This year’s Tahiti Business Forum was held at the Miramonte Resort & Spa in Palm Desert, CA from September 8th to 10th.

The Business Forum, last held in 2004, is designed by Tahiti Tourisme North America to gather key Tahiti partners across North America and Tahiti, to promote synergy, and work together for the benefit of our destination.

This event was an opportunity for our partners to share their concerns about the challenges affecting our destination. An additional objective of the event was to foster an atmosphere of collaboration in order to facilitate a constructive review and evaluation of TTNA programs.

The conference began on Monday, September 8th, with a welcome cocktail Reception, sponsored by the Condé Nast Bridal Group. The event offered an enjoyable and intimate Tahiti-themed Social Networking event, created to bring all partners together to meet one another.

The following day began with an entertaining video, created by the Phelps Group, honoring all the partners dedicated to our beautiful destination. It also introduced the general themes of the Business Forum as well as the current theme of TTNA’s new advertising campaign tagline “Islands the way they used to be.”

On Tuesday, the general session was opened with our  guest speaker, David Berkowitz, who is the Director of Emerging Media & Client Strategy for Digital Marketing Agency 360i. David provided us with insight as to where media is heading and how to utilize emerging trends in social media to engage your target customer.

Travel marketers are faced with an array of choices when considering efficient means to engage consumers. David Berkowitz presented to us five social media channels key to travel marketers: Media sharing, blogs, widgets, social network, and communities.

According to David, a solid social media strategy is valuable as it facilitates a better understanding of your customers. In order to determine where your customer fits and understand their social media behavior, an analysis of Social Technology Graphics is required.

To view the entire presentation of David Berkowitz and learn more on Emerging Social Media, please click here.

The presentation was followed by a productive session “Let’s Talk Turkey”, during which Tahiti Tourisme North America asked all partners’ input in an effort to help optimize our promotional tools and programs.

This session was a fruitful way for all partners to discuss and share openly with the TTNA team their concerns and suggestions to improve the promotions for the destination.

The main areas covered were the Partner Guidelines, Co-op Partner Guidelines, Tactical Advertising Strategy, as well as, TTNA’s Workshops and Tradeshows, Tahiti Tiare specialist program, and the TTNA Website.

During this session, all partners also agreed to the creation of an ad-hoc advisory committee to represent all sectors. The purpose of this committee would be to discuss collectively and revise the Co-op Guidelines, the Preferred Partner Guidelines, and the Tactical Advertising Strategy.

Tahiti Tourisme North America would like to thank all partners for their input and cooperation. TTNA will implement and adapt accordingly new marketing and promotional initiatives and directions to meet the objectives discussed during these sessions.

A presentation given by the Phelps Group followed this session, which introduced Tahiti Tourism new creative strategy.

To view TPG's presentation and learn more about our advertising campaign, please click here.

Our luncheon speaker was Michelle Morgan, President of Signature Travel Network, explaining the current trends of the luxury travel market. Michelle’s presentation was very informative and helped us better understand the positioning required to reach out to the luxury market.

To view the entire presentation, please click here.

The afternoon session was comprised of one-on-one appointments, where all partners had the opportunity to meet and interact with one another for private business-to-business appointments.

After a long, but productive day, all partners headed towards the Cocktail Reception, sponsored by Town All Points Communications, for a few tapas and glasses of Sangria.

On Wednesday, September 10th, Donna Heiderstadt, Travel Editor for Modern Bride, shared an informative presentation over breakfast on the luxury honeymoon market.

Ms. Heiderstadt provided excellent insight on how to approach this niche market and believed Tahiti could capture a new affluent demographic called “New Elite.”

To view the entire presentation, please click here.

The Forum closed with an interesting Certified Tiare Agent panel discussion, featuring six certified Tiare agents from all over North America

- Elena Borrero - Elena Borrero Travel Services, LLC - Ridgewood, NJ
- Kim Spadoni-Barbosa – Travel Escapes.com – Highlands Ranch, CO
- Yves Courbet – Tahititravel – Los Angeles, CA
- Barbara Schmidt – New Millenium Tours, inc – Chicago, IL
- Aly Evraire – Pacesetter Travel – Toronto, Canada
- Rick Garrett – Travel Pacific – Aptos, CA

The Tiare agents were invited to share with the audience their perspectives on the retail side of the business. This panel also provided the suppliers an opportunity to inquire on how to assist and help them.

The panel addressed many common themes such as the high-cost of food, the evolution of niche markets, the potential for the legalization of weddings, family programs on the islands, the lack of all inclusive resort pricing, the surf and dive markets, etc.

The panel opened with a brief presentation of each guest speaker. The first question asked the panel to address the overall consumers’ behaviors and sentiment. According to our Tiare Agents, the primary feedback they get from customers is concerning the overall price.

The audience was very cooperative and engaged during the panel and extremely interested in understanding the other side of the business. The suppliers were also very concerned as to how they could help the agents sell the destination and overcome the challenges facing our destination.

This session was very educational and indicative of many of the challenges we need to overcome within the industry. It gave all attendees an insight into the difficulties our Tiare Agents are facing.

TTNA would like to thank all our partners for their support and for making the Business Forum a meaningful event for the benefit of our destination.

TTNA looks forward to using this valuable feedback as we continue to improve our programs.