Mark Hodson discovers which companies are using Twitter in a useful way – and those you needn’t bother with
In recent weeks, dozens of airlines, airports, tour operators and tourist boards have flocked onto Twitter. Not all are using it effectively. Here’s our pick of the winners – and the losers
TRAVEL COMPANIES TO FOLLOW
Lonely Planet has [...]

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Look at how you read commercial email. Getting unsolicited email probably bugs you as much as it does your subscribers.
The other consideration is that the reading habits of today’s digital consumers are changing. More and more consumers are reading email newsletters and offers in a social or mobile setting — meaning the format and delivery [...]

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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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Ryanair has become involved in an online fakery dispute over a Twitter ‘account’, claimed to be from the airline, which was abusing bloggers and passengers.
The apparently official account @RyanAirOnline was used to make fun of passengers, saying that they “smell like urine” and describing them as “mostly stupid”.
Ryanair initially confirmed that their marketing team had [...]

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While trying to keep up-to-date on the latest interactive tools, some marketers have lost track of how powerful incentive and loyalty programs can be. They have an outdated view of them as generic or unsophisticated, with the “free iPod with purchase” program as a perfect example of a primitive reward program.
An effective interactive marketing campaign [...]

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Four years ago, booking online was already the cheapest way to organise travel. But what will the world of online travel look like in 2013?
A recent report from Forrester Research US Online Travel Forecast, 2008 To 2013 has a stab at guessing some of the key trends that will dominate Internet travel booking in four [...]

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Hotels, airlines, airports and other travel companies are joining the Twitter community, too, to pitch services, update travel conditions and respond directly to the individual needs of customers.
They’re finding the mobile nature of the technology is ideal for talking to travelers.
Problems no longer ‘quiet’
“We had one of our (frequent guest) members Twitter from the [...]

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Since the advent of digital, the number of brands using humor to deliver their messages has grown markedly. One can only surmise that this is because humor “works.” It works at both connecting brands to audiences and at reshaping brand imagery in powerful ways.
Of course, humor doesn’t always deliver results for brands. Many have tried [...]

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Hospitality industry has always tended to be reactive, rather than current, to changes in the economy. After all, hotels don’t create travel, they serve it. There is little hotels can do to induce people to travel. People don’t travel for the purpose of staying in hotels, they stay in our hotels because our hotels are [...]

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