Originally from the Seychelles, Elcia Grandcourt joined the World Tourism Organisation, a United Nations specialised Agency for Tourism in 2013 as Director, of the Regional Department for Africa. Elcia began her tourism career studying Hotel Management in Singapore at the Singapore Hotel Association and Education Centre (SHATEC). Thereafter, she occupied various positions in operations, reservations and sales mainly in hotels, including leading international brands such as Le Meridien and Hilton Worldwide Resorts. She was part of the rebranding team when Hilton Worldwide Resorts took over the management of the then Northolme hotel in Seychelles. She worked with the Seychelles national airline and destination management companies before joining the public sector to Seychelles Tourism Board as deputy CEO before being promoted to Chief Executive Officer, a position she occupied prior to joining UNWTO. Passionate about tourism, Elcia is honoured to be able to contribute towards sustainable tourism development in Africa. Elcia also holds a Master in Dynamics of Cooperation, Conflicts and Negotiation in International Relations and Diplomacy

Hermione is a senior tourism specialist with IFC, based in Johannesburg. She has fifteen years of experience in the tourism sector, working with the public sector to attract private sector investment into the tourism economy. She works across a range of countries globally, providing tourism expertise in both advisory and lending operations, and currently focuses on sub-Saharan Africa. She has a particular interest in supporting domestic and regional tourism development, destination management and the digital economy.

Michel Julian is Programme Officer at the Tourism Market Intelligence and Competitiveness Department, United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).

His work at the UNWTO Tourism Market Intelligence and Competitiveness department covers the analysis of current and future tourism trends. He contributes to the preparation of key UNWTO reports such as the UNWTO World Tourism Barometer. His field of work also includes the study of tourism products and segments, outbound markets and marketing techniques.

Mr Julian (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) studied economics and holds Masters degrees in International Economics and Tourism Economics from Toulouse School of Economics - Sciences Po (Toulouse, France).

With a background in destination marketing of more than a decade, Nick is one of the tourism industry’s leading experts on destination marketing. As founder of the Digital Tourism Think Tank (#DTTT), the leading platform connecting destinations worldwide on topics around digital trends and transformation, Nick has worked with hundreds of destinations helping to navigate the complexities of an increasingly digital visitor experience.

Through his work heading up the #DTTT, Nick has led the industry to think about ‘Destination Transformation’ and the impact the ‘always on’ visitor, the multi-touchpoint path to purchase and the need for organisations to think differently about their approach. At the core of Nick’s message and expertise is the need to stay current, on par with consumer trends, and foster a culture of innovation to remain competitive.

Nick and his team connect thousands of tourism professionals each year, through the flagship #DTTT Global, #DTTT Content Campus and leading industry sessions at WTM London, ITB Berlin, ATM Dubai and WTM Africa. Fostering partnerships with both industry leaders and digital leaders, Nick and his team lead the conversation on digital in tourism.

As the leader of the ForwardKeys Insights team, Olivier Ponti is one of the world’s most authoritative experts in travel research and destination marketing. He gives dozens of conference presentations and media interviews a year, cross-referencing ForwardKeys’ considerable data with numerous other sources, to identify new travel trends; forecast future travel patterns; reveal the impact of events on travel and provide deep insights into the travellers of tomorrow.

Previously, Olivier was Research Manager, Amsterdam Marketing, where he helped attract tourism and business investment to the city by judicious use of market research and compelling presentation. Latterly, as Amsterdam became increasingly popular, his data-driven approach was at the heart of successful initiatives to balance the demands of visitors, residents and businesses.

Until June 2018, he was also Chairman of the Research & Statistics working group of European Cities Marketing (ECM) where he played a pivotal role in developing the Group’s research tools and reports, as well as establishing strategic partnerships.

Olivier Ponti’s career in city tourism started in 2004 when he was appointed manager of the tourism research department of the Paris Visitors and Convention Bureau.

Olivier was educated at Sciences Po in Paris where he gained a Master’s Degree in Economics, and at the Sorbonne University where he gained a Master’s Degree in Tourism Development. His connection to academia continues, as he teaches Market Intelligence at the Sorbonne.

David Tomoji Klippenstein leads Mastercard’s tourism engagement globally as part of its Government Data & Services vertical. Prior to joining Mastercard, David worked at McKinsey & Company in their public finance practice focused on fiscal and sovereign liability management. He holds a MBA from Kellogg, and speaks French, Spanish and Arabic. Mastercard is a multi-rail technology company focused on doing well by doing good, leveraging its capabilities, infrastructure, and solutions to support governments globally in driving and accelerating inclusive growth.

Olivier Henry-Biabaud is CEO of TCI Research he founded in 2010 as a way to combine its knowledge in data & analytics with a solid passion for travel. His Travel BI company works for over 100 destinations, travel brands and organizations globally with a mission to fuel destinations’ success through data, setting innovative international standards for monitoring visitor satisfaction, resident sentiment and destination brand reputation. Olivier was awarded by UNWTO in 2011 for its reference data solution TRAVELSAT that offers visitor economy players with insights using smart combination of surveys and social (big) data analytics. In 2017, he received the Best Travel Market Research CEO Award from the EU Business News

Neethling is the Chief Technology Officer of Wetu Toursim Solutions since September 2019 having previously worked as product and technology leader in several companies in South Africa. Neethling can draw on a varied and successful 15-year career in start up and global businesses. He possesses an entrepreneurial approach and maintains a strong interest in technology that is underpinned by a value to the customer ethos.

Wetu Tourism Solutions provides tools for the travel and trade industry to manage and distribute content. From content management capabilities to itinerary creation and sales enhancement tools. Neethling uses his ability to bring users and technology closer together to create solutions that solves real problems and adds real value. This gives him the ability to create a compelling business offering while innovating through technology.

Chad has headed Destination Marketing Organization partnerships at Tripadvisor for many regions around EMEA, including Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and others since 2013. His work with destinations at Tripadvisor involves everything from consumer destination marketing to data and analytics partnerships – leveraging Tripadvisor’s position as the market leader as a traveller resource to assist destinations in making smart marketing decisions. Prior to this, he worked with the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) in promoting Japan to European travellers.

Sérgio Guerreiro holds a PhD in Tourism from Univ. of Lisbon, an MSc in Public Management and Administration and a degree in Economics.

He has over 20 years of experience in the field of tourism, working as a policy analyst and Director at Turismo de Portugal. Currently in charge of statistics, business intelligence, entrepreneurship and innovation.

He also represents Portugal at several working groups at UNWTO, OECD and European Travel Commission. He is currently Chairman of the OECD Tourism Committee and Chairman of the European Travel Commission’s Market Intelligence Group.

He is Executive Director of NovaSBE’s Westmont Institute of Tourism and Hospitality and a visiting lecturer at NOVA-IMS and European University Canarias.

Chief Technology Officer at Jurni, with commitment to drive digital transformation and data management for the travel and tourism industry in South Africa. Implementing the National Tourism Visitor Information System (NTVIS). With demonstrated experience in enterprise architecture, data, application, technology, security and integration domains, data & analytics, software engineering amongst others, in multiple industries (telecoms, banking, insurance, oil & gas, tourism) both locally and internationally.