TripAdvisor Adds More Functionality to Property Owner’s Page

October 13th, 2009

TripAdvisor added a personalized customer satisfaction management dashboards to each property owner’s page on the site. Managers and owners can now instantly assess their performance, as determined by their guests, including trend and competitive analysis, and a new Customer Satisfaction Index.
TripAdvisor announced the addition of free, personalized customer satisfaction management dashboards to each property owner’s [...]

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Tags: Hotel Marketing · Internet Marketing · Social Media Marketing for Hotels · Travel Marketing

Will Online Travel Agenies (OTAs) Win Online Travellers?

October 9th, 2009

Online travel agencies (OTAs) are becoming increasingly competitive with direct travel suppliers (airlines, hotels, rental car companies, etc.) by eliminating or reducing fees for many types of travel transactions.
I recently put the OTAs to the test for airfare, comparing offerings on Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity to the airlines’ own prices to determine the best value [...]

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Tags: Hotel Marketing · Internet Marketing · Travel Marketing

Mobile Travel Strategies for Hotels

September 30th, 2009

PhoCusWright predicted that the craze over apps may last only four or five years, but they will be crucial. Hotels and other hospitality-related industries need to plan a smart mobile strategy that will bridge the near- and long-term.
You may be right if you think the apps for smartphones like the iPhone or Android are passing [...]

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Tags: Hotel Marketing · Internet Marketing

Positive Sign for Travel Industry: Pace of Tourism Decline Slows

September 28th, 2009

Spending on travel and tourism fell slightly last quarter after taking a nosedive earlier in the year — an encouraging sign for the battered industry.
Travel and tourism spending dropped at a 1.4% annual rate in the second quarter of 2009 from the first quarter, following an 8.9% decline in the first quarter, the Commerce Department [...]

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Tags: Hotel Marketing

TravelClick: Consumers More Often Make Reservations on Hotel Websites

September 15th, 2009

The global hotel industry’s performance during the second quarter this year was down across the board. Despite pockets of resurgence, the negative performance is expected to continue into 2010, and sustained growth isn’t expected until the second quarter of 2010, according to a TravelClick webinar last week.
The global hotel industry’s performance during the second quarter [...]

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Tags: Travel Marketing

Bing – 2009 Holiday Season More Traveler-friendly than the 2008 Season

September 11th, 2009

Fareologists at Bing Travel issued a preliminary outlook for the 2009 holiday travel season, uncovering a holiday season that is distinctly more traveler-friendly than the 2008 season.
This year, airfare for Thanksgiving travel to domestic destinations averages $327, down 22 percent from 2008 and virtually on par with 2007 fares. Christmas and New Year’s holiday airfare [...]

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Tags: Hotel Marketing · Travel Marketing

In Ageing Europe, Seniors Take More Domestic Holidays

September 7th, 2009

Close-to-home holidays dubbed “staycations” by trend-watchers have proliferated in the financial crisis, but now the travel industry is gearing to draw another crowd — aging populations in countries like Germany whose spending power may outlast the downturn.
You could call them “greycationers”: the 50-plus age group mutating under a massive influx of baby-boomers who grew up [...]

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Tags: Hotel Marketing · Travel Marketing

Declining Lodging Demand will Come to an End in 2010

August 20th, 2009

PKF Hospitality Research (PKF-HR) today announced that, according to an advance release of the September 2009 edition of Hotel Horizons(R), nine consecutive quarters of declining lodging demand will come to an end in the second quarter of 2010.
‘With the budgeting process underway at hotels around the U.S., the recovery of lodging demand is an important [...]

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Tags: Hotel Marketing · Travel Marketing

New Perspective on the Travel Industry

August 18th, 2009

Ferguson, VP of lodging demand and analysis for Expedia, shared 10 hotel trends using data generated from hotel bookings on Expedia.
1. Exchange rates are shifting travel patterns. “There are a lot more Americans traveling to the U.K. despite the economy. That’s simply because it has gotten so much cheaper,” he said. “It’s 35-percent cheaper just [...]

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Tags: Hotel Marketing · Internet Marketing · Travel Marketing