Digital Travel Connect Europe 2025 Blog

Take a look at the round up of Digital Travel Connect!

Travel is back (fingers crossed). Where 6 months ago, many of those I spoke to within travel, from airlines to hotels to OTAs, were unsure of when and how travel would bounce back, it now seems that travel is defying expectations in 2023.

Travel, perhaps more so than many industries, has experienced several truly difficult years. From a pandemic-induced shutdown to global conflict and fuel costs as high as 35,000 feet, it’s hard to think of a more bitter cocktail of events than those set off in 2020.

With the explosion of social media, influencers have become a key asset for many brands looking to find their digital edge. Brands like Gymshark were among the first to experiment and find success with influencers – some say Gymshark is one of the influencer marketing pioneers, using their knowledge of YouTube fitness stars to increase brand awareness and grow their market share.

The customer of 2022 is shockingly different to the customer of 2019. Despite a gap of barely 3 years, customers are now buying faster and later than ever. For the customer who expects delivery by 1pm tomorrow, booking a holiday 6 days or 6 weeks ahead, rather than 6-12 months, makes perfect sense. Yet for the airlines, hotels, travel agents and tour operators they book with, such buying patterns represent a major challenge. And this is just one of many new customer behaviours impacting the travel industry today.

It’s fair to say the travel industry has had a rough time of it of late. The last two years have been dominated by the COVID-19 crisis which has restricted air travel and the ability for travellers to enter other countries altogether.

As eager travellers begin to make plans to explore the globe once again following the devastation of the COVID-19 crisis, companies in the space are seeking new ways of not only meeting their expectations but exceeding them. 

We caught up with Bas Lemmens, HotelPlanner President of EMEA & CEO of Meetings.com ahead of his appearance as a speaker at Digital Travel Connect 2022. Read on to discover his top challenges and priorities in the coming year.