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 they wanted to, develop and release ANY travel application they want in any vertical.  With a single mouse click they could probably brush Kayak, Fly.com, Bing.com, or anyone else off the on-line travel landscape.  Google could have developed a meta-search engine for... Read more »

5 Tools for Building On-line Trust in Travel

One of the biggest challenges for any on-line business, especially on-line travel businesses is building trust with the on-line consumer.  In my Tourism week post titled “Building On-line Credibility” I discussed ways that businesses can build their credibility on-line.  In this post, I am going to share with you my five favorite tools for building and sharing trust on-line.  Some of these tools are free and some require payment, but they are all worthwhile ways to make your customers more comfortable with doing business with you and, most importantly, transacting with you, on-line: 1.... Read more »

Open Travel Alliance and the Future of Travel Distribution

For many in travel, distribution would be considered the lifeblood of the industry.  The triumverate of travel, or the BIG THREE of distribution, would tend to agree.  These companies, born from the days when the only products you could distribute were airline tickets, have now expanded into other products like hotel rooms, cruise, and car rentals.  But we are now at the point where many of the systems required to distribute the basics of travel are quite mature, so what is the next frontier for distribution? In a recent PhoCusWright Roundtable discussion, the big discussion was around vacation... Read more »

Tourism is an Experience Industry, So Deliver Experiences

One of my favorite things about speaking at conferences and seminars around the World is what I learn while I’m there.  I often find that I learn just as much being at these confernences as the attendees learn from me.  One such experience was at the Creative Lapland Seminar in Rovaniemi, Finland.  The theme of the seminar this year was “The Best Show Cases in the Experience Economy Focused on Tourism”.  My contribution was to talk about the philosophies behind the creation of Rezgo.com and to share some of my experiences working with small tourism businesses around the World. Selling... Read more »

Tourism Week - Technology Tip #5 - Sell Globally Deliver Locally

Distribution has been a common (if not cumbersome) part of life for airlines and hotels for many years now.  But hotels and airlines are only the thin edge of the wedge when it comes to the abundance of tourism products that could potentially be distributed.  Destination product suppliers like walking tours, whale watching, boat tours, bicycle tours, bus tours, and the like are, for the most part, absent from distribution channels.  Although there are a few applications that cater specifically to small tour operators almost none of them have been built with channel management capabilities. ... Read more »

Tourism Week - Technology Tip #4 - Social Media Must Dos

One of the major benefits that small tourism companies have over larger competitors is that they tend to me more nimble and quick to respond to opportunities with technology.  The other clear benefit is that the owner/operator or someone very close to the company can add a human face and element to the organizations social media efforts.  If you have not yet jumped on to the Social media bandwagon and are considering it, here are my top 5 recommendations: Know your goal with Social Media: This seems like a pretty basic point, but it is critical.  You need to define what your expectations... Read more »

Tourism Week - Technology Tip #2 - Building On-line Credibility

One of the biggest on-line challenges for a small business, especially a tourism related business, is developing on-line credibility.  What do I mean by on-line credibility?  Basically it is how credible or legitimate your business appears to be to yout on-line audience. On-line credibility is very much like your real world credibility. In fact, I would argue that they should be part of the same strategy.  The difference between the off-line and on-line credibility however, is that your on-line credibility tends to be driven more by your brand, design, and professionalism of your website and... Read more »

Tourism Week - Technology Tip #1 - The Costs of a Website

In celebration of Tourism Week 2009, I would like to present a series of posts that will provide you with the basic tools you’ll need to take the leap to on-line marketing and sales for your tourism business.  Although the principles are shared across many industries, I will be referring to tourism specific terms and technologies. The first in my series is about the costs associated with developing your website.  There are a number of parts to a web project, however, there is one thing for sure, the overall costs of web projects have decreased.  Applications such as booking engines, content... Read more »

Technology Can Drive Tourism Innovation

One of the most powerful aspects about tourism is that it is an industry that everyone in a destination can participate in.  Whether they know it or not, everyone from the local bus driver to the hot dog vendor on the corner is contributing or benefiting from the tourism industry.  In a mature market like Vancouver, most businesses recognize that they are part of the tourism equation and most have found a way to participate.  The local tourism board, Tourism Vancouver, has a very strong marketing presence and works strongly with stakeholders to promote businesses of all types including attractions,... Read more »

The 15 Billion Dollar Question: Who Owns Customer Data?

Earlier in the week I asked the following question on Twitter: Question: Who owns customer data? Supplier, Agency, Customer. I would like your thoughts on this? The discussion first came up at the Enter 2009 Conference in Amsterdam where I argued that we, as an industry, need to spend less time hording customer data and more effort in developing a mechanism for sharing customer information in a more efficient way and for the benefit of the customer.  The question on Twitter resulted in quite a bit of discussion between Alex Bainbridge, Joe Buhler, Kevin May, Sam Daams, and BenColclough.  Here... Read more »

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