Facebook Travel Blog Launched

AXSES launches a Facebook Travel Blog. While there are several Facebook blogs, this blog is for hotel and tourism suppliers and reports on Facebook issues and developments as they affect travel.

AXSES is a leader in developing Travel applications for Facebook and helping hotels and tourism suppliers load and manage room, products, rates, photos and content on their Facebook pages. We see Facebook as a valuable resource for travel marketing.

So do many tourism and destination marketers. New Zealand boasts 200,000 Fans and has made Facebook a strategic part of its 2011 World Soccer Promotions. See http://www.tourismnewzealand.com/news-and-features/news/fans-flock-to-rwc-2011-on-facebook

For a free trial of arcRes Facebook Bookings and Facebook Tourism Content Management, see http://trial.arcResBookings.com

New Facebook blog - http://facebookhotels.weebly.com/facebook-blog.html

Facebook Direct Bookings for Hotels & Tourism

A new Release of arcResBookings.com for Facebook with a new Video showing  just how easy it is to get your arcRes content, rooms, rates, images and property info onto your Facebook pages. Special rates and coupons can be offered to Facebook fans special content and welcome message may be customised for Facebook. Works for Hotels, villas and all accommodation as well as car rentals and tourism operators.

See story on our HubPages  

Apple hears the market and opens iphone a flash

We all take some credit for the latest move by Apple to open its iPhone platform just a Flash.

Our first HubPage article on Smartphones was Jobs not done well which took issue with the lack of Flash on iPhones and Apples closed approach.  Android took full advantage of the situation  as its sales soared and the DroidX became called the new iPhone SmartPhone Shootout.

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The news was full of advise and criticism for Apple. Apple has heard the message and moved. 

The lepord can change its spots see http://hubpages.com/hub/iPhone-Outrage-take-effect





For more on Smartphone Mobile Marketing for Travel see http://SmartphoneTraveller.com  |  Try out our Smartphone VacationSpecials marketing at http://trial.SmartphoneTraveller.com | See more research at http://research.SmartphoneTraveller.com

Mobile travel bookings need a Smartphone travel strategy

The travel and tourism technology industry has been slow to adopt a smart mobile strategy for travel bookings and marketing. Some of the first to enter the race are the Online Travel Agents, who have ported travel bookings along with their version of hotel and tourism information to the iPhone and smartphone apps.

The independent travel technology suppliers, who provide products and services to the tourism industry, are catching up. They are still behind, and many hotel booking engines do not work on smartphones, but this is changing.

AXSES has shared its own strategies in past blogs and has created an entire social site/blog on Smartphone know-how and strategies. For example, see  http://strategies.smartphonetraveller.com and our discussion on Travel Bookings / Website redesign. Our lastest  Hub on Smartphone Strategies  lists the top 6 Criteria in Rating your Mobile Travel Technology Partner and provides advice on vital issues that are easily overlooked.


Only Travel technology suppliers can lead hotels and tourism suppliers into mobile marketing with Booking engines on Smartphones.  The new Mobile Market has spawned a host of new suppliers and new tools, but travel is complex and few of the new entries understand the intricacies of tourism. Tourism technology is  a very specialised industry that is highly integrated and interwoven - from the point of planning, shopping, departure and destination holiday activities, to return, sharing and building loyalty: The travel shopping and vacations experience is the worlds largest and most integrated business system. New Smartphone building tools that don't understand this industry, fail to offer suitable solutions to hotels and tourism operators.

Tourism Mobile strategies are best supplied by tourism technology companies that understand rates management, channel management, packaging, property management, guest relations and loyalty programs, inventory management and allocation, affiliate management, global distribution, yield management and direct bookings.

For details and criteria of what you need to look for in building a Mobile Bookings and Smartphone Marketing strategy, see our Hubpages on Tourism Strategies for Smartphone Bookings

Hotel Smartphone website brings more bookings than Apps

AXSES Smartphone Hotel and Tourism Marketing Strategy

This blog is a little out of step with the way we do things. First, we are sharing our Smartphone Marketing strategy while the mobile products we discuss are being developed. It's perhaps brave, perhaps naive, perhaps foolish, but we have a solution that is dynamite and right for the market. While developers are rushing to build apps, the fact is that only 1/5 of traveler users are using apps. Travelers prefer to use the web. "While about a third of Smartphone owners use their devices for travel-related activities, only one-fifth of all Smartphone owners have installed travel apps on their devices." ReadWriteWeb based on Smartphone Intelligence survey by  Compete.com. 


The smart website solution is very affordable and aimed directly at where the smartphone market is now and where we see it evolving.

Over the last 15 years, AXSES has been  a leader in tourism development with many first to market products, like http://Realholidays.com dynamic package and matchmaking for hotels and travelers. AXSES created http://Bookable-maps. Commended by Google, Bookable-ads.com,  is a first in merging advertising and bookings, making adds more effective and dramatically increasing the travelers' time on the site and their click rate. We were first with our  direct bookings application for facebook, allowing small and mid-size hotels, car rentals and tourism suppliers to load and manage their info directly into Facebook using arcRes Publishing.

You will note from our last blog that we feel hotel and tourism operators need to move quickly to make their information and marketing efforts Smartphone-ready.  But we are not proposing that they have to develop new websites or smartphone apps. What we propose is to treat this market just as we do Facebook add-ons. We are now enhancing arcRes publishing, adding a Mobile Module for smartphones.

What this means is that we create a standard way for information to be loaded, stored and managed for websites, for Smartphone applications, Web 2.0 applications, like Facebook, and for Web marketing.

For clients already using arcRes as a booking engine or a marketing system, getting onto Smartphone is just a few clicks away.

For hotels and tourism operators not already using acrRes, there is no better time to sign up and get Smartphone mobile. For tourism suppliers who  have a booking engine, arcRes will step through a setup and publish the Smartphone website and  marketing system. arcRes is the complete publishing system for website information, booking engines, Facebook pages, special promotions, collaborative marketing, packaging and marketing.

See the video as an example of what we mean.



What does it mean to tourism operators, hotels, car rentals, restaurants, tours and local attractions?:

For arcRes clients, there is no fee to create the mobile website as they will already have the content is arcRes and just need to tweak it. We will host the smartphone website and bookings for 25$ per month. For non-arcRes users, there is small cost to set up and hoist the new smartphone website.

No bad, considering the size of the market. For More on AXSES arcRes, see arcRes: the Complete Tourism Platform at http://tourism-marketing-platform.com | For More on AXSES Smartphone Travel marketing applications, see http://SmartphoneTravelApps.com

 Final word on Apps vs. Smart websites

I don't believe the industry will put up with this idea that every  Smartphone must have its own app. That worked when there was only iPhone. With Android, the game has changed. Their are over 40 manufacturers and the pace of innovation and new products in unprecedented. Check out the latest Motorola Droidx 4.3 inch display . Apple is already falling behind. Open your technology and do the proper job. You are about to repeat your past when you could embrace much more. Be open; you have so much to give!

 "61.6 million Smartphones were sold in the second quarter of 2010, as compared to just over 40 million in 2009, with the biggest change coming in operating systems. Android overtook Apple's iOS for the number three spot worldwide and passed Research In Motion's operating system to take the number one spot in the U.S" Garner .

More like this: see our Hubpage apps vs websites- whats the difference
Check our research pages at http://research.SmartphoneTraveller.com

Coming soon - Tools to build your App or Website | The demise of the App

Hotel websits on Smartphones need rethinking

"Most regular websites look horrible on a Smartphone." So says Chris Atkinson, Founder at MobiSphere.

I agree, and we have the proof of that in the video below. This is particularly true for the Hotel and Tourism Operator's website,  where bookings are complex and include many dimensions: Terms and meal plans, upgrades and add-ons,  different rates by season, special deals and promotions,  different rate plans, family plans and packages.

Over the last few years, hotel reservation and booking forms have become wider as developers and application designers put all information on a single screen. The Smartphone just can not handle it. It's time to get back to basics.

Many hotel and tourism owners think the scrunched-up websites on the Smartphone are cute and perfectly adequate. It amazed me that a 700-pixel screen of our site, Barbados.org, did look cute and is readable on a tiny screen. But on closer inspection, it is not so smart and it is rather like the video below, in some cases.

It is inevitable; these sites must be re-designed in order to provide the service. The re-design must be from the ground up. Smartphone and mobile users have a different mindset and they want pertinent facts in precise form. Content must be concise.

There is no doubt that the Smartphone mobile market it going to be vast.
(see whyMobile.PDF). 

eMarketers' research show that both travelers and tourism operators have plans for the Smartphone market.

The question is how best to get there

 eBusiness Strategies found that 40 percent of Smartphone owners say they’ve done at least some of their leisure travel research on their mobile device; 25 percent say they have booked travel through their phones.  Smartphone use is accelerating at a rapid pace as consumers and business users shift from desktop PCs, and  laptops, to iPhones, iPads, Androids, BlackBerrys and other platforms.

 

A critical choice is: should you do applications for every phone, or a build a better web experience?. 

Applications are great. They can be fully optimised for the Smartphone to take advantage of internal features on every phone.

The problem is, of course, that you have to develop an app for each phone (operating system at least).

At the same time, travelers have to download the app, and they have to find it!. App stores have a long way to go to replace web search. Apps are proprietary and closed. They are becoming lost in a crowded app store that has not been designed for search and retrieval. As apps get more numerous, the store seems more inadequate.

When I talk to smartphone users, they all use their phones to browse the web. Many say they browse far more that they look for apps. So that tells me it is the right place to start. I think the apps idea is not mature for travel shopping, compared to the number of users who still browse the net. My view is that web browsing will not go away and it is the right place to start. App stores will not, in my view, replace the search engine, as people will want to find information and services that are free and readily available on the net.

Well, it's a view in hindsight! We initially created a Smartphone application for travel shopping (see our PR http://SmartphoneTraveller.com). It was pretty straight forward and works well. Several hundred travelers have downloaded it already and we are committed to apps as a long-term strategic solution for tourism.  But our next initiatives will be in mobile websites and web-based services for Smartphone mobile website.

We are soon to introduce new applications to help hotels and tourism operators get their own hotel websites and marketing information Smartphone-ready. Websites are ready now with a longer-term strategy to build the same content and new services into apps. It's a comprehensive Smartphone Tourism Marketing strategy; building for the immediate and for the long-term. 

But not all agree with the rational of building smart websites. Apple says that iPhone users don't want search; they want apps. I agree that they certainly don't want to search for regular sites. But the app idea undermines the concept of the web as an open and comprehensive service.

My vision of the future is that people want openness, and if there are great apps, they will want it on their own Smartphone. The best way to deliver that openness is via the Internet. It is where we will see the next burst of innovation as the net morphs into the Smartphone, bringing the entire universe of information to your pocket as quick and easy and as versatile as an app.

Watch out for our next blog, where we outline AXSES Smartphone Strategy for Hotels and Tourism Owners. Direct sales straight to a pocket for you!




LINKS
HubPage on this topic | arcRes travel Platform | 

BREAKING NEWS
Just off the Press: Aug 22 2010 - Eye for Travel EU study finds  "consumers were almost 3 times as likely to access travel services via a browser, compared to an application".
With the ongoing enhancement in Smartphones and development of the web and more Smartphone-ready websites, we expect that consumers will continue to prefer browsing over using an app to shop for travel.

The Next Hotel Marketing Wave - Publish or Perish

The tourism marketing and development work we did for Dominica has opened our eyes to the future. Almost as a sideline, we created the TravelersInsights.com magazine. It was a personal account, inspired by our need to understand and document the brand. When marketing the destination on the Internet, it provided a framework for the conversation we entered or created. This was a success. We managed to place the new central reservation system we had created BookingsDominica.com on top of search results for most of the important Dominica Travel search words and phrases.

The TravelersInsights Dominica however sat on the shelves and was largely ignored by the Discover Dominica Authority (DDA). Hotels loved it so much that every single copy of the draft run disappeared. We knew that it was a worthwhile endeavor, but it needed the DDA to use and distribute it. This did not happen!

Adversity is often the mother of invention, and in trying to find a better use for the TraveleresInsights Dominica publication, we discovered online publishing. 

There are thousands of online resources where you publish travel stories, articles and destination promotional pieces. They break down into blogs, ezines, Web 2.0 resources, bookmarking, dedicated interest channels, document storage, re-publishers and online magazine racks.

Online magazines were our first foray. They are are slowly taking over from the corner store. Here, you get full-colored magazines of very high quality. In may cases, they may be downloaded or delivered by courier. Services like Magcloud print runs are very reasonable, at only 15-20 cents US per page for small runs. Try to get a regular printer to do that and you'll see what I mean. This is a good and inexpensive outlet for destination marketing. Their are no expensive print runs and no inventory. Quality magazines can be ordered one at a time and delivered anywhere (Print on Demand -POD as in TravelersInsights.com).

Closely related are the document sharing systems, like Slideshare. Here, high quality documents are stored online in PDF format, ready for download.

Next, we looked at ezines and started with ezineartciles.com. The submission was rejected, as they thought it was too professional and suggested we had copied it. When this was cleared, up the piece went on to be featured in Travel Tips. We are still working our way through these ezines with a list of over 500 services and some paid help in submitting to them.

It was at this point that the thought struck: Hey! Digital Publishing is the new marketing!

What better way to get noticed than getting publicity: print coverage online. One that you can do yourself, or at least control yourself. It is a slightly new twist on an old and dying adage, replace print with the hybrid of digital marketing. Both in print and online, have it ready to download, ready to print on your own desktop, or have it shipped to your destination sales staff, travel agent or traveler.

What is most interesting, from an Internet Marketer's perspective, is the fact that your listing in these online services often allows backlinks to your website. This means that your website get seen and, as these sites are often very authoritative, it means that Google and the search engines pay attention. This will help you get listed on top search results and directly increase you bookings.

I think I see a fundamental shift in marketing coming - see my article on Bukisca - Publish or Perish. These sites are examples of the new Web 2.0 platforms that are rapidly becoming voices and influences. We have used HubPages, Squidoo, RedGage and many, many others. See our Tourism Marketing Platform in the arcRes-Publishing link below for a researched list.

In our business of tourism marketing, we will often drop in our clients' Special promotions, hotel deals, car rental offers and restaurant advertising. For an example, see Barbados Special HubPage on Smartphones.

It's what we at AXSES have been gearing up for for a decade! Those who are our clients will know how we have positioned AXSES products to serve direct business to hotels and tourism suppliers.

Our flagship product, arcRes.com, has changed from a simple booking engine to a full-fledged publishing system.

We even coined the name arcRes-Publishing before we fully understood the impact it might have.