Travel Marketing in the Age of Web 2.0 & Beyond

More from PhoCusWright

During the recent conference I had the opportunity to talk to some companies that were not presenting at the Travel Innovation Summit or on Center Stage but offer innovative solutions that have already, or will in future, appear on our radar screens: Is a site that offers a trip planning tool based on personal preferences. This is the direction sites have to go as the attention clearly shifts to the process that takes place prior to the actual booking and where the experience still too often disappoints. Tripbase takes a shot at improving this. It's not perfect as the results often don't change enough when preferences are adjusted but no site I've come across so far offers the perfect solution.
Another one is Founded by former Expedia Europe executives, TVtrip provide professionally produced hotel videos which are by now an essential part of any trip decision, especially for leisure trips with an extended stay. Who wants to end up in a dump for the most precious days of the year? They are expanding rapidly across with properties across the globe and with the right partnerships to drive traffic could become a player in this segment.
The tag line of is "Empowering the frequent flyer" and expertflyer certainly delivers on that, based on a demo I received from their CEO, Chris Lopinto. This is a very useful tool for the road - or should we say Air - warriors out there who hold a gazillion frequent flyer miles and want to make the best use of them for upgrades and flights. The site has real time tracking of seat availability for miles upgrades and live seat maps so you can view which seats remain available. Of course, the data can also be accessed and viewed on mobile phones, essential when you're on the road. Looks like worth the price of admission to me, although I no longer really qualify based on my limited flying nowadays!
Last but by no means least there is they have morphed from what initially was a restaurant booking service to a technology provider for all kinds of ancillary services that provide incremental revenue to a range of companies as diverse as Amtrak, KLM, Air Canada, Mastercard and Priceline. With major companies focusing on their core business, this seems the type of solution that has a strong position in the marketplace by delivering the platform necessary to maximize customer value.
These companies are just a few more examples of how the travel industry is undergoing constant change by having innovators adding value, or eliminating friction in what still is often an inefficient market full of complexities in the access to and distribution of services to a huge audience of increasingly savvy travelers. Exciting to be part of it and observe who will be the winners in the next phase of the web.

Another PhoCusWright Conference is history

and what an conference it was. Under the very appropriate theme

The Perfect Storm

applicable not only for the travel industry but the global economy itself, which despite the turmoil it is undergoing now and for some time in the near future will produce innovative winners, close to one thousand participants gathered in Hollywood and it became clear right from Philip Wolf's opening speech, that for the next few days this was the focal point of the global travel industry. All the major players were there and as is custom, represented by their CEO or senior executives. The action and conversations were non-stop, the deal making permanent across the venue. Having myself participated in a dozen of these events, this set the new standard for travel conferences in terms of quality of production value, quality of attendees, session planning and overall organization and execution. I readily admit my bias, but my own opinion was confirmed time and again by other participants. This year a new event was added,

with 32 companies, chosen from many more applicants, presenting their innovative ventures to a critical audience who voted on the presentations with hand held rating devices to decide the six finalists with the opportunity to present on Center Stage to the main audience later in the conference. The presenting companies could roughly be categorized as providers of technology solutions for vacation rentals, mobile travel and trip planning tools. Of particular interest to me were the latter as this is an area of web based travel I am most interested in.

UpTake Helps people to find out what to book not how to book which is the easy part. Statistics show that 35 sites are visited before booking. That can hardly be voluntary! There is too much content on the web to make a sensible, easy decision. There are 1000 reviews for the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel alone! They are a search and filter engine not a site that creates new UGC. Not flights based but any transport mode. UpTake has Top Google ranking for many of their destinations. Very deep database for local attractions. Aggregate / Analyze / Filter based on semantics "sentiment extraction" from data based on ontology. This helps them to get the top ranking on the search engines.

Triporati Discovery is not search! Every trip starts with the planning. Preference based selection, including rankings. 1200 destinations. Map based presentation of selections. Integration of external data like YouTube, photos etc. Live feed for events. Travel reviews from TripAdviser. Facebook application for friend preferences and suitability of possible travel companions. Collaboration engine for different personal and group profiles. Ultimately it makes the user decide which destination is most suitable.

TravelMuse 95% happens before the booking! How true, and up to now most of the online travel industry has focused on the 5%. Site looks like a magazine. Inspirational. Where & What. Excellent functionality for saving trip related information including external search results. They have added a travel widget for third party site placement. Uptake is one of these sites. Items can be drag&dropped into the travel plan and can be viewed by all trip participants. Friend's input & research can be used and added as well. Excellent tool also for travel partners.

PlanetEye This Canadian based venture is aggregating content and adding relevancy and personalization. Local travel experts are providing most of the content. Data display is based on ranking by reviews. Personal profile allows for differentiation in the results presented. Booking integration and restaurant reservations are another feature.

Your Tour.com (still in closed beta) This is a preferences based system with a price calculation engine. Reality: Manual itinerary creation even in web 2.0. Their system is a "virtual travel agent" for mass-customization based on B2B licensing. It lists DMOs as partners with hotel chains Booking.com and content provider Lonely Planet. Demo of beta version included multi-destination, dynamic packaging. Starts with a build me a tour screen. Includes activities for each day, maps based. Slider based preferences ranking. Reminds me of the EuroVacations model! True dynamic packaging.

NileGuide Personalized travel recommendations. Customized destination guide with current and relevant information can be collected and printed as a PDF. Content, search, and booking are integrated. Lots of cool tools including reviews for accommodation and restaurants, all map based. Slider based activity selector. In addition to PDF they will have an iPhone delivered guide in Q1-09

These are all innovators in what TravelMuse correctly calls the 95% of the process that happens before a leisure trip that has largely been neglected up to now by the major online travel companies who are all focused on the remaining 5%, where the transaction takes place. It remains to be seen how many will survive as the pressure to produce revenues is huge and at least the immediate prospects uncertain. What is certain, technology will continue to provide the tools essential to make the DREAM - LEARN - PLAN - GO process more integrated, less time consuming and even fun. It should be possible to monetize it to make these sites a commercial success. In a later post I will discuss the issue of the effect these developments have on the role of DMOs in this process as they traditionally have played their role here and not in the transaction of travel. It's clear that the industry moves in the direction of integrated services delivery to consumers. The perfect storm indeed!

Surprising, after all these years......

of online travel, to find that Independent Hotels’ Online Presence Lagging according to this recent study by GuestCentric. The gap between the larger chains and smaller independent hotels is significant when it comes to an effective presence online and the use of web based marketing and distribution tools.

The web was supposed to have leveled the playing field for large and small players but it seems that hasn't entirely happened in the accommodation sector yet, although according to the latest PhoCusWright Consumer Travel Trends Survey Hotel stays were the most popular component with U.S. online leisure travel buyers in 2007.

This is proof of the growth opportunity for the accommodation sector and poses a challenge to those who haven't yet focused on how to best use the web as a key tool to assure their future success and do so fast or very likely continue to decline and eventually disappear. No supplier in the travel industry can any longer afford to stay on the sidelines when it comes to the effective use of the web.

Technorati Tags: hotels, accommodation,

Better be aware of what's said about your brand online!

The Opinion Research Corporation just published a report revealing some very important insight into how people research products and services online. 61% of respondents read "online reviews, blogs and other sources of online customer feedback before purchasing. More importantly, 83% said that online product evaluations and reviews had at least some level of influence on their purchasing decisions, although only 32% reported posting online feedback themselves.

A most revealing comment was made by Linda Shea, SVP and Global Managing Director of Customer Strategis for ORC:

“Businesses today exist in an era in which it’s nearly impossible to escape the likelihood of being
evaluated…there’s nowhere to hide. Companies must be extremely mindful of the power of proliferating online forums and their ability to shape consumer’s perceptions about brands. Even a single negative review, when posted in a very public forum, can have a significant impact on a prospective buyer’s decision to purchase.”

And finally, here are the most researched product and service categories:

* Travel/Recreation/Lesiure (82%)
* Electronic goods (80%)
* Household products/services (66%)
* Clothing (55%)
* Automotive (55%)
* Personal care (40%)
* Food (24%)


Technorati Tags: product research, online reviews,

Are you an enabler or a bystander?

Social Influence Marketing: The New Way to Win Customers contains a number of very useful suggestions of how to be actively engaged in the conversation about your brand rather than just a passive bystander. While these ideas are certainly useful, I just wonder how many organizations have the right marketing structure in place to implement these activities. Looking at the large majority of travel sites out there, I haven't noticed anyone in particular being at the leading edge of what's called here social influence marketing. It will require a change in mindset that allows this happen and it can't come too soon.

Technorati Tags: chief marketer, social influence marketing, social media

Are you ready?

The Hyperconnected: Here They Come! is the name of a new IDC study of global communications habits commissioned by Nortel. They interviewed 2400 working adults in 17 countries. This will have implications on how business is being conducted as this group expands at a rapid pace and travel will certainly be affected. Their demands on the user experience will be higher than those of the less connected. They will also very likely be more willing to post their comments and reviews, good or bad, to their social network and beyond.

The study can be downloaded from the article page. Better get ready!

Technorati Tags: IDC, Nortel, communications, hyperconnected

Congrats to the Brits!

Be a Brit Different

---

is a new micro-site by VisitBritain that presents the UK in a fresh new and, in my opinion, effective way to potential visitors. Not only is the tag line "different" but an appropriate word play on the British who are often known as individuals with character. To let the hosts talk about the places they live, the things they like around their town or region gives a destination a human face and also credibility that goes beyond the usual and no longer accepted marketing speak still used on too many sites.

I find the site well designed, crisp, uncluttered and easy to use. It combines map features well with the commentary so you know where these people live. Another cool feature is the "What's on top of British minds today?" Again, a way to let visitors know what's "in with the locals".

I have written about a similar approach by Tourism BC and Oregon Tourism a few months ago but this is the first site I'm aware of that is entirely focused on this approach. I can imagine more will follow.

What do you know?

OK, here's a straight copy-paste post, but this is so spot on I think it's fine and Seth agrees. The one's emphasized in bold are my favorites:

by Seth Godin

Three years ago, I published this list, which was very much a riff, not a carefully planned manifesto. It has held up pretty well. Feel free to reprint or otherwise use, as long as you include a credit line. I've added a few at the bottom...

What Every Good Marketer Knows:

* Anticipated, personal and relevant advertising always does better than unsolicited junk.
* Making promises and keeping them is a great way to build a brand.
* Your best customers are worth far more than your average customers.
* Share of wallet is easier, more profitable and ultimately more effective a measure than share of market.
* Marketing begins before the product is created.
* Advertising is just a symptom, a tactic. Marketing is about far more than that.
* Low price is a great way to sell a commodity. That’s not marketing, though, that’s efficiency.
* Conversations among the members of your marketplace happen whether you like it or not. Good marketing encourages the right sort of conversations.
* Products that are remarkable get talked about.
* Marketing is the way your people answer the phone, the typesetting on your bills and your returns policy.
* You can’t fool all the people, not even most of the time. And people, once unfooled, talk about the experience.
* If you are marketing from a fairly static annual budget, you’re viewing marketing as an expense. Good marketers realize that it is an investment.
* People don’t buy what they need. They buy what they want.
* You’re not in charge. And your prospects don’t care about you.
* What people want is the extra, the emotional bonus they get when they buy something they love.
* Business to business marketing is just marketing to consumers who happen to have a corporation to pay for what they buy.
* Traditional ways of interrupting consumers (TV ads, trade show booths, junk mail) are losing their cost-effectiveness. At the same time, new ways of spreading ideas (blogs, permission-based RSS information, consumer fan clubs) are quickly proving how well they work.
* People all over the world, and of every income level, respond to marketing that promises and delivers basic human wants.
* Good marketers tell a story.
* People are selfish, lazy, uninformed and impatient. Start with that and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what you find.
* Marketing that works is marketing that people choose to notice.
* Effective stories match the worldview of the people you are telling the story to.
* Choose your customers. Fire the ones that hurt your ability to deliver the right story to the others.
* A product for everyone rarely reaches much of anyone.
* Living and breathing an authentic story is the best way to survive in an conversation-rich world.
* Marketers are responsible for the side effects their products cause.
* Reminding the consumer of a story they know and trust is a powerful shortcut.
* Good marketers measure.
* Marketing is not an emergency. It’s a planned, thoughtful exercise that started a long time ago and doesn’t end until you’re done.
* One disappointed customer is worth ten delighted ones.

* In the googleworld, the best in the world wins more often, and wins more.
* Most marketers create good enough and then quit. Greatest beats good enough every time.
* There are more rich people than ever before, and they demand to be treated differently.
* Organizations that manage to deal directly with their end users have an asset for the future.
* You can game the social media in the short run, but not for long.
* You market when you hire and when you fire. You market when you call tech support and you market every time you send a memo.
* Blogging makes you a better marketer because it teaches you humility in your writing.

Obviously, knowing what to do is very, very different than actually doing it.

I have only one thing to add: Follow this!
Technorati Tags: marketing, godin

CondeNast is moving into the blogosphere

according to this TechCrunch post CondeNet Tries To Blogify Concierge.com buying HotelChatter and jaunted from SFO Media.

Looks like an attempt to capitalize on the expanding social media scene that might have led to a decline in traffic to their Concierge.com main site. The two blogs will also give them more media inventory to sell as the article mentions. It's another move of main stream media in the direction of the social web where the conversation is taking place.

Technorati Tags: social media, condenet, concierge.com

Co-opting the YouTube generation

is my alternative title for this latest effort by major companies to get their message noticed in a marketplace that is increasingly tone deaf to their traditional one-way marketing speak. To counter that trend PR Giant Edelman Ventures Into Branded Content as reported in Advertising Age - Madison+Vine. It remains to be seen how effective this type of "enhanced" user-generated content will be and how many aspiring producers will participate to sell more burgers to their peers.

Interesting to note, is the participation of Expedia in this initiative. My question here is: Why not enter into a direct dialog with their thousands of customers and TripAdvisor users to provide them with content that they are most likely already posting on the web instead of going the "managed" route by working with their PR company? Looks to me like some kind of an American Idol inspired contest to sponsor consumer produced content rather than having it delivered by ad agencies. Will people buy it? Remains to be seen.



Technorati Tags: marketing, PR, UGC, edelman