Presentation for Florida Association of CVBs Annual Marketing Conference

Thank you to the Florida Association of CVBs for inviting me down to Gainesville Florida to speak at the FACVBs Annual Marketing Conference. The Conference was a big success and many of the people who were in my afternoon session provided me with positive feedback on the presentation. I really enjoy doing these presentations because I think it helps to take some of the mystery and fear out of these relatively new and sometimes “scary” tools. For those who would like to print out or review the presentations, I have embedded the two presentations below. If you are unable to see them,... Read more »

Social Media Advisors Must Lead by Example

I first saw Sean Moffitt do his “Word of Mouth” presentation at the Canada-e-connect conference in Vancouver in November of 2007. Since that time I’ve followed his blog and facebook-stalked him a bit. I noticed a facebook feed that caught my attention titled “Sean Moffitt posted To Advise Social Media, You Have to Be Social Media on TypePad.” I couldn’t agree with Sean more on his views.  Sean’s views are a confirmation of Joseph Thornley’s post called “Social Media Authorship is Mandatory for Credibility as an Advisor“.  As you can... Read more »

PhoCusWright to Showcase Hottest Travel 2.0 & Mobile Innovations

The PhoCusWright Conference, for the first time in its history, will be featuring a special summit dedicated to spotlighting the hottest innovations is mobile and web travel technology. The inaugural Travel Innovation Summit will feature 24 handpicked companies from around the World who want to demo their innovations to some of the most influential leaders in the travel & tourism industry. In their own words: Early-stage, emerging and established companies are invited to apply based purely on their innovative accomplishments, regardless of organizational size, age, sector or location. PhoCusWright’s... Read more »

Rezgo.com Moves to Round 3 of New Ventures BC Competition

I am very happy report that Rezgo.com has moved into the third round of the New Ventures BC Competition. My colleague Phil Caines has been spearheading the effort and has been submitting all the necessary information to the judging committee since the competition started back in April of this year. According to the email notice that was sent out by New Ventures BC: The New Ventures BC Top 30 Companies The jury has read, discussed, and deliberated over the record 149 entries submitted to Round 2 of the New Ventures BC Competition this year. Congratulations to the 30 companies advancing... Read more »

Android + Travel = Location Based Services

Mobile applications are not really my passion, but I have to say that after playing with my wife’s iTouch and viewing the latest videos about Google Android, I am truly excited about what the mobile web has to offer. I had a discussion with my colleague Phil Caines just today about AirG, a Vancouver based company that has developed a mobile social networking platform. It is very cool but I wondered how sustainable the model is given that mobile technologies will eventually support regular web applications. Phil’s argument was that our mobile market (North America, Japan, and Europe)... Read more »

Airlines are Looking for the Value Adds

Kevin May, over at the Travolution Blog, recently wrote that Ryanair has developed a user generated listing service which allows property owners to upload their own properties to the site. This allows Ryanair to sell unique accommodations along with the air fare. The article goes on to state that Ryanair already has a deal with Isango.com and Easyjet has a similar deal with competitor with Viator. Another great reason for suppliers to get their unique destination products into a system like, oh I don’t know, Rezgo maybe? Hey Westjet or AirCanada, are you interested in adding destination... Read more »

Chris Anderson’s Free & the Booking Engine

I’ve been a huge fan for Chris Anderson for a long time. It seemed to me that the “Long Tail” completely supported my own motivation behind building Rezgo, a web based booking engine that would put inventory and distribution control into the hands of the individual supplier. Now with his latest article in Wired magazine and his upcoming book, I am again inspired by his words. In his article titled “Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business“, Chris explains that because of the decreasing costs of hardware and bandwidth, it is possible to monetize digital businesses... Read more »

User Travel Guides vs. Professional Travel Guides

Frankly I’ve always enjoyed travel guides especially the well written version by Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, or Columbus Guides.  Since the growth in popularity of user generated sites like Wikitravel and World66 I’ve cast off the shackles of paper and gone digital for my guides preferring the advice and recommendations of average travelers.  The BBC recently reported that a Lonely Planet author admitted that he hadn’t even visited some of the countries he wrote about, bringing into doubt the reliability and credibility of not just the Lonely Planet brand but all travel guide... Read more »

Traditional Journalists Use Blogs for Story Ideas

One of the reasons why blogs are such a good idea and why I enjoy following blogs, especially those on the T-List, is because they are a great source of knowledge.  At ITB Berlin in March a number of T-List bloggers, including myself, sat on an expert panel and debated the role of blogs versus traditional journalists.  There was much discussion about whether citizen journalism would replace traditional journalism and about the credibility of user generated content.  My take has always been that the two will eventually find an equilibrium and that they may also feed off each other, one supporting... Read more »

Fake Social Media

Thanks to Joe Buhler for writing his post about the post by Peg Davis titled “Keeping it real… fake: Social Media “don’t”s”. The timing of this post coincides nicely with the announcement that flogging is now illegal in the EU. Peg’s post discusses how to garner favour with the elusive Gen Y and how companies should be embracing user generated content or participating in the social media landscape. This is, ofcourse, a subject I am passionate about because, being part of the Gen Y, I can speak first hand about how social networks should work and how... Read more »

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