Long Tail Suppliers are starting to have impact on Online Travel

PWC recently stated that suppliers are gaining ground over aggregators in the online travel marketplace. I had discussed this in context to another recent survey that said the same thing, however, what I liked about this article from Travelmole.com was the following quote: “Already there are companies offering a wider range of services unrelated to travel - theatre tickets, restaurant bookings and theme park entry for example. This can result in increased customer loyalty and higher revenues per booking for the online operator.” This quote represents a significant shift in how aggregators... Read more »

New Travel Bookmarking Site a Cross Between Del.icio.us and LonelyPlanet

I recently came across a new website called TravelBookmarking.com. I found it quite by accident while using Stumbleupon to look for travel related sites. TravelBookmarking.com is a sister site to SoMuchWorld.com which is a free web based travel guide similar in nature to Wikitravel.org or World66.com but written by a set of professional travel writers. The reason why I like TravelBookmarking.com is because it gives travelers the ability to bookmark sites (in del.icio.us style) in order to create their own personal travel guides. Travelers can even copy and paste in creative commons or open... Read more »

Google and the Wisdom of Crowds with Tim Armstrong at PhoCusWright Orlando 2007

Did you know that 22% of traffic to travel sites is driven by Google! No wonder Google is interested in this area given the amount of traffic around travel websites and the amount of money spent on advertising through Google’s channels. Mr. Amstrong started by saying that connecting with consumers is an important part of the success of marketing a destination. New Zealand Tourism, for example, has done an excellent job of connecting with consumers. The site contains a variety of assets including videos and photos. By combining a variety of assets, they have encompassed all aspects of the... Read more »