An interesting workshop took place, organised by the Google AdWords team and the Xenia conference organisation at a very nice venue in Athens' Crown Plaza Hotel.

The workshop begun with some very interesting figures showing the growth in the Travel sector in the middle of the international financial crisis. Russian based travel related searches went up something which shows that the travel industry in Europe (apart from Greece) is going well.

Andrew Pozniak, Head of Travel - Emerging Europe, Middle East and Africa at Google Inc., showcased some very interesting figures from the UN World Tourism organisation along with key data from Google's searches the past few years showing that despite the prolonged financial crisis facing Europe and the United States, the travel sector is enjoying increased growth.

Then Steffen Ehrhardt, Project Manager & Product Specialist Emerging Markets at Google Inc. provided some invaluable insight on how to run a highly optimised Google AdWords campaign in order to bring the best results and therefore the highest ROI rates.

Steffen also introduced Google's partner website network and techniques on how to target the most suitable audience for your ads.

Alexandros Papageorgiou, Senior Account Associate at Google's Ireland headquarters went through the account creation process on the AdWords website.

George Saliaris-Fasseass, Google's Greece Country Manager also spoke a bit about Google's operations and happenings.

There was some hands-on training with certified Google AdWords specialists on how to run a campaign and some great lunch and breakfast (although the breakfast was a bit too much!)..