part.

On the attendee side, the advantages could be mentioned as a better appreciation of the event realized. A well organized event will give to the attendees some good opportunities during the event but also, they will communicate about it. Once again, there is a lot to target on such software to earn market share as a company and also added value of the success of the event.

It appears to us that with all these ready-made processes, either you are the event planners/organisers, or attendees are the perfect way to success. However, we must noticed that for both planners or organisers, a face to face interactions will always be the nicest tool to make business and build all professional relationship.  

Sources : https://www.regonline.com/

               http://www.activeevents.com/about-us/our-story

               http://knowledge.skema.edu/courses/MTM1320/document/SKEMA2013_5_.pdf?cidReq=MTM1320

               http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images

Videos: Innovative destination marketing tools?

    The tourism industry is facing nowadays more and more difficulties to create effective marketing campaigns due to a reduction in consumer trust, as well as a decrease in television advertising. However, the development of new technologies and the increasingly uses of platforms such as TripAdvisor and Facebook, make easier to get more information on a specific tourism-related research. In addition to this, the development of new technologies, such as Video cameras, and the improvement of social media invite travelers to be more active offering different ways of capturing, analyzing, interpreting and influencing other users. 

Videos have become an important tool for promotion of a destination since they give access to different features that couldn’t be possible using other devices. For example, videos can capture multiple angles, they have the capacity to involve the spectator on the video as if he/she was the protagonist, they also innovates the image of certain destinations which then benefits from the buzz created by those applications. In the search of personalizing the experience captured on videos, new devices have been created thanks to new technology improvement. Within the most important are:

Credit: blog.queensland.com

• GoPro camera that allows to capture the core of the experience due to the ease of transportation as well as numerous features such as HDR lens, water proof and 170° angle. This device is really popular among extreme sport lovers but also within tourism bloggers to document their trips.
• Quadrotor drones offers a different and unique perspective, they are in between the aerial view and the street view. 
• Google Glass is the closest to the eyesight. Due to the position of the camera, it allows the spectator to be part of the experience.
• Google Earth and Google view is becoming more popular within marathons or cycling races, they shows the different stages combining the street view and the google earth view.
• Micro videos such as Vine and Instagram are very popular due to the limited duration; they invite users to develop creativity.
• Even TimeCam.TV or cities’ Web cameras worldwide are used nowadays to show the weather or a street view in real time. These also can impact the destination image. 

-   

Due to the increasing popularity of videos, we can find them almost everywhere. This can be seen as a great advantage for tourism industry; because videos have a strong presence on the social media (through blogs, hashtags, GoPro YouTube channel, Facebook, etc.). Destinations are paying more and more attention to those videos as a promotion tool, inviting their customer to use them and spread the word.

Tourism experts are starting to realize the importance of those devices as well, and how helpful (and cheaper) they can be. In two months, the 8° Simpleview Summit will take place in Arizona hosting more than 350 DMOs; for this year, the organizers decided to create a contest among the participants in which each DMO will have to create an original video promoting the destination they represent. The prizes for the 3 first places are:

• 1^st Place: A professional destination video that they plan and Simple view pay for
• 2^nd Place: A professional shot photo library on their dime
• 3^rd Place and all winners will receive the latest model of GoPro cameras

Other destinations targeting Sport tourism, start thinking about the advantages those devices can offer to make the destination safer for users. In December of last year, Formula 1 racing driver Michael Schumacher hit his head while skiing in the French Alps, by analyzing the GoPro camera that the Formula 1 driver was wearing at the moment of the impact, the authorities were able to react and prevent another accident. First used as proof on an investigation, this video was used by the tourism destination in order to confirm the area as proper to tourism.

However it can also be turned into a bad thing, since the tourism industry has not every time the control on what have been recorded on a destination. Indeed, the web is already encumbered by amateur videos. A clear example of this would be the tsunami that hit Japan on 2011, thanks to the development of those devices, the natural disaster was immortalized and terrifying images has travel the world, creating a bad image of Japan. Another example is the case of a young student who started filming the city of Nancy, in the northeast of France, with a quadrotor drone without any authorities permit; he has been judge this month for “endangering the lives of others”.

Credit: static3.businessinsider.com

The question that reminds after all is: Does destinations’ marketing can really rely on these videos? Managing all of them seems to be a very tough task to undertake.

Written by Marisol Bustos Otero & Samantha Pinet.

Sources:

Image n 1: http://blog.queensland.com/files/2013/05/gopro-feature-21.jpg

Image n 2: http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4fa97e166bb3f7cd26000000-610-/google-glasses-test-photo-on-google.jpg

References:

-       http://christophegazeau.wordpress.com/tag/gopro/

-       http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/video-sur-internet-un-marche-de-30-milliards-de-dollars-en-2017-39793650.htm

-       http://voices.yahoo.com/gopro-hero3-travel-writers-review-12116613.html

-       http://www.malakye.com/asp/front/CMSPage.asp?TYP_ID=2&ID=2831

-       http://www.simpleviewsummit.com/connect/tourism-together-video-contest/

-       http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/pictures/110315-nuclear-reactor-japan-tsunami-earthquake-world-photos-meltdown/

-       http://lorraine.france3.fr/2014/02/22/drone-sans-autorisation-l-auteur-du-film-sur-nancy-sera-poursuivi-mais-ne-comparaitra-pas-420365.html

-       http://www.examiner.com/article/michael-schumacher-s-gopro-helmet-cam-footage-reveals-little-about-accident

-       http://www.timecam.tv/tourism.aspx

-       http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2014/02/14/un-lyceen-poursuivi-pour-avoir-filme-nancy-a-l-aide-d-un-drone_4366386_3224.html

"Secret Earth" : the new travel planning website

With the growing number of Internet users, travel has considerably changed over the last years. Indeed, people are now able to book their whole trip by themselves thanks to a simple “click” directly online. But travel specialists also noticed that people are more and more becoming interested in creating (customizing) their own trip, to make their experience more unique (lefigaro.fr). Following this trend, some tour operators have decided to innovate and to concentrate their activity on this new market. For instance, PlanetVeo, newly renamed “Marco et Vasco”, (an on-line tour operator specialized in customized travel) moved from a turnover of 1 million Euro in 2008 to 60 million in 2013 (lefigaro.fr). No matter which tour operator one takes into account, they all focus on the same goal: the customer’s satisfaction. They design all aspects of their website in order to make the navigation, the booking and the planning as easy as possible. One of them has decided to base its whole strategy on this: secretearth.com. 

Secret Earth (www.secretearth.com) is a new trip planning website which aims at helping travellers to plan their holidays. According to the website’s creators, more and more people want to avoid depending on a tour operator to travel, but at the same time, they are afraid of planning their trip alone since they often lack time and information about the country (culture, values, type of accomodation, safety, currency, etc). Indeed, there was no offer, no option to help them create their trip by their own so far. Matthew Roach and John Kat, Secret Earth’s co-founders, have identified that independent travellers needed three things to book their holidays: “good recommendations, a way to plan them together, and an easy means to book them”.

 

Map On Keyboard Stock Photo

Retrieved from : http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/Computers_g62-Map_On_Keyboard_p74167.html

As a result, they decided to create a website whose purpose is to simplify the process of researching, planning and booking worldwide, independent holidays. They thus offer an easy-to-use trip planning, price comparison tools, insider tips and a wide range of tourism service providers from all around the world: 1,300 activities & attractions, 550 hotels, and 650 restaurants and bars, 100 destination guides, etc. Instead of spending hours to pick up information on different sources, independent travellers can now focus on one website, gathering both information and tools and making travel planning easier for them. They even can discover travel experiences they never knew of or even imagined. Indeed, Secret Earth invests significant time and resources to showcase the world’s greatest travel experiences and work with the very best travel writers to review them.

The website is initially being launched as an invitation only website to create mystery, stimulate curiosity and excitement about a ‘secret’ new find. Members who get three others to sign up are rewarded with access to extra high value tips and recommendations. Indeed, today, people do not want to go to very touristic sites (known by everybody) anymore. They want to feel them as « specials », discoverers, explorers, etc. The rise of social media and user generated content websites over the last years has been a good start to help travellers find this kind of information and share tips, but we are now reaching the limits of this trend since more and more people are realizing that a vast volume of poor quality information has been generated, requiring substantial time to read and review. Secret Earth’s creators thus want to provide a high quality and accessible content to help people plan great holidays quickly. For example, users can search for options based on the category of activity, distance from current location, fly or drive, etc.

http://www.breakingtravelnews.com/news/article/new-travel-planning-site-launches-for-independent-travellers/

http://www.tnooz.com/article/startups-secret-earth-trip-planning/#sthash.wCk6cvRo.dpuf

http://www.traveldailymedia.com/203026/new-trip-planning-website-launches/

http://www.lefigaro.fr/voyages/2014/02/26/30003-20140226ARTFIG00122-planetveo-devient-marco-et-vasco.php

Event technology for small businesses and non profits

In our last article we talked about new technologies in the event industry. We gave you some 5 tips to engage yourself in this new trend.

It is really common to think that it is easier for big companies which have important resources. Indeed, new technologies could appear as expensive.

Corbin Ball, through this interview, helps us to identify some ways to make some small business and non-profit events follow these trends thanks to different tools with low cost budget.

Before exploring the ideas developed in this article, we need to introduce Corbin Ball, the events and meetings tech analyst. He is describing as « an international speaker, consultant and writer helping clients worldwide use technology to save time and improve productivity. With 20 years of experience running international technology meetings, he now is a highly acclaimed speaker with the ability to make complex subjects understandable and fun. » (http://www.corbinball.com/aboutcorbin/)

The article treats about the up and coming in the world of event technology according to Corbin Ball. In his opinion, take part of this technology evolution is a requirement. It allows event planners to get a lot of information about attendees: what they like/dislike, the hot topics, better speakers, exhibitors, etc. In order to reach that goal, event planners need to become familiar with all the mobile and social media available, from low to high budget and from little to big events.
According to him, there are 3 mains tools to put into practice in marketing to succeed in the event industry.

- First of all, event planners have to use and set up campaign through email. It stays an important way of communication. Nowadays, almost every people have an email address and particularly in the business area, people can check their emails via their smartphones or tablets. Technologies and processes to send email automatically exist and event planners need to identify and use them to make their campaign more efficient in order to improve their productivity.

- Then, small businesses and non-profit events have to use social media like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, etc to make their communication better. Your brand or event has to be represented on this kind of media: what people say about your brand/event is as important as what you want to say.

- Social medias are really important and prominent. This is necessary to invest time and money on it and not a waste contrary to people common opinion; results demonstrate it. Some companies are specialized on it and event planners need to work with them.

Considering technologies during the event, Corbin Ball gave us some more advices. This is the perfect period for small businesses to use it. All the tools, like the apps, are free or cheaper than before and it becomes easier to use it. However, his best advice is to be aware, to keep an open mind about these technologies, to educate yourself and hire.

To conclude, the two main ideas to keep in mind are:

-          Don’t forget to follow the trends day to day; the evolution is fast. The Techtalk, newsletter created by Corbin Ball to help event planners to stay on top of the latest industry news, could support you.

-          Follow the trends has to be consider as an investment, you will gain something at the end.

Camille et Clémence

Personalization tools for hotels on the rise

The concept of personalization is not entirely new in the hospitality industry – travellers’ expectations for quality and value constantly change, which in turn pressures hotels and airlines to adapt their offers. A growing number of travellers expect more from their stay in a hotel, and personalized products and services become increasingly important to them. This fact is underlined in a research study conducted by the InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) in 2013, which shows that 54% of travellers say they feel more valued if hotel services are personalized and 59% find a hotel significantly more comfortable with these personalized services.1

Circumstances like these have resulted in the rise over the last few years of personalization tools and applications available to hotels around the world. Such tools can come in various forms: either as tablets or similar devices installed in guest rooms, as apps that can be downloaded by travellers, or as a mobile website freely accessible for the guests. These tools all store information and are linked with the various hotel systems, enabling the guests to personalize their stays while providing the hotel with valuable guest information. Providers for these information management tools and applications are increasingly third-party suppliers.2

An example of such personalization software is “GuestDriven”, an iPhone app developed by the Montreal-based company of the same name (formerly known as MConcierge). It serves both as an information provider for the hotels that use it and a tool for guests “to request room service orders, wake-up calls, and look up directory information”.2 Its ultimate aim is to provide “a real-time platform for guest and hotel to communicate throughout their stay”.³ Guests’ experiences are customized by obtaining information about their preferences via various social media channels, without selling this information to outside parties. The hotels can benefit from this application as they receive information “about a guest’s history, spending power, interests and social media influence”. 4 This data allows them to adapt and tailor their marketing efforts as well as plan their long-term strategies, with the ultimate goal of increasing sales. Recently, the company has managed to attract more than $3 million in funding from “Plaza Ventures, Real Ventures and Structure Capital as well as hospitality angels Tony Cohen (CEO of Global Edge Investments and an executive vice president at Crescent Hotels & Resorts) and Bob MacDonald (CEO of Maritz Loyalty)”.4

GuestDriven on Pinterest

Retrieved from https://twitter.com/GuestDriven/status/397503060034875392/photo/1

Of course the software mentioned above represents just one of several tools currently available for hoteliers. Not only are hotels active in these personalization efforts, but other players in the hospitality industry, such as airlines, have also seen an increase in use of such instruments.3 

The personalization technologies such as GuestDriven are intriguing ideas but hotels and other companies using them are going to have to be completely upfront with their customers about what kind of information they will access and how it will/can stay confidential. Additionally, companies need to keep in mind that not all guests will choose to participate in such a program, as some may find it an invasion of privacy or may not use social media (key to GuestDriven’s design).

Aline Biber & Caitlin Richardson

Sources:

(1) ehotelier.com. (2014, January 23). Travellers want personalization from their hotel brands. ehotelier.com. Retrieved from http://ehotelier.com/hospitality-news/item.php?id=26901_0_11_0_C

(2) Markwart, W. (2012, December 07). Latest hotel technologies empower guests to customize their stay. HotelierMagazine.com. Retrieved from: http://www.hoteliermagazine.com/hotelier-magazine/featured-articles/69-featured-articles/992-latest-hotel-technologies-empowering-guests-to-customize-their-stay.html

(3) Slade, H. (2014, February 18). Sushi on arrival? GuestDriven raises $3M to give hotels guests' social media info. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/hollieslade/2014/02/18/sushi-on-arrival-guestdriven-raises-3m-to-give-hotels-guests-social-media-info/   

(4) Schaal, D. (2014, February 18). GuestDriven attracts $3 million in funding for mobile personalization tool. Skift. Retrieved from http://skift.com/2014/02/18/guestdriven-attracts-3-million-in-funding-for-mobile-personalization-tool/ 

Image source:

GuestDriven. (2013, November 4). Hello ‪#Pintrerest, it's been a little while. Retrieved from

https://twitter.com/GuestDriven/status/397503060034875392/photo/1