This poll is designed to evaluate the most popular casino hotel in Las Vegas when it comes to social media. The results will indicate the “Socularity” of the Las Vegas casino hotel that those surveyed feel engages their community most effectively through social media. The question for this week’s RockCheetah poll is “What Las Vegas Casino Hotel Does Social Media Best?”
What is Your Ideal Method to Book Leisure Travel?
April 9, 2010 By Leave a Comment
This poll is designed to evaluate the most popular, IDEAL, method for booking leisure travel arrangements. The results will indicate the “Bookularity” of the preferred category comprising the booking method and type of travel seller that those surveyed feel provides the greatest value in the leisure travel reservation process for airline, hotel, car rental and attractions. The question for this week’s RockCheetah poll is “What is Your Ideal Method to Book Leisure Travel?”
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.
