New Deal Europe Weekly Update on Tourism to the Balkan Region, Week 45
New Deal Europe — Three years old. London Diary
This week, after 15 months of Skype, Zoom, Whereby and every other method of conference calling, the New Deal Europe partners, Robert Dee and Tine Murn were reunited in London, for the first post-covid team building meeting. The smiles on our faces at that moment when we met say it all. We have both been talking and writing for months about tourism restarts, travel beginning again, glimmers of hope, and we were finally able to realise it for ourselves.
The last time the team was together was on 15th March 2020, at Dallas Fort Worth Airport, as we said goodbye after a bizarre sales trip to the USA, where we encountered cancellation after cancellation as the Coronavirus began to take hold. We met this week, very symbolically, at St Katherine’s Dock near London’s Tower Bridge from the spot where Tine broadcast and opened the two virtual New Deal Europe Marketplace and Forum events.
As a part of the team building experience, Robert and Tine took the opportunity to do a pilgrimage to the Olympic Park in Stratford. We revisited the AcelorMittal Orbit, doing it actively and sustainably by using ‘Boris Bikes’, the public bicycle hiring scheme in London. Why a pilgrimage? Well, New Deal Europe was born here, at the top of the longest slide in Europe.
Tine had long held this idea of having a platform for promoting the wider region of South and Central Europe, and presented his vision to Robert at the City Fair Reception, held at the top of the tower in June 2018. With his passion for the Balkans, and his network of contacts, Robert, who instantly saw the gap in the market, proved to be the ideal partner to turn the vision into a reality. And so our company was formed, supported by some craft hipster beers in the nearby Hackney Wick.
Almost three years to the day, the team was back in the spot where it all began, to reflect on what we have managed to achieve in these most challenging of times for the travel industry, and to plan our activities for the future. Of course, nothing could have been done without the support of our friends and partners in the tourism business throughout the world. We are extremely grateful to all our stakeholders: from the suppliers, agencies, and tourist boards in the Balkans — who believed in us and supported our vision — to the operators and travel organisers who have joined our events and continue to promote the region we support. A rather special mention has to go to Daniela Wagner and the team at Jacobs Media Group, who, after many rejections from other sources, instantly saw the potential of this challenging and beautiful region, and the opportunity which New Deal Europe presented. This week was also the moment to finally meet with that team who have helped us deliver all our NDE events to date.
Of course, nothing could have been done without the support of our friends and partners in the tourism business throughout the world.
Since its slow start in 2018, New Deal Europe, particularly through its signature event NDE Marketplace and Forum, has grown into the premier platform focused on developing tourism business to the region. The first NDE event was planned for March 2020, a live event hosted by our partners News UK in their prestigious central London headquarters. It was completely sold out, but one week before the event was scheduled to take place, the UK went into lockdown. The event was postponed to October, in the widely held belief that the Summer heat would kill off the virus. Little did we know, that a few weeks before the rescheduled event, the country would go into a second lockdown. For the inaugural event to even happen, New Deal Europe Marketplace and Forum had to be transformed, very quickly, into a virtual event. In fact, our event was one of the first tourism B2B meeting events to be fully organised virtually. Naturally, many people did not understand how it would work, or were sceptical of the format, and cancelled their participation, but equally many other organisations, who believed in the concept, joined the event. Those who attended had one of their best experiences ever, with a very organised schedule, great technology and several content sessions relevant to the issues of the day. The delegate satisfaction rating was 95%, an incredible result for a first event of any kind, let alone a first in the world of virtual meetings.
The success of the 2020 event was surpassed by New Deal Europe Marketplace and Forum 2021. By moving the event back to a Spring date, we were able to capture even more buyers at the key decision-making time. We already knew that the event was going to be in a virtual format, so it allowed us to focus on making the event truly global. 350 delegates attended from 38 countries and NDE21 received testimonies and satisfaction ratings similar to the first event.
There will definitely be a 2022 edition of New Deal Europe Marketplace and Forum. One of the main agenda items on our London team building meeting this week was to brainstorm ideas for what the future of the event might look like. We are looking at options to see how the event can be done in other source markets around the world, and exploring how to have it hosted annually in the various countries of the region. Many suppliers have already expressed their intention to partner with New Deal Europe for an event in their destination, so watch this space, send us your ideas and let us know if you would be interested in a partnership to host NDE in your hotel, region or country.
There will definitely be a 2022 edition of New Deal Europe Marketplace and Forum.
While most people know New Deal Europe for the signature event or perhaps the weekly blog posts and interviews on tourism to the Balkans, we have formulated New Deal Europe based on five pillars. This week’s gathering was also an opportunity to review how we can develop these elements even further. The five pillars of New Deal Europe are: Consultation, Representation, Education, Media and Events, or CRÈME for short. These are the five crucial areas every tourism supplier or tourism board needs in order to develop successfully and promote their offer on the crucial source markets.
Between us we have many years’ experience in tourism at senior level, and have Consulted on various successful projects in the region, particularly with sustainable and responsible tourism as the focus. Our success is demonstrable. Tine Murn is especially proud of his involvement in bringing the accolade of the World’s Best Responsible Tourism Destination to Lake Bohinj at the 2019 World Tourism Awards. Having Represented Radisson Hotels on the world stage for 17 years, Robert Dee has an exceptional network of global contacts at your disposal, and Tine, through his experience as the Head of the Slovenian Tourism Office in London for six years is well versed in how tourist boards operate and what they, and the market, require.
In terms of Education, we have been privileged to have been guest speakers at various regional and national events in the last few years. Earlier this year we were both keynote speakers at the North Macedonian Tourism conference talking about storytelling, sustainable tourism and digital marketing, and a few weeks ago Tine was a guest speaker at the Moldovan tourism conference, helping them to evaluate how best to promote their destination. In the coming week Tine will be one of the moderators and speakers at the (virtual) International Wild Flower Festival organised by Tourism Bohinj, focusing on sustainable mobility and legacy in tourism. In addition to public speaking, we have also delivered training programmes lasting from a few hours to several days to different types of tourism organisations. Our greatest reward is supporting people to develop in this industry, whether that is developing their programmes and offers or helping them develop personally, so please contact us for more details if you would like to use this service.
Our Media work not only involves weekly blog posting, but assisting with PR, through our partner Frank Marr at AM+A, and helping tourism enterprises position themselves correctly through digital media, including improved online presence on both their own and on OTA websites. Media events are also part of our media agenda. For instance a few weeks ago we delivered a media session for the tourist boards in the Balkans with presentations from the US, UK, Greek and Croatian travel trade media editors on the latest Covid developments in their respective markets.
As for Events, hopefully our record for delivering quality targeted events is evident and we want to build on this strong foundation. New Deal Europe has recently partnered with the Connections Team at Jacobs Media, and we were able to meet with them this week to plan our participation, and that of our Balkan Region partners, at the first ever Global Travel Week, a hosted buyer event taking place in London over several days from 27th September 2021, which they will organise. It is an exciting opportunity for the region to be promoted to the senior buyers being recruited by the Connections Team, so please get in touch if you want to be part of the Global Travel Week.
Another news announcement for our partners comes from the field of online travel agents’ training. Further discussions were held this week with OTT (Online Travel Training) about our partnership offering tourist destinations and enterprises the opportunity to reach the front line travel agency staff through educational presentations and on line tools. This is the best way to get our partner destinations front and centre in the travel booker’s mind, and anyone who wants to take advantage of our deal which offers a free trail to our partners up to the end of this year should get in touch with us.
The five pillars of New Deal Europe are: Consultation, Representation, Education, Media and Events, or CRÈME for short.
To help us deliver on all of these activities, we have recruited a brilliant assistant. Through the Erasmus programme we have taken on board Matic Schwarzmann, a tourism student from our partners at Ljubljana School of Tourism. He will be joining us on a placement from 28th June. We are delighted that he has agreed to work with us and we look forward to working with him to take all our plans forward.
Of course, nothing could be taken forward without your support. We are so grateful to everyone who has supported us on the journey so far and we are looking forward to travelling together as the journey progresses. Perhaps next year we can post some pictures of both of us together, on our fourth anniversary, somewhere in one of the New Deal Europe destinations. The New Deal Europe team, filled with hope and positivity about the future, looks forward to seeing you there.
New Deal Europe is the only travel market platform dedicated to generating business to Balkan region of Europe, www.newdealeurope.com. Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/newdealeurope.
