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Read Philip Wolf's opening monologue from Center Stage - Wednesday, November 19

PhoCusWright’s signature event will again attract the most qualified audience of high-profile travel experts including decision-makers and C-level executives, under one roof. Like no other event in the travel industry, the Center Stage at The PhoCusWright Conference offers a highly interactive environment that facilitates networking and relationship building.

A premium is placed on honesty here. No spin. No faking it. Just honest answers to hard questions posed by PhoCusWright’s analysts, live and unscripted.

Attendees come from around the industry and around the world, comprising the most savvy, connected and demanding audience to be found at any travel industry event. They continuously praise the program content, speaker roster and professional organization of the event, convinced that The PhoCusWright Conference is a one-of-a-kind experience that is not to be missed.

PhoCusWright analysts run the show on the Center Stage like a live research project. They know the people and understand the issues like no one else. Our travel industry expertise and interviewing skills are leveraged to uncover truths, probe for clarity and reject sales pitches. We respect your time with superior production value, professional event operations, excellent meals, and above all, networking opportunities with unique access to travel, tourism and hospitality industry leaders. The audience is encouraged to question the speakers—challenging them and providing their own insights.

Speakers will cover topics such as:

Finding growth strategies in a dynamic distribution marketplace.
Getting things right in the world’s largest industry…an industry fraught with historic hurdles, unconventional competition and new rules.
Engaging tomorrow’s customers while sustaining relationships with today’s customers.
Effectively addressing the multitude of concerns that weigh upon travel industry executives.

THE PERFECT STORM: SEARCH, SHOP, BUY
After last year's successful theme "Braving the Long Tail" and "Travel 2.0 Confronts the Establishment" the year before, the Center Stage theme at The PhoCusWright Conference in 2008 is "The Perfect Storm: Search, Shop, Buy."

A Perfect Storm develops when several events occur simultaneously which, taken individually, would be far less powerful than the result of their combination. Unlike its meteorological counterpart, this digital Perfect Storm is strengthened by new rounds of intense innovation giving rise to a positive, advancing force that holds great promise for travel, tourism and hospitality.

The Perfect Storm is caused by millions of travelers visiting numerous sites daily, creating numerous customer touchpoints and obscuring the point-of-sale along the way. The growth of ad and referral-based revenue is challenging the dominance of traditional bookings-driven business models. Hybrid business models are appearing, with suppliers and intermediaries alike mixing and matching their offerings to assume new roles in the search-shop-buy process. The travel purchase itself is no longer the whole story, as innovation in search and shopping tools have made these once-minimized parts of the process much more influential.

This Perfect Storm affords abundant opportunity, provided that companies do three things:

Exploit fantastic advancements in technology and momentum
Avoid skills-focused decision making and business model preservation
Rededicate their business to solving big problems for customers

Excellent leadership in our industry is defined by those who actually fuel the storm, and in turn their own cause, by aligning their business with the contributing forces. In this Perfect Storm, a series of technologies and trends have created unprecedented opportunities—which sometimes challenge long-held assumptions and business models.

Center Stage at this year’s PhoCusWright Conference will put the travel industry’s Perfect Storm on the radar, shining a Hollywood-sized spotlight on three dynamic forces—search, shop, buy— that are uniquely combining to impact our industry in unprecedented ways. From PPC and PPA fronts and the rising winds of metasearch to the ground-level impact being felt by travel players throughout the industry-wide warning area, attendees will come away with insight into how their business can weather—or fuel—The Perfect Storm.

Attendees rely on PhoCusWright to cut through the hype and help them to foresee those market forces that will be game changing.

Your registration includes Tuesday’s Workshops, Network Exchange (ability to participate) and gala reception, in addition to Wednesday and Thursday’s Center Stage program, events and Exhibitor Showcase. A four-day ticket which encompasses all events happening Monday through Thursday is also available for purchase.