Marketing Mobile Travel with Facebook #2

AXSES launches Hotel and Travel Specials/Packages for Mobile Websites Marketing!

Our previous study of social media hotel marketing for mobile demonstrates that Fan Specials can be an effective part of the marketing mix.

Offering a hotel special to Facebook fans gets a significant response, but we ran into hurdles linking desktop users to a mobile website, TravelOnTheGo.mobi.

The problems revealed with the study #1 were:

1. A mobile display looks a bit lost on a desktop and does not take advantage of the full screen. It was dissonant to desktop users but it did have merit.

2. The landing page for our ads (travelonthego.mobi) did not show specials. The guest was required to visit a hotel site, but they did not know which had specials. For those looking for specials it was a waste of time!

Solution to problem #2 


A. Banners
Add specials to the landing page of the mobile site. We did this in two stages; on the home page we serve up a rotating banner that displays all specials for which we have a Mobile Page. The banner gets attention and travelers can click on a rotation and go directly to the .mobi special page and book it with our hand-held booking engine.

B. Lists

For travelers who want a list of all special, we created a new page that lists all specials. As the offers grow, we will add categories and some other navigation and search features.

With that done, we are still left with the problem #1.

Solution to problem #1

A. Advertise to mobile users only
Only show the advertisement to Facebook fans who are  engaging with their mobiles (about 25%). Unfortunately, Facebook does not offer an option to show ads to mobile user, at this point. Also it will mean that we are restricting the ads to 25% of our potential market. We really want to display the ad to all our market. 75% of our potential fans are not using their mobile when accessing their Fan pages. Many have mobiles and can be interested in getting specials delivered to their smartphones.

B. Create an online landing page
It makes sense to link potential guests to a site that explains what the special holiday advertisements are all about and offers them the special when they next use their smartphone. 

There are a couple of options for the landing page:

1. Link to a Facebook fan page that offers them the explanation and the offer

2. Link to a non-mobile site that does this

We decided to do both and to do a split test to see which performs best. We suspect that the Fan page will win, but there are some constraints on the design and we want to evaluate the Fan page against an optimized landing page.

We also want to know how the new specials-enhanced .mobi site will perform.

Will direct links to the .mobi site that has specials advertised on the two landing pages be valid? We did have fans who “Liked” this original TravelOnTheGo.mobi site so we want to see if the "Likes" will increase now that we have specials and a more apparent action! Also some of the users will be on mobiles, so in both cases, we will link to the mobile site. We will implement this adv. immediately, while we we build the online web pages and do the split test.

Tracking

It is vital that we track these approaches carefully. We use Google analytics extensively on our sites, but this is not real time. For the test, we will also use Clicky analytics. Clicky tells us instantly when a user visits a target page, where they come from, what links they came from and what they did. It measures clicks, downloads and video views at the instant they use it. Clicky is very useful for measuring split tests and immediate results.

The ads will be the same ads we used previously, which were very successful in getting attention and clicks.

Watch out for the results in our next blog!

The result and analysis will be put to good use in building winning strategies for Hotel and Travel Marketing. We have strength in 3 important, related areas:


1. First Facebook Bookings app for direct Hotel and Travel Bookings and Branding
2. Mobile strategy for Direct Hotel Bookings
3. Using Facebook to market Hotels and Travel

We believe social media is going to be one of the most important travel marketing channels. We intend to be a leader in providing know-how and technology for hotels and travel companies. Our focus is building a hotel-owned system for direct marketing and and direct bookings using social media mobile.

Facebook leads in social media and has a mobile platform that complements AXSES arcResbookings.com and AXSES SmartphoneTraveller.com marketing platform.


Keep tuned in for breaking news!

Please Follow me - it will really help us all in marketing travel



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Previous blog  http://axses-ianclayton.blogspot.com/2011/04/facebook-travel-ads.html

Realted links 

New York Times: AXSES Facebook app & amp; Mobile Marketing featured in New York Times
http://bit.ly/nytimes-facebook
 

FAN Special for Hotel Mobile Marketing:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Smartphonetraveller-Reach-5-billion-mobiles/179886612057757

AXSES SmartphoneTraveller Strategies
http://smartphonetraveller.com 


Put your hotel brand and Bookings On Facebook
http://arcresbookings.com




Video illustrations of this blog:

EXISTING TRAVELONTHEGO.MOBI CLIENTS UPGRADED!

In harmony with the present Special Offer, all existing clients have been upgraded to Specials & Packages on their mobile sites. Please   "Like" us on  SmartPhoneTravellers' Facebook Page if you wish this upgrade to be continuous.

Conclusion see blog http://axses-ianclayton.blogspot.com/2011/05/advertising-your-mobile-travel-site-on.html

 

AXSES FaceBook Booking app in New York Times Today

AXSES is in the New York Times Today.
"Axses Systems Caribbean, a company in Barbados, has helped about 30 small hotels and chains in Barbados and nearby make their reservations available on Facebook since early 2009. Ian Clayton, the chief executive of Axses, said he hoped that by offering reservations directly, while customers were excited by the property, his hotel clients would lose fewer bookings to online travel sites. "

Example:When you click on the Facebook icon on the home page of Rostrevor's website (left bottom corner)  On their WALL (left column), click RESERVATIONS.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rostrevor-Hotel-Barbados/96980647512?sk=app_64886344728

BUSINESS DAY   | April 19, 2011 Itineraries:  Hotels Turn to Social Media to Connect With Travelers By JULIE WEED Hotels are using Facebook and Smartphone apps to take bookings directly from customers, rather than relying on travel Web sites. video on YouTube http://youtu.be/BnC-XebZw78 This is a good time to explore the arcResBookings application for Facebook. We are offering several Facebook specials listed below. Many are with the first 90 days free with no obligation. Our SmartPhonetraveller  marketing and TravelOnTheGo.mobi web sites can also be integrated with FanPages AXSES Facebook  application not only puts bookings right within reach of Facebook fans, it also loads and manages a hotel and tourism brand right into the FanPages.  A description of the hotel tailored to Fans, Special rates for Fans, photo, room info and all seasonal rates are added with a click of a button. Any changes in arcRes (our publishing system) automatically update the facebook pages. Letting your Fans get instant quotes is a great way to engage them. Try it at http://facebook.arcres.biz   450 active monthly users

Marketing Travel with Facebook Ads: #1

With the unprecedented move by Expedia to advertising on Facebook, we ask the question: is Facebook Advertising right for Travel? And the best way to answer that is by doing a test. 

Proof of Concept

Objective: To test if we can get Facebook fans to a landing page and establish the cost per fan.  We are not concerned with the effectiveness of the landing page in this stage. That will be evaluated and optimized later. For this test we worked with Errol Griffith of Freemind Institute who had commissioned AXSES to develop the booking portal for Great Barbados Soccer Classic (GBSC). GBSC is a sport tourism invitational for 2012. Errol has negotiate rates with several hotels to participate and with this he is able to offer a discount to Fans. The test campaign could result in some Fan sales going to his hotel, which would be good business for his group. The  test product is deployed using GBSC,  with a bit of tweaking.

Fan Holiday Special: We set up a series of ads for a Caribbean Fan Holiday Promotion, using Toronto, Ontario, Canada as a test market for the proof of concept. Facebook users respond to special offers, we did not test a non special offer, and don't intend to as all the study indicate offers work.

The first ad targeted the Toronto area exclusively. We aimed to display the ad to males and females age 25 and over, within a 50-mile radius of Toronto. With Facebook demographics, we can target those in relationships, single, married, by interest and by education. As Facebook users also describe their interests, we can target those who have an interest in travel, etc. The demographic and social graphics targeting is very detailed and unique.

Estimated Reach:

26,480 people

• who live in Canada
• who live within 50 miles of Toronto, ON
• age exactly 25 and older
• who like 'i love travel' or 'travel' 

Date	Imp.	Social	Clicks	CTR (%)	Avg. CPC ($)	Avg. CPM ($)	Spent ($)
04/06/2011	151,306	0.0%	33	0.022%	0.77	0.17	25.35
04/05/2011	203,077	0.0%	47	0.023%	0.75	0.17	35.45
Lifetime	558,733	0.0%	127	0.023%	0.76	0.17	96.25

In 2 days, we had half a million impressions, and 127 clicks to the landing page at a total cost of $96.25 USD, or less that a Dollar a click. A pretty good rate for a hot search item, and a lot less than it would cost on search advertising.

So far, a good proof of concept. We consulted our Facebook Guru, Martin Maybrook, who agreed it was a good market, but we needed next to work on the target and the landing page. Martin liked the idea of offering a Facebook Fan Special -"all Fans like the idea that they are special"- but seeing as we only were featuring Barbados, he suggested doing another ad for Barbados only.  In this, we added the Discount. The number of Facebookers who like Barbados is far smaller, so in order to grow the market, we made this ad available to all in Ontario, Canada.

1,960 people

• who live in Canada
• who live in Ontario
• age exactly 25 and older
• who like Barbados

Date	Imp.	Social %	Clicks	CTR (%)	Avg. CPC ($)	Avg. CPM ($)	Spent ($)
04/09/2011	5,629	0.0%	1	0.018%	0.45	0.08	0.45
04/08/2011	25,886	0.0%	22	0.085%	0.57	0.48	12.52
04/07/2011	12,417	0.0%	14	0.113%	0.57	0.64	7.94
Lifetime	43,932	0.0%	37	0.084%	0.57	0.48	20.91

For about $100, we have completed the proof of concept, defined a lively target market and a successful ad and ad copy. We will tweak the ad by running many split tests, where we vary the message and the image. At the same time, we will begin to build a conversion strategy and an effective landing page. These campaigns will give Hotels the option to advertise to a focused  Facebook marketplace with managed campaigns that deliver direct business.

Facebook users like to stay on Facebook. We want to restrict the special only to new fans and we want to build a fan base. So we will run several ads with options for people to 'Like'.

The best strategy is to get users to link to a fan page were they must 'like' the page in order to get the special fan offer; similar to what we are doing with our SmartphoneTraveller marketing. Here the users is invited to click 'Like' to become a Fan.





On clicking 'Like', the page changes to a Fan Offer (on Facebook),  which links to the sign-up page. These are Business to Business ads, which so far do not seem to be performing well on Facebook.

The Business to Consumer Travels ads are, however, doing very well, as noted above.

AXSES arcResBookings.com, our Facebook Hotel and Tourism Application that adds hotels rates, room, photos and brand info onto Facebook pages, now has over 350 active monthly users, and those hotels who offer fan specials are seeing good value in booking from their Facebook pages.

Facebook certainly has come of age for Travel!
What you notice with Facebook advertising is that it is Instant! As soon as the ad is published, you get results. Ads on search engines, by comparison, will take several days to get approved and to get results.



Stay tuned - Next we will optimize the Facebook Holiday Specials - Create target ads for Themes, like romance and adventure, and invite our Facebook clients to participate in targeted and tested campaigns.

Contact us for a campaign designed just for you, or to be included in our next group marketing on Facebook.

links:
Sign-up for FB Bookings http://facebook.arcres.biz
Join AXSES Facebook Hotel & amp; Travel Marketing fbads@axses.com





Please leave your comments and suggestion below.
Tell us what you  like us to test next and follow us to keep informed




NEXT in the series >> http://bit.ly/facebooktravel2mobile

Kalinago of Dominica- Migration. War and Warner

Following on from the first article on the Kalinago People of Dominica we have added a new issue to explore this fascinating people further. The story of Carib Warner and the people of his time is a fascinating drama.

A 13 year boy the son of a lord and Kalinago Dominica woman, leaves his home in St.  Kitts and returns to Dominica on his fathers death. There he adapts well to his mothers people and becomes their chief. Later as Governor he negotiates a treaty with Kalinago and British. He is murder by his half brother, son of the same farther. 

Its a compelling story within many stories. The Lord Thomas Warner and his Kalinago Mother appear to be outstanding people living in an extraordinary time. Both of them are strong characters dealing with their own story.  It is a Caribbean story of the people who are the ancestors of many who live here now. It is also the story of early colorization, of abuse, greed, power and in some cases great tenderness.

We will be writing more. please stay tuned and subscribe if you want to be advised. Please have a look at the story. Click the 'Like" button at the top of the page will help publicize the story. See War and Warners

arcRes V5 new Features for Hotel Bookings & Travel Marketing

arcRes publishes rates special and packages to
mobile phone, social media and travel shopping sites

The new arcRes V5 combines the arcRes real-time booking with a host of unique travel services and marketing options. 

arcRes V5 brings new Web 2.0 properties to the booking engine streamlining the booking process, making it more intuitive to use and manage. It is more effective in marketing the brand and closing direct bookings.  




arcRes V5 new look and customized design for brands provides improved marketing, more selling options and higher conversion.

 The design is a simple, compact page that is clear, concise and flexible, allowing hotels and tourism partners to offer many rate plans, specials, packages, affiliate promotions and affinity discounts. 

arcRes direct marketing mail systems allow hotels and tourism suppliers to prospect and follow up with interested travelers. Contact-management is geared to tracking bookings. Sales message may be broadcast to travelers, targeting specific interest, regions, and by booking status and dates etc. The mailing database can be imported into iContact for more advanced tracking and marketing.


An availability calendar is built into the reservation process and will appear to show available dates for units that are fully booked for the selected dates. Travelers often have some flexibility in dates, and the calendar allows them to adjust the stay to fit.

V5 builds on the arcRes Tourism marketing Platform that encompasses mobile marketing and bookings, social media marketing, distribution, direct sales, advertising, content management and publishing. 

Brand content, rates, specials, packages and photo galleries are published to over 1000 travel sites and subscribers that include the AXSES travel network, mobile websites, Smartphone applications, social media, independent shopping sites, travel affiliates, syndicate travel sites and subscribers.

The new customized and brand-focused design option allows AXES to offer personal marketing service to individual hotels and travel brands. These can include SEO optimization, directory submission, video blogging, article writing, bookmarking, publishing and distribution. All marketing works in concert with arcRes publishing, specials marketing and distribution, which spreads the brand URL (e.g. http://yourhotel.com) across the Internet. This creates a wide footprint of the brand on the internet, increasing hotel ranking on the search engines, making it easier for travelers to find the brand and book direct.

The default payment option is Credit Card Guarantee (CCG) , similar to that used by the Global Distributions Systems like Sabre, and by OnLine Travel Agents like Booking.com. CCG is the preferred option for direct booking at hotels and tourism operations, where the operators have generally excellent merchant rates with their local banks and traditionally accept a credit card to secure a booking. The card is processed in the event the guest cancels. Other payment systems and payment gateways can be integrated.

All hotel rules, rates, terms and conditions, even down to family plans, are accommodated. 

arcRes was designed for tourism properties as their own booking engine. There are no fixed rules: Child ages are set by the hotel and tourism supplier according to their own preferences.  A child rate can be free for the first child with charges for the second, or it may be charges for the first and free for the second, or any combination. Similarly, deposit requirements, cancellation policies, check-in times and terms are customized to the brand.

Hotels, car rentals, tours, activities and all tourism suppliers may use a custom-designed booking widget on their website or select from any standard widget available on http://bookingswidgets.com. The widgets are recommended for each page of the site, as this has been shown to increase bookings. The widgets are available for all major hosting platform, including Wordpress, Facebook, Java, Flash and html.

All inventory models are available: request to sell, block a request, freesell and full allocation.

The request to sell system is most popular with small hotels who do not want to manage inventory. All reservations requests are accepted by the system and are subject to confirmation by the supplier.

Block request is similar, except that the supplier can block any unit for a specific period. If it is blocked, it cannot be booked. If available, it is still treated as a reservation request and must be confirmed by the hotel or tourism supplier.

The advantage of the request system is that it is easy to maintain (no allocation, no inventory management). Its disadvantage is that it requires more follow-up and does not offer a real-time confirmation which many travelers expect.

The Confirmed booking system requires Inventory Management or Freesell

With full inventory management units may be allocated to channels and to website bookings. 5 units for the website, 4 for OTA, 5 to xyz, etc. This can get tedious if their are many channels.

In Freesell all units are considered available unless they are blocked. arcRes allows units to be blocked by day for any period.

AXSES offers a channel management service, using technology that allows our consultants to manage rates and allocation across multiple distribution points.

All of these features have been available in arcRes for several years. V5 is a streamlined and more effective system for the brand and the traveler. It sells more units, provides more immediate data to travelers, allows better rate management, upgrades and up-sells and converts more bookings.

AXSES offers a channel management service, using technology that allows our consultants to manage rates and allocation across multiple distribution points.

All of these features have been available in arcRes for several years. V5 is a streamlined and more effective system for the brand and the traveler. It sells more units, provides more immediate data to travelers, allows better rate management, upgrades and up-sells and converts more bookings.


For more see our video at hhttp://arcres.com/upgrade

Subscribe to arcRes marketing http://specials.arcres.biz
Put arcRes on your website to book more http://bookings.arcres.biz
Subscribe to arcRes-powered smartphonetraveller.com

AXSES' arcRes Bookings Plugin for WordPress Approved

AXSES has launched a booking engine plugin for WordPress. WordPress is growing as a content management and marketing platform for hotels and tourism companies. It has come a long way from its early blogging days, but blogging is still an important feature of the service. WP also has many plugins and services that are attractive to travel marketers. These include easy to use Social Widgets, SEO plugins, contact forms, blog responder, chat and so forth. There are many design templates that can also be used to quickly create a professional-looking site along a particular theme, like families, romance, etc.

We have been watching hotels, using this resource, and feel that it is the right time to offer an arcRes bookings widget plugin for hotels that want an easy and effecting booking engine that can allow users to get instant quotes and make bookings or just reserve hotel rooms and activities.

The arcRes is a good match for WordPress. It provides flexible inventory and payment options and can work for WordPress merchant gateways. It also provides a credit card guarantee system which is becoming very popular, as many hotels have excellent discount rates with local banks. Credit Card Guarantee is a standard used by the majority of international hotels for hotel and activity reservations. It is very suited to small hotels who don't have a need for Internet merchant accounts. It is quick  to implement and easy to manage. Credit Card Guarantee is used by major Online Travel Agents (OTAs) for hotel reservations. These include Bookings.com, the Global Distribution Systems (GDS) and by many hotels chains, as well as independent hotel and tourism operators.


Both reservation requests and real time confirmed bookings are available and managed by arcRes. 

arcRes is a full feature booking engine that is also a content manager and publishing system. It manages specials, packages, add-ons, numerous rate plans, family plans and themes marketing.

arcRes content is published to the AXSES network, to social sites, Web 2.0 properties and to affiliate travel site. It provides effective and low-cost marketing for hotel and tourism brands to a network of over 1000 sites and subscribers. arcRes also powers AXSES dotMobi marketing via the http://smartphonetraveller.com platform. It publishes brand rates, images, content and bookings capability to Facebook. It  publishes specials to Twitter, Google Shopping, Craigslist and many others. 

The WordPress Bookings plugin means that any hotel on WordPress can now use arcRes for their WP brand website, and at the same time take advantage of its extensive marketing coverage.



Get the arcRes Bookings plugin for WordPress at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/arcres-booking-engine/



Use arcRes to publish to Social Meda and travel sites http://specials.arcres.com

Get more info on latest version of arcRes http://arcres.com/upgrade


Quick Review of WordPress for Tourism

We have been experimenting with WP for several months. Our Global marketing site, http://Adventure-Travel-Destinations.com is build with WordPress. It uses auto-blogging and we have built RSS feeds that push all of our client special, packages and deals out to Adventure Holidays Specials on the site. We have found it requires a degree of effort and time to understand its many features and plugin options. We recommended it as a platform to hotels who have a WP professional available to help in installation and management. As noted By Alex in Blogessive "While working with it as a website CMS will not allow too many customizations for entry-level developers or users, in the hands of a pro WordPress is ready to perform miracles".


We note some issues with the all-in-one SEO plugin, which appears to conflict with manual entries. In our own case, the development and installation was out-sourced and we are now bringing it in-house on our own server. There are issues with the auto-blogging and we believe Google is flagging sites with auto-blogs and duplicated content. In our view, this is affecting the Page Rank of WordPress sites with the WP auto-blogging plugin and we do not recommend using this plugin. Hotels should build unique content on their sites. Even in blogging, make your content original, not copies of news, but news in your own words and with your own special insights and interpretation.


arcRes Links

http://TourismMarketingPlatform.com | http://BookingsWidget.com | arcRes Bookings plugin for WordPress

High Rates Hurt Direct Business - Will Google Places Help Hotels

The new PhoCusWright study on travel trends shows that Hotels lost Direct Booking to Online Travel Agents (OTAs) in 2010. The lost market share is both in head count and in hotels' ability to convert visitors into bookings. The OTAs are doing a better job by providing the systems and the pricing that travelers are looking for.

Travel Shopping is complex. Travelers aim to get the best deal at the best price, the best service, the best experience and best value, meeting their needs and fulfilling a dream. The travel product has many dimension, appealing to diverse needs, dreams, aspirations and expectations! The travel consumer has as many dimensions. 

There are many 'yous': You as an individual, as a family person, a business person, a romantic, an adventurer, a party person, quite, friendly, soulful, lost, worried, aloof, retreating, exploring, expansive, restrained, extrovert, and introvert. You may be all these things at sometime and the travel product that is right for you may change over time and by situation as you shift between 'yous' and moods.

The travel product is personal, and over the years travelers have show a desire to deal directly with hotel owners. Historically, hotels have been growing their market share, but this trend has changed in 2010, as OTAs have been more sensitive to travelers, cutting back in times of uncertainty and restraint. OTAs have been more able to offer travelers services that compare options and help in travel planning to package air and activities with a hotel room.

OTAs have gained market share at the expense of the direct channel. They have gained power and influence, increasing their merchant discounts to 35% in just a few years. Price is a huge reason for their success. OTAs often advertise 50% discounts on Hotel rooms, and have been know to sell below cost. They create the expectation that they have the best deals around, which is not hard to do when hotels publish Rack rates on their websites. Hotels have been asked to step up the game with Deals and Specials layered onto the already deep discounts, leaving many with little margin on rooms sold in the OTA channels.

In the process, travel is under threat of becoming a commodity. This very personal business is loosing its character to mass marketing and price merchandising. Loyalty and alliance are shifting from the supplier to the largest OTA, who controls and dominates distribution.

With Googles ITA acquisition and it new moves to put prices and check-in dates on its places, hotel executives are worried that Google will become a reseller of travel. 

No Rates for hotels direct
In the above map from a Google search for Barbados Hotels Maps (link), you will see check-in dates and hotel rates. As you change the check-in dates, the rates may change. The rates are gathered from OTAs. The hotel suppliers are hardly listed, and if they are, there are no rates or the wrong rates!

Many Hotels can't List in Google Places
But that is just the beginning of the problem. The bigger issue is that many hotels cannot list their hotels on Google Places. Try adding a hotel in Barbados, u have to have an address in USA or somewhere other than Barbados because Google does not have all countries enabled!. Then  there is the problem of many OTA listing a hotel by name and with the local address (they can because they are international and an authority recognized by Google. But its deceptive and is plagiarism, the OTA is trading of on the brand name and travellers often do not know where they are booking from. lastly their is the matter of what Rate. What is the point of putting Rack rate when travellers are comparing to OTA discounted rates! See Rates Management and Marketing

What Rates and at what Cost?
Google has announced it is working with Pegasus to offer rates for hotels.
Pegasus has its own database of hotel rates (ODA) that its uses to publish to the Global Distribution Systems (GDS). Many hotels add their Rack rates into this database. Its not going to match up against the discounts offered by OTAs but it is a step in the right direction.It will be interesting to see what Pegasus charges hotels for this. It used to be that you used Pegasus to get onto GDS and their are high rates to entry and in transactions fees. 10% commission are set aside for distribution, in theory that does not apply, or does it?. In any event its not free and min cost are liely to be at least 10%.

Is Google Selling Travel
While Google says it is interested in getting hotel rates, the fact is that it will be quite a challenge. Google is working with large CRS of the chains and with GDS via Pegasus, but so far it is getting most of its rates from OTAs and driving traffic to OTAs. This is very unfortunate for direct bookings.  I suspect Google knows where the bread is buttered and is perfecting a PPA (pay per action) merchandising system for large customers like Expedia.

I suspect that it will not sell direct, as that will kill its lucrative advertising business. But it may very well get payed in other ways for enabling the technology and market access. As a reseller of travel, Google will be nothing more that another OTA. Its business model is likely to involve building new business partnerships with travel members and that can including hotels and tourism operators. If so, the move has the capacity to change travel shopping and boost direct sales with suppliers. It may not do so, but it can.

Google's advertising model is morphing into a shopping experience that can facilitate and also rival OTA. It can help hotels get more exposure and direct sales, offering service that travelers need. It can bring direct sales and build hotel brands. But for this to happen, hotels must get organized with CRS and have rates readily available in a format that Google and other search engines can access and interpret.

These new pricing systems are very crude systems compared to others like our own Barbados.org's interactive Google maps, but it is a start. I am sure Google will perfect it in time. We have seen shopping carts and cost compare services similar to http://BookingsBarbados.com creep into Google shopping. We will see more bookable-map, bookable-banners and smart interactive advertising like AXSES' own http://bookable-ads.com.

Google's business is advertising, but the method of paying for ads and the process of adverting is changing. Pay Per Click may become Pay Per Action, or Pay Per Transaction. Advertising, once a distinct activity aimed at informing, influencing and "persuasion", has embraced action and bookings.

AXSES pioneered many of these ideas in our own niche markets and we have a fully interactive direct travel shopping experience. The trend of interactive ads is now being adopted across the net and is accelerating as new and merging technology becomes more accessible and expands the possibilities.  

Travel Shoppers Need 3rd Part Technology &  Services
Travelers shop at 20 sites, including social media, portals, articles, review sites and destination guides. The sites are for, the most part, unconnected and isolated. Travelers go to a hotel website but cannot add a room or a package to a wish list, and to do that have had to go to sites like Expedia or Travelocity, or to niche sites for direct shopping, such as http://BookingsBarbados.com. In our direct travel shopping sites, travelers shop and compare products, package products, adding activities and rooms to a wish list, save and book direct. 

Google may well move into doing just that, adding global reach and exposure.

It can scout the net to find best rates and display them. We hope that Google will look for content from many sources including hotel Property Management Systems and CRS systems like our own arcRes.

In the meantime, hotels and travel companies must guard their brands and regain control of direct sales. Suppliers' websites are losing ground to OTAs, and are converting less business on their sites. Carroll Rheem, director of research at PhoCusWright, suggests lack of adequate price management is the cause: “The drop in conversion rates among airline and hotel websites was likely the result of supplier-driven price increases.” See more about price management

Get your direct Booking Engine and direct marketing system with arcRes - V5 Customised SEO & amp Marketing bookings and publishing