Sixty-six million Chinese will travel overseas this year, a 15% increase over last year, and 100 million will be global travelers by 2020, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization.

On the back of three decades of spectacular growth and development, China recently became the second largest economy in the world behind the United States. The country has also become a major market for the world’s leading international consumer goods companies.

Many travel brands are trying to capture the attention of this very valuable new customer segments, but not without challenges and disappointments, due to various reasons.

1. Spot the China travel trends

• The China travel market is growing both domestically and outbound, and the UNWTO predicts that Chinese outbound travelers will exceed 100 million by 2020, with international destinations beyond Asia on the rise.

• The internet is used to “plan & tell”, however offline travel agents are still the dominant distribution channel, even though online channels are growing.

• Chinese consumers are moving towards an experienced-based choice model from a price-based choice model, demanding higher quality services, and moving from traditional tour groups to more individual travel experiences.

2. Understand the Chinese consumer

• It is critically important for travel suppliers to offer China-ready services, from hot water cookers for instant noodles and slippers in the hotel room, to Chinese dishes such as Congee at breakfast, to Chinese language services from Chinese menus in restaurants to Chinese-speaking staff to Chinese audio guides for destinations and museums.

Read more at: tnooz.com

Regions outside of North America that showed greater strain in bookings included Europe, the Middle East/North Africa and isolated areas in Asia-Pacific. However, these locations still maintained increased revenue streams at the broad regional level over both 2010 and 2009. Rates were upheld for the leisure channel overall, rising +2.5% over 2010 globally, and +4.3% in North America.

“The truth is we’re in a weak global economy, which has impacted the pace of the travel recovery,” said Mike Kistner, chief executive officer of Pegasus Solutions. “As the pace has slowed from the gains made in 2010 and the first part of 2011, leisure demand has still climbed against the odds. In fact, the reality of tighter capital markets and resulting restrained supply growth is ultimately beneficial for occupancy and rates.”

Corporate travel has been labeled the ‘muscle’ behind the travel recovery as October global distribution system (GDS) bookings grew by +4.0%, with North America sustaining an increase of +3.3% over prior year. Corporate travel rates also showed sturdy growth, as average daily rates (ADR) increased almost +3% over prior year globally. North America realized an increase of +4.0%, almost reaching the year-to-date growth pace of +4.6%.

Read more at: hotelmarketing.com

Cliff House Hotel celebrate their 8th week victory at the top of the table this week.

Download the list as a PDF here

Rank	Hotel	Location	Followers	TwitterGrade
1st	Cliff House Hotel	Co. Waterford	3,518	99.99
2nd	Travelodge Ireland	Nationwide	3,281	97.9
3rd	Gregans Castle	Co. Clare	3,151	97.9
4th	Ireland Blue Book	Nationwide	2,946	97.9
5th	Mount Juliet	Co. Kilkenny	2,607	97.9
6th	The D Hotel	Co. Louth	2,325	97.9
7th	Ballymaloe	Co.Cork	2,280	97.9
8th	Jurys Inns Hotels	Nationwide	2,098	97.9
9th	The Clarence Hotel	Co. Dublin	1,977	95.6
10th	Hayfield Manor Hotel	Co. Cork	1,886	97.3
11th	Claregalway Hotel	Co. Galway	1,852	96.3
12th	Carlton Hotel Group	Nationwide	1,830	96.3
13th	Four Seasons Dublin	Co. Dublin	1,821	97.3
14th	Dunbrody House Hotel	Co. Wexford	1,741	95.6
15th	Clarion Cork	Co. Cork	1,471	96.3
16th	Malmaison Belfast	Co. Antrim	1,471	96.3
17th	West Cork Hotel	Co. Cork	1,459	95.6
18th	Fota Island Resort	Co. Cork	1,419	95.6
19th	Culloden Estate	Co. Down	1,377	95.6
20th	Dylan Hotel	Co. Dublin	1,297	95.6
21st	The Merrion	Co. Dublin	1,284	96.3
22nd	The Morgan Hotel	Co. Dublin	1,214	95
23rd	Carton House	Co. Kildare	1,214	96.3
24th	Killarney Park	Co. Kerry	1,206	94
25th	Clontarf Castle	Co. Dublin	1,202	95.6
26th	Dunboyne Castle	Co. Meath	1,198	95.6
27th	Sheen Falls Lodge	Co.Kerry	1,145	95
28th	Ramada Hotel Belfast	Co. Down	1,113	93
29th	Celtic Ross Hotel	Rosscarbery, West Cork	1,078	94
30th	BrandonHotel	Co. Kerry	1,049	93

(List is correct as of 22^nd November 2011)

The data in this list differs slightly to that of our Facebook list and is ranked according to the hotel’s influence on the twitter verse.

We’ve used twitter.grader.com to rank each hotel on twitter. This clever little app considers many different factors including number of followers, number of followings and number of posts (among many others). This creates a score, enabling each twitter account to be ranked out of all the accounts that have been graded in the twitter network.

It basically gives you an idea of the impact each tweet has.

The grade is out of 100 and represents the percentage of accounts that have less of an impact than yours. For example, a Twitter Grade of 95 means tweets from your account has more of an impact than tweets from 95% of all other graded accounts on twitter. Pretty impressive hey?!

As with our Facebook list, we’ve done our best to recognise every contender for the list but a few are bound to have slipped through the net. If you think your hotel should be included on the list, please let us know by commenting below, remembering to include your “@” twitter account name.

The list is open to all hotels in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Be sure to check back each week to see if your hotel has made the list.

Google’s flight search offering is based on technology from ITA Software Inc. of Cambridge, which Google acquired in April for $700 million. Fearing Google would dominate the online travel industry, a number of travel websites formed a coalition in October to oppose Google’s acquisition of ITA. Federal antitrust officials approved the deal only after Google agreed to a number of restrictions aimed at preventing the giant search company from seizing total dominance of the online travel market.

Among the websites that opposed the ITA deal was Kayak.com, a Norwalk, Conn. company with a major software development facility in Concord. Yesterday, Kayak chief marketing officer Robert Birge said his company is well-positioned to fend off its newest competitor. “We know Google is a very prominent brand, but we also know they haven’t been successful in everything they’ve done,” Birge said. ”Right now, we’re very confident in our ability to compete.”

But Carroll Rheem, director of research at PhoCusWright Inc., a travel industry consulting firm in Sherman, Conn., said Google’s flight search service is a significant threat to Kayak and other rival flight booking services, like Expedia.com and Travelocity.com.“It’s the day all the online travel agencies have been dreading,” Rheem said.

Read More at The Boston Globe

The underlying trend driving location-based services (LBS) is smartphone adoption, says Rob Reed, founder and chief executive officer, MomentFeed, a location-based analytics and campaign management service specialist. Reed says, “They are quickly becoming our primary source for communications, information and entertainment in general but more specifically when we are traveling. This can be small trips locally as well as international destinations.”

Reeds added, “Of course, the smartphone is the hardware component. The application layer is where consumers are focusing all of their attention, and that’s the key. Our attention is increasingly being consumed by smartphone applications, which means it is not being directed elsewhere.”

“For travellers, this can mean Yelp, Foursquare, Google Maps, Facebook, Twitter, Gowalla, and others with location and/or social features. If the travel industry wants to meet consumers where they are, it has to participate and maintain a strong presence in these platforms because it’s growing fast. We’re at roughly 38 percent smartphone adoption in the US today, on our way to more than 50 percent by year end and global ubiquity by 2015,” explained Reed.

Read more at eyefortravel

“Learning, improving and the same time executing social media and mobile marketing campaigns plus achieving a desired RoI can be a laborious process,” says Gina Baillie, VP Global Marketing & Events, EyeforTravel as the London-based firm released its new Social Media and Mobile Strategies for the Travel Industry 2011 report.

“There are several case studies in this report and experts have discussed in detail where to spend time and resources and their efforts to assess RoI by creating metrics specific to their businesses and their customers,” shared Gina. Citing an example, she referred to a case study:

Social Media Case Study: Unless it’s making money, I’m not using it

Nearly 80% of respondents to the report survey revealed they do not see social media ROI as a purely financial measure. Many did however cite that they felt under pressure from their superiors to show ROI in terms of monetary value.

For Barbara Pezzi, Director of Analytics, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, social media is part of a customer service strategy that’s so important the company has created the position of a dedicated community manager. “It’s not all about RoI or making money,” she says. Pezzi’s role is to take volumes of data and translate it into practical advice throughout the chain.

Mobile

The convergence of two technological shifts – with the rise of the smartphone use and the meteoric popularity of social media – has created a seismic shift in consumer behaviour. Now, wielding their GPS-enabled phones, social media users are more comfortable than ever before in sharing information about their lives, and also expect instantaneous access to information and purchasing no matter where they are in the world.

According to the report, the majority of marketers say mobile is key to information search, and to a lesser extent, sales (32% of respondents have received direct bookings via mobile devices). While mobile users’ interaction with travel brands throughout their life cycle is analogous to that of social media users, mobile is clearly more important to users while they travel and pre-purchase.

Read on at eyefortravel

Created in partnership with Circos, Compete and Travelport, PhoCusWright’s Social Media in Travel 2011: Traffic, Activity and Sentiment finds that average monthly unique visitors to social travel category websites – travel review sites, traveler review pages of online travel agencies and travel blogs – grew more than 35% from 2008 to 2010. And Facebook’s reach in online travel appears to be gaining as well; the social network referred more than 15.2 million visitors to hotel websites in 2010, a 35% increase from 2009, and a 428% jump from 2008.

“Social media and social content are no longer a trend in online travel. They are pervasive and essential components of the traveler search-shop-buy process,” says Douglas Quinby, senior director, research at PhoCusWright. “Travel companies now operate in a landscape where everybody has something to say, and ample means to say it. Their customers are sharing their experiences, airing grievances and inspiring friends.”

Read more at PhoCusWright

Even at the initial announcement of the acquisition last year, Google has made it clear that it will use ITA’s data to create new flight search tools (while also promising to honor its existing agreements with partners). The launch of these tools may be just around the corner. We’ve been able to gather a few details on what Google could be unveiling.

One feature that we’ve heard is in development is a map-based search tool that will show flight prices from destinations. Travelers will be able to choose filters of where they want to fly, and price range and will be able to access these results on a map interface. It’s similar to Kayak’s Explore feature.

Read more of this article at TechCrunch

Online travel planning is far from simple. Today’s travel shopper conducts multiple searches, reads online reviews, browses destination information, discusses plans on social sites with friends and colleagues, and compares hotels, rooms and rates across multiple websites. How else can they be sure to find the right room at the right price?

Given this, no contemporary marketer ignores the vast array of online channels in his or her marketing plans. And most create those plans by envisioning the traditional purchase funnel: the model that suggests consumers’ progress from awareness, through interest and desire to their purchase action.

While this funnel provides a convenient metaphor, it may mislead marketers into believing only one purchase path exists. However, no one follows the same neat, orderly progression from “I think I’ll take a trip” straight through to “Here’s my credit card,” down the same path, funnel-shaped or otherwise.

Read more of this article at HotelMarketing

According to 11th Ipsos – Europ Assistance holiday barometer, the British are still the most technophile: 71 percent of them reserve their holidays using this channel.

As for Smartphones, their use is clearly progressing: 1 European out of 4 claims to own one.

While 57 percent claim to use it less on holiday than during the rest of the year, a sign of the desire to “disconnect”, the device can find a new purpose during the holidays.

Hence, one third of Europeans (34 percent) would find it useful to have access to practical information for the organisation of their stay, and more than half of them (52 percent) would find it helpful to be able to consult a list of useful numbers during their trip, 42 percent a conversation guide, and 34 percent a telephone platform facilitating their stay.

Evolving behaviour

Despite the crisis, Europeans are keeping their holidays, although adopting new types of behaviour.

Europeans are not giving up on their holidays. But they are adapting to the situation by leaving for a shorter period and several times over. Two-week stays are still favoured (39 percent of Europeans will leave for a fortnight) but their proportion is diminishing. In France and the UK, only one-week stays are on the rise in 2011.

Read more of this story at Eye For Travel.ie