Google’s announcement that it is testing the addition of the hotel price to Google Maps search results resulted in fear and concern within the travel community. Google appears to be testing the water on the Maps platform in preparation of launching the hotel price integration into the Universal Search results on all Google results pages. The end result is that advertisers will be able to link more directly and deeply to relevant content from a search results page.
Who Will Win the Merchant Hotel Room Occupancy Tax Battle?
March 19, 2010 By 2 Comments
The American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA) held its annual Legislative Action Summit following receipt of an open letter drafted by five major travel associations requesting support of proposed legislation that would eliminate room occupancy tax assessments on merchant model hotel room transactions processed by online travel companies. With millions of dollars at stake, the question for this week’s RockCheetah Weekend Poll is “Who Will Win the Merchant Hotel Room Occupancy Tax Battle?”
Individualization of Travel – ITB Berlin Convention
March 13, 2010 By
Text of opening remarks by Robert Cole when moderating the Individualization of Travel panel on March 12, 2010 on Marketing & Distribution Day at the ITB Berlin Convention. Key takeaways included travel is both an intensely personal and highly social experience. It is also a very complex multi-step process. A massive quantity of potential options exist, as well as dramatically different personal decision making processes. Now, social media now enables a transition from mass broadcasting brand messages to establishing relationships with customers and interactively communicating.
High Points from PhoCusWright@ITB 2010
March 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment
The PhoCusWright@ITB 2010 conference just concluded and, as always, provided a number of interesting points to consider within the travel industry marketing, distribution and technology landscape. My recap of the sub-conference within the massive ITB Berlin exhibition has been published as a guest post on Josiah Mackenzie’s Hotel Marketing Strategies Blog.
What a Skull Fracture Can Teach Us About Social Media
March 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment
The travel industry can create intensely personal and life changing experiences, but travel companies are still working to communicate with travelers in a more personalized and relevant manner. Social networking literally changes the rules of engagement. During times of crisis, social networks gain importance to support for personal relationships while brand relationships may be disregarded. Social media and social networking are constants – engagement is now variable. Travel organizations must now consider the value of a consumer’s social network and level of engagement into their lifetime customer value. With increased interactivity, brand relationships are becoming more like personal relationships. Emotional connections may take time to develop, require significant resources to maintain and turn ugly if mutual trust is violated.
2009 Unsuspecting Travel Hero and Travel Zero Awards
January 3, 2010 By 2 Comments
Four Seasons’ Santa Barbara Resort, The Biltmore received the 2009 Unsuspecting Travel Hero Award for proactively responding to a guest who had an issue with the music playing on the radio after the hotel’s turn down service made up the room. A relatively small issue that was cleverly identified and elegantly addressed in a highly personalized manner. Recognized for its multi-faceted, yet consistently customer hostile advance seat assignment policy, AirTran Airways received the 2009 Unsuspecting Travel Zero Award. The AirTran policies fundamentally insult a traveler’s intelligence while simultaneously wasting their time – truly a remarkable accomplishment.
Bathing in the Hotel Merchant Tax Quagmire
December 22, 2009 By 6 Comments
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.
Best TV / Video Ads of the “Noughties” (2000 – 2009)
December 18, 2009 By 2 Comments
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
December 15, 2009 By 5 Comments
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.
Smarter Travel Agents and Travel Agencies Rise from the Ashes
November 21, 2009 By 43 Comments
The travel agency community has sustained significant losses due to consolidation and the economic downturn. A new breed of smarter and more innovative travel agencies have emerged that understand customer needs, provide specialized travel product knowledge, and creating travel plans best fit those needs. These are the traditional traits of quality travel agencies. The difference is that these new agents have embraced technology and used it to expand their reach, engage their customers and grow their revenues.
