More than 100 tourism experts from all fields came together in Eichstätt last weekend to discuss current trends and topics which move the industry. At the 3rd Tourism Barcamp, organized by Prof. Dr. Hans Hopfinger (University of Eichstätt) and the three bright minds of Tourismuszukunft, an e-tourism institute, provocative discussions were welcome in order to develop new approaches to a solution and innovative ideas for the participants to take home. The tourism camp followed the traditional guidelines of every barcamp. Barcamps are open events which are internationally interconnected and count on the active participation of their attendants who are responsible for deciding on the course and the topics, too.

It goes without saying that I appreciated the opportunity to come back to a topic that has been discussed at the Castlecamp in Zell am See-Kaprun already and has been preying on my mind since then. Back in September 2009 the heretic question was raised whether the trademark in principle was already dead. Definitely a good question in times of social media which allow consumers to take influence a lot more than before. Everyone in marketing, advertising, and PR business may want to spend a thought or two on how much ‘the trademark’ can and ought to be worth. Since we do not exclusively count tourism companies among our clients, it was interesting for me to see whether the trademark discussion could be generalized to be able to apply the discussed approaches to other industries, too.

After initial difficulties which may be due to the concept of barcamps which does not allow for lengthy preparations, we entered into a lively discussion, a summary of which can be found in my notes. Bottom line of the short brainstorming on the trademark issue: today it is the users/consumers who decide how much a trademark is really worth. The trademark is dead when the clients want it to be dead. Another really interesting point was that all participants of the discussion agreed that due to the increasing networking processes in Web 2.0 the trademark owner can merely intervene partially on the development of the trademark and is no longer able to created trademarks like it still was the case just a few years ago.

Related articles:

• Third edition of an ‘unconference’ – Castlecamp:Tourism at Kaprun Castle
• An opinion on: views and prospects of 2010
• Media trend 2010: social media and PR experts are not that bad after all