Speakers – Italy 2020

Meet our keynote speakers and industry experts headlining the IWINETC virtual conference talk programme.

Register as a Conference Delegate

Andrea Casadei

Industry expert

Expert of innovation and digital communication, he has been dedicated for many years to application services in the world of entrainment and culture with particular attention to booking and booking systems and the interaction between the world of culture with that of tourism. He’s currently work in H-FARM supporting the digital transformation for food companies.

Andrea together with Carlo Vischi will be delvering a talk titled: How the digital transformation is impacting at all levels in the food industry today.

Anthony Swift

Industry expert

Together with representatives of the host destination Friuli Venezia Guilia, Anthony will welcome conference delegates and deliver the opening announcments.

Carlo Vischi

Industry expert

After a long working experience in the publishing sector, in particular in the kitchen and typical products area, he’s now advisor in H-FARM for projects involving food, agrifood and tourism. Passionate about digital communication and digital marketing, he’s offers his experience to help italian small and medium companies to face change.

Carlo together with Andrea Casadei will be delivering a talk titled: How the digital transformation is impacting at all levels in the food industry today

Chris Torres

Keynote speaker

Chris is an author and Brand & Digital Tourism expert with over 26 years’ industry knowledge and speaks at many tourism events worldwide, offering his advice and guidance on how travel, tourism and destination businesses can gain brand recognition and increase bookings.

Chris has focused his business, the Tourism Marketing Agency, on destination marketing with over 80% of his client base coming from outside the UK (where he is based), working with some of the biggest players in the industry including Gray Line, the oldest and largest sightseeing company on planet earth.

This knowledge on international markets gives Chris a unique insight into how destination businesses should market themselves internationally.

Chris is the author of 'How to Turn your Online Lookers into bookers', a 400 page book full of practical marketing advice dedicated for the for tours and activities sector.

Chris also produces a video advice series called The Digital Tourism Show which you can watch on his Facebook Group, YouTube channel or listen on Google or Apple podcasts.

Chris will be delivering two talks titled: How to easily generate 90+ days of content to promote your tour business on day 1 and on day 2: Marketing Wine & Culinary Tourism in the Post-Covid World

Cristina Mascanzoni Kaiser

Keynote speaker

Cristina Mascanzoni Kaiser is the Founder of WineHo, an Italian Academy providing high level education focus on wine hospitality. Teacher in the wine tourism Master in different Business Schools, as CUOA, Cristina published and presented her vision of wine hospitality and relevance of this activity in the future market in 2 summits: Atlas, held at Bergamo University in February 2018 and at Evora, held by Porto University in June 2019.

Cristina is an Italian/German Sommelier certified both by AIS (Italian Sommelier Association) and by WSET.

She studied law at Alma Mater studiorum University of Bologna and, after an experience in insurance business, she has developed her career for more than 20 years in hotellerie as Sales and Marketing Manager within international and luxury hotels (i.e. Munich Bayerischer Hof, Venice San Clemente, Rimini Grand Hotel, Verona Hotel Veronesi La Torre, and many others). She took a Marketing specialization at the Cornell University, NY.

As of 2017 she is as well the owner and founder of ClubAppeal a consultancy firm that provides top wineries, hotel and companies practical indications on how to leverage on one of the most relevant Italian assets: Tourism. In particular she manages to properly target the ideal customer/tourist and to build a product/service that fits his/her needs in the field of wine, oil and experiential tourism. Founding WineHo to create the Wine Hospitality Manager has been the natural step forward to manage the relevant request in the tourism industry.

Cristina will be delivering a talk titled What do luxury travellers want on a wine and food tasting tour? Defining the luxury traveller of today 

Edith Mader

Geschäftsfeldmanagement Wirtschaftstourismus &
Convention Bureau Niederösterreich

Francesco Bacarini

Industry expert

Francesco has a degree in Economics and more than 20 years experience in logistics. He always loved travelling for business or pleasure. In 2019 earned a Master in Business Administration at the MIB School of Management in Trieste. At the beginning of September 2019 together with other four classmates founded Vitinera, a Startup Company with the aim to facilitate and speed up the encounter between wineries and wine lovers.

Francesco will be delivering a talk titled: Vitinera, the experience of launching a start up in the wine business

Harold Goodwin

Keynote speaker

Harold’s career in tourism began as a tour leader and special interest tour operator.  He has worked on four continents with local communities, their governments and the inbound and outbound tourism industry including ABTA and the Association of Independent Tour Operators. He co-founded Responsible Travel with Justin Francis, selling his stake in the company when he moved into consultancy to avoid any conflict of interest. He took his practical experience into academia to enable to train at Masters level some of the next generation of tourism professionals and to undertake research on tourism, responsibility and local economic development.

Harold drafted the Cape Town Declaration on Responsible Tourism in 2002, which laid the foundation of the movement.  He is Managing Director of the Responsible Tourism Partnership and chairs the panels of judges for the World Responsible Tourism Awards in London and the other Awards in the family, Africa, India and new in 2020, Latin America.  Harold is WTM’s Responsible Tourism Advisor, he puts together the flagship Responsible Tourism programme at WTM London which attracts 2000 participants each year, and the programmes run at WTM Africa, WTM Latin America and Arabian Travel Market.

Harold will be delivering a talk titled: The Business Advantage of Responsible Tourism.

Jonathan Gomez Punzon

Industry expert

He is the current International Liaison Officer at UNWTO Academy World Tourism Organization where he liaises within worldwide travel & tourism universities, governments, and top companies to enhance and expand the deserved importance of the travel, tourism, and hospitality academic education and academic research as well as professional training in travel & tourism.

During his current years of service at UNWTO, he was also the coordinator of the UNWTO Sustainable Tourism Platform. Previously, he also performed in the Affiliate Members Program where he coordinated different UNWTO public-private tourism development networks as the City Tourism Network, Wine and Gastronomy Tourism Network, Shopping Tourism Network or Knowledge Network. In a previous stage, he was the director of several tourism boards and convention bureaus in Spain, managing world-known destinations as Granada, Ibiza, or Castilla-La Mancha.
He also acts as tourism advisor for several governments in Latin-America and Asia, on sustainable tourism planification and tourism segments development, as well as advisor for the Boston Consulting Group in the same topics, building sustainable development projects for Vietnam, Guatemala, México, Qatar, China, USA, and many more.

He is accredited as Ph. D. in Tourism Management, currently teaching at Rey Juan Carlos University and Les Roches Global Hospitality School in the area of tourism management, lecturing in some more international universities year by year. He is also certified by the London School of Economics in International Relations, holding different MA degrees in hospitality management, tourism consulting, meetings industry management, and marketing and communication.

Judith Lewis

Keynote speaker

Judith is a renowned writer, trainer, blogger and a digital and media consultant specialising in applying strategic understanding of digital technologies to help businesses innovate and optimise their effectiveness within the new, networked communications environment.

She is a regular speaker around the world on SEO, content strategy, link building, PPC, and digital strategy, a contributor to the Huffington Post, and has been recognised by her peers as one of the most influential people in the UK digital industry.

Judith judges industry leading awards MENA, EU, US, Australian, Nordic, and UK Search Awards, and has every year since their inception. She has worked with market-leading global businesses including Google, Orange, COI, NatWest/RBS, National Gallery, CIPD, Fidelity, GalaCoral, NBC Universal, Readers Digest, Bayer, Family Search, Amadeus, AMD, AmEx , TotalJobs, Virgin.com, Virgin Startup& more.

She has over 20 years of experience, predating Google in her entry into the market and now runs her own consultancy. She has worked at Centaur Publishing, i-level, & Beyond before setting up her own consultancy. Judith also blogs about chocolate, helps with London Girl Geek Dinners, was a founding Modern Muse, and has contributed to the book “Pimp My Site” and the Econsultancy guide to Paid Search and is currently updating the large foundational Guide to SEO.

Judith will deliver a talk within the IWINETC conference programme titled: Post-Covid Website Optimisation and Digital Marketing in the Wine Tourism Industry

Lucio Gomiero

Industry expert

Chief Executive & Managing Director of PromoTurismoFVG

Lucio will open IWINETC 2020 with a talk titled: Friuli Venezia Giulia: Your Next Wine Destination.

Marianna Sigala

Industry expert

Marianna Sigala is Professor at the University of South Australia and Director of the Centre for Tourism & Leisure Management. Prior to her current position she has been an academic staff at the Universities of Strathclyde and Westminster in the UK, and the University of the Aegean (Greece). Her academic credentials are combined with her professional experience in the tourism industry. Her interests include services and experience management, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in tourism and hospitality, as well as wine tourism. She is a widely published and multi-awarded authority: nine books, numerous papers in academic journals, and (keynote) presentations in international conferences. She has a long record of leadership and participation in international research projects funded by various entities such as the E.U. and the Council of Europe. She is a past President of EuroCHRIE and a past member of the executive board of ICHRIE and IFITT. She currently serves at the executive board of CAUTHE. She is the co-editor of the Journal of Service Theory & Practice, and the Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Management. In 2016, she has been awarded the prestigious EuroCHRIE Presidents’ Award for her lifetime contributions and achievements to tourism and hospitality education. Since 2020, Professor Sigala is also appointed as Research Fellow of CAUTHE.

Peter Syme

Keynote speaker

Peter operates his own inbound adventure activity business in Scotland and also an outbound global expedition business. He has also owned and operated inbound activity businesses in Spain and Morocco. He has travelled and operated in over 120 countries and his businesses have helped introduce over two hundred thousand customers to adventure. He is a regular speaker at travel events around the world on the impact of the digital era on small tourism businesses and what they can do to thrive with so much change happening. He is also a regular speaker at University MBA and executive leadership courses on Digital Transformation. His current passion is being a strategic advisor to several scalable digital startups in the tours and activities sector.

Peter will be delivering a talk titled Growing Your Wine Tourism Bookings Using OTA’s and Digital Distribution

Philippe Harant

Industry expert

Philippe Harant started working in wine tourism 20 years ago when joining Marne Tourism Board (Champagne). Since then he dedicated himself in the development and the promotion of wine tourism both in Champagne and in France through many involvements : The Champagne tourism route, the French national wine tourism label (Vignobles & Découvertes), Atout France wine tourism cluster, the National Wine tourism Council, the European Cultural Route IterVitis, the national Vignobles & Découvertes federation.
In 2015, as the general manager of Marne Tourism Board, he and his team welcomed the first IWINETC conference in France.

At a local level he is a member of the Wine tourism Group which gathers representatives of the main institutions involved in wine tourism in Champagne (tourism offices, wine representatives, Unesco mission). Via this Wine tourism Group he contributed to the creation of the White book of winetourism in Champagne, a global and shared strategy for the development of wine tourism in Champagne signed by the main local politicians (mayors, members of parliament...). Philippe also contributed to the management of the organization of the first Wine tourism Conference in Champagne attended by 400 people involved in wine tourism in Champagne.

Since 2018 Philippe manages the Wine Tourism Lab, the first lab dedicated to wine tourism in France, one of the few members of the France Tourisme Lab network. Wine Tourism Lab aims at helping innovative wine tourism projects grow and succeed, thanks to various services such as nesting, coaching, legal of financial advises, networking, living lab...).

Philippe will be delivering a talk titled: Wine Tourism Lab

Richard Baudains

Keynote speaker

Richard Baudains was born and bred on the island of Jersey. He trained to be a teacher of English as a foreign language,  which eventually brought him to Italy, where he had the good fortune to reside in the wine producing regions of Tuscany, Piemonte, Liguria and Trentino-Alto Adige before finally settling in Friuli-Venezia Giulia. He wrote his first article for Decanter Magazine in 1989 and has been a regular contributor on Italian wine ever since. He is the Regional Chair for the Veneto at the Decanter World Wine Awards, member of the editorial team for Friuli-Venezia Giulia on the Slow Wine Guide, lecturer in wine journalism at Slow Food’s Università delle Scienze Gastronomiche. and author and web lecture for the Wine Scholar Guild. In his day job he directs a language school.

Roberta Garibaldi

Industry expert

Roberta Garibaldi is an academic professor with long-established expertise in wine and food tourism. She is also member of a number of scientific committee and editorial boards; among these, she is responsible for “Food Tourism Research & Trends” for the World Food Travel Association, member of the board of the World Gastronomy Institute and of the governing board of the Italian Society of Tourism Science (SISTUR). She participates in many conferences as a keynote speaker and has a long experience in coordinating and managing territorial projects both at international and local level. She is speaker for the wine and food forum of UNWTO - World Tourism Organization. She authored several scientific publications, including monographs, curatorship and contributions in books, scientific journals and conferences’ proceedings. She is the author of the “Report on gastronomy tourism in Italy”.

Roberta will be delivering a talk titled: How to improve customers’ experience for wine through technologies.

Sponsors & supporters

Host Region

Join the IWINETC Network
Stay up to date on conference happenings