#DTTT Expert Team

Emma Håkansson has more than 15 years’ experience in tourism and the travel industry. She started her career in marketing and sales but found her heart in the DMO’s complex world. Her belief is that leading a destination is the ultimate leadership challenge that requires courage, humbleness and great dedication. Her speciality is to give guidance in creating hands-on destination management strategies within product development, marketing, sales and visitor service.

Nick is one of the travel industry’s leading experts on destination marketing. As founder and CEO of the Digital Tourism Think Tank, Nick has worked with hundreds of destinations helping to navigate the complexities of an increasingly digital visitor experience.

Passionate about the future of travel, Nick is an experienced consultant, passionate keynote speaker and great storyteller with a sharp understanding of how to react to change and disruption.

Ramona has been with the Digital Tourism Think Tank since before the inaugural Digital Tourism Innovation Campus took place in Barcelona in 2012. Her experience of working with countless destinations, industry bodies and businesses throughout Europe’s tourism industry makes her well placed to head up the Digital Tourism Think Tank’s day to day activities and ensure our exciting programmes, from events to research, continue to set the industry benchmark in thought leadership.

Mastering the skill of benchmarking and with a passion for digital, Ramona is as passionate about the #DTTT’s new Transformation work as she is about core research and consulting.

As a creative director in online content marketing, Kate Thomas helps top-tier companies, tourism boards and even small operators in the travel industry develop their digital communications strategies. She also provides a suite of offerings including production coordination for videos and original content, the facilitation of influencer collaborations and social communications support. Her clients have included Expedia, TripAdvisor, Visit Britain, Loch Ness by Jacobite, and many more.

Emma is a Creative Director with a background in design for brand, print and digital combined with a strategic mind that can see the bigger picture. She enjoys flexing the boundaries of a project and experimenting with fledgling technology, leading her to create forward thinking concepts for clients in a variety of sectors. She is fascinated by the future of digital and the development of brand as part of this.

Gerrie Smits is a consultant, coach and keynote speaker. He’s fascinated by the impact of digital and technology on our organisations, our products, our communications and our society. Gerrie has got 20+ years of experience in industries that got disrupted by the internet, so that makes him a hands-on expert.

Jessica Riches is an award-winning social media, content and engagement specialist. Before starting to work as a #DTTT Expert, she worked with a variety of clients including Toshiba, Universal Pictures, the Nike Foundation, Marks & Spencer, the Tower of London, the Green Party and Pottermore. She works creating strategies, delivering training and managing communities.

Alex has 20 years experience in the local tour and activity sector - what you do when you get to a destination. He describes himself as both technical and commercial. This gives him a unique position to be able to visualise both what the future may be, how it should be built, and how it may be commercialised.

Alex founded TourCMS, the original leader in tours and activities online travel agent distribution providing reservation system and distribution technology to hundreds of local tour operators, and ran that business for 10 years until its successful sale in October 2015. In 2016, Alex launched Uptaste, a local food tour and experience aggregator. He is also on the advisory board of Travel Tech Lab (London) – the Mayor of London’s travel startup centre of excellence. He blogs, publishes destination technology research and assists local experience providers at DestinationCTO.

Talia has over 10 years of experience in tourism, social media marketing and content strategy. Prior to consulting, she worked as Manager of Social and Content for Brand USA, the USA’s public-private partnership dedicated to increasing international visitation to the United States. Talia oversaw the launch of Brand USA's new consumer websites in 15 markets including visuals and content strategy. She oversaw global social media and content campaigns in 15 markets in 8 languages. She also launched the Great American Road Trips campaign, which traveled to every state in the USA, and supported the Flavors of the USA and Great Outdoors campaigns.

Isabel is an online strategist in tourism and destination marketing. She is an associate expert of the Digital Tourism Think Tank. Isabel is seen as a progressive thinker in destination marketing and is renowned for her thorough knowledge and experience in the field of online marketing and social media within tourism. She has worked with many DMO’s and tourism business and worked at the Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions as an online consultant. Passionate about travelling, she shares her vast experiences on her travel blog. Her ultimate dream is to give children, who are not able to travel, the experience and joy of travel of trip.

As an executive brand strategist and concept developer for the travel industry, Stefan Pettersson has offered his knowledge and skills to several entrepreneurs. Stefan also works as a supervisor for independent, small and middle sized business owners, he has taught entrepreneurs strategic marketing, market communication, sales and concept development. Having worked as a marketing director for the city of Uppsala, Stefan was in charge of the city's brand communication, marketing strategies and project management. Prior to that, he was responsible for the development of the Stockholm Visitors Center with the mission to serve around 6500 visitors per day.

Jean-Philippe Favre works with Geneva Tourism. He is a PMP certified professional who brings to the #DTTT 18 years of experience across all aspects of project delivery and an in-depth understanding of process improvement, CRM and business analytics. He has managed multiple projects focusing directly on Tourism, Hospitality & IT. He has also helped his organisation to optimise their business intelligence challenges whether they relate to operational platforms, such as hotel reservation systems, Google Analytics or applied sales techniques, such as connecting a to a CRM tools or product analysis.