Travel Massive Edinburgh is Local at Heart
The Travel Massive Edinburgh community enjoyed a fantastic networking evening on the roof of the Forth View Suite at The George Hotel Edinburgh on Thursday 14 July 2016. Read more
Travel Massive Edinburgh Welcomes The World
Travel Massive Edinburgh welcomed the world on Thursday 27 August, with event sponsors Festivals Edinburgh at the G&V Royal Mile Hotel and a strong turn-out from the local travel community.
With six international festivals in full swing in the city, including the Edinburgh International Festival, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, bringing participation from 70 countries, and since Travel Massive connects thousands of people within the travel industry around the world, the theme of welcoming the world seemed appropriate.
The Travel Massive Edinburgh August event welcomed over 50 travel professionals including guests from Qatar Airways, Edinburgh Airport, VisitScotland, Skyscanner, Booking.com, Edinburgh Napier University, Scotch Broth Events, ETAG, Haggis Adventures, Yelp Edinburgh, Mercat Tours, new tour company Glasgow Music City Tours; travel bloggers, accommodation providers and more.
Edinburgh Chapter leaders Lesley Judge of Smart Tourism and Katy Duncan of Haggis Adventures welcomed guests and set the scene for the evening’s event, handing over to Festivals Edinburgh Marketing Manager Susan Russell.
Susan Russell, Lesley Judge and Katy Duncan
Susan took guests through an entertaining whistle-stop tour of the Edinburgh festivals’ history – they started in 1947 – and only the World Cup and the Olympics have a bigger audience. 70 countries take part and the impact on the city is impressive and far-reaching, drawing in 4.2m attendees and generating £261m of revenue, offering diverse business opportunities for all travel and tourism businesses.
Susan Russell of Festivals Edinburgh
We learned that the Edinburgh festivals don’t just take place in August –there are 12 of them, and Edinburgh is a festival city pretty much all year round, with a diverse range of events. Susan ended her talk with a great video of some of the amazing performers and authors who have enriched the Edinburgh Festivals over the years.
Travel Massive Edinburgh August 2015
General Manager Dale Simpson of the G&V Royal Mile Hotel gave everyone a warm welcome, updating guests on the latest news regarding the transformation of the hotel rooms and spaces. A special thank you to Dale and his team and to hotel staff members Melanie and Riccardo who were incredibly helpful and friendly, and who looked after everyone brilliantly, keeping them fed and watered.
GM Dale Simpson from G&V Royal Mile Hotel
Festival tickets up for grabs in our Twitter contest included shows from Adam Hills and Jason Byrne, as well as tickets for the Festival Fireworks concert and Edinburgh’s Hogmanay Street Party. The lucky winners were Anna Morris of The Edinburgh Address, Christopher Davidson of Haggis Hostels, Carol Howley of Skyscanner, Pippa Ratky of VisitScotland and Mags McNeil of ETAG.
Susan Russell of Festivals Edinburgh and winner Carol Howley from Skyscanner
The Festivals Edinburgh social wall kept everyone entertained with the latest Twitter and Instagram feeds from the evening, and there was plenty of information on Edinburgh Festivals on a touch screen and in print for guests.
Everyone enjoyed plenty of excellent networking, festival chat and lots of laughs. The feedback from guests was positive as usual, with many new guests already looking forward to repeating the experience. Some guests had to nip off early to festival shows and after some post-event dinner, several headed off to shows which ran on into the wee small hours.
Travel Massive Edinburgh would like to thank the growing travel community for attending, Festivals Edinburgh for sponsoring our event and the team at G&V Royal Mile Hotel Edinburgh for helping to make it a success.
With festivals still firmly on our minds, many look forward to the start of the Edinburgh Mela this weekend and to squeezing the very last drop out of Edinburgh’s festival city this August.
Check out tweets from the event via #travelmassive #edinburgh.
Sign up to Travel Massive Edinburgh and connect with others in the local community and across the globe.
If you’re interested in sponsoring an event or you have an idea for a future event, please get in touch.
Luxury Travel, Cool Canapes, Castle Views: Travel Massive Edinburgh May 2015
The May 2015 Travel Massive Edinburgh event kicked off in style on Thursday 28th, at the offices of sponsors 80 Days, An Occupancy Marketing Company.
Travel Massive Edinburgh! (Photo: Katalin Som)
Guests from the Edinburgh travel community enjoyed drinks and stunning views from our venue across to Edinburgh Castle – even a rainbow appeared, enhancing the postcard-perfect backdrop.
Edinburgh Castle views! (Photo: Natalie Allera)
After a warm welcome to guests from Edinburgh Chapter Leader Katy Duncan, our 10 minute talks kicked off with Mark Forrester, Managing Director of 80 Days, An Occupancy Marketing Company, and our venue sponsor for the evening, on the state of luxury travel in the UK.
80 Days/Occupancy Marketing MD Mark Forrester kicking off the talks. (Photo: 80 Days, An Occupancy Marketing Company)
Guests learned that a typical online purchase journey in travel takes 24 days and 21.6 visits to 9.4 sites (from Google via Occupancy) and that search queries in the luxury travel category (UK) grew by 8% in the first quarter.
We were fortunate to have Edinburgh School of Food and Wine sponsor some beautiful canapés for our guests to enjoy during the evening – guests enjoyed Marinated Bocconcini watermelon, smoked salmon with pickled cucumber, quail egg with celery stick, and roast cinnamon pear en croute – all stunning.
Delicious canapes from Edinburgh School of Food and Wine. (Photo: Kim Kjaerside).
The school’s founder, Ian Pirrie, gave an interesting talk about the school, its development and activities and how it works with others in the industry.
Ian Pirrie from Edinburgh School of Food and Wine.
As for the delicious canapés, the only sharing that was involved seemed to be in photo and in Tweet form – they certainly made an impact on our guests – thank you again, Ian and ESFW!
Our final speaker, Natalie Allera, Marketing Manager for The Bonham Hotel Edinburgh and Starwood Capital/Hayley Principal Hotels, updated the travel community on recent developments for the hotel group in Edinburgh and Glasgow, meaning that a new group of hotels has been formed, comprising The Bonham, The George Hotel and The Roxburghe Hotel in Edinburgh, together with Blythswood Square and The Grand Central Hotel in Glasgow.
Marketing Manager Natalie Allera of The Bonham Hotel with prize winner Eva Sturm of TravelResponsibly
Natalie kindly sponsored a tasty prize of dinner for two at The Bonham Hotel Edinburgh and she was delighted to congratulate the prize winner, Eva Sturm (@trvlresponsibly) of New Edinburgh Tours (@neweditours) who won the prize in our Twitter contest, using the hashtag #bonhamlux.
Thanks again from Katy, Julie and Lesley at Travel Massive Edinburgh to all of our very generous sponsors, 80 Days, An Occupancy Marketing Company, for offering us a brilliant venue, great atmosphere, drinks and more, to the Edinburgh School of Food and Wine for memorable canapés and to The Bonham Hotel Edinburgh for a great prize – our guests agreed that they all made our May event special.
Enjoying Travel Massive Edinburgh May 2015 at the lovely Occupancy offices.
Thank you also to the Travel Massive community in Edinburgh who have been incredibly supportive, attending our events, offering suggestions and ideas for future events and coming up with great offers of sponsorship. We are really enjoying building on this as well as seeing people connect and network, and it’s encouraging to see new faces at each event.
Edinburgh festivals & events banter at Travel Massive Edinburgh
We look forward to engaging with the Edinburgh travel community at more #TravelMassive #Edinburgh events planned for this summer – the next event is scheduled for August.
Find out more about Travel Massive at www.travelmassive.com
Register in the Travel Massive Edinburgh chapter
Tweet the chapter leaders: @katyonthego @lesleyjudge @zurika – or email editravelmassive@gmail.com
Smart Talking with #ScotlandHour Revisited
#ScotlandHour: Great Places to Stay in Scotland, 29 February 2012, 9-10pm GMT
Smart Talking is delighted to chat once again to Dougie Baird, the man behind Baird’s Travel website, West End Walks, and founder of monthly Twitter chat #ScotlandHour. Read more
Smart Talking with Hotel Missoni Edinburgh
In this week’s Smart Talking, we chat to Carina Svensen, General Manager of Hotel Missoni, Edinburgh. Read more
Smart Talking with Apex Hotels
In this week’s Smart Talking, we chat to Sam Weston, E-Marketing Manager at Apex Hotels.
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