In a day when web access is clearly important no matter where you are, the ability for your customers to access your site at their convenience is vital. However, making your site user friendly on a computer is one thing – making sure your site is available from a mobile platform is another. Currently only around 5% of online businesses have a mobile compatible website.

Creating a mobile version of your site doesn’t have to be painful or expensive. In fact it’s typically just a smaller version of your existing website with a more simplistic design. Here are some points to consider:

Bad Viewing Experience-
Have you tried loading a website using your smart phone and it just doesn’t look right? Have you had to zoom in and out to find the information? Have you ever clicked on the wrong link because the font is small because it’s optimised for a desktop computer? What about load times, mobile phones traditionally don’t have the same Internet access speeds as a desktop?

A website created specifically for mobile usage loads faster, uses the correct size font and only displays necessary information for quick browsing. No need to zoom in and out or any chance of clicking the wrong link.

Read more at eTourism

The average adult consumer has spent 4 hours and 34 minutes each day watching TV and video on a traditional television set this year, up 10 minutes from last year, eMarketer estimates. Time spent with the internet and mobile phones was also up—by 7.7% and 30%, respectively—and while adults are spending less time than last year with radio and print publications, the increases to TV and digital also mean an increase in total time spent with media, to 11 hours and 33 minutes.

Mobile’s 30% jump from 2010 helped propel it past the 1-hour-per-day mark, compared to just 44 minutes with print magazines and newspapers combined.

eMarketer forms its estimates of time spent with media based on a meta-analysis of data from dozens of research sources, including survey and study data. TV and video includes any type of video watched on a traditional TV set, while all online video activities are included in the internet category. Time spent with each medium is averaged across the whole US adult population, not just users of the respective medium. Time spent with each medium also includes all time spent with that medium, regardless of multitasking, so an hour of watching TV while simultaneously on the internet is considered an hour of each activity.

Read More at eMarketer

Here are 5 strategies to stay ahead in online travel marketing;

1. Testing: A comScore executive estimated earlier this year that 75 percent of its clients are testing their digital creative in parts of their campaigns. That’s a good number. Testing must be done for creative but it must also be done for audience relevance, segmentation and timing. Testing is relatively inexpensive, effective and essential.

2. Find growth areas: Once a travel company integrates a testing mentality they can be more aggressive and innovative about finding growth areas. Is it a destination? A new target audience? An underestimated holiday? Find something that can produce incremental growth.

3. Customize messaging: Even with the uptick in travel ads online, too many companies still rely on a few executions. If you want to be innovative, create a dozen of them based on microsegments. Take it to the next level and partner with cutting edge ad platforms that offer dynamic creative executions. Dynamic creative capability essentially creates custom ads for individual customers in real-time. For the travel category it can take a generic message such as “low fares” into specific fares for specific destinations based on individual customer preferences and behaviors.

4. Audit customers: Are the affluent customers still affluent? Have the older customers in the database travelled recently? Are business travelers using their loyalty program points? A rigorous customer audit will answer these questions and enable travel companies to execute against them.

Read More at HotelMarketing.com

Instead of shying away from social media, smart businesses will leverage their social channels to spread a positive brand reputation, to connect happy customers and to step up their customer support efforts.

Consumers aren’t eager to blast negative messages about your company – unless your brand is unresponsive. I recently learned at an IBM conference that customers are five times more likely to post something positive than negative, and that companies usually have at least 10 warnings before someone posts a negative comment.

Happy customers who get their issues resolved tell an average of four to six people about their positive experiences, according to the White House Office of Consumer Affairs. It pays to treat your customers well, not only for the repeat business, but also to gain the positive word-of-mouth consumers now broadcast across social media. Satisfied customers can become your most influential brand ambassadors. They’ll help to answer customer service questions posted online and also tout their own positive experiences with your business.

Here are the five best ways to turn customers into brand ambassadors through customer service.

1. Be Fast

When a customer turns to social media for a support issue, he expects a brand to generate the fastest response possible. According to a recent UK study, 25% of social media users expect a response within one hour, and 6% expect a response within 10 minutes. If you allow a support issue to dangle for too long, you risk being perceived as a company that either doesn’t know the answer or doesn’t care enough to reply promptly.

Remember, most people on social networks aren’t itching to post negative comments. They only do so after a bad experience. Therefore, don’t give them enough time to have a bad experience.

2. Be Visible

Private and direct messaging on Facebook and Twitter is all well and good, but when it comes to customer service, it’s best to be totally transparent and visible. The answer you give to one customer could, in turn, help thousands more. Think of each post and interaction as a resource that future customers can reference. Not to mention, customers will be more apt to direct friends to your page with their own questions.

Social media sites foster an online community around your brand. Watch how customers discuss and respond to your products so you can join the conversation and better understand the community that supports your brand.

To read more of these points go to mashable.com

According to the “Science of Sharing” study, conducted by M Booth and Beyond, two communications agencies in the Next Fifteen global network, more than half of consumers (53 percent) say they interact with brands on Facebook, four in ten (42 percent) have written a product review online, and a third (33 percent) have written an online post about a product.

One in five consumers are “high sharers”, according to the survey, and are three times more likely to make a product recommendation online. They tend to be younger, brand loyal, own multiple internet devices and are conducting online research that requires minimal emotional or monetary investment.

“Low sharers” tend to be older, put a premium on quality, are less brand loyal, and are researching products online that cost more and involve more consideration.

Strength of Search

When it comes to influencing consumer decision making, search is the most powerful online gateway followed by digital word of mouth and recommendations made by friends and family. The most common products that people recommended online, according to the study, are from the beauty, electronics, fashion and music categories.

“Search is essential for brands, and sharable creative content creation is of the utmost importance in order to generate strong organic search results to increase search’s influence on the consumer,” said David Hargreaves, CEO, Beyond. “The brand that can identify their online advocates and get them to share more content with their friends will most likely see an increase in sales.”

The impact of online channels on consumer decision making rises and falls across product categories. Facebook has the highest influence on baby brands, YouTube on music, and review sites on electronics. The most influential channels in brand decision making, according to the study, are search results, the brand website, rating and review sites, news articles and online ads. The least influential are Twitter, Wikipedia, personal blog posts and Facebook comments.

Read More at eyefortravel

The tool enables users to search for a hotel within a named destination by editing a shape on a map. Users can also view hotels within the shape as a list and by clicking on a ‘book’ button are provided with advertisements from online travel agencies and the hotels enabling users to compare prices.

Property reviews are also provided from Google Places. The US test of Hotel Finder was unveiled in July and covered the main online travel agencies such as Orbitz, Priceline, Expedia and Travelocity. Prices from a number of Europe-based OTAs are also featured including booking.com and easytobook as well as the websites of the hotel owners.

In August Google began integrating technology providers, with Trust International the first, to sit alongside OTAs and property websites. Easytobook marketing boss Wouter Blok says the extension of the tool is ‘huge’ for the company and adds that easytobook plans to ramp up the amount of inventory it provides to Hotel Finder.

In his blog, he points out that the more Google pushes Hotel Finder via adwords, the better it is for his company because it creates a level playing field with the OTA giants that are integrated.

Read More at tnooz

Older users are more likely to click through Facebook advertisements, whereas younger ones are more apt to “like” fan pages, the study said.

Users over 50 were 23 percent more likely to click through an ad than all younger age groups, according to the study. Compared with the highly coveted 18 to 29 age group, that percentage rises to 28 percent.

The 50-plus group, which was the oldest group included in the study, was also about 9 percent less likely to “like” a page than any other group.

Gender played a role as well, at least for click-through rates. Women were 11 percent more likely to click through than men were, though both genders “liked” pages at approximately the same rates.

“In general, younger Facebook users are more comfortable using the ‘Like’ button than older users at this point,” Laura O’Shaughnessy, CEO of SocialCode, said in a press release. “With inline fan ads on Facebook, older users have a high level of interaction and curiosity about the ads as evidenced by their high CTRs, whereas younger users have a higher propensity to click the ‘Like’ button right in an ad on Facebook.”

Read More at ClickZ

Some 45 million visitors rely on TripAdvisor each month for travel information, reliable reviews of venues for travelers, not to mention those businesses that rely upon TripAdvisor for what can be a veritable gold mine of bookings. For some time the website has been questioned as to the validity and origins of many of their 50 + million user reviews. Most agree there is too much room for tampering with the reviews by hotel and other business owners who might create false identities and pump up their own review stats. According to Kevin May over at Tnooz, this current investigation came about because of complaints by Kwikchex, a reputation management consultancy.

The allegations by many are that, hotels were paying “agents” to “boost” their reviews – and to make their competition look bad. The Christian Science Monitor goes so far as to say the “problem” with fake reviews and endorsements if even greater than TripAdvisor’s suggested 10 million fake endorsements, CSM says we are “awash in a sea” of fake reviews. The problem is not limited to hotel beds, and flies in the restaurant soup they say.

Read More at Argophilia

Paid search such as Google AdWords and pay-per-click (PPC) is generally a tactical outlet for driving short-term bookings – - a direct response advertising tool that allows hoteliers to achieve strong potential revenue. Paid search links search guests to hotel website booking engines.

Paid search including AdWords is special, too, because of the value represented as a branding outlet, a public relations channel and its ability to lower distribution costs versus third parties.

“We have experienced a 20% increase in PPC year over year,” said Agnelo Fernandes, VP sales & marketing, Terranea Resort, Rancho Palos Verdes, California (terranea.com).

“Since implementing an aggressive search marketing strategy, overall website revenue is up 50% year over year,” said Steven V. Seghers, president of Hyperdisk Marketing in Irvine, California (hyperdisk.com), referring to one of his hotel clients in the San Francisco Bay Area. “Return on investment (R.O.I.) for paid search alone is 6-1 and 8-1, and when you add in the total spend generated from paid search it is up to 15-1.”

AdWords and PPC advertising may be used in myriad ways:

1. Special promotions to fill “need” or “opportunity” dates or periods, where empty rooms are projected.
2. “Fire sale” or “flash sale” campaigns.
3. As a “shield” for special discounts or value-adds from other packages and price points running concurrently on online travel agencies (OTAs); these special discounts and/or value-adds are available only to those visitors who have clicked on to that particular key word or phrase; thus allowing the hotel to retain rate integrity.

Read More at HSMAI

What does this mean for hospitality and tourism businesses? As Google becomes more social, more mobile and more focused on user-generated content, Google Places is evolving as a linchpin of your online presence. It’s time to whip your listing into shape and to make it an integral part of your online reputation management program.

Optimizing your Google Places listing means ensuring content is complete, accurate and kept up to date. Your efforts will help travel shoppers find you and will help you convert them into paying guests. All content on Places is either controlled or influenced by you: description, categories, additional details, special offers, imagery and reviews. There is no cost and it can easily be done in-house.

Google provides detailed instructions (see links below), so rather than rehash them I’ll highlight a few key areas. For guidance I consulted withLaurian Clemence, Corporate Communications & Public Affairs with Google UK. Examples are geared toward hotels but relevant to all types of hospitality and tourism businesses.

Basic Information

“By having an online presence via Google Places, hotels are enabling users to find and interact with their business,” says Clemence. He recommends keeping listings simple, accurate and consistent.

To enhance searchability, ensure that your business’s name, address and phone number are listed in a consistent format across the web. The Company/Organization field acts as the title of your listing and should include the word “Hotel” and your destination if they are part of your official business name—Google doesn’t permit descriptors or keywords in titles. For example, “The Manderley Chicago Hotel” is more searchable than “The Manderley”.

Read more at Daniel Edward Craig