Connecting with Eric Bjorndahl, CEO TravBuddy.com @ PhoCusWright Orlando

I had a chance to talk to Eric Bjorndahl, CEO of TravBuddy.com at the Google Moonlight party at the PhoCusWright Conference in Orlando. Travbuddy.com is a popular user generated travel content site that allows people to review, read reviews, and connect with other people or TravBuddies. The site boasts an Alexa ranking of about 30,000 which, although some SEO experts will argue is not a legitimate indication of popularity, is still a very good indication of how well the site ranks against other sites of similar ilk. In this quick interview, Eric talks about TravBuddy.com and shares some his thoughts... Read more »

Hospitality Managers Pay Attention! The Truth Doesn’t Have to Hurt

A big part of both the Canada-e-connect and the PhoCusWright Conferences revolved around user generated content and the effect that online review sites have on a companies reputation. The TripAdvisor presentation, which I reviewed earlier, pointed out that hoteliers and destination marketers don’t need to fear public opinion and that feedback in the form of reviews is a valuable tool from a customer service standpoint. This survey, by Marketing Vox seems to support the idea that reviews are really not as bad as hoteliers think. Here is a snippet of the results as posted by Joe Buhler: Fully... Read more »

Canada-E-Connect video interview with Jeremy Gutsche, Trendhunter.com

I had a chance to catch up with Jeremy Gutsche from Trendhunter.com Magazine, after his presentation at the Canada-e-connect Conference in Vancouver. I asked him what small activity and tour operators could do to increase the popularity of their activities. Jeremy re-iterated that if you want to make your story and brand more compelling, you must relentlessly obsess about your story and focus on making your value proposition different and more interesting than your competition. Here is the quick interview with Jeremy and a copy of his powerpoint presentation. In case you’re wondering,... Read more »

Activity, Event, and Local Tour Operators… Pay Attention - Part 1

Kevin May at the Travolution Blog posted a great little factoid about business travel. In a nutshell, Johnson & Johnson’s business travel budget was $915 Million of which $643 Million was spent on Long tail products like events, tours, taxis, airport shuttles, and rental cars. On top of that, 64% of business travelers purchased event tickets. This tells me something very important. Firstly, activity and attraction operators play a very important role in the tourism ecosystem. Secondly, in order to better serve the traveling public, sme operators need to consider making their products... Read more »

Canada-E-Connect video interview with Darren Johner

This is a interview Darren Johner, the webmaster for Tourism Vancouver. I was introduced to Darren through Phil Caines, who works for me at Rezgo.com. Phil used to work with Tourism Vancouver before working at Rezgo. According to Darren, the biggest take away from the Canada-e-connect conference is the sense of collaboration and community. Sphere: Related Content Read More →

Truth is Online Gold Dust -President & CEO, Stephen Kaufer

Stephen Kaufer, CEO of Tripadvisor provided an engaging presentation about truth online and the effect that Tripadvisor has had of the travel industry. He discussed how products like TripAdvisor are promoting long tail products by allowing users to rate and comment on all types of accommodations and activities, not just those that are popular or well established. He noted that a tree top adventure in Colorado is now the most popular product on TripAdvisor. Mr. Kaufer went on to discuss that… Honest Brokers = Truth Social Networks = Trust …and that by combining honest brokers with... Read more »

First Ever Major Travel Industry Blogger Workshop @ PhoCusWright

From Left to Right: Ram Badrinathan (not in photo), William Bakker, Jens Thraenhart, Stephen Joyce, Kevin May, and Phil Caines. Photo Credit: Vicky Brock The Blogger Workshop at the PhoCusWright Conference in Orlando was a huge success. Phil and I, miraculously, arrived at the conference a mere forty-five minutes before the workshop was to begin. Phil hurried to make sure the room was prepared while I connected with some of the expert panelists. The workshop began with an introduction of each of the panelists: Jens Thraenhart (Canadian Tourism Commission) William Bakker (Tourism BC) Kevin... Read more »

Canada-E-Connect video interview with William Bakker

This is a great little vignette with William Bakker, the head of E-Commerce for Tourism BC. William is also one of the contributors to the “Tips from the T-List” book and an all round great guy. He is also one of the expert panelists at the the first ever blogger workshop and summit at the PhoCusWright Conference 2007 in Orlando, Florida. Look for more content about that later in the day. You can view his blog at http://www.wilhelmus.ca. Sphere: Related Content Read More →

Mr. Al Lenza - VP Distribution & E-Commerce North West Airlines

Paypal and billmelater technologies are being accepted by airlines now. Internet has been focused on low fares. Mandate is to focus on revenue and provide access to low fare information as it pertains to specific traveler requirements, for example the lowest direct fare, or the lowest first class fare, etc. Meta search and vertical search - What is NWA view of these intermediary channels (for example Kayak.com). Meta search is different because they have a different customer value proposition. They render lowest fares and that doesn’t help NWA revenues. Kiosk - 85% of passengers check... Read more »

What makes a Blog? A Summary of the Blogger Summit @ PhoCusWright

The blogger summit at The 2007 PhoCusWright Conference in Orlando, Florida was a huge success, at least in my opinion. The room was filled to capacity with approximately sixteen delegates around the tables and another twenty or so sitting in chairs and on counter tops around the room. The discussion was lively and at one point trailed off topic, but was quickly brought back to subject. Here are some points that were discussed during the summit and proved to be salient. I opened by pointing out that blog posts illicit conversations where as articles are a monologues. Although this is changing... Read more »

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