There is tremendous interest worldwide within the tourism industry to find ways to create memorable customer experiences across every touch point. This conference will bring together...professionals who are pursuing those same goals.
Lisbon, Portugal (PRWEB) April 28, 2015
With Company today announced that it will host the third annual international Service Design + Tourism Conference, SDT 2015, in Lisbon on 4-7 November. The strategic design agency will partner with Management Center Innsbruck (MCI), the host of the inaugural conference, to produce the event that has the institutional support of Lisbon City Council.
“We are honored to host SDT 2015 in Lisbon, one of the most popular travel destinations in the world, and build upon the success of the first two conferences,” said Tiago Nunes, co-founder of With Company. “There is tremendous interest worldwide within the tourism industry to find ways to create memorable customer experiences across every touch point. This conference will bring together service design practitioners, industry professionals, and students and faculty who are all pursuing those same goals. The variety of innovative methods, practices, case studies and research that will be shared at SDT2015 is guaranteed to leave our attendees with notebooks full of ideas to take home and implement in their organizations.”
Prior SDT conferences were held in Innsbruck, Austria in 2012 and Sarasota, Florida in 2013. The events drew attendees from across the globe who shared an interest in the practical application of service design thinking within the travel and tourism industry.
Service design is the application of established design processes and skills to the development of services. It is a creative and practical way to improve existing services and engineer new ones. Service design truly is an amalgamation of disciplines, including product design, graphic design, operations management, and interaction design.
“After the success of our first two conferences in Innsbruck and Sarasota, the SDT Conference Board is excited to bring this event back to the European Union and convene our 2015 meeting in beautiful Lisbon,” said Hubert Siller, professor and dean of MCI’s Department of Tourism Business Studies. “We are pleased to partner with With Company to expand the international community of practitioners devoted to enhancing the tourism profession through the application of service design thinking.”
Previous conference keynote and plenary session speakers represented organizations such as Walt Disney Imagineering, Marriott International, Hyatt Hotels, Virgin Atlantic Airways, Fjord, and Adaptive Path.
SDT 2015 will draw an interdisciplinary mix of attendees including designers of all kinds, tourism industry professionals, and academicians. A Call for Papers for those interested in presenting at SDT2015 will be published on May 15, with submissions accepted through June 15. Conference agenda details and the program of speakers will be published by August 1.
Conference sponsorships are available. For more information, please contact go@sdt2015.org.
About With Company
Like the name says, it’s a strategic design consultancy company that likes to work with people, not for them.
We believe there are huge benefits in working together with our clients (who knew!). Although, these benefits are not tax deductible, they do enrich our work. A lot. And that’s how we like our work to be: rich. We also like to work with all kinds of brands. From businesses who are looking to save their asses to brands who want to shine bright like diamonds. The ones we like best are the ones who are actually making a difference and serve a purpose. WithCo (that’s our short name) was designed by designers with strategy at its core.We are a team of sort of designers-meet-anthropologists-meet-strategists-meet-copywriters. Even though in the end, everyone is a designer.
http://www.with-company.com
About MCI
Management Center Innsbruck (MCI) is an integral part of the unique "Open University Innsbruck" concept in Austria and has attained a leading position in international higher education as a result of its on-going quality and customer orientation. MCI strives to mentor motivated people, who want to build their future through goal-oriented continuing education, in their personal and professional development.
The MCI Tourism Department is the leading higher education program in mountain tourism and offers Bachelor and Master programs in the field of entrepreneurship and tourism. Within the framework of the Master degree program “Entrepreneurship & Tourism” students have the opportunity to choose between two areas of specialization, namely “Strategic Management & Tourism” and “Marketing Management & Tourism”. The courses in “Marketing Management & Tourism” are held exclusively in English and focus among other subjects on consumer behavior, service experiences and service design.
Visit http://www.mci.edu to learn more.