While guests still check the Internet first for best deals, an increasing number calls the hotel directly, stressed by spending countless hours online researching. Here are some great sales training tips for your next reservations meeting, on how to convert these calls into bookings.
by Doug Kennedy
For veteran hoteliers who are experiencing our industry’s fourth economic [...]

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You can get more than just links from social media. You can also get really great content. And one of the best places to find free content is on Flickr.
There are tons of ways to use Flickr. If you can take a great photo, you can use Flickr to build inbound links and get your [...]

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Spending on travel and tourism declined last year for the first time since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Commerce Department said Thursday, as Americans canceled vacations, a strong dollar kept foreigners away and businesses slashed travel budgets.
As a result, the trillion-dollar industry — a major employer in the U.S. — is reeling, and [...]

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Ryanair’s latest fee is criticised as being ‘completely against consumer interest’ just as a slew of negative statistics are released on domestic aviation worldwide
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is to examine a complaint from the air passenger watchdog about Ryanair check-in charges, as airlines fight to raise revenues and slash costs amid deteriorating traffic [...]

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Savvy travel-marketing people already know that popular social-networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, LinkedIn and others are a valuable extension of any major marketing program.
As the social-networking phenomenon grows and evolves, travel agencies, home-based agents, suppliers and destination marketers who sit on the sidelines may risk missing significant opportunities to engage existing customers, recruit [...]

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