October 07 - 08, 2024
Hyatt Regency Austin, TX
First Year Attended: 2015
How He’s Participated: Attendee & Speaker
Digital Travel Highlights: Jeremie enjoyed the intimate feeling of the conference, and was pleasantly surprised by conversations that continued after the event and lead to new hires.
I have had the chance to be a speaker at different, typically larger events in the past, and I definitely prefer the vibe and the people that I encountered at the Digital Travel Summit last year. I would say it was a more intimate feeling conference, and it was interaction with the people there that made it special.
I felt very connected to the community at the event; I would say even now I feel a connection. It was really interesting being a part of that group. The format of the event was not the type of setup that you can have when you go to a big convention, when people don't really interact so much. For many reasons, I felt that I interacted a lot with the people at the event. The vibe was very friendly. It seemed as if people were more like co-workers, kind of like a family and that's something that you don't usually see during other events. That's what I appreciated most and I’m looking forward to being part of the crew again next year.
At the event, we met some people, exchanged a lot of ideas, and at the end of the day, we hired some people that we met there. It was definitely not one of the goals we set out with when we go to these kinds of events. You go in and say, "well, I'm here today to learn more things," but what I really love is when it comes to the specialized tracks, you meet people in a really healthy way, and we talk about our subjects and go deeper in the conversation naturally based on mutual interest. It’s a less forced, more organic feeling situation.
I absolutely kept in touch with the people I met at Digital Travel. It was a great thing that you met people at the event, then that you could keep the conversation going. You never know where that can lead. Sometimes, it could be that you talk to someone and after, it leads to another direction, and at the end of the day, you’ve progressed to "would you be interested?" The difference also is that it was a very digitally savvy crowd and these days, even though the world we're going into is very digital, with more bookings online, on mobile and on desktop, I think it's still very difficult to find digital people. This event was very different from any other kind of travel event in that it really brought that crowd together.
I’m excited for the next event. I think it will be even more interesting than last year because of the kind of speakers who are going to be there. I can see that there are going to be people there who will be sharing new perspectives. When you see that, I think it makes things very, very interesting. I’m definitely looking to interact even more with some new people with fresh perspectives.