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 »

So what would a Google + Expedia Look Like?

I realize I’m a day behind most of my blogging colleagues on commenting on the “Google eyeing Expedia” rumour that resulted in a subsequent rise in Expedia’s share price. For the most part I’m not a big fan of rumours, but it did get me thinking about what such a beast would look like. In November of last year Tim Armstrong from Google presented at the PhoCusWright Conference in Orlando and stated in no uncertain terms that Google has no interest in entering the travel space. So why, less than four months later, would that message have changed so dramatically.... Read more »

Boarding Pass on your Mobile - Don’t forget to Charge

Continental Airlines is now testing the use of electronic boarding passes on mobile phones as part of a pilot project. According to the New York Times, the technology being tested uses a two dimensional barcode stored on a mobile phone which is scanned by a TSA (Transporation Safety Authority) agent and cross referenced with photo id. There is strong support for this technology because the two dimensional barcode uses a much higher level of encryption than the standard 1D barcodes (like UPC codes). The two dimensional barcodes can also store a much larger amount of data including (but not... Read more »

Speaking in Florida on Social Media

I received confirmation last week that I have been invited to present as a keynote speaker at the Florida Association of CVB’s annual Destination Marketing Summit in Orlando. The presentation will be two hours in length and cover two segments; an introduction to social media and it’s impact on tourism marketing and strategies in using social media to market destinations to a changing user landscape. I’m really looking forward to presenting to this group primarily because: The use of social media and user generated content is a very timely subject. The audience is well positioned... Read more »

Engaging SME Suppliers May Not Be About Technology

I had an interesting discussion with the President of the Finnish Chapter of IFITT and a PHD student from the Basque region of Spain about engaging small travel suppliers, primarily tour and activity providers, in the use of new technologies to help manage and distribute products. I was saddened but still encouraged to hear that both were facing the same challenges in their respective countries that I have been facing here in Canada and more specifically in B.C.. In my ongoing efforts to promote Rezgo.com as a tour operator software solution to small tour and activity operators, I have encountered... Read more »

The Role of the DMO - A Lesson From VisitScotland.com

There has been a lot of discussion about the role of DMOs and how DMOs should be implementing technologies for the benefit of stakeholders. In the struggle to maintain viability and revenues, some DMOs have turned to a sales model. How does this model affect the DMO’s primary mandate to market the destination? We need look no further than VisitScotland.com to see an example of a DMO whose priority has shifted from marketing the destination to generating revenues from commissions. There are many, especially stakeholders, who are not happy with the direction that VisitScotland.com has... Read more »

Technologies presented by Eric Basha at Enter 2008

The following three videos were presented by Eric Basha, head of Tourism at Microsft, at the Enter 2008 Conference in Innsbruck. Although many of these videos have been out for a while, I wanted to address each one and discuss them in the context of travel & tourism. The first technology that Eric presented is the Windows Mobile Tellme application. The most obvious travel & tourism use of this technology is for the booking of destination products that are signed up for the service. For example, making a restaurant reservation or booking tickets for a local attraction. The example presented... Read more »

Eric Basha Keynote Presentation at ENTER 2008, Innsbruck

The following seven videos are 8-10 minute segments of the keynote presentation by Eric Basha at the Enter 2008 Conference in Innsbruck, Austria. The presentation was excellent and provides some extremely valuable insight into the technological opportunities and challenges facing the industry. The thing that I found most relevant to small travel suppliers was Eric’s statement that we, as an industry, must engage and encourage SME travel suppliers to adopt on-line technologies and embrace single inventory source systems. The challenge is converting a group of companies (and individuals)... Read more »

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, Expedia and Travelocity. The following is a summary of Mr. Barnhart’s presentation and a some points that I feel are of particular interest to SME operators. First of all, there are three big trends happening with travel product creation and distribution on the Internet: There... Read more »

The 5 Must Do Travel Marketing Investments for 2008 - No.1

Investment #1: Your Website This is an absolutely crucial investment and now is the best time to bring your website up to speed. If you don’t have a website now, then plan to launch your website this year. Why the urgency? If you are a Canadian tour operator then the urgency is that there are only two years left before the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, and if you miss this opportunity because of something as simple as not having an informative and well designed website, then you are missing an opportunity of a lifetime. There will be millions of visitors to Canada and specifically British... Read more »

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