I had a really great conversation with Barbara Vega, founder of I Heart BackPackers, a tour operator who specializes in backpacking tours all over the World. During our talk, Barbara wanted to know if I had any suggestions on how to get started with social media and how to improve what she was already doing. [...]
In my recent distribution and supply chain collaboration sessions at the Adventure Travel World Summit, I had an opportunity to sit down and discuss aspects of distribution with adventure travel operators and outfitters. I was joined on the panel by a number of key players in the adventure distribution space including James O’Leonard (Founder & [...]
The Adventure Travel World Summit is on October 19-22, 2009 in historic Quebec City. I’ll be attending this year as a speaker focusing on Social media and distribution systems for the adventure segment. I am really excited about being part of the conference this year because it is really well executed and, from what I [...]
Packaged goods in traditional retail have a very different meaning to packaged goods in the travel space. In retail, a packaged product is a product that is sold in a “package”, ie. a box or a blister pack (literally packaged). In travel, a packaged product is one that is a combination of two separate products [...]
Joe Buhler sent me a link to a New York Times article titled “Worst Part of a Trip May be Booking It“. The article describes how frustrating the on-line booking experience can be for many consumers and how far behind the travel industry seems to be in comparison to other e-commerce sectors. We continued the [...]
Before you can run, you must first learn to walk. You’ve all heard this many times in your lifetime. Although the saying is overused, it is used because it is true. Although the saying can be applied to travel product distribution, in many cases the players are not even crawling yet. The challenge with any [...]
Today’s guest post is by Andy Hayes. It’s not secret that more and more travellers are feeling comfortable making travel bookings online – and are doing so in droves. Travel bookings in the US alone were up 12% to US$ 105 billion last year (source: emarketer.com September 2008). However, many travellers are reporting frustration with [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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