Virgin Aus CMO, Intrepid Travel and Contiki confirmed as Mumbrella Travel Marketing Summit and Awards return for 2024

The Mumbrella Travel Marketing Summit and Awards are returning in 2024, with Virgin Australia’s CMO, Intrepid Travel’s chief customer officer, and Contiki Oceania locked in to speak.

Taking place on November 7, 2024, at Pier One Sydney Harbour, the Mumbrella Travel Marketing Summit brings together senior marketing leaders in travel and tourism to share their insights and ambitions for building their brands.

Mumbrella can confirm Virgin Australia’s chief marketing officer, Libby Minogue, is set to speak this year in the session, ‘What Holds the Key to Marketing Effectiveness’.

Libby Minogue

This session is set to tackle everything from market mix modelling and managing cross-functional relationships, to even giving delegates a peek behind the curtain on the brands latest ‘Bring on Wonderful’ campaign.

Minogue will provide brand insights on standing out in an otherwise considered homogenous category.

Also confirmed to speak is Intrepid Travel’s chief customer officer, Leigh Barnes.

In his final keynote in Australia before relocating to the USA to take up the role of president of the Americas, Barnes will share how Intrepid emerged from the pandemic as a rebranded company, and why he’s leaving performance marketing firmly in the past.

Leigh Barnes

As global travel halted, so too did performance marketing, and the brand was forced to confront who they were fundamentally as a company. Intrepid leant into its values and mission, leading to a stronger sense of purpose and the value that the brand wanted to create.

Barnes will provide delegates with an understanding of how doubling down on brand marketing has laid the foundation to Intrepid’s continued growth trajectory.

And finally, Contiki Oceania’s managing director, Toni Ambler, and marketing director, Maria Parisi, will take to the stage to discuss how the brand is adapting its marketing mix for the Gen Z Asia travel boom.

Gen Z Aussies are flocking to all corners of the diverse continent of Asia, and as a result, Contiki is seeing a 64% year-on-year increase in the region, leading the charge compared to just 38% globally. Google Trends supports this, showing that Southeast Asia is the most searched region globally amongst Australians.

So, the group travel expert launched trips to South Korea in 2023 and to the Philippines this year. To date, the latter has been the fastest selling newly-launched product in the past five years.

To address the challenge of Contiki’s strong association with multi-country European trips, a comprehensive marketing strategy has been implemented to ensure the brand is capturing the attention of Gen Z travellers. From extensive brand research into Gen Z’s interests and behaviours, to leveraging social media influencers, creating engaging content inspired by trends (importantly, from the channels where Gen Z are showing up), and offering regional sales like the Big Asia Sale, Contiki are shaking up the way they communicate these new products and attract a new generation of travellers eager to explore the East.

Toni Ambler and Maria Parisi

Ambler and Parisi will talk through how Contiki effectively captured the attention of Gen Z, how the brand adapted its offerings to suit the travel wants of modern youth, and why Asia is so in demand for young Aussies.

Mumbrella’s Travel Marketing Awards also return for 2024, and this year there is a somewhat nautical theme with the gala dinner and awards presentation taking place on Starship Sydney cruise ship.

Across campaigns, content, social, publications, partnerships and PR, this is your chance to benchmark yourself against travel and tourism’s brightest lights of the industry.

Avoid the late fee and be sure to enter by September 6 here.

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Lauren McNamara

Lauren McNamara is a journalist at Mumbrella, covering the creative and PR beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.

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topics Contiki Contiki Oceania Intrepid Leigh Barnes Libby Minogue Maria Parisi Mumbrella Travel Marketing Awards Mumbrella Travel Marketing Summit Toni Ambler Virgin Australia

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