Twitter is blocked in China – what does it mean to Travel and Tourism Marketing?
June 3, 2009
First some background:As reported by Reuters, and experienced by myself yesterday in sunny Beijing, the GFW (Great Fire Wall) strikes again. The Chinese Government censors blocked access to Twitter and other popular online services on Tuesday (June 2) afternoon at approximately 5pm, two days before the 20th anniversary of the crackdown on democracy protests in Tiananmen Square. The photo-sharing site Flickr, email service Hotmail and other services were also unavailable this evening. Blogger.com was blocked last month and YouTube has been inaccessible from the mainland since March. Read more
Popularity: 47% [?]
The Social Media Trends in Travel Tourism in 2009 and beyond
March 11, 2009
Popularity: 51% [?]
Design Hotels - a new Website for a new Focus
March 10, 2009
For years, I have respected Claus Sendlinger - the Founder and CEO of Design Hotels. One for his vision and fun personality, and second because he is German and created a very cool concept. Design Hotels is for cool stylish hotels what Leading Hotels of the World is for the luxury hotels. Read more
Popularity: 43% [?]
Which one is the third largest blogging nation? Iran.
February 14, 2009
We now know that China is the biggest and most active blogging community in the world (more information can be found in Universal McCann’s Social Media Research Wave 3 research report), but what is the third largest blogging nation…I never guessed it, but thanks to this great piece by students of the Vancouver Film School, we now know…it is Iran! Read more
Popularity: 43% [?]
Tourism Challenges and Opportunities in the Asia Pacific Region
April 26, 2008
Everybody is talking about China, India, and Vietnam…what is really going on in the fastest growing tourism destination in the world?I have had the pleasure to sit down with Peter de Jong, CEO of PATA (Pacific Asia Travel Association) to learn about the challenges and opportunities facing the Asia Pacific region. In particular, Peter addressed the issue around climate change, and how the markets such as China, India, and Vietnam have to focus on infrastructure issues and sustainability in order to be able to cope with the increasing demand. These are all topics that will be addressed at the innovative “PATA CEO Challenge” around Climate Change, held in Bangkok from April 28-30, 2008.
The Tips from the T-List will be there with a new e-Book version for the event, having added a section on climate change and sustainable tourism, as well as with a real-live webcast in collaboration with Travelmole, to broadcast the opening and closing sessions directly from Bangkok and invite bloggers, members of the media, and travel and tourism professionals to take part in the conversation. The interactive summit, featuring Dr. Pachauri, Chair of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as keynote speaker, will be co-moderated by my very good friend Anna Pollock.
Popularity: 61% [?]
Green IT
April 14, 2008

Green IT – Is technology helping save energy or is the increased use of the internet and the associated server usage actually doing the exact opposite?
Read more
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Share your Travel Marketing Secrets
February 3, 2008
Tourism Marketing Blog contributor Claude had the brilliant idea to reach out and ask experts to share their Travel Marketing Secrets and Tips - similar to the initative from Small Business Trends…but focused on travel, tourism, and hospitality marketing.The results will be shared here on the Tourism Internet Marketing Blog, and will also be presented at the Phocuswright Bloggers Summit at ITB, in collaboration with the “Tips from the T-List“. The top Travel Marketing Sectrets will also be publised in future version of the Tips from the T-List book.
Popularity: 62% [?]
Dot Travel - The rise and fall of a brilliant concept
January 17, 2008
I wrote about “dot travel” on my blog in the past, and just for the record, personally I still believe in the original dot travel concept, as well as the purity of the dot travel domain extension for travel and tourism related web addresses. However, I was saddened when I read the press release below, and I realized that the dot travel concept may have been killed by greed and short-term vision.
.travel to release nearly 300,000 destination names.
.travel domain registrar, EnCirca issued a .travel advisory regarding the release of nearly 300,000 reserved destination names. Effective with the new relaxed eligibility policy, the .travel registry is planning to release thousands of reserved place names, such as cities, iconic cultural sites and world heritage landmarks. These .travel domain names are ideal for search engine marketing since keywords in domain names are given extra weight in search engine rankings. Destination management organizations and tourism boards had until December 21, 2007 to secure their destination names from EnCirca before they are released for public registration.
(For Immediate Release - Travel News Distribution, December 2007)
Popularity: 100% [?]
Interview with the Founder of TripIt, Gregg Brockway
January 11, 2008
I wrote about TripIt before on my blog, but at the recent PhoCusWright Conference in Orlando, I had an opportunity to talk to Gregg Brockway, co-founder and president of the Travel Planning website, and he was nice enough to answer some of my questions. Greg was also the co-founder of Hotwire, so has some extensive experience in building successful online travel ventures.
Popularity: 34% [?]
Websites with a Cause
January 6, 2008
Back in June of 2007, I wrote about the extraordinary concept of Kiva.org. Now I came across an interview with Bill Clinton that explains the mission very accurately…as well as this film by PBS.
Another great site is GiveMeaning.com by Vancouver-based Tom Williams.
Tom started his career in Product Marketing at Apple Computer when he was just 14 years old. In his own words:
My dream for GiveMeaning is that we inspire people to take action. I believe that most every
person cares deeply about something, but I’m equally sure that many of us find ourselves doing
little for the causes that matter most to us — not because of a lack of desire, but a lack
of confidence. My plan is for GiveMeaning to change all this by being able to take any cause or issue and
identify a small, but tangible, piece of the problem to fix. I once heard a story where the moral
was: “if you want to move mountains, buy a shovel.” Giving Groups are like online shovels that
make small steps towards addressing big issues. This is my hope for GiveMeaning; people connecting with friends, and strangers, united by a desire to achieve a common
goal.
Popularity: 33% [?]

