Tourism Internet Marketing

Tourism Challenges and Opportunities in the Asia Pacific Region

Jens — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 13:40:03 +0000

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. (more…)

Google Universal Search and your travel industry business. Are you ready?

Claude — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 14:34:57 +0000

It was around a year ago when Google started going live with universal search .

The goals was to bring all the other specialised search results (from Video, Maps , Images , News , User Reviews, etc.) to the main web search portal.I think it is interesting to analyse some data and live examples, thinking about a strategy and then to give our travel readers some tips to be operational with this “new Google game”.

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Green IT

Jens — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:47:47 +0000

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?
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Yahoo! Answers and the travel space.

Claude — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 21:41:05 +0000

Yahoo! Answers is becoming a reference site on the Internet. Its popularity could provides an opportunity for online marketers to acquire targeted referral traffic.

Yahoo! Answers propose The Yahoo! Answers Knowledge Partners program (currently in Beta) and Travelocity is one of the partners for the travel space.

By identifying Travelocity as providing great answers, they are building credibility and positive brand image. Good move.

Yahoo! Answers might be a viable way to increase your exposure and branding as an expert in your field.

When used correctly, Yahoo! Answers can be a source of direct referral traffic, even for small Cies who have time to handle this new channel and are not afraid sometimes by some “stupid” or “strange”questions!

My tip: Follow the guidelines, and as with any other social media site, focus first on what you can give to the community rather than what you can get from it.

What do you think about this marketing channel?

More information on Yahoo Search Blog

Share your Travel Marketing Secrets

Jens — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 01:16:39 +0000

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.

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Dot Travel - The rise and fall of a brilliant concept

Jens — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 10:57:44 +0000

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)

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Interview with the Founder of TripIt, Gregg Brockway

Jens — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 00:06:41 +0000

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.

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Travel blogging bridge(S)

Claude — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:32:54 +0000

For my first post inside Tourism Internet Marketing Blog 2.0, TIMB 2.0 for the purist I would like to talk about a travel blogging bridge between Canada & France, possible new way for Internet marketing in the blogging area and compare pratices from this countries. (more…)

Websites with a Cause

Jens — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 07:29:43 +0000

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.

Tourism Internet Marketing Blog 2.0

Chris — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 03:13:09 +0000

Welcome to the new blog layout!

Jens Thraenhart recently asked me to participate as a contributor on this blog, the second edition of his Tourism Internet Marketing site. That sounded like fun to me, so I was happy to agree.

Jens knows lots about e-marketing for the travel trade. And he has many savvy friends and colleagues in the industry, some of whom will be posting right here on the blog. I’m excited to be a part of that momentum.
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