15 November 2010 ~ 1 Comment

Considering Groupon for your tour or activity business? At what cost?

Considering Groupon for your tour or activity business? At what cost?

The concept of a loss leader is nothing new. Businesses have been using loss leaders for ages, products that are sold at cost or below cost in order to stimulate other sales. For retailers, this often means selling something at a great discount in the hopes that the customer will buy other (higher margin) items [...]

Continue Reading

03 April 2010 ~ 2 Comments

Small Operators Can Benefit from Mobile Partnerships

Small Operators Can Benefit from Mobile Partnerships

With the recent release of the Goby iPhone application and the Tnooz showcase of the Siri.com offering, there is a definite increase in interest in on location mobile services that can benefit travelers in destination. Anecdotal data indicates that about 80% of bookings made by travelers for in-destination services occur when in destination (rather than [...]

Continue Reading

29 June 2009 ~ 25 Comments

Why Google City Tours is Important to Tourism

Why Google City Tours is Important to Tourism

Google released their latest labs project called “City Tours” last week.  I was quick to jump on the bandwagon and take a look, but I resisted from posting right away because I wanted to think a little more deeply about the implications of the application.  Let’s not forget that Google is a powerhouse and, if [...]

Continue Reading

26 June 2008 ~ 4 Comments

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 [...]

Continue Reading

30 April 2008 ~ 2 Comments

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 [...]

Continue Reading

06 January 2008 ~ 2 Comments

Steve Barnhart, CEO President Orbitz: Economics of the Long Tail

As a technologist primarily interested in the effects of systems on the trailing end of the long tail, I found Mr. Barnhart’s presentation at PhoCusWright Orlando 2007, one of the more relevant. Although Orbitz is a huge player in the in the travel distribution game, it is relatively small compared to the other big two, [...]

Continue Reading

04 December 2007 ~ 0 Comments

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 [...]

Continue Reading

03 December 2007 ~ 0 Comments

Michelle Peluso – CEO of Travelocity – Evolving the user interface

Michelle Peluso, CEO of Travelocity focused her talk on improving the user interface for consumers of travel products. The presentation was the first of an excellent series of presentations by top brand executives. Here is a summary of her presentation and my commentary from the PhoCusWright Conference 2007 in Orlando. Ms. Peluso’s opening comment was [...]

Continue Reading

18 November 2007 ~ 0 Comments

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 [...]

Continue Reading

14 November 2007 ~ 6 Comments

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 [...]

Continue Reading