Sydney’s Breakfast Special with San Francisco Airport

A Travel Massive Breakfast Special? Annelise Sutherland – Travel Massive Sydney chapter leader – told us all about how their breakfast special with the San Francisco Airport went last month. 

Our special breakfast event took place at Blue Chilli Start Up space on York Street in the heart of Sydney, on Thursday the 18th of August. It was the perfect space to hold a panel event like this as it fostered open networking and discussion between all members.

The Attendees

A wide range of industry professionals and members attended this event, which was great to see.

The session was moderated by Carolyn Childs, co-founder of My Travel Research who has worked with aviation and tourism companies for over 25 years.

We had professionals from within the destination-marketing sector such as SFO and Sydney Airport, government employees from Tourism Australia and destination NSW, representatives from airline companies like United Airlines, hoteliers and members of PR and tour company brands. It was also interesting to see that some discussion questions came from members within the blogging and Instagram community who helped provide a unique insight on travelling from a perspective other than that of business travellers.

This event was sponsored by San Francisco Airport (SFO), in partnership with their Sydney based affiliates, in the hope of aviation development and increased awareness of facilities available for travellers commuting through SFO. They provided the funding to host the venue at Blue Chilli and for breakfast and refreshments. They also provided us with two guest speakers, which was greatly appreciated.

The Breakfast Special 

The main concept of this event was to gather travel industry members and leaders to discuss successful destination marketing campaigns and the benefits that can arise from doing so.

Guests speakers provided information about marketing techniques, what SFO do to sell their airport as a suitable alternative route into the US, as well as engaging members like bloggers and brands to utilise the growth of social media in destination advertising.

Another area of focus was how interconnected tourism, destinations and aviation now are. The panel forum included discussions about how to find cheaper rates through SFO, trends in increased passenger airline travel and utilising visual marketing for airline/airport popularity.

The Guest Speakers

We were very privileged to have two guest speakers on the day:

• Tom Kiely: San Francisco Travel Association
• Melissa Andretta: San Francisco Airport (SFO) the Director of International Marketing and Aviation Development

These two speakers were well qualified to join us in our discussion of destination marketing as they hold a wealth of knowledge and experience on how to best develop the destination/ aviation industry in an increasingly globalised world with an increased desire to travel. After their presentations Carolyn from My Travel Research ran an open panel forum where our other guest speaker, Alistair Hogg- Social Media and Content manager for Sydney Airport, joined them to hold questions and discussions.

The Turnout

A big thank you to everyone who turned out including our moderator Carolyn who ensured the conversations were interactive and insightful. With a total of about 30 people attending and staying later to network and mingle, as well as enjoying the coffee and cakes provided, we think the event was a great success.

Annelise Sutherland is an avid traveller and student from Western Sydney University. Annelise is volunteering on professional industry placement with Travel Massive helping to organise and run networking events in Sydney.