Archives for December 2009

My Twitter Digest for the Past Week 2009-12-28

Good day – body surfing on Maui's Ka'anapali Beach; watching Sea Turtles in Kahului #xmas # @flyingwithfish Let's just say, the hotel is not sold out, I'm not staying in a suite & there are over 1,000 rooms in hotel in reply to flyingwithfish # @flyingwithfish Classic was they told me that someone was checking […]

Bathing in the Hotel Merchant Tax Quagmire

The hotel merchant tax issue is creating havoc for online travel agencies. At the present time, more than 200 municipalities, counties and states have lawsuits pending in an attempt to claim additional tax revenues based on the markups applied by Online Travel Agencies (OTAs.) In some cases, the suits are groundless as the current hotel occupancy tax laws are based on the revenue received by the hotel. However, some cities are changing their tax laws to base the taxes on the retail price paid by traveler. Unfortunately, there is widespread confusion – this article attempts to provide clarity on the key issues and a recommendation for resolving the hotel merchant tax problem.

My Twitter Digest for the Past Week 2009-12-21

Highlights of the week include the Tnooz nodes providing their predictions for 2010; Las Vegas shutter rooms, cuts prices & adds values; December Hotwire report shows continued YOY 4-star price cuts in major cities; Huffington Post ignores Creative Commons (shame on you Arianna!); Google & Yelp date & break up; Augie Ray stirs things up with his first blog post for Forrester; and finally, travel on television has DOT Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood providing the best Republican performance to date bantering with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show and Craig Ferguson rants on the aftermath of his voluntary airline bump. Happy Holidays to all.

Best TV / Video Ads of the “Noughties” (2000 – 2009)

While reviewing the best travel TV and online video advertising of the past decade, it was decided that there was a considerable gap between the best of the travel industry and the best of other industries. As a result, it was decided to select the best single advertising spot and campaign and to provide them as examples for the travel industry to consider. Both ads are marketing what can best be described as commodity products, but they are both marketed creatively and intelligently. If this can be accomplished for generic consumer products, it should be a comparatively easier task for travel. The best television / video ads of the decade were the Stratos Soccer Kid (individual spot) and the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty (campaign.)

Travel Industry Site Traffic Rebound – Not a Hotel Slam Dunk

Compete produced an analysis that indicates traffic to hotel brand and Online Travel Agency hotel specific web pages have increased faster than airline and car rental sectors, indicating a faster path to recovery. Unfortunately, the increase in site traffic has not translated to improved hotel performance as hotels continue to deeply discounting their product to shift market share from competitors. As the hotels fight to support occupancy and average rate, share of leisure travel bookings is shifting away from hotel brand sites to the OTAs.

With the steepest drop in US hotel net operating income on record and non-performing Commercial Backed Mortgage Securities hotel loans hovering close to 15%, the US hotel industry appears to be preparing for a difficult stretch that will continue to provide travelers with excellent hotel values, but test the patience and wallets of hotel owners.

My Twitter Digest for the Past Week 2009-12-14

Highlights include a packed week of travel and digital media conferences. Search Engine Strategies Chicago leaves no topic uncovered – ranging from the future of search to the impact of mobile, personalization and social media and how pay per click and organic search will be changed forever – Wish I could have attended all the concurrent sessions; HEDNA meets in Las Vegas and thankfully Henry Hartesveldt provides some Twitter updates; USTOA meets in Banff and talks about crowdsourcing crisis management best practices; LeWeb talks everything digital in Europe – and generously posts videos. Finally Jeremiah Owyang concludes that real time is not fast enough and apps are now becoming future oriented, plus Farelogix launches its SPRK booking platform.

My Twitter Digest for the Past Week 2009-12-07

Summary of RobertKCole’s Twitter postings for the period ending midday November 30. Highlights include: Philip Wolf recapping his thoughts on the PhoCusWright conference; ReadWriteWeb Produces several Top 10 Lists; US Government gets High Speed Rail rolling and leverages social media; The US hotel industry has a very bad performance week in Occupancy, ADR & RevPAR; DARPA celebrates the anniversary of the Internet and studies the crowdsourcing for finding 10 red weather balloons; Las Vegas City Center developemnt opens as Dubai development stalls.