Digital Media Marketing - Chapter 1 Introduction

See You Tube Video and Playlist here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOXXzv971rA&list=PLsLsbgFYUZUGBUQcWffwyC-8sk9AsS5IO

More on Chapterts will be posted at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95IDkUbnxHM&list=PLsLsbgFYUZUFLYnm5PGULQ1YRmhYWCHRV


This is video #1 of the chapters in my book Digital Media Marketing. This covers the introduction which about why I wrote the book. In a nutshell digital media has taken over and it is where you need to be.

I plan to publish a video of each chapter. The video swill not replace the book but it will give you a pretty good outline of whats included and why you need to have it working for you. I share 20 years of experience in digital media marketing. I have helped all sorts of businesses and have specialized in travel and hospitality. In the book i share my knowledge, the tools I use, my resource and contacts. I hold nothing back. The contact I share are the best I have found in their field. It will save you a pile of time, avoid a bundle of mistakes and get you cooking with gas, NOW!

Book available on maazo https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Media-Marketing-Hotels-Driving/dp/1980271259

How PersonaHolidays Hotel Matchmaker is Fascinating Travelers - Blogger

An amazing solution for Chain Hotels and Destination Marketers who are ready to create more meaningful experiences for travelers. Engage and convert more direct bookings with personality matching hotels and holidays.

http://axses-ianclayton.blogspot.com/2017/05/personaholidays-hotel-matchmakere.html

Why A Good PR Strategy Is Essential For Hotels – ehotelier

In this article Jo Scard of ehotelier, advises that it is essential to plan your PR campaigns based on 12 month calendars. Announcements, news releases, and events must be spaced so it is continuous and new. “Media engagement needs to be a year-long cycle for two reasons

In our review we highlight Jo's key points and add comments of our own on how to build you own announcement network and create your own authority foot print using Press releases in conjunction with Video distribution, blogging and multimedia content distribution. Here is an example of the videos you will find on the link above

YouTube Video - How to choose the right keywords for your promos.

See Post - http://markhat.com/why-a-good-pr-strategy-is-essential-for-hotels-ehotelier/

Marketing Hotels and Tourism with Your Publishing Cloud

See more detail on YouTube Video on Marketing Hotels & Tourism with you own Publishing Cloud

Latest Free Video by http://TourismMarketingMachines.com

This is a personal insight of Ian R Clayton; it introduces a brand new way of looking at how information can be formatted, re-proposed and published in the digital age. A major part of this strategy is how you can build and use your social media to reinforce your hotel and tourism marketing.

This is shared here for the first time on http://TourismMarketingMachines.com - a free services helping hotel and tourism companies as well as holiday destinations, understand and use the new digital media and the cloud.

Marketing Hotels & Tourism Online - Pre- Launch Bonus

See details on YouTube For Marketing Hotels & Tourism Online - Book Buyers Bonus

Evolution of Search as Media is Hurting Hotel Marketing

Search Marketing for Small Hotels is Dead

Search has been sabotaged by Google (G) and does not exist as we know it anymore. It's now a G product offering entry to G services and soon will be exclusively a G media. It has been changing for 10 years and has gone through at least 6 steps in evolution so far, as outlined by Danny Sullivan on Moz (discussed below).

Big trouble for small hotels

 

see YouTube video how penguin is hurting hotel and tourism marketing

The evolution is insidious and worrying and is not ending with the knowledge graph. Unfortunately this is just the beginning of the new order where search is not an opportunity for local players, hotels and tourism operators, but a closed loop service of the largest conglomerate in the world.See the video below for details of exactly how this is a disaster for small and independent hotels, travel and tourism marketing..


The Trouble With Search

Right now we can see the implications of consolidation at international brand and OTA level. We once saw independent hotels showing up on the first page of search results; those days have gone. For the short term future it's the OTAs and big brands that are the winners.  But as the knowledge graph takes effect, search will more and more be geared to Google products, which will include bookings; Bookings via Google is the ultimate destination of this conglomeration.

We talked about this in 2009 with our blog on the new order of everything and followed it with our blog "the future of media," citing Clay Shirley then with several discussions on hotel finder, search as media (see below) and the knowledge graph . 

Big Brother Bid Data and the Age of Surveillance

The next step in the evolution is what Danny calls the Prism. "It's a spy program or an eavesdropping program or a data mining program, depending on who you want to talk to, that the US government is running."  In my view, the new search is about this Big Data thing, where we gather intelligence and inferences from all of the searches, browsing, profiles, choices and intelligence gather from people's actions, habits, searches and footprints. It's pervasive as more and more information is now put on the Internet and much more of this than anyone would care for can be accessed and used for intelligence in marketing and providing products and services.

The age of persuasion has moved to the age of  influence (Terry O'Reilly) but the next age is far more insidious and pulls the rug out from the idea of a social age of participation. What's next is the age of Big data/ Big brother and those who know how to use it will dominate marketing. The new age designation is not going to be fussy sounding like persuasion, influence or participation because it's not. The game is not equal and all the promise of social media being democratic and an equalizer may vanish. In its place is the age of surveillance, where everything we do, like, dislike and think is measured, analyzed and profiled, creating targets for suppliers and clients of the big data.

Worst Case Scenario

Market dominance centered in a few big data corporations like Amazon and Google-Commoditization of  brands. 

This seems to be the way we are heading. It does not bode well for the smaller independent brand.


Best Case Scenario

Ubiquitous access - Democratic distribution - Level Marketplace. This can happen, but it is not likely to be the preference of the Big Brothers who are determining the future of travel search, technology and media. We do have the opportunity to influence - this is still the age of influence, but do we have the passion?


More on Why search is failing small hotels and tourism

 
 see more on SEO for Hotels and Tourism failing  on Youtube

----------------

links

Danny Sullivan On Moz- The evolution of Search 

Trouble in search - SEO Google pulls the rug away
hotel and tourism marketing takes hit from penguin

  What is the knowledge graph - First Iterationhttp://axses-ianclayton.blogspot.ca/2012/08/the-future-of-search-knowledge-graph.html.

The Future of Media
Clay Shirley  http://irclay.hubpages.com/hub/The-Future-of-Social-Media-for-Hotel-Marketing-Travel-and-Tourism

Search as Media

http://axses-ianclayton.blogspot.ca/2011/09/is-search-new-media.html
http://axses-ianclayton.blogspot.ca/2011/10/search-as-media-4-googles-hotel-finder.html  
 http://axses-ianclayton.blogspot.ca/2011/10/how-small-hotels-tourism-cos-can.html
 http://axses-ianclayton.blogspot.ca/2011/10/is-search-pushing-out-small-hotel-and.html

Travel At a Crossroad

http://axses-ianclayton.blogspot.ca/2008/04/have-now-lost-their-opportunity-to-be.html

Google One Channel Benefits Tourism

I like the Channel Trailer feature of the "ONE Channel' that Google has implemented on YouTube. Its just one of many recent changes and upgrade. In my view it is really the only "new" feature. The others are mostly improvements and tweaking, except of course that its now a sort of  'Responsive Web Design' (RWD), meaning that it will render well in all mobile, smartphones. iPods, iPads, tablets, mobile phones, games consoles (like xBox), TV and other devices.

Naturally that implies some consideration from publishers and creators: We all now have to understand the limitation and options of these channels and create our video accordingly. Don't create options to press a button or submit a form for TV. Its not there yet and you can really irritate TV viewer by suggesting they can subscribe by clicking the button.

Example Video Trailer


See TravelBarbados Youtube Channel | This Video


Barbados Tourism Encyclopedia is experimenting with the One Channel features. it has created its first trailer for BarbadosTravel on YouTube. The trailer describes the channel, promotes a sweepstake and encourage viewers to subscribe.

Things To Include in Your Trailer

1. Welcome your viewers and thank them for stopping at your channel.

2. Tell them what your channel does and engage them with images and a story line that builds empathy.

3. Make it short and fast. Hi, here we are, this is what we do, please subscribe. Get the viewer's attention and provide them with a reason to stay around. Imagine this trailer as an ad for your channel. Here are some tips to keep in mind when you're making your channel trailer:

4. Add a call to action to your own opt in page, newsletter etc. We have used it to promote a sweepstake where the winner will receive a Free holiday in Barbados.

One Channel Trailer Examples:  

Tourism Marketing:
  Australia http://www.youtube.com/Australia
  Plains of Africa http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49SyEBZh91E
  Oberammergau Passion Play http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc5higDB21s
  Vice uncomfortable truths http://www.youtube.com/user/vice
  BarbadosTravel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyDSKe_md8c

Films:
   http://www.youtube.com/user/movieclipsTRAILERS
   DIY Film Making http://www.youtube.com/user/indymogul (5 min)

Food:
  Jamie Oliver http://www.youtube.com/user/JamieOliver

Procucts/Brands:
  Trainroomgary http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_-dYaMaW8w
  Loud http://www.youtube.com/user/LOUD

YouTube Creator tips

Here is what http://youtubecreator.blogspot.com says:

Have a clear call to action to subscribe (scripted and annotated in the video, and in the video description as well). Entertain the viewer - when in doubt show what your channel is about, don't tell

Indicate the type of videos you upload and when you upload them.

Think about the video's context; it will be seen on the channel, potentially after a viewer has already seen at least one of your videos. There's no perfect length, but shorter is better


Our Views On Trailer Etiquette

From what we  know and have seen, we think video trailers should be short (1 1/2 minutes max)

We have heard that YouTube plans to roll out special options for subscribers.


Other  One Channel Features

 As noted, the trailer is one of the new features of the "ONE CHANNEL" strategy by YouTube.

Here are its main features:

1. Consistent layout across all screens. Your brand can be the same across all devices. Mobile, iPads, iPods, smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktops, xBox, TVs etc.

2. Sections. More flexibility with playlists. Create lists of any type; no need to create sub-channels or pages.

3. Channel Trailer. As above, create a "welcome" video for non-subscribers.

4. Channels Connection. You can now link to your other relevant channels straight from the home page.


More on Barbados Click Here
BarbadosTravel Youtube Channel Click Here
The Trailer Click Here

Tourism Marketing Is Storytelling

All too often travel and tourism marketers miss the point: travelers love travel stories; stories about people, places, things to do, where to stay and what rooms, apartments and villas they may stay at. 

Learn from Review Sites
Travel marketers don't on the whole tell stories but create pitches and promotions, which are often just plain boring.  Largely they all sound alike.
That's why travelers use review sites; they are not pitches but a story of what someone thinks about a real experience, with real, unfiltered images, video and photos of places.

Travel is a story, but told by hotel and tourism operators, it loses much in translation. Hospitality providers can be storytellers; usually they are good raconteurs, but they are not credible when talking about their own property. It just isn't a story when we say how wonderful our own place is. That's why video is a great option. It delivers a visual of the place; its resources, dining, beaches and rooms.

Rooms Often Not Emphasized
When I look around at hotel websites, I see lovely videos, but many of them spend little time on the rooms. This is even true of villas, where you would think every owner would want to show it all off. What is seen is a rushed nod to the families and a peek inside the room. Why not show the entire bedroom, closets and all? And certainly show the view, accessibility and all facilities. (see example of a simple video below- also see the blog and story at the end)




Comments Add Proof
Now the real storytelling will include guests' comments; how they loved something about the room, flat or home they stayed in. Failing that, the owner can say why this room is great for families; not just because it has two bedrooms, but because it is on one floor, safe and away from stairs, with a large open terrace that children love to play in.

What's in a Name
All too often we do not name units attractively with compelling descriptions. "Villa number one" for example is not helpful. Call it the Nook, Den or "Roof Top Terrace Villa" as Poinsettia in St. Lucia did. Number 6 with two terraces is "The Garden Terrace Villa," number 5, "Poolside" and the unit tucked under the terrace and between the pool and gardens, is "The Nook."

As owners, we often fail to see our accommodation options as all having distinct character. But that is where the story lies. Write about it, get your guests to offer their own comments and create a page for every unit: where it is, how far from the pool, the beach and the office; what is special about it.

As hotel owners and managers, we group accommodation into a common category and that too we treat with drab generalities lacking character and distinction. We don't do videos of each unit, thinking that they are all the same. And if they are, what an opportunity we have missed not to build character into our product.

Video: Affordable and Essential Marketing 
You don't have to spend a fortune on videos to get the message across. See the example above. It is a simple video of film and still images with music and text; no voice-over. It is a visual story of a single villa-apartment at PoinsettiaApartments.com. In the page it is displayed on, a short story of the accommodation gives good information that is helpful to the traveler. Each of the units at Poinsettia Apartments is unique with its own personality. The campaign will create a video and blog story for each of seven one and two bedroom apartment-villas at the hilltop resort on Vigie Cove, Castries St. Lucia.

Authenticity
You don't need a professional actor and a glitzy movie to be authentic. In fact, for a great majority of travelers, glitz is a put off. Many want to know who the manager, owner or host is. A video of a real person who will be there to welcome them is far better than a professional voice. Don't be intimidated by your voice. It is real and no actor or smooth talker can really represent you. Speak from the heart and you will create an authentic and real connection. We suggest that our clients use a combination of text, image, voice over and music only videos.  It's good to alternate and sometimes it is important to have that professional voice carry a message. But save the sales letter and the mission statement for your own voice and remember it does not have to be perfect.

User Generated Content Sells                                                                                  
In the recent Destination Marketing Case for Canada , emotional engagement and user generated content helps drive customers to purchase. Canada is a vast and beautiful country but why go there when you could go to California or the Caribbean? Emotional engagement can make the difference.

The implications to hotel and tourism marketing is that user videos resonate. Hotels tend to create high-end videos when travelers want to see the real deal;  the manager/owner or host and not an actor!

Be Where You Need to Be - Be Everywhere
Today people move fluidly between desktop, mobile devices, tablets, television, broadcast services and print. To be present at the right time and place means we have to deliver a consistent brand experience across channels and a system to update posts and maintain a presence where your guests are.  

Example: StoryTelling Travel Marketing at Poinsettia

http://poinsettiaapartments.com/apt-villa1-rooftopterrace.cfm

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

Persuasion in the Age of Engagement

There is a debate going on about the future of internet marketing which relies heavily on Search Engine Optimising (SEO) and article blogging. 

SEO has changed again. It changes all the time because marketers figure out how to get the to the top of search engine results and bending, stretching and managing the rules. So when everyone found short cuts to getting links to their sites, a big issue for getting on top of search), Google and other engines changed the rules about back-links and a lot of first pagers fell of the page.

Marketers then discover that writing articles was a great way to get first rate links, and the articles themselves were loved by Google as original content. Google even commented that it had created a whole industry of writers. Trouble was that a lot of the articles were dribble and pretty soon there were so many of them that the web was full of dribble and search results were useless.

So Google has just started to change the rules on articles, now ranking articles based on who wrote them, how original it is, if it is relevant and of value. It is a daunting task to write a program do rate articles, and we suspect that all articles may diminish as a SEO tactic. In fact it seems that too many articles and poor articles can get flagged and hurt your SEO campaign.

Not very long ago we had a simple set of  rules and tactics that worked. We used webpages with  strategic keywords, tags, headings, images  and content. We added articles, blogs, videos,  bookmarkes, and we interacted with other sites to comment on realted issue. We distributed hotel rates and specials via RSS feeds that were and still are picked up by 100's of other sites to republished for their members (RSS aggregation).  It has ALL changed and the frieghtening thing is that we dont know how it will work till we see it. Not even Google knows!

Google is struggeling, as we all are, trying to make search relevant. It must succeed to survive,  because searches are to moving to subscription and social sites to get better results.


See the full story at our hub page >> Click Here

Can Google+1 Stop Facebook's Dramatic Rise?

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Will Google's new Social Media Google +1, an optional browser extension, be a contender against the rise of Facebook as the world's most visited site? If not, will it matter to Google, and why is Google working so hard to be a player in the Social Media and failing so often (buzz, friends connect, wave, etc.)?

The chart here shows the latest trends in searches for Google, Facebook, and YouTube; Facebook has surpassed all, and is climbing above all at an accelerated pace. 

As holiday buyers look to friends and friends of friends for advice and suggestions on travel, destinations, hotels and holiday activities, many are choosing to seek out information on Facebook hotel pages, Facebook groups and Facebook friends reviews. This "social trend" continues to influence how people buy travel, how they research holiday options and how they choose destinations, hotels and vacation activities. It is influencing where they go, how they get there and what they do.
 
Google must be contemplating the future of search, as social site like Facebook and their "word of mouth appeal", make inroads on search. Some say search has become dysfunctional, offering too many unspecific links to promotional pages. The results are often designed to sell affiliate marketing products like cell phones, Smartphones, Amazon books and gadgets. Marketers have become experts at mastering Google results with crafted articles and Search Engine Optimised (SEO) web pages, promoting products and services associated with the top keywords and phrases being searched.

Search for "Adventure Travel Destinations"; you will get 16 million results. Those on the first page are Google's top picks, but are they right for you? Perhaps our site http://Adventure-Travel-Destinations.com is what you are looking for, but if it is not ranked by Google, you will not see it. 80% of searches look only at page 1 results and the competition for getting on page one is daunting to small hotels and tourism marketers.

A goal of search is to provide a single "right" answer to any question. The right answer is one that is tailored to you. But who knows what you mean when you search for "adventure travel"? The concept of adventure is entirely personal. To many, it is a challenging physical endeavor, like climbing a mountain; to others, it is a cultural exchange, and to some, it is exploring nature. At times, it is different things to the same person because there are, in fact, many "yous". We are complex beings and our needs change in time, by occasion and by circumstance. The point is that the software algorithms of a search engine are not the best judge of what "we" want and many are turning to Social Media, in search for more meaning.


The merger of Social Media and Search is on the horizon, with Bing and Facebook leading the effort. Google, pondering its options, has moved quickly to fill the gaps by including social media in its results and evaluating social footprints. It leads in mobile search and sees the Smartphone and social media merging into a permanent new business sector. Smartphones make connection social, instant, pertinent and more permanent, creating new opportunities for e-commerce, dialogue and service. See  How Travellers use Smartphones.

Smartphones searching the web are expected to outpace all searches from laptops and desktops within the next few years. This is why Google has made Mobile its number one strategy.  Mobile is the new Social arena and Google +1 might just tie it together in the internet browser. Google +1 may succeed where Google previously failed because it combines Google strengths in search, mobile & cloud computing. This could well be the new social universe. The task for Google is to get consumers to accept its new technology and its browser.  

The future for travel marketing is going to be more mobile, more social and more connected. Google has not been good at creating a social platform, but it just might succeed in creating the new social universe where connection transcends platform.

For now, Facebook continues to grow as a travel and tourism marketing platform, with applications that allow hotels, tourism companies and holiday destinations to load, manage and market their brands and products on their Facebook pages. Facebook Fans are booking holidays on hotel and tourism Facebook pages where marketing is understated, connections are personal and loyalty is rewarded. 

Load your travel brand and bookings on Facebook now: arcRes Publishing - Facebook Trial

InteractiveBrand

"A brand does not exist on a shelf — it exists in the hearts and minds of people"... Mahesh Murthy 2010

This blog is about the new age of the Interactive Brand. It will point you to a series of newsletters and web sites that explain the secrets of the Interactive Brand. The brand that connects!

To stand out from the crowd you need a purpose that defines your brand as different. This is the hook. It makes your brand news worthy and, if people like it, it may just enter the conversation.

Take a look at our Social network site - it has a great video about social media. Made a few years ago when facebook was still a baby, not the second most visited website in the world, it is very valid.

This social conversation is part of the interaction that successful marketers are engaging in. The Apple iPad and Google Buzz both have created a Buzz of conversation without a single ad.

The Social Media hotel in NY climbed to the top of the conversation using Twitter and facebook to get a message out that they were friendly, open, social and interested in things that are happening in NY. Their hook was connecting with special interest groups and building around events that interested them, like Craft Beer Week and hosting a party for a Mashable Social Media event.

In Barbados theCoconut Court Hotel has hired a Community Manager and moved into the community conversation announcing its social happy hours, breakfast specials and a full calendar of social events which is communicated using social media.

It's a crowded field but brands can take off "hook, line and sinker", via viral marketing, word of mouth, social media and the Internet.

Viral marketing does not need to be conducted through major advertising firms or tech savvy companies. It is managers and staff, real people that make the conversation. Well mostly, we note that Obama needs a social media aid to keep up with the conversation.

Obama's hook was "Yes we can" and his team turned that into a victory, it was clearly a purpose that was different.

Once you have your purpose you need a website that communicates this - see our 10 steps for good website design.

Your website is one of the most powerful communicators of your brand. Your website is where social media will go to discover more about you. If you do it right its where Internet searchers will find you. So make it special, make it have the best content and best process. Be wary of how your content is used on the net and be the guardian of your brand. In particular be wary of how other online channels and online travel agents can effect your brand.

Promoting your brand on the internet has a lot to do with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). All that you do in Social Media will help you get indexed and found on the major engines. Unlike Social Media Interaction, we don't suggest you do your own Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), this is a job for the pros. If done wrong it can wipe you off the Net. See our summary of the key points in Your Brand and SEO

As we note in "Your Brand and SEO", an important differentiation in communications and brand appeal as well as in Search engine Ranking is the Process. The process is about Interaction. The process refers to how the brand is deployed, the methods, form and function and all the ways that it is dynamic, changing with your use, tracking your experience and your interaction to give you what you want. It is, in a way, both the media and the message.

Rates and quotes are a simple example; if travelers perceive that your website rates are not clear and not fair rate, they will go elsewhere. We are in a buyers market and getting the best price is almost a way of life now. It's too easy to find great deals at Expedia and Priceline and if your website is not in line you will lose direct business and brand loyalty. Read about the fair rates perception and your brand Interactive fair rates and brand Integrity


The Hook

A Tourism website and product needs to have a purpose and be different - we can't all be the best luxury hotel or the best budget hotel, so some are opting for the best party hotel, with non stop improvised jazz, jam sessions, beach parties and picnics. Others cater to families, singles, couples, the getaway crowd and to sports tourism etc. Soon these differences are not enough and the hook has to be something more. The "best" is tired and better retired.

A hook is a hook only if it connects with the customer. It has to be more than a market segment; which is best described as travel and holidays theme marketing. The hook, by contrast is about differentiation across market segments or themes, it has to have a global purpose with real appeal. When Nike used "Just do it" it connected. It connected to the sports minded who wanted to just do it, and it connected because of its association with the "Best" athletes. Best is Ok if it's real and not just a tired word. You have to show it.

There is trend today to be more edgy. I am not sure I like it. I don't think a good cook has to use foul language to win customers but, Hey, It works. Even Mickey Mouse is showing his darker side in Disney's re-branding of Mickey.

Mickey's popularity in the United States has begun to wane with the growing competition from Nickelodeon, Pixar and Dreamworks characters that are more edgy. Mickey's personality has to grow with the times to remain relevant in the marketplace.

Travel writers are doping the flowers in their language and become more outlandish telling the good, the bad and ugly with character. So too the brand needs to be articulated with straight talk and frank conversation - see Mahesh Murthy on Interactive Branding.

AXSES Interactive Brand directory

Branding Crossroads

Branding at a Crossroads


Today, a brand must appeal to the psyche of customers to make a connection. For example: many senior travelers want hospitality and service above all. The core seniors market does not typically care for technology. They don’t like answering machines, PCs and automation. Younger travelers, in contrast, like casual and tech-friendly hotels with convenience, where food and drinks is a priority. They prefer to stay in hotels that have the look, feel, and comfort of their own homes.

Targeting a market niche start at the design stage.

Starwoods created the ‘Aloft’ brand for the young entrepreneur market and designed its hotels to include a bar, a food and beverage center offering fresh bagels, fruits and drinks, an outdoor area serving light meals, a fitness center with swimming pool, wireless Internet access property-wide, and flexible meeting and function space. Guest rooms have 9-foot ceilings and oversized windows, a signature bed, a work space with an MP3 docking station, and a flat-panel TV. Bathrooms are furnished with Bliss amenities and walk-in oversized showers. Starwood plans call for 500 Aloft to be open by 2012 (average daily rate: $100 to $125).

Brands for Small Island Hotels

Small hotels often don't have the opportunity to rebuild for a market. Nevertheless, the market for differentiation is strong and the small hotel is often sought out, particularly in Europe, where chain brand penetration is low (i). Small hotels can tap into the booming market for Boutique hotels, where uniqueness and character are preferred over big brand names. Differentiation and personality are the key.

Building a strong brand requires use of all appropriate channels, but too much reliance on the OTA channels can be have very negative side effects. Choice hotels discovered it had created a monster by building up its business with Expedia. In re-negotiating its contract with Choice, Expedia suggested that its brand was more important and that Choice just had no option but to abide by its rules and demands. The widely known secret is that OTAs don’t want all the hotels in the world, so many are going to get left out. Its wise to be direct!

Brand Integrity in the OTA Channel

We have seen chain hotels make great progress in building their own brand marketing and direct business, reducing their dependence on the OTAs, like Expedia. (81% of bookings to major chains are now direct). The Chains understand that reliance on OTAs is not good for Brand integrity.

Brand Integrity is a measure of the cohesiveness of the brand message and your ownership of it. This integrity is influenced by your message and how you present it, the medium/channels you use, what you promise and what is expected.

Your brand is your differentiation & your personality. How you market will influence your relationship with guests, their loyalty and your ownership of both the brand and the business.

See more on The Medium and the Message.

First be clear and then be seen

Branding requires being clear about your market and your USP and putting this across in words and pictures, with the right emotion and the right process in the right place. Next, get the message out with an appropriate call to action on all advertising, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and with appropriate exposure on the right marketing channels.

Shoppers need a reason to remember you and to return to complete their shopping experience. Create stickiness and be in true shopping channels, like Barbados.org, BarbadosVacationSpecials.com and BarbadosHolidayThemes.com, where shoppers can add you to their shopping lists and compare options. Shoppers must be able to visit your website and take action on interest; get a quote, save it or buy at any point.

The AXSES Travel Shopping Network is unique in its ability to provide easy access to your website at many strategic decision points. AXSES also provide many POS opportunities with bookable-maps, bookable-ads, bookable-banners, bookable-lists, etc. (click here for details). In fact, the entire AXSES network is bookable, every advertisement, listing and link is or will be driven by arcRes Tourism Bookings & Reservations System.

Branding with fair pricing and revenue management

A recent Cornell University study shows that travelers are confused by hotel pricing and often see it as unfair. This is not good for your brand! Many hotels now offer travelers a choice of rate plans and full disclosure. Many chains offer best rate guarantees.


We recommend that you manage rates and expectation with loyalty programs and special group pricing. Travel shoppers want to act (get a quote, save it, add it to a list, buy it) when they are ready, and they want to know they are getting a fair price.

AXSES is now introducing a new collaborative marketing solution, where we help tourism suppliers use technology to brand and market their products, get exposed and close more direct sales!!

For more information on how you can build and sustain your brand - please contact iclayton 'at' axses.net

More about AXSES: see
http://axses-travel.com | arcRes Marketing

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i. The brand penetration index that measures the percentage of hotel rooms that belongs to a flag out of the total capacity, is over 70% in the US, while France is the market with the highest brand penetration index in Europe, with less than 30%.

HouseHolidays

We have been running travel portals for over 12 years now. In some of our channels I find that very best value is often overlooked. Travelers have pretty fixed ideas about what to look for. For instance they will insist on being on the beach - but across the road we often have far better hotels; offering better value and sometimes a far more comfortable and elegant setting.

House rentals is another area that tends to get passed over. There is a passionate following for villas but I am still trying to figure what a villa really is. We have villas that are really apartments or condos, and that to me is wrong. To me, a villa has to have a private front door - not an hallway and elevator. So really a villa is some sort of house. In Roman days it was a upper class country house and through the middle ages it was associated with luxury. wikipedia.org suggest that today a villa refers to a specific type of detached suburban dwelling. I don't think that holds. Settlers Beach Villa complex in Barbados is not detached but it is clearly a Villa Resort of the highest standard and on a perfect beach.

Now I know that holidays are a chance to get away and one likes to go to a hotel where everything is catered for - But golly gee, the Villa-Home complex across the road has better prices, full maid service, a cook you can hire, a pool, a fantastic view and its private - spacious - spotlessly clean with a helpful and friendly family management and staff. Its a whole house with washer, dryer, stove, microwave, a full stand up fridge, iron and board, 3 rooms - kitchen, patio and a garden with fruit trees you are invited to pick from! Why are so many people ignoring houses and settling for a Room. A house is so much more that a room - why settle for less!

I think the holiday home resort vacation is undervalued. If you don't want to cook - there are many restaurants that offer more variety. But part of a real holidays is exploring - shopping - going to the market and buying your fresh fish and local vegetables - experimenting and sampling another culture. Lets hear it for Island house rentals and holiday home living!

An example I like is http://poinsettiaapartments.com. Its a family run complex of 7 villa style homes/apartments, tastefully furnished, fully equipped and on a hill overlooking a lovely bay with a working marina. Its not on the beach and you need a car to get around, but if you have a car its a perfect spot for the more discerning traveler who prefers not to be one of a crowd and have their own space. For the business traveler a Townhouse is the perfect choice; see Town houses and Apartment Rentals - St. Lucia. Poinsettia Villa-Apartment and townhouses can also be rented long term.

Check out the latest webpage dedicated to Island House Holidays in St. Lucia - http://island-houses-for-rent.com - a http://bookingsstlucia.com initiative. Soon to be a Caribbean wide service - if you would like to participate please contact us.

SocialMedia4TravelMarketing

How to market travel on social media

Who is using which social media - how is the traveler using social media, which social media site is best for travel marketing.

This blog/web page offers a simple explanation with easy to understand detail. Social media clients have been analyzed in depth. Patricia Brusha of hospitality.net talks about 5 types of social media users - what they like and what social sites they might frequent - she adds marketing implications and lots of good advice for the travel marketer.

The blog/page summaries this dialogue with a simple table chart. In addition it offers a table of the leading social media channels for travel - with a layman's explanation of what they are and how they can apply. The page is full of examples and links to useful tool and resources for hotels, tourism operators and destination marketers.

The page is a social media resource of AXSES.

AXSES is a travel marketing and applications developer; building tools for travel suppliers (hotels and tourism operators) to market and manage their travel business. AXSES recently launched a Bookings engine and tourism marketing & e-commerce application for Facebook.

Travel Marketing

Travel Marketing Tools for Travel Suppliers
(hotels & tourism operators)

Marketing tools for travel marketing and management range from a simple booking engine to managing content on multinational sites and on numerous Internet travel portals and marketing channels. They also include property management systems relating to managing inventory and reservations.

To optimize an Internet marketing campaign, hotels and tourism operators need to deploy multiple strategies such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, Brand advertising (Impression), Direct e-mail marketing (such as iContact) and a spectrum of e-commerce and rates management across channels such as Global Distribution Systems(GDS), Internet Distribution Systems (IDS), Social Media Channels (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), Affiliate Programs, Travel Agents and Tour Operators.

Managing allocation in all channels has become a major problem for travel suppliers (hotels and tourism operators). It is so complex that many hotels and tourism operators opt out and prefer to contract their entire inventory with prime wholesalers and distributors.

The opt-out strategy is a quick fix, but it is not sustainable in the new order. All too often, these dependencies result in huge loss of market when things go wrong. A hotel I know lost its entire distribution when its sole contractor asked for conditions it could not meet. They took their business elsewhere and bookings of 100 rooms per night were gone. It is imperative that hotels and tourism operators build a balanced strategy and take more control of their own brand and marketing.
A wide array of tools, technology and marketing options exists for tourism operators. Channel management systems such as EZYield, rates management with RateGain, Global Distribution via many GDS integration companies and hundreds of Internet Distribution Systems (IDS) like Travelocity, as well a thousand Destination Travel Portals and Travel Guides.

At AXSES, we have developed a marketing suite for small and mid-sized hotels and tourism operators. This was built on our travel booking engine, arcRes Bookings-Expert.com. The Booking Engine has been vastly expanded to do much more, and it is now a Travel Marketing Suite; an e-commerce platform that works for Social Media and conventional travel channels. See http://www.arcres.com/ecommerce-and-travel-marketing suites

Many hotels have opted to jump on the GDS bandwagon and mistakenly concluded that they are now well represented on thousands of IDS channels, such as Travelocity. Wishful thinking! It was true, at one time, but IDS are opting for direct contracts with hotels – Expedia has signed up nearly 100,000 hotels to its Expedia Special Rates (ESP) program and GDS content is far down the line in priority. That is unfortunate for the hotels, as they must now manage Expedia, Travelocity and all the major distribution contracts that they choose.

Optimising distribution channels requires diligence. To be on the top of the IDS ‘by price’ list, you have to offer the best rate. But it is not always desirable to be at the very top! You need to be high on the list for hotels in your own class and offer a value added service rather that the best price. That way, your ROI and Brand is protected. There are e-commerce companies and consultants that specialize in running IDS campaigns. They arrange the contracts and manage them for you.

The travel industry is working to integrate the marketing channels and you can purchase channel management software. Generally, this software is not easy to use and is too expensive for a small hotel. An industry standard that would ease the management of channels is not imminent.

The GDS representative companies who have built Central Reservation Systems (CRS) that interface hotels to the GDS systems ( Sabre, Amadeus, Travelport and Pegasus) >, are also building systems to help hotels manage many IDS channels (Expedia, etc.) from the same CRS. For example, Genares has integrated their CRS with Expedia/TravelWeb (Expedia Quick Connect). This allows hotels to manage Expedia and TravelWeb rates and allocation using the Genares CRS and saves having to learn another online system. The cost is $4 US per booking. For Orbitz, Travelocity, Priceline and others the fee is $4 plus the GDS fees. The IDS will generally require a minimum of 25% discount from your rack rate. Using the GDS as a channel manager thus will cost anywhere from $4 to $10 per booking in addition to the channel cost (25% minimum). It’s not a lot, if you consider the time it takes to learn all the different systems.

arcRes Travel Bookings for Facebook (arcResBookings) is the first-of-its-kind travel bookings application. It allows any hotel to load rates, property information, room descriptions, photos and rates directly from arcRes into Facebook and manage it from arcRes. It is a huge time saver and makes managing Facebook very easy. Both the booking engine and quotation system are embedded in Facebook, so that guests can easily book directly with the property or tourism operator, or get an immediate quote. See Facebook Travel Bookings (Live example)

ArcResBooking.com for Facebook is a part of the arcRes Marketing Suites, a comprehensive e-commerce platform for travel. It is currently the easiest GDS setup in the industry. Contracts are signed online, and the hotel's information, rates and seasons are all loaded directly from information already in arcRes.

As more and better tools for travel marketing become available, the role of the hotel marketer is becoming more technology-driven. Hotels need to invest in hiring the right people and training staff to understand and be comfortable with technology. It cannot be avoided! It is essential to success in the long term.

Distribution

Travel Distribution at a Crossroads

59% of online travel shoppers stop at online agents, like Travelocity, first, presumably to comparison shop. The average consumer makes 12 searches and visits 22 sites before they book (Uptake, June, 2008). To be found, you need to be seen on “appropriate” sites, even if you don’t get bookings from them. 95% of visitors to these sites do not buy on the site. In 2006, it was estimated that 70% of visitors to sites, like Expedia, ended up buying Direct from the supplier. This is why Expedia has moved into advertising, realizing that they do influence buying decisions at a growing rate. The GDS imposed minimum monthly billings as a way of charging for exposure.

In a fragmented global market, distributors emerged as the place to shop, and hotels have fully supported this channel. But distributors set their own rules and resell price. Prices in distribution are often much lower that the hotel-published rates. As competing distributors try to match rates, the pressure on hotel profitability is intense. Often, a hotel that could not meet a requested price would be dropped. In this aggressive distribution-driven market, the hotel Brand was eroded and rates fragmented.

The large hotel chains moved effectively to take back control with Best Rate Guarantees and by offering consumers the service (technology) they demanded (online costing, bookings, packaging).

Many travelers prefer to deal direct (i) and the technology is helping to drive more business direct to suppliers. Field Management Systems and small travel application developers and travel integrators, such as AXSES, play a large part in driving direct to supplier business.

Consider Intimate Hotels of Barbados. The Intimate portal is powered by AXSES arcRes Portal-keeper.com and arcRes-CRS (Central Reservations Systems). These solutions can be fully integrated with GDS, with the hotel bookings and Property Management System.

In this scenario, the small hotels manage rates and inventory on their own arcRes web booking engine, the Intimate Hotels Barbados Portal and 10 arcRes-powered channels, like BoookingsBarbados.com, BarbadosVacationSpecials.com, etc.

Global Distribution Systems (GDS) are an important part of the market mix and are now affordable for small hotels. GDS is the largest travel distribution network in the world. Over 600,000 international travel agents use them. In addition, many Internet Distribution Systems (IDS), such as Travelocity, have traditionally pulled content from the GDS to offer booking for resorts not signed with them.

The GDS have acted, to some extent, as a channel management tool for thousands of IDS sites. This, too, is changing, as IDS favour direct contracts with resorts and always put their own direct contracts on top of the list. We expect that IDS will drop GDS content when they have a critical mass of direct-contract suppliers.

The issue, then, is how many systems will you, as supplier, be required to manage.

Distribution is here to stay. It offers services, like comparison-shopping, that cannot be feasibly offered by a resort website. Travelers will continue to comparison-shop there to assess which supplier sites to visit.

The role of marketing is becoming very much the role of controlling content, rates, availability and visibility on the Internet (Channel Management).

Channel Management is a top priority of just about everyone in the travel marketing business. The technology is becoming affordable and easier to use. GDS suppliers are now rolling out integrated solutions to let hotels manage rates on other channels. Companies, like Rate Tiger, are reaching a critical mass and lowering their rates.

The new order is taking shape. New technology is driving direct business and making it easier to control and manage distribution. Technology is more accessible and affordable and Suppliers who use it are taking control.



Notes
1. PhoCusWright: "In fact, more than twice as many online travelers (36%) believe that the supplier-direct channel provides the best customer service, compared to 15% who choose the online travel agency channel. Even offline agencies, which are coveted for their personal touch in a technology-driven world, did not fare as well, with 33% claiming they provide the best customer service ...."
more>>>

Destination Marketing

Destination Marketing at a Crossroads

Not so very long ago a traveler had few options and the world of travel was pretty straightforward and perhaps a little too expensive।

Travelers went to their neigbourhood agent and pored over brochures, got advice and booked with the agent. Agents got to know the traveler well and could recommend vacations that suited. Travelers were well served, although the service was not necessarily timely or convenient.

Today the traveler is overwhelmed with armchair choices. Travelers who still go to agents often will first research on-line, and more and more of them are booking on-line. Arm-chair booking a holiday can be a tedious and time-consuming process. Travelers will look at several sites, consult friends and agents, read reviews on social sites, check airlines and look for the best value. Back and forth, they go looking at maybe a dozen sites.

Most people begin their holiday research by searching for destination guides (typically through Google). Often, they end up on Destination sites such as Tourism Authority sites, where the information is general, helpful but often limited in its ability to offer real in-depth comparison, shopping and planning services. The destination sites are often great for finding official resort websites, but the resort websites don’t present information in a consistent form and they are hard to compare.

Travelers move on to shopping sites like Expedia to compare resorts, to Trip Advisor to read reviews and to other sites to get more information and find deals. In the process they have a confusing and muddled array of information. The sites that help them most stick. The sites that don’t stick fall off the radar.

In the end the traveler will narrow down options to the few sites that help them most, the ones that give the best information and the best deals. They will narrow down the options to a few preferred resorts (unless it is an opaque site) and many will want to review the resort website, if they can find it. The traveler soon learns that it is impossible to get back to the actual resort because the shopping sites like Expedia, are a closed loop. All too often a search for a particular resort links them back to a shopping site. The big online portals have the budget and the knowhow to get listed on the Internet search engines (SEO); small hotels often don’t.

Destination sites are often the best place to find links to the official website of selected resorts, so the “clicked out traveler” may come back to the destination sites in the last stages of the decision making process. Many travelers prefer to book direct and most like to see the resort website. Convenience, value, service and after sales support drive the decision of where to buy, but all to often the hotel website is not convenient, does not offer the best value and can be difficult to find.

This buy cycle is not well documented, but it is intuitively understood. Its implications for travel websites are important.

The buying cycle and its implication for the destination supplier website



The Destination site is a pivotal point, Shoppers often use it first and may return to link to the resort that they have subsequently selected. The questions we ask are; how can the destination site hold onto that traffic or how do they get people to come back. It is unrealistic to expect the destination site to be the only place travelers go. So the real question therefore is, how do they get them back.

Building a compelling reason to return!

1. Provide online shopping

The challenge is in balancing integrity of information with on-line shopping, channel conflict and channel competition. The cost of a good destination site is rising. So operators are moving towards a business model that stresses income generation in an effort to make the site self-sustaining. But this comes at a price of muddling the roles and creating conflict with destination trade partners. Destinations can involve trade partners with affiliate marketing, but it is not always equitable and the question is who are the affiliates and where do tour operators fit. Destinations are reluctant to cut out the tour operator and agent and they don’t for the most part want to be either a travel agent or a tour operator।

2. Offer the tools travelers need.

Destinations can help travelers research by providing expert intelligent systems that learn who the traveler is and configure the experience based on unique requirement. These tools will necessary include offering comparison-shopping. Ideally the result will be to give the traveler the option to choose the channel, including dealing direct with the supplier. Word of mouth reviews and a traveler forum will also help keep them on the site and give the site top-of-mind recall. It is not appropriate for a destination site to link to Trip Advisor and such, as these are shopping channels that will not keep them coming back. Cost conscious travelers are always looking for a deal and the destination needs to offer a list of specials and deals and the ability to sign up for newsletters on specials and deals।

3. Award & create loyalty
Destinations have a great opportunity to reward repeat travelers and cooperate with airlines point systems to encourage them to book a destination hotel

4. Offer travelers their own website itinerary and own planning tools
There are huge opportunities for destinations to lead this charge by providing destination specific planning and a place to return to manage and share a holiday itinerary and the memories। Travelers should be able to build a personal website brochure by adding any page they look at to it. The traveler website should also be a comprehensive personal information resources and planning tool. Travelers may read and add reviews here, see a calendar of activities and events taking place during their holiday, and link to other social media sites and others like Tripit and Traveldk. It may include personalized maps showing the options they are interested, ranking them according to preferred and final selection etc.

Ultimately the Destination site is the key portal to support direct marketing for the destination suppliers. It must move beyond being a information site to becoming a system to help shoppers plan, compare and book, in harmony with its trade partners.

Links: http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-credibility/travel-booking.shtml

Marketing

Marketing at a Crossroads

No longer are the 4 P’s; Place, Price, Promotion and Product the main tenants of marketing. Marketing on the Internet is more about Relationships and Process.

Process is about technology, platform and intelligent, expert systems. Marshall McLuhan said a long time ago that the medium is the message. The Internet is a very sophisticated medium capable of delivering messages target to a single client, tuned to their precise interest at every point of purchase. It is automatic, re-engineering and personalizing the message for multiple users all in the same instance of time.

Your travel product, a travel experience, is as multidimensional as your clients. For example, you may cater to weddings and romance as well as lazy beach living, active holidays, gold vacations and gourmet dining. You can’t say it all at one time to one traveler. Information about your product must be engineered and differentiated; it must be made personal to each traveler.

Information must be malleable, configurable, searchable, accessible and delivered tailored to suite।

For example you may choose to advertise a golf holiday, you deliver content and images that are tailored to what you offer the golfer. You direct golfers to a special page dealing with that experience. You do this on your website, and on every channel you market on. – you cannot organize and deliver it manually. The process and platform configures and deliver the message dynamically. For this your information must be engineered with systems that are very smart, learning what motivates the clients and delivering the experience they are looking for. The difference is that the online message is a "Pull" message prompting an action, offline it is typically a "Push" message to gain awareness. With that the entire focus of marketing has changed. For more on this, see United Airlines Case Study by Double Click.

People are not talking to people at this stage, it’s a process, and the process understands people, gathering and analyzing information about them every step of the way. The smart systems (the Platform) tracks clients interaction, recognizing patterns, responding appropriately, managing and analyzing data in the process of building the digital relationship. See digital-relationships

But Process and Platform are not enough. In a complex integrated world, Partners are essential. Microsoft has said this clearly, telling its Value Added Resellers (VARS) to Partner or die!. Simply put you can do it all yourself, so you must rely on people with skills and passion that complements your own. The mechanics of Internet is very complex, we must cooperate to succeed; outsourcing is essential!

Finally, the Internet is driven by Passion. Thousands of ordinary people, professionals, workers, teachers and student donate time and resources freely, building content, services and applications that they feel passionate about. People are building relationships, offering comments, writing blogs, helping others, for free. This community has spawned the social network, which interacts and influences everything on the Internet.

Jason McNamara, CMO of Atlerian says that the new marketing is driven by passion, we need to be passionate about marketing and today, more that ever before, that means being passionate about understanding and measuring the digital footprint. ”Being able to apply sophisticated marketing analytics to every piece of information you collect about your customers is like bringing the customers themselves in-house to tell you not just what's working and what isn't, but why. You can use this passion to your advantage, helping generate ideas, proving their relevance, and justifying the money you spend” See Jason McNanara’s article on the new 5 P’s of marketing: People, Process, Platform, Passion and Partners (http://www.alterian.com/solutions/marketing.aspx)

###### Over 50% of leisure bookings are online in 2012. An estimated 89% of planners are researching event locations on the web.

Related Posts (at a crossroads series):

New Order of Commerce: 
Destination Marketing 
Distribution http://axses-ianclayton.blogspot.com/2008/10/distribution.html
Travel Marketing http://axses-ianclayton.blogspot.com/2009/05/travelmarketing.html
The Supplier http://axses-ianclayton.blogspot.com/2008/06/thesupplier.html
Marketing http://axses-ianclayton.blogspot.com/2008/06/marketing.html
Advertising http://axses-ianclayton.blogspot.com/2008/06/advertising.html
Search at a Crossroads http://axses-ianclayton.blogspot.com/2008/04/have-now-lost-their-opportunity-to-be.html Publishing at a Crossroads http://axses-ianclayton.blogspot.com/2009/03/atacrossroads.html