The debate on Direct VS. Distribution took center tage this week with the release of PhoCusWright stats on OTAs, a survey that finds hotel not competitive with OTAs and the decision by Choice to quit Expedia. There are many discussions on the net.
Direct sales have been gaining market shares over the last several years. But that seems to be changing, or might change. OTAs are holding their own and gaining shares in these troubled times, when all markets count more that ever before.
The OTAs have taken the lead in travelers' minds as the best place to shop for deals. Hotels are not competing - USATODAY.com: Travel Deals Compared.
So what, if OTAs are bringing in business, does it matter? There are hotel managers who think OTA distribution is great. In many parts of Europe, hotels have almost opted out of the reservation business, allocating the majority of rooms to tour operators. There are hotel managers who do not like distribution and have done much to get out of that channel. Some have been burned, some just find the terms are getting more and more difficult, some say it is blackmail!
The issues are complex. For a very good analysis, see Robert Coles' article - Expedia and Freedom of Choice
We have also prepared a detailed analysis about brands in the channels. Watch http://tourismplatform.com/ for the latest news. Our first issue explains branding from a new perspective. It outlines AXSES' approach to the Next Generation Tourism Platform, which integrated all media and attempts to strikes a balance with direct and distribution marketing. http://axses.com/destinationmarketing/1-shopping.html
LINKS
What happened when Georgia lost its OTA listing
OTAs Rev up at hotels' expense
OTAs' market share breakdown
Get out of the OTA Trap
LESSONS
What is the Brand definition: Johnson & Johnson Customer Business Analyst, Hannah Chi, says, "Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia, I feel like they all give you the same options, with results from multiple airlines, kind of giving you a slew of what fits that criteria.” “Each doesn’t give me anything that another travel engine wouldn’t give me!”
Consumers will go where they find the best deal. This is good for Hotel Websites, if they are competive!
Showing posts with label travel technolology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel technolology. Show all posts
Saturday, 31 October 2009
Wednesday, 12 August 2009
SEO2
SEO 2 - Themes marketing
Following the success of page ranking for st lucia apartment rentals for Poinsettia apartments, Stlucia. We added a new page for St Lucia catamaran sailing trips to the pitons, Soufriere volcano, the diamond waterfalls and the botanical garden in St lucia. Poinsettia apartment resort can arrange day sailing adventures to several destination; including a tour of a St. Lucia Coco plantation and heritage sites.
The page proved powerful and was soon listed on Google for searches such as "st lucia sailing pitons" and "st lucia catamaran sailing to volcano"
Sailing to the St lucia pitons from Poinsettia Apartments
This is also promoted on BookingsStlucia.com
see Bookings St. lucia sailing charters and trips
This concept of themes marketing is very important to destination and tourism marketing.
also see http://holidaythememarketing.com
Following the success of page ranking for st lucia apartment rentals for Poinsettia apartments, Stlucia. We added a new page for St Lucia catamaran sailing trips to the pitons, Soufriere volcano, the diamond waterfalls and the botanical garden in St lucia. Poinsettia apartment resort can arrange day sailing adventures to several destination; including a tour of a St. Lucia Coco plantation and heritage sites.
The page proved powerful and was soon listed on Google for searches such as "st lucia sailing pitons" and "st lucia catamaran sailing to volcano"
Sailing to the St lucia pitons from Poinsettia Apartments
This is also promoted on BookingsStlucia.com
see Bookings St. lucia sailing charters and trips
This concept of themes marketing is very important to destination and tourism marketing.
also see http://holidaythememarketing.com
Monday, 15 June 2009
Google Crossroads
Google at a Crossroads with Wave Technology
We stared writing these blogs on technology as a journey into the crossroads of marketing and communications. For some time, we have seen that the world is at a breakthrough point in transformation. Technology and its application are leaping forward almost at the speed of thought. We wrote about the crossroads for search, advertising, marketing, destination marketing, travel distribution and the Internet.
In our blog newweb, we noted that there was a critical mass of technology and, more importantly a critical mass of knowledge about technology and how to build on it. It’s the critical mass of knowledge that is exciting. Knowledge is what will drive the success of Google Wave. It is interesting to see that Google recognises this. By demonstrating Google Wave to application developers and inviting them to be creative, Google is hoping to accelerate the evolution of Google Wave technology.
Many believe Google Wave (and the Wave Protocol), already indicates the end of the email era wave2replaceemail. But is it more! Have we finally reached the point where the entire premise of the computer business, the operating systems, is at a crossroads? Well, Goggle would like to think so and Microsoft would prefer not to.
What is certain is that the Internet is becoming a full platform for computing in a way that the PC was. The next step forward is collaborative working and networking computers. The possibilities can hardly be imagined. Google Wave is an advanced set of protocols, robot web services and applications for networking. But its success as a platform will depend on the applications and our knowledge of how to use it effectively.
Google Wave resources
Easy link to this blog http://tr.im/waveblog
AXSES short definition - http://tr.im/wavedefined
A more technical definition http://tr.im/wavetechnology
Google Wave Demo in small chucks - http://tr.im/bytesizewave
- or you can view an 80-min. video http://wave.google.com
Questions and Answers http://tr.im/waveFAQ
How the Wave works – very technical - http://tr.im/howdoeswavework
Will Wave replace email? - http://tr.im/wave2replaceemail
Related ideas on technology
The Next web - linked data: by Tim Berners
Email and Google Friends Connect
Social Media For Tourism & Travel Marketing
Keep up with Technology for Travel and Tourism: http://axses.com/travelwatchnews.cfm
We stared writing these blogs on technology as a journey into the crossroads of marketing and communications. For some time, we have seen that the world is at a breakthrough point in transformation. Technology and its application are leaping forward almost at the speed of thought. We wrote about the crossroads for search, advertising, marketing, destination marketing, travel distribution and the Internet.
In our blog newweb, we noted that there was a critical mass of technology and, more importantly a critical mass of knowledge about technology and how to build on it. It’s the critical mass of knowledge that is exciting. Knowledge is what will drive the success of Google Wave. It is interesting to see that Google recognises this. By demonstrating Google Wave to application developers and inviting them to be creative, Google is hoping to accelerate the evolution of Google Wave technology.
Many believe Google Wave (and the Wave Protocol), already indicates the end of the email era wave2replaceemail. But is it more! Have we finally reached the point where the entire premise of the computer business, the operating systems, is at a crossroads? Well, Goggle would like to think so and Microsoft would prefer not to.
What is certain is that the Internet is becoming a full platform for computing in a way that the PC was. The next step forward is collaborative working and networking computers. The possibilities can hardly be imagined. Google Wave is an advanced set of protocols, robot web services and applications for networking. But its success as a platform will depend on the applications and our knowledge of how to use it effectively.
Google Wave resources
Easy link to this blog http://tr.im/waveblog
AXSES short definition - http://tr.im/wavedefined
A more technical definition http://tr.im/wavetechnology
Google Wave Demo in small chucks - http://tr.im/bytesizewave
- or you can view an 80-min. video http://wave.google.com
Questions and Answers http://tr.im/waveFAQ
How the Wave works – very technical - http://tr.im/howdoeswavework
Will Wave replace email? - http://tr.im/wave2replaceemail
Related ideas on technology
The Next web - linked data: by Tim Berners
Email and Google Friends Connect
Social Media For Tourism & Travel Marketing
Keep up with Technology for Travel and Tourism: http://axses.com/travelwatchnews.cfm
Thursday, 2 April 2009
New Order
The New Order of the Web
The web is becoming a platform for participation, rather than a medium for delivery. It is a paradigm shift in thinking, communications, connection, engagement and expression. It seems to have a life of its own as it morphs into a new order, changing how we work, engage and communicate.
The first generation of the Internet was about delivering information. In that arena, a cohesive focus became how to organize and search for information. Search became the driving force of the Internet. Soon, web applications expanded to include information processing, with applications like e-commerce and travel bookings. Later came expert systems, where smart processes analysed behavior and delivered tailored results (see htp://RealHolidays.com). Information became packaged with process to create knowledge services.
I wrote some time ago about ‘search at a crossroads’. That crossroads is here now. Searching is no longer just about finding content. It is about information, its source and its relationship to your own personal network. It is about knowledge.
The new crossroads is the evolution of the Internet. Unlike the previous incarnations, it is not here by grand design, but by evolution itself. The web has morphed into a huge ‘small world network’, connecting services, applications, people, places, ideas and knowledge in unforeseen ways. Adam Smith once spoke about “the invisible hand that guides the market.” The Internet’s invisible hand is evolution, not the balance of demand and supply.
Peter Hershberg, Managing Partner of Reprise Media, points out that YouTube, Twitter and Facebook all started out with simple objectives and have evolved to something much more:
“YouTube started as a service that allowed people to post videos, but has since become the de facto place people turn to when they want to find video content on any subject imaginable. Twitter started as a way to issue personal status updates to your friends, but is morphing into a search engine that allows you to tap into the ‘now’ - what's going on now? What's the groundswell of sentiment around a topic? Facebook began as a way to see more information about people you were going to school with. Now, it's become a way for friends to share interests by becoming Fans of brands and lifestyles and posting articles, opinions and information”.
This evolution has created a network, never conceived and still not defined. It is a work in progress. But it is clear that form, function, process and context have changed and all parts are merging almost at the speed of thought.
Web design and marketing, once about ensuring that people could find your website, is now also about your website finding people. It’s about reaching out to people where they already are, i.e., participating in a personal social network. It’s about adding value by interacting with these networks of people in a meaningful way.
There are over 400,000 independent developers building Facebook applications to harness this. One is Oodle, who helped Facebook with their marketplace classified ads application. I used it recently to list my house for rent and within a week I could have rented it twice.
In another example – I used a knowledge service, to find the professional help we needed. It was a database of Internet professionals classified by skills and experience. There are users’ reviews and ratings of services and skills to help you select the right person or team. But I wanted to know more about the person behind the professional. The system did not help me with that, so I turned to Facebook and LinkedIn to see who their friends were and what they liked. I don’t think Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, ever thought of that use originally. We still don’t know how it might be used in the future.
At AXSES, we have built our arcRes.com Travel Platform into a Facebook application. It allows arcRes users to publish specials as well as rates and web content to Facebook. All this information on Facebook, as well as the ability to get holiday quotes and to book, is managed from the arcRes admin system, which also manages information on the user’s website and a network of other marketing channels. Facebook is a different type of channel – one where meaningful participation and shared knowledge is the driving force.
Knowledge is an evolutionary force. It evolves personally and socially at community, global and spiritual levels. When Ford built the first car in America, German engineers were separately developing a similar invention. The world of knowledge evolves as we do. Along with it, the knowledge highway, media, publishing, communications and marketing are changing.
See the man who developed the web (Sir Tim Berners-Lee) talk about this http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/484
Our resources of who uses what and how on Social Media: see
http://arcres.com/Social-media-travel-marketing.cfm
Jeff Besos (Amazon), a really fun and very useful analogy of the internet.
The web is becoming a platform for participation, rather than a medium for delivery. It is a paradigm shift in thinking, communications, connection, engagement and expression. It seems to have a life of its own as it morphs into a new order, changing how we work, engage and communicate.
The first generation of the Internet was about delivering information. In that arena, a cohesive focus became how to organize and search for information. Search became the driving force of the Internet. Soon, web applications expanded to include information processing, with applications like e-commerce and travel bookings. Later came expert systems, where smart processes analysed behavior and delivered tailored results (see htp://RealHolidays.com). Information became packaged with process to create knowledge services.
I wrote some time ago about ‘search at a crossroads’. That crossroads is here now. Searching is no longer just about finding content. It is about information, its source and its relationship to your own personal network. It is about knowledge.
The new crossroads is the evolution of the Internet. Unlike the previous incarnations, it is not here by grand design, but by evolution itself. The web has morphed into a huge ‘small world network’, connecting services, applications, people, places, ideas and knowledge in unforeseen ways. Adam Smith once spoke about “the invisible hand that guides the market.” The Internet’s invisible hand is evolution, not the balance of demand and supply.
Peter Hershberg, Managing Partner of Reprise Media, points out that YouTube, Twitter and Facebook all started out with simple objectives and have evolved to something much more:
“YouTube started as a service that allowed people to post videos, but has since become the de facto place people turn to when they want to find video content on any subject imaginable. Twitter started as a way to issue personal status updates to your friends, but is morphing into a search engine that allows you to tap into the ‘now’ - what's going on now? What's the groundswell of sentiment around a topic? Facebook began as a way to see more information about people you were going to school with. Now, it's become a way for friends to share interests by becoming Fans of brands and lifestyles and posting articles, opinions and information”.
This evolution has created a network, never conceived and still not defined. It is a work in progress. But it is clear that form, function, process and context have changed and all parts are merging almost at the speed of thought.
Web design and marketing, once about ensuring that people could find your website, is now also about your website finding people. It’s about reaching out to people where they already are, i.e., participating in a personal social network. It’s about adding value by interacting with these networks of people in a meaningful way.
There are over 400,000 independent developers building Facebook applications to harness this. One is Oodle, who helped Facebook with their marketplace classified ads application. I used it recently to list my house for rent and within a week I could have rented it twice.
In another example – I used a knowledge service, to find the professional help we needed. It was a database of Internet professionals classified by skills and experience. There are users’ reviews and ratings of services and skills to help you select the right person or team. But I wanted to know more about the person behind the professional. The system did not help me with that, so I turned to Facebook and LinkedIn to see who their friends were and what they liked. I don’t think Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, ever thought of that use originally. We still don’t know how it might be used in the future.
At AXSES, we have built our arcRes.com Travel Platform into a Facebook application. It allows arcRes users to publish specials as well as rates and web content to Facebook. All this information on Facebook, as well as the ability to get holiday quotes and to book, is managed from the arcRes admin system, which also manages information on the user’s website and a network of other marketing channels. Facebook is a different type of channel – one where meaningful participation and shared knowledge is the driving force.
Knowledge is an evolutionary force. It evolves personally and socially at community, global and spiritual levels. When Ford built the first car in America, German engineers were separately developing a similar invention. The world of knowledge evolves as we do. Along with it, the knowledge highway, media, publishing, communications and marketing are changing.
See the man who developed the web (Sir Tim Berners-Lee) talk about this http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/484
Our resources of who uses what and how on Social Media: see
http://arcres.com/Social-media-travel-marketing.cfm
Jeff Besos (Amazon), a really fun and very useful analogy of the internet.
Monday, 2 February 2009
Social Net
A Social Net Primer - how to use Facebook in your travel business
Obama has 5 million support Friends on Facebook - it helps him get his message out and stay in contact. Spurred on by his successful use of social media, more and more businesses are using, or wondering how to use Facebook and similar social sites.
In December 2008, AXSES began a project to use and evaluate the technology and the network. In the first week of this exercise, Kathy-Lynn Ward became a fan of Jennifer Figge, who is attempting to be the first woman to swim the Atlantic, from Africa to Barbados. Jennifer's manager contacted us through Facebook and AXSES put him in contact with the Barbados Tourism Authority (BTA). The BTA launched a similar Facebook project shortly after.
So we have to say it has value from a business perspective for tourism. It's hard to get to grips on just how to optimize it in a positive and socially acceptable way.
But we are beginning to see that the network and the technology can be a significant resource. The key is to shift thinking from a marketing perspective to one of helping and sharing. It's a good shift, and one that many companies are practicing without being on the Social Net.
Here is how it works: You sign up and then go about inviting Friends, who invite Friends, who invite more Friends to become your Friend. The Friends can become advocates and clients. Start using it, but be warned, it is addictive!
The first thing to learn is that if you want to be successful, don't choose your friends - just accept all that apply, that way it will grow. I don't do that well - I like my privacy, so I am careful who I approve.
Next, learn to create pages to describe, in pictures and words, your company and/or some of your products. Post it to your profile so it is visible to all that check to see who you are.
At AXSES, we created pages for the Barbados Tourism Encyclopedia (BTE) (http://Barbados.org),
http://BookingsBarbados.com, http://BookingsStLucia.com and http://BarbadosBoardwalk.com as a photo gallery, to name a few.
I say we did this, meaning that our people did. Facebook is personal, so a real person, not a company, is expected to create a Facebook account. They may then add pages, photo galleries, groups and make comments which can be sent to others. Facebook pages can be about companies and products. In fact, we made the mistake of setting up a profile for the BTE page and, in fact, there are advantages (more detailes to follow). It seems many companies also made this mistake! But for visibility on access, a page is superior; a profile is private and will not be picked up by SEO, whereas pages may.
Facebook groups may be formed to discuss topics of interest and share news and happenings. They are a good way to network and keep up to date and in contact. It's similar in a way to the thing they call a Wall, where all can post messages to be read by others who look at your Wall. Sort of like graffiti. Groups are more focused and you can create multiple topics. In the St. Lucia group, there are discussions going on about Amy Winehoue, as well as the new St. Lucia Marketing strategy. Unlike Pages groups, they are not open to the public; they are only accessible to Facebook people and you have to belong to the group to participate.
Margaux Daher, an AXSES Associate from St. Lucia, has taken the lead in creating links and sharing insights on the St. Lucia page and the St. Lucia group we created. Her friends have joined the group and now others are joining. It's not generating business but it is away to communicate and share.
Kathy-Lynn, always thinking of our hotel and travel clients, established RSS feeds which grab Holiday Specials off our bookings services and display them on the respective Facebook pages. Anyone who looks at the page can see a Special on offer.
Facebook's pages, photos, videos, events, invitations, discussion boards, Walls and messaging, as well as Flash and numerous applications, give us a very rich platform for a travel dialogue and e-commerce. It has potential for hotels and tourism operators.
We have already deployed arcRes Booking Engine on Facebook. Our next step is to integrate clients information on Facebook, to link in our travel network with special applications built on our travel platform.
4 million people use http://Barbados.org each year. If they choose to become a Friend or Fan of our Facebook page for Barbados, they will see all the Barbados.org posts, news and specials, all in one place. It will give us a useful way to communicate with travelers in a social way, on their terms, and with not in-your-face advertising.
Our next step will be to investigate how best to help hotels use social networks (more later).
According to eMarketer research, Social network users made up 41.2% of the US Internet population in 2008. 60% of Internet users are consumers of all user-generated content.
eMarketer estimates that 115 million people use the social media.
By 2013, the total number is expected to be over 154 million.
It's growing because its easy to use, appears to be more credible and it's free!
(Credit: Compete.com)
Resources:
see Jason Falls on FacebookBrand Page Best Practices/
Facebook Population
The Rush to Social Networks
Obama has 5 million support Friends on Facebook - it helps him get his message out and stay in contact. Spurred on by his successful use of social media, more and more businesses are using, or wondering how to use Facebook and similar social sites.
In December 2008, AXSES began a project to use and evaluate the technology and the network. In the first week of this exercise, Kathy-Lynn Ward became a fan of Jennifer Figge, who is attempting to be the first woman to swim the Atlantic, from Africa to Barbados. Jennifer's manager contacted us through Facebook and AXSES put him in contact with the Barbados Tourism Authority (BTA). The BTA launched a similar Facebook project shortly after.
So we have to say it has value from a business perspective for tourism. It's hard to get to grips on just how to optimize it in a positive and socially acceptable way.
But we are beginning to see that the network and the technology can be a significant resource. The key is to shift thinking from a marketing perspective to one of helping and sharing. It's a good shift, and one that many companies are practicing without being on the Social Net.
Here is how it works: You sign up and then go about inviting Friends, who invite Friends, who invite more Friends to become your Friend. The Friends can become advocates and clients. Start using it, but be warned, it is addictive!
The first thing to learn is that if you want to be successful, don't choose your friends - just accept all that apply, that way it will grow. I don't do that well - I like my privacy, so I am careful who I approve.
Next, learn to create pages to describe, in pictures and words, your company and/or some of your products. Post it to your profile so it is visible to all that check to see who you are.
At AXSES, we created pages for the Barbados Tourism Encyclopedia (BTE) (http://Barbados.org),
http://BookingsBarbados.com, http://BookingsStLucia.com and http://BarbadosBoardwalk.com as a photo gallery, to name a few.
I say we did this, meaning that our people did. Facebook is personal, so a real person, not a company, is expected to create a Facebook account. They may then add pages, photo galleries, groups and make comments which can be sent to others. Facebook pages can be about companies and products. In fact, we made the mistake of setting up a profile for the BTE page and, in fact, there are advantages (more detailes to follow). It seems many companies also made this mistake! But for visibility on access, a page is superior; a profile is private and will not be picked up by SEO, whereas pages may.
Facebook groups may be formed to discuss topics of interest and share news and happenings. They are a good way to network and keep up to date and in contact. It's similar in a way to the thing they call a Wall, where all can post messages to be read by others who look at your Wall. Sort of like graffiti. Groups are more focused and you can create multiple topics. In the St. Lucia group, there are discussions going on about Amy Winehoue, as well as the new St. Lucia Marketing strategy. Unlike Pages groups, they are not open to the public; they are only accessible to Facebook people and you have to belong to the group to participate.
Margaux Daher, an AXSES Associate from St. Lucia, has taken the lead in creating links and sharing insights on the St. Lucia page and the St. Lucia group we created. Her friends have joined the group and now others are joining. It's not generating business but it is away to communicate and share.
Kathy-Lynn, always thinking of our hotel and travel clients, established RSS feeds which grab Holiday Specials off our bookings services and display them on the respective Facebook pages. Anyone who looks at the page can see a Special on offer.
Facebook's pages, photos, videos, events, invitations, discussion boards, Walls and messaging, as well as Flash and numerous applications, give us a very rich platform for a travel dialogue and e-commerce. It has potential for hotels and tourism operators.
We have already deployed arcRes Booking Engine on Facebook. Our next step is to integrate clients information on Facebook, to link in our travel network with special applications built on our travel platform.
4 million people use http://Barbados.org each year. If they choose to become a Friend or Fan of our Facebook page for Barbados, they will see all the Barbados.org posts, news and specials, all in one place. It will give us a useful way to communicate with travelers in a social way, on their terms, and with not in-your-face advertising.
Our next step will be to investigate how best to help hotels use social networks (more later).
According to eMarketer research, Social network users made up 41.2% of the US Internet population in 2008. 60% of Internet users are consumers of all user-generated content.
eMarketer estimates that 115 million people use the social media.
By 2013, the total number is expected to be over 154 million.
It's growing because its easy to use, appears to be more credible and it's free!
(Credit: Compete.com)Resources:
see Jason Falls on FacebookBrand Page Best Practices/
Facebook Population
The Rush to Social Networks
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