“Family travel” is defined as any form of leisure travel that includes children. Fully 44 percent of all leisure travelers took at least one “family vacation” last year, and it’s interesting to note that the incidence of family travel is significantly higher than the incidence of households with children (roughly one-third). This difference may be attributed to the growth in multi-generational travel as a result of the aging population.
Following is a snapshot of today’s family travelers:

- They are equally likely to take both weekend trips (73%) of four nights or less including a Saturday, and extended trips (71%) of five consecutive nights or more;

- Beach/lake destinations rule, selected by fully one-third (33%) of all family travelers last year; fully one out of four (26%) took a theme park vacation, and one out of ten (9%) visited an all-inclusive resort;

- Seven out of ten (69%) took a vacation to celebrate a life event last year (a “Celebration Vacation”), with milestone birthdays and anniversaries topping the list;

- One out of five (20%) is a grandparent, and two-thirds (67%) of those who have reached this life stage took at least one vacation with their grandchildren last year;

- Family travelers are more likely to have taken a vacation in their local area (less than 50 miles from home) as an alternative to vacationing in a destination that would have required traveling a greater distance (aka a “Staycation”);

- Three out of ten (31%) took a “last minute” trip last year, departing an average of just six days after deciding to take the trip;

- All (99%) have access to the Internet at home, and practically all have gone online to get information about travel suppliers (89%) and make reservations (87%);

- Fully nine out of ten (90%) have a page posted on Facebook, and one out of four (23%) has visited a blog to seek or preview information about a vacation destination or travel service supplier;

- One third (32%) are interested in taking a cruise vacation during the next two years;

- Children play an active role in planning vacations in half (48%) of all family travel households;

- The destinations they are most interested in visiting on vacation include the Neighbor Islands of Hawaii (73%), the national parks (71%), Honolulu (69%) and Orlando (59%);

- One out of seven (14%) is interested in purchasing a vacation home, with one out of ten (7%) interested in purchasing a timeshare;

- Fully one out of four (24%) has stayed in a vacation home or condominium rental as an alternative to conventional hotel/resort lodging on a vacation last year.

Read More at HotelMareting.Com

With summer vacations in full swing, many travelers are looking forward to sharing the details of their trips with friends and family. In today’s world, the easiest way to share is through social media, but people should be conscious of when and what they share to avoid giving away too much information about when they’ll be away from home.

Nearly 30 percent of travelers have either never thought about precautions or do not take any precautions when posting about vacation on social media web sites. Twenty-seven percent post limited vacation information; the rest do not allow any vacation posts.

“It’s only natural to want to share your excitement about an upcoming trip on social media sites,” said Genevieve Shaw Brown, Travelocity’s senior editor. “But it’s probably safest to wait until you return to share the details of the trip.”

Get the full story from HotelMarketing.com

With Expedia, Orbitz, and other online travel stocks hovering just above the basement, news of Facebook and Google dancing around the travel niche cannot be thrilling. Online travel, in case you’ve been trapped in a dungeon somewhere, is about to take off like a rocket. For some that is.

Google’s announcement of the acquisition of ITA signaled the cocking of the proverbial hammer, if you are in the business of 21st Century online booking that is. Now enter Facebook, a very interesting interjection into travel dollars indeed. Facebook announced the buyout of the social network NextStop, or rather the expertise and data therein. What can they be up to? Well, a piece of $120 billion dollar online travel pie.

The Current State of Travel

According to Forrester Research, last year, online travel bookings represent nearly 40 percent of all booking bucks. Expedia, Orbitz, and a very few others have (so far) pocketed the lion’s share. But, in all honesty, just how long did they foresee such a virtual monopoly going forward? Their problem, from my perspective, is not much different from any other huge and profitable company – complacency – even greed. Why? Let me explain a little.

Expedia has proliferated the web with what you might call “satellites of success” – TripAdvisor being the biggest. The original innovation there, was significant – taking advantage of “the crowd” in as far a travel ratings and the vast network of affiliations – of course. But, like so many traditional thinking companies, Expedia only paid lip service to the social element. And then, for the most part they rested on their laurels – opps. What burns me about companies like Expedia? Their almost unlimited resources to create something far better – for you – and for them.

Orbitz? Well, maybe they just don’t have the cash? Despite positive earnings, Obritz seems content to offer Gulf Coast guarantees and traditional price incentives – for the most part any way. I covered their integration with iSeatz, but was honestly overly optimistic. The iSeatz move seemed to signal movement in the space, but like many such associations – there was no prime mover behind the deal. Many online companies fail to understand the need for traction and ongoing news – Orbitz is not alone. Without tipping any hands, I know Orbitz execs are rather closed minded or at best preoccupied with other matters. What burns me about them? The market is wide open for them to move – they won’t or can’t.

Get the full article from EverythingPR

Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO of Google, stated that ITA’s technology opens new possibilities for the company to “create new ways for users to more easily find flight information online”.

The deal will allow Google to pursue the creation of new flight search tools that will enable users to find better flight information more easily on the Internet.

ITA Software’s QPX software uses algorithms to combine and parse multiple sets of flight information from airlines, including pricing and availability data, to create an up-to-date database that can be searched across.

On its decision to go with this acquisition, Google stated, “We think we can make more significant innovations and bigger breakthroughs in online flight search by combining our engineering expertise with ITA Software’s than we would by simply licensing ITA Software’s data service.”

At the moment, Google says it doesn’t have detailed plans to share about how new flight search tools will be triggered or appear on Google results pages, or how they will be monetised.

The transaction is subject to normal pre-merger notification procedures in the United States only. ITA Software’s European revenues aren’t large enough to warrant European regulatory review.

Current offering

Google currently offers two travel search features. First, its flight tracker search feature enables users to see flight status for arriving and departing US flights. When users type the name of the airline and the flight number into the search box, Google will return updated flight information from flightstats.com.

Second, it offers a travel search feature to help users looking to book travel. For example, search for [New York to SFO] and Google offers the option to specify a date range and choose from a variety of online travel services to see results.

Both features are aimed at improving search quality and neither is based on any financial compensation to or from Google. Neither feature relies on data from ITA Software.

Get the full article from eyefortravel

Related article: Google to Buy Travel Software Maker

A similar visit by Queen Victoriain the 1890s sparked off a  visitor boom in Killarney which was seen as the birth of the Irish tourism industry.

The first visit by a British Monarch to this country since Independence is certain to generate widespread positive publicity with

opportunities to promote places on her itinerary.

The British market, which accounts for 60% of visitors tom Ireland has been in  decline for almost two years, but the strengthening of sterling against the euro in recent weeks may -provide a platform for recovery during then peak Summer season.

For full article see Hospitality E News by Frank Corr

1. Choose Your Audience

Who do you want to reach on Twitter? Be specific and limit your scope to the demographic you really need; trying to reach everyone isn’t a great strategy. If you’re a B2B company, for example, you’ll probably want to reach other businesses and the people that represent them.

Here is a quick example: Look up at least 10 of your customers on Twitter (a quick name search on Google can turned up their Twitter profiles). Once you’ve found some, look at who they’re following and who they talk to. These people could also become part of your audience. Look at how they describe themselves and what terms they talk about. Use those keywords and terms to find like-minded people.

The goal here is not to find everyone you’d like to interact with (that would probably be next to impossible), but to find people who might fit into your audience. Try to pay attention to who has influence in your audience. For example: who are people talking to, about or retweeting? Who do they seem to ask for advice? Once you have a decent group, move on to step two.

2. Understand How They Speak

It might sound like I’m giving you clichéd advice to “listen,” but clichés exist for a reason. You need to understand how your audience talks, what they like, and what they share. Below are some solid steps to get you started.

* Look up what people are saying about your company. Are they saying good things or bad things? Are they asking for advice about what product or company to choose? Are they giving feedback about their experiences after the fact?

* Do the same for your competitors. Note if your competitors are jumping in or influencing any of these conversations.

* Notice the way your audience talks. Are they generally formal or informal? This will be very different depending on the companies you are tracking and the people you attract. It’s always good to match the tone of your audience.

* Look at what your audience shares and retweets. What kinds of links and articles do they like? What kinds of terms and ideas get them excited or annoyed?

* Note any hashtags or other ways your audience connects. Look up those hashtags to see if they have any real traction (if they’re all spam or if people are really using them to connect).

3. How Much is a Twitter Lead Worth?

This is a bit more theoretical but it’s an important step that many companies forget. The reason you’re involved with Twitter isn’t just to say you’re there, it’s because you’re looking for a good return on investment. So what is it that you’re after? It might be as concrete as sign-ups and sales or as ephemeral as buzz and brand awareness.

Depending on your goal, try to figure out how much each person is “worth.” This almost certainly won’t be an exact number, but you should get a general idea. For example, if you’re doing B2B sales and a sale is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, you’re going to have a very different strategy than a company with millions of users that makes its money from advertising.

4. Set A Goal and Track It

Setting a goal is just the start of your strategy, you also need to track it with metrics. Choosing metrics does not just mean tracking your follower count because the count isn’t always a totally accurate measure of how many people are paying attention to your account.

There are obviously different approaches depending on the size of your fan base. If you have a large audience, you might not be able to put a lot of time into each lead. Your overall goal will likely be about brand awareness and creating buzz for your company. You should consider metrics that capture overall influence such as retweets, blog posts and clicks.

If you have a targeted audience, each lead probably carries more value. You overall goal will likely be to generate new leads. You should consider metrics like sales, email sign-ups, @messages, direct messages and clicks.

Get the full article from Mashable

Key findings from The “Consumer Response to Travel Site Performance” study conducted by PhoCusWright and Akamai include:

- Three second rule – 57 percent of online shoppers will wait three seconds or less before abandoning the site

- Younger travelers are less patient – Generation Y and younger travelers are less patient than older travelers when it comes to page load times. 65 percent of 18-24 year olds expect a site to oad in two seconds or less

- Prevention is key – A third of travelers would be less likely to visit a site after experiencing technical problems like slowness or errors on the page. Business travelers are slightly more likely to have a negative reaction

- Loyalty is not forgiveness – Active loyalty program members are more likely than other travelers to indicate that they would not likely be influenced at all by technical glitches at 34 percent. However, the remaining 66 percent are actually more likely than others to have strong negative reactions.

- Travelers tend to be multi-taskers – 59 percent of consumers do something else when waiting for a travel website to load. Nearly one in five (19 percent) open another travel site in a new window when made to wait.

- Hidden fees may cost you – 43 percent of online shoppers have abandoned a booking because the final product price and/or fees were higher than they were willing to pay

The study also examines travelers’ reactions to technical issues. Findings reveal that many travelers are guided by their previous experiences with a particular website, and for just over a third of consumers (34 percent), a technical glitch will lower their likelihood to visit a site again. Business travelers and loyalty program members are less tolerant of technical problems, and are slightly more likely to have a negative reaction to them. Research shows that these groups of online shoppers are also the most valuable customers for online travel sites. Thus, the stakes for site performance and streamlined, transparent transactions are even higher for companies targeting these segments.

“Online travel is a fiercely competitive marketplace with many powerful brands all vying for the same consumer. Think about how irritating it is to stand in a line at a physical store – people hate to wait. When they are online, they don’t have to wait because there is another travel site just a few keystrokes away,” said Carroll Rheem, Director, Research, PhoCusWright. “Additionally, travelers have an inherent penchant for intensive shopping because travel is not an everyday purchase – it’s expensive and experiential. Therefore, travel companies that do not invest in speed and reliability essentially drive customers to their competitors.”

“Today’s shoppers demand a fast, engaging and secure online shopping environment when searching for an airline or hotel,” said Aaron Hynes, Managing Director of Technology, Continental Airlines. “This study confirms that there is a direct correlation between consumer satisfaction and site performance. By leveraging Akamai’s Dynamic Site Accelerator solutions, we have been able to deliver a compelling site experience that is fast and reliable, and will keep our travelers coming back to our site when booking for their travels. In fact, since partnering with Akamai, Continental has seen significant improvements in page performance by 40 percent, which has greatly contributed to an increase in our conversion rates and sales revenues. The improvement in page load times has also contributed to our recent success by winning the Gomez most improved award with the largest decrease in response time from the first half of the year to the second half.”

In addition, findings state that consumers not only have varying patience levels, they also react to waiting differently. As with page loading times, the study finds significant differences when looking at results by different age groups. Younger travelers are more likely to engage in other activities – with 56 percent of 18-24 year olds waiting for loading compared to 77 percent of seniors. These results suggest that a poorly or slow-performing travel site can drive valuable shoppers away.

“Whether our customers are accessing our homepage or searching and booking for a hotel room on our site, we must ensure their experience is the best,” said David Godsman, Vice President, Global Web, Starwood Hotels and Resorts. “Akamai is helping us to achieve our goal of optimum site performance for our end users. The numbers of monthly site visits and conversion rates have risen steadily since leveraging Akamai’s Dynamic Site Accelerator. As our site performance improves, our customers are spending less time waiting for the site to load, less time waiting for search results and can more quickly navigate the site and purchase their travel, increasing our look-to-book ratio. Also, by leveraging Akamai’s globally distributed network, we can spend less money and effort in infrastructure related tasks, enabling us to re-direct our resources to eCommerce development activities that improve our online experience.”

Get the full article from hotelmarketing.com

Ruba offer users a way to visually browse through cities and their attractions around the world, offering photo-rich guides and an emphasis on making it easy to quickly discover new locations. The site is headed by Mike Cassidy, who has founded a number of successful companies, including Xfire, which sold to Viacom in 2006 for $102 million.

Guides are all written and submitted by users, with Ruba pulling from Google and Flickr APIs to help pinpoint locations and provide some sample photos (users can submit their own, too). The site, which is similar in some ways to TripAdvisor, features integration with Twitter and Facebook Connect, allowing users to broadcast where they’re headed and ask friends for input.

Google has been reportedly making a significant move to enter the online travel business, integrating hotel links into Maps and listing hotels with room rates. The search giant is also supposedly in talks to buy fare shopping software ITA software, according to the USA Today.

Read more at TechCrunch

Additional source: Ruba.com

Priceline.com had revenues in the 1st quarter of $584.4 million, a 26.5% increase over a year ago. The Company’s international operations contributed revenues in the 1st quarter of $215.8 million, an 88.2% increase versus a year ago (approximately 79% on a local currency basis). Priceline.com’s gross profit for the 1st quarter was $319.1 million, a 53.2% increase from the prior year. The Company’s international operations contributed gross profit in the 1st quarter of $214.9 million, an 88.8% increase versus a year ago (approximately 80% growth on a local currency basis). The Company’s operating income in the 1st quarter 2010 was $87.9 million, a 105.2% increase from the prior year. Priceline.com had GAAP net income for the 1st quarter of $53.9 million or $1.06 per diluted share, which compares to $25.0 million or $0.53 per diluted share in the same period a year ago.

Pro forma EBITDA for the 1st quarter was $111.7 million, an increase of 75.3% over the prior year. Pro forma net income in the 1st quarter was $87.2 million or $1.70 per diluted share, compared to $1.09 per share a year ago. The high end of priceline.com’s guidance for the 1st quarter was $1.64 per diluted share and First Call analyst consensus for the 1st quarter 2010 was $1.66 per diluted share. The section below entitled “Non-GAAP Financial Measures” provides a definition and information about the use of pro forma financial measures in this press release and the attached financial and statistical supplement reconciles pro forma financial information with priceline.com’s financial results under GAAP.

“The Company’s worldwide businesses were able to maintain gross booking growth over 50% in the 1st quarter, powered by strong growth in hotel room nights, which increased 57% over last year,” said Jeffery H. Boyd, priceline’s President and CEO. “We believe all of our brands continued to gain share in hotel reservations during the quarter. International local currency bookings growth was 73%, representing continued high rates of transaction growth and stabilizing hotel room rates. Domestic growth at 16% came in at the high end of our range of guidance despite weaker results in opaque airline tickets and rental cars tied to reduced capacity in those markets.”

Looking forward, Mr. Boyd said, “We are pleased with the strong growth reflected in our 2nd quarter guidance despite the impact of several negative external factors. The Iceland volcano caused widespread disruptions in air travel which resulted in a significant increase in hotel room cancellations for our Booking.com business. Civil unrest in Thailand has substantially impacted hotel room reservations in Thailand, which is a key market for Agoda and Booking.com’s Asia business. Lastly, sovereign debt concerns in Europe have resulted in a significant decline in the value of the Euro as compared to the U.S. dollar which adversely impacts our financial results as expressed in U.S. dollars.”

Get the full article at hotelmarketing.com

Local content is becoming increasingly important to online success. In local search, consumers see a map at the top of the search results that contains a short list of area businesses. Google determines what is deemed a “local search” based on the query, and provides local content automatically. Within the results, each business has a “pushpin” that identifies its location on the map. Clicking on the pushpin opens up additional information, and that information is powered by Google Places. It’s a pretty straightforward concept with one caveat. Listings that provide more information are more likely to show up as a pushpin, and listings that provide little or no information are more likely to be excluded from the results.

Google Places is a boon for hoteliers and destinations alike. When a potential customer searches “hotel” in combination with your city or neighborhood, you have a great opportunity to reach that customer with content that is extremely relevant to their search. The same would obviously apply to destinations that hone in on the promotion of local businesses and activities in their marketing efforts. In addition, local search accounts for an extremely large portion of search. In fact, one study by Google found that 73 percent of all online activity is related to local content. Enhancing your profile for local search won’t just affect online revenue; it can impact offline revenue as well. A 2009 study found that 83 percent of local search users contacted businesses offline. That’s a lot of customers calling for reservations or walking up to the front desk for check-in.

So what should you do to show up more often and with higher placement?

Google Places allows for many listing enhancements that were already available through Local Business Center. Hoteliers can provide accurate and up-to-date information about their property, such as the address, phone number, business information, and website URL. They can upload photos and videos to showcase the property. Hoteliers can also list features that make their property stand out, like hotel amenities, pool hours, and nearby attractions. Finally, Google Places automatically enhances some listings by pulling information that customers might find useful, such as reviews from 3rd party sites.

In addition to all of the great benefits of Local Business Center, Google Places also offers:

* Real-Time updates- If your property is running a 48 hour sale or coupon, you can promote it instantly on a Google Places page.

* Enhanced Listings through Google Tags – For a $25 monthly fee in select markets, you can add a coupon, photo, or other special feature to make your listing stand out in Google Maps results.

* Free Hotel Photo Shoot – If your hotel is in one of 25 select markets in the U.S. (or a handful in Australia or Japan), you can apply for a free photo shoot. If approved, Google photographers will photograph the interior spaces of the hotel and post them in your Google Places listing. Hotels outside of the select markets shouldn’t feel left out – the program will eventually be rolled out worldwide. There are some limits to the photo shoot (Google retains all the rights to the photos, and they are not accepting applications from “chain establishments”), but overall it is a great opportunity to showcase your property.

* Customized QR Code – QR codes are two-dimensional bar codes that can be placed on the front entrance of a hotel or restaurant. Customers can scan them with certain smartphones to be taken directly to the mobile version of the Google Places Page for that business. This makes it easy for customers to instantly provide guest reviews. For example, if you have an onsite restaurant, customers can simply scan a QR code from the front of the restaurant’s window, bringing them directly to your website, online reviews, chef’s suggestions and more. This tool allows you to provide far more information than a paper menu posted by the door. Customers can even save the info in their phone should they decide to return later for another meal.

Get the full article from TIG Global