New Deal Europe Weekly Update on Tourism to the Balkan Region, Week 27
News from our partners: Jacobs Media Group
In this week’s interview we talk with Daniela Wagner, Group Business Development Director, from our partners, Jacobs Media Group. JMG has a central communications role within the tourism industry, and Daniela brings her wide ranging experience to the post. This include senior executive roles at the World Travel and Tourism Council, ETOA, and PATA as well as running travel businesses herself, so she is well placed to give us her thoughts on both the current situation and the future of tourism. In this wide ranging interview we discuss crisis management amid ever changing government policy, the role of sustainability in the restart of tourism, the changing environment for media and events, and we learn her views on the potential for tourism within the Balkan region of Europe, and how she wants to help the region develop.
NDE: Hi Daniela. Thanks for joining us today. Jacobs Media Group is a large organization, so can we begin by having an explanation of what it does and its place in the market?
DW: Jacobs Media Group is Europe’s leading media business for the travel and hospitality industries. We offer an unrivalled multimedia portfolio which connects, informs and inspires these dynamic and evolving sectors on a global scale. Through our portfolio of more than 160 events running in the UK and overseas, which includes dedicated products for the European market and farther afield, Jacobs Media Group has developed an ever-expanding worldwide presence reaching five continents.
Our headline brands include Travel Weekly, The Caterer, Aspire, Connection, Travolution and the Resilience Council. In 2020, Jacobs Media Group was presented with the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in recognition of its international growth.
NDE: Congratulations on such a prestigious award. Please tell us about your role within the company?
DW: When I entered the business five years ago Jacobs Media Group was primarily a UK business. Over the last five years the international team, together with Connections, has developed an international events and media portfolio which now accounts for over 30% of the group business. We have operated events in over 40 countries and look forward to expanding this to include more countries in the future, including the Balkans.
In 2020, Jacobs Media Group was presented with the Queen Award for Enterprise in recognition of its international growth.
As I mentioned, last year we were very proud to win the Queen Award for Enterprise and International Growth, reflecting our ability to grow the international part of our business. My role as Group Business Development Director is to look continuously at how we can increase the reach and scope of each of our brands in the UK and overseas, and identify new business opportunities that add value to our partners and clients.
NDE: You clearly play an important role in the tourism industry of the UK, and beyond. How do you think the UK is dealing with the second wave of the pandemic, particularly with regards to your event partners and the readers of your publications?
DW: It is obviously a very difficult time for our partners and readers alike. For much of the past ten months there has been a lack of consistent policy within the travel sector, which makes it incredibly difficult to trade. The opening and closing of travel corridors for example, often at late notice, has created such a changeable environment and causes significant upheaval across the industry with every announcement. Now we find ourselves in January, usually a peak month for the UK travel industry, and whilst there will be mid and longer term holiday sales taking place, there is still an awful lot of time having to be spent cancelling, refunding or deferring customers’ trips that should be happening now. There is a lot of talk in the UK at the moment about the pent up demand of holidaymakers itching to get away, and we have to hope this can be realised sooner rather than later, so our industry can begin to recover.
NDE: I’m sure we all agree on that. Talking of managing challenging times, you have a high profile in the crisis management arena, particularly in regards to tourism. Do you think businesses had plans in place for managing a global pandemic?
DW: I’m sure you are referring to the Global Travel and Tourism Resilience Council, which we have run, as part of JMG, over the past five years. This has been really helpful in creating a forum for public and private sector companies, and destinations, to work together and share best practices. The travel industry is extremely resilient as we have seen over the past 30 years and tends to bounce back quickly after crises, since the fundamental demand for people to travel does not disappear. The difference with this pandemic is that it is a global phenomenon affecting every single part of the world, whereas most other crises in the past tended to be more regional. This means that it is more difficult for the industry to pivot to new destinations. I don’t think any business could have foreseen the profound impact of a pandemic that is so long and so painful, although many companies did have really good crisis management plans in place. That said, since the beginning of the pandemic we have worked tirelessly to support the UK travel industry by providing relevant information that can help businesses to remain informed and to find solutions that will help recovery.
There is a lot of talk in the UK at the moment about the pent up demand of holidaymakers itching to get away, and we have to hope this can be realised sooner rather than later, so our industry can begin to recover.
NDE: How has the pandemic impacted your business? What have you had to do differently?
DW: JMG is an international thought leadership marketing and events business, and one of the key connectors for the travel industry. Our business during 2020 was fundamentally impacted since we were unable to deliver the majority of the 150 or so events we had planned around the world and companies were unable to commit to traditional marketing campaigns when faced with the unpredictability of travel patterns. We have worked non stop on pivoting our business to meet the needs of the industry, which we have done in a number of ways. Firstly it is through providing accurate and updated information on industry and government developments free of charge to our readers and partners. We set up the Restart and Recovery hub within Travel Weekly to allow destinations to communicate quickly and effectively with the UK travel trade on new developments and restrictions and we welcome all our Balkan partners to join us in this initiative.
I can say that we have been at the forefront of identifying new technology solutions that will help drive industry recovery. In terms of events, we have been running multiple online events for a variety of partners around the world, providing them with valuable one to one meetings to keep relationships going and to promote new contacts. And a key role for us has been creating thought leadership and analysis to help companies plan for the future recovery of the industry.
NDE: What is the Government doing to support you?
DW: All governments have faced huge challenges in coping with the pandemic and whilst it is easy to criticise government action, or lack of it, we must recognise that this is an unprecedented and ever-evolving situation that makes it almost impossible to implement a plan quickly and effectively. JMG has sought to make use of all the tools provided by the government and especially the use of the furlough scheme which has been really valuable in terms of protecting jobs. JMG is very proud of its team and its people and has worked hard to maintain the integrity of that team.
NDE: How do you see the recovery in the UK and in your sectors — media and events?
DW: There is no doubt that the world will be changed permanently by this pandemic and that some things we have learnt during this time — running virtual events, creating new niche markets and focusing on technology solutions that will help recovery — will remain with us for ever. We will continue to build out these new opportunities whilst bringing back many of the activities we have done historically, in particular physical events, from thought leadership breakfasts to industry awards celebrating the excellence of our industry. Travel is fundamentally a people business and just as consumers have a pent up demand to travel so do industry people have a fundamental need to reconnect in person.
We believe that the sustainability agenda will be fast-tracked after the pandemic and that this provides the opportunity to accelerate many of the trends we saw emerging before the pandemic in terms of tourism transformation and creating tourism for a better world. On 10 and 11 May we will be holding the A World for Travel Forum in Evora, Portugal looking at how tourism can pivot and accelerate. We encourage as many of our partners from around the world as possible to join us in this event which will be the leading event in Europe to relaunch the industry.
NDE: What are you doing to attract business at the moment? Are there any markets you are focusing on now to drive more business?
DW: The news of the vaccine has definitely led to an increase in company confidence and whilst the current new wave of the pandemic still creates uncertainty we see that companies are planning ahead and that they are much clearer in their approach to the market than they were 10 months ago at the beginning of the pandemic. Especially since the beginning of the year we have seen real light at the end of the tunnel and increasing optimism around a healthier summer season 2021. We are working with our partners to ensure that they are able to build medium to long-term marketing campaigns, providing utmost flexibility around pricing, timing and delivery, which has been met with great enthusiasm from the industry.
The news of the vaccine has definitely led to an increase in company confidence. /…/ Since the beginning of the year we have seen real light at the end of the tunnel and increasing optimism around a healthier summer season 2021.
Our online presence has grown exponentially in recent months, making us the absolute market leader in b2b travel in Europe, and we are working with our partners to maximise their reach through our online and social channels. In terms of the markets we are working with we are focusing on Europe and the Middle East as top priorities and believe that the Balkan region is well placed to relaunch its tourism offering as soon as borders start to open since it offers all the components that post-pandemic travellers will be looking for — authentic experiences, destinations that focus on sustainability, the ability to combine nature and culture.
NDE: Turning to the Balkans region, which New Deal Europe focuses on. What is your presence there and how do you want to change that, if at all?
DW: Prior to our partnership with New Deal Europe, Jacobs Media Group’s presence in the Balkan Region was driven by our brand ‘Connections’. ‘Connections’ has partnered with the Slovenian Tourism Board on two experiential meetings events in Ljubljana and beyond, focusing on the Adventure and Wellbeing sectors in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
In terms of now and the future, we are delighted to be partnering with New Deal Europe as the project takes a holistic view of the Balkans and looks to strengthen its tourism offering and its international presence as a region. Our hope is that our involvement in the project will help more Balkans destinations tell their own stories and to cement this diverse and wonderful region in the mind’s eye of the UK travel industry.
NDE: Staying with events, we have seen almost every event move online and adapt to a virtual format. How challenging has this been for you? What have you learned from it and do you think there is a future for this way of doing business beyond Covid?
DW: Moving to online events was the only way for people to connect during the pandemic but the quality of these events varied enormously in terms of technology, quality of participants and relevance for the audience. We worked really hard on all these aspects and were able to run over 50 virtual events during 2020 offering over 53,000 one to one meetings and a range of thought leadership conferences and online award ceremonies celebrating industry achievements. Whilst we faced the normal challenges every business would face when having to pivot unexpectedly, our teams were able to work in a creative and consolidated way to provide real value to our partners and clients. In particular we worked on establishing a 365 platform for our destination partners providing an annual framework which involves online events combined with editorial support and online and offline targeted marketing opportunities. We ran the extremely successful virtual marketplace with the team from New Deal Europe in October, with some incredible feedback from participants. It demonstrates the value of virtual events in a time where the world is physically at a standstill.
We believe that even when we return to physical events these will have hybrid virtual elements that will enable us to connect with more parts of the world and enrich the content and the ability for partners to connect with each other. We believe that this will lead to a more valuable and enriching experience for all involved.
We are delighted to be partnering with New Deal Europe as the project takes a holistic view of the Balkans and looks to strengthen its tourism offering and its international presence as a region.
NDE: Looking to the future, and life after Covid, what do you think will be different for your readership?
DW: There is obviously an opinion that many businesses across sectors will move towards homeworking in the future. However, in the UK pre-Covid, we had recently seen a renaissance of the high street travel agent, and I believe this will continue when businesses recover. In addition, the value of booking, in the future, with an experienced travel seller will never have been greater, and this has been widely publicised in the UK. As well as being highly knowledgeable, they offer greater protection from your trip being disrupted through events outside of our control and pride themselves on their customer service levels inclusive of out of hours support. Knowledge of where is safe to travel, what your travel experience will be like, restrictions in resort, these are all key factors that a travel seller will need to be educated on when dealing with customers in the future.
NDE: Many of our previous interviewees, especially in the Balkans, have highlighted the role that they believe sustainable and responsible tourism will play in the future development of tourism? What is your view on the importance, or otherwise of sustainability in tourism?
Sustainable and responsible tourism is well and truly on the path to recovery from the effects of the pandemic. We can see this in communications and activities across the sector. From major events like the ITB Berlin 2021 where a full day will be dedicated to the subject, and the A World for Travel, Evora Forum being held in May which will be two full days invested on the issues around sustainability.
As the Secretary General of A World for Travel, Christian Delom explained, “Transformation is not an option, it is mandatory. It is not a crisis it is a revolution.”
Along with these major events, we see sustainability in purpose designed associations like Travel Cares growing exponentially as corporations demand socially responsible travel. Global NGOs are supporting sustainable growth programmes across the planet that benefit destinations, like Project Turizam in Bosnia-Herzegovina which is a 5-year program to build the travel sector sustainably. The Balkan destinations have a range of small-scale tourism businesses which makes them well placed for the smaller scale return of travel and fully independent travel (FITs). The attractions and natural attributes of the Balkan region are of great appeal to many of the demographics who are restarting travel- including adventure travel, hiking, wildlife tourism and independent travel. Most of these new segments are higher spending markets with longer stays in destination which adds further to the need for these beautiful destinations to ensure they are developing along sustainable paths.
NDE: And finally, you are our key partners in delivering New Deal Europe in April. What are your goals for the event in 2021 and beyond?
Our immediate goal for New Deal Europe in April is to grow upon the fantastic event delivered in October last year. We want to continue facilitating the connection of suppliers from the Balkans with buyers from the UK and across the globe. Our sincere hope is that these interactions will be in-person sooner rather than later, but until then, we are committed to delivering the best virtual events that the travel industry expects of Jacobs Media Group. Ultimately our goal is to help enable our partners New Deal Europe in becoming a driving force in leading the tourism recovery of the Balkan region, and for the Balkans to reach its potential as a global destination.
Questions by Robert Dee, co-founder of New Deal Europe, the only travel market platform dedicated to generating business to the Greater Balkan region of Europe. Apply to New Deal Europe Marketplace and Forum taking place on 12 April 2021 at www.newdealeurope.com.
