Turning the mundane, frustrating experience of booking a hotel online into a fun moment, is an act of legerdemain that only Booking.com is probably able to pull off.
Take a look at their YouTube commercial to see what I mean. It’s wry, funny and self-deprecating.
It’s a spoof on hotel TV commercials that in and of itself, is a smart TV commercial for Booking.com’s new U.S ad campaign: “Booking Epic.”
But we have come to expect these sorts of creative approaches from the company that’s the
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USAToday reported that online travel companies "lag behind e-commerce retailers...in delivering a positive consumer experience." No surprise here.
For anyone who has tried booking travel that involves a flight more complicated than flying from Point A to Point B, the explanation is obvious. And it's obvious even for those who travel only from Point A to Point B.
Using one of the many flight-finding, online travel agents or tools, is a horrific process. Nothing seems to work simply.
Posted pric
In spite of the reports suggesting social media is the way to connect with and service customers, it just may not be true.
Hotelmarketing.com reports that 62% of customers are looking for more support through social media.
But brand reputation and promotions still top the list of how companies use social media.
Econsultancy reported a while back that the retail industry has the highest percent (45%) of customers using social media as their "voice," and contacting (and getting) support throu
For a long time now we’ve been preaching how fun and engaging Twitter is…and yet questioned how effective it is when applied to the travel market.
Then along comes a report in HotelMarketing by way of an interesting account in SproutSocial highlighting three innovative travel industry success stories on Twitter.
Increasingly, Twitter, it seems, is playing a key role in the critical stages of travel: research, mid-travel engagement and post-trip reviews/feedback.
Of the 25,000 tweets analyz
If you’re looking for a sales job in travel, now might be the time to approach Facebook.
The giant social media site is on a mission to elbow its way further into the travel space and has been reorganizing its sales force.
As HotelMarketing reports Facebook has been recruiting for travel sales representatives as it looks to turn travel, one of its fastest growing verticals, in to one of its biggest. Next year, 2014, is the target year.
All those images, and stories and happy travelers’ tales
Reviews do matter. A report by SAS noted that positive reviews (less so TripAdvisor-based rank and brand), followed by lower price were the most important influencers of choice.
And lower price or higher ratings don't overcome the impact of negative reviews.
But even in America, it's possible that more isn't better.
Writing reviews is almost a national pastime. Writing reviews on everything and saying pretty much what we want and being rewarded by some sort of badge or other "atta boy" reco
How surprising is this: In the second half of last year, fewer that 1% of visitors arrived at a hotel or travel booking site, "via a social media link or a link shared by by a friend. So reports Hotelmarketing.com
Does this mean hotels are wasting their time chasing the Holy Grail of Twitter and Facebook?
Could be. We love our friends' photos and status updates, the report goes on to say, and it's very true that social media platforms and channels do develop loyalty.
The contests do lead to deep
Would you ever tell a Facebook friend that your stay at a hotel really “sucked,” or can you see yourself going public on Twitter with a rant about some resort’s horrible customer service or food?
It seems, says Hotelmarketing.com that although we’re big users of social media, and often inclined to grouse to our friends about a bad trip or lousy airline service, in reality, only 2% of those surveyed said they express their specific, negative feedback
If it's true that 1-minute of video is worth 1.8 million words, then hotels and travel destinations may have found the "holy grail" that converts the grazing online process of looking at hotels, to actually booking them.
And there isn't a hotel or destination in the world that isn't seeking the business alchemy that converts lookers into actual customers.
Generally, the hotel's website is held responsible for making this magic happen.
Of course service that exceeds the client's demands, locat
Airbnb 101: Using Social Media's Hottest "Places to Stay" Site
By Angie Picardo
with Kaleel Sakakeeny
As Airbnb says, "Find a Place to Stay."
And with participants in 34,183 cities in 192 countries, it's small wonder that the site has become the "go to place" for places to stay. And what may make the popular short term rental site even more popular, is its clever inclusion of neighborhood guides for cities all around the world, just in case a traveler is unsure where to travel to.
Features like this,
If HuffPostTravel can declare that the "Old Travel Show is Dead, Long Live the New York Travel Festival," then we might be right in declaring that "Travel Destination Articles Are Dying, Long Live Social Media Travel Content."
So, when a senior editor at Technorati told me that, going forward, all travel-related content had to have a social media spin, had to be presented via a Social/New Media filter, I knew the travel content game had changed. No more colorful destination pieces?
And then I
It's an axiom among those of us who fly: You never know whom you'll be sitting next to.
Could be a fascinating character from some terrific movie, your next love or, more likely, someone you really, badly want to get away from.
New Media Travel reported on the idea of "Social Seating Solutions" (Never Sit Next to Boring People Again), so the idea of selecting one's seat mate has been around for a while. But the enabling tool hasn't been very successfully developed or employed. And there was al
A funny thing happened on the way to the movies.
Forty million international movie-goers opted to travel to a place where a movie they loved was shot.
Travel Daily News (TDN) reports that these travelers made their travel plans and chose their destinations based on a movie they saw in 2012. Obviously, as TDN says, filming in a destination is "clearly a very efficient driver for attracting new visitors."
Makes sense. As Mashable reported, old Hollywood had its star system and magazines. New mov
How Tourism Ireland Won Top Social Media Prize
Luck of the Irish?
Hardly.
It was no surprise to us when Tourism Ireland was tapped as the winner in the “Best Use of Social Media” contest at the Travolution Awards in London.
Nor were they lucky.
We’ve worked under contract with Tourism Ireland producing short-form Travel Video PostCards, and they were always way ahead of most every other player in the travel industry in embracing social media opportunities.
They were innovative and experimental, very
When (and why) Do We Share Travel Information?
We recently did an article on why social media mavens don’t use their social media accounts to complain about bad service or disappointing travel experiences.
Now, according to the marketing company, Milestone, there’s a twist to this thinking.
While travelers may prefer to lodge their travel complaints directly to the hotel or destination, it seems travelers are more likely to share information about a purchase they just made.
Apparently 40 percent o
Social Media In Travel:Over-Hyped, Under-Hyped Or Who Knows
So began the HotelMarketing.com headline, more or less.
We’ve often chided the travel industry for not moving fast enough into the world of social media.
But we’ve been told that we’re mischaracterizing travel, and been pointed in the direction of Jet Blue’s successful Foursquare loyalty program.
And that’s true as far as it goes. JetBlue, Chicago and a handful of other travel brands like Royal Caribbean are effectively engaged in social
So, how long will being a Foursquare Mayor matter now that the 6-million strong Location Based Service is moving toward segmentation?
In fact, is there any real “grown up” reason to being the “Mayor” of Joe’s Coffee shop?
Is there any “grown up” reason to being a Foursquare Mayor of anything?
It’s a bit like collecting marbles or baseball cards. It gives the collector a certain ego boost and bragging rights...on the playground.
But we stopped collecting marbles and
