Hot on the heels of my Winning Airline Twitter Strategies post is a story hot off the Twitter feed.
Hot on the heels of my Winning Airline Twitter Strategies post is a story hot off the Twitter feed.
There seems to be two very distinct types of airlines using Twitter - those who "get it" and those who don't.
Dear Airport Authority, TSA, and/or Agencies responsible for security,
As a member of the traveling public who, over the years, has adjusted my habits in order to streamline the airport security experience not only for myself but for fellow passengers, I want it to be known that I will be adjusting my habits again to take in account the use of full body scanners.
Not only will I be wearing pants that don't require a belt and slip on shoes, and sorting all my personals into plastic baggies for easy screening, now I will be checking in my carry-on luggage which, for so many years, has been the only luggage I have had to bring on any trip up to a week in length.
PhoCusWright announced today that it would be undertaking a special report called "When They Get There (And Why They Go): In-Destination Events, Attractions & Activities".
To my knowledge, this is the first research report of it's kind focusing on the tour & activities market.
For the most part, industry research has been targeted at the mainstream segments of the travel industry including air, hotel, car rental, and most recently vacation rentals.
In recent months there has been plenty of discussion about some of the opportunities that DMOs have when it comes to the mobile space.
I also discussed how destinations have the leg up when it comes to aggregating local and regional content.
It would seem that some DMOs are actually making some positive steps towards embracing and potentially leveraging the mobile space to market their destinations more effectively.
It dawned on me recently that like so many other Google apps, Wave has the potential to disrupt the crowded trip planning site arena.
It occurred to me that the tool would be particularly useful if I were planning a trip with a group of people.
Here is how I imagine it would work:
I have to admit that I was pretty much underwhelmed by most of the innovations at this year's Travel Innovation Summit at the PhoCusWright Conference.
Although I have written about a couple of innovations that I really like, there is one innovation that seemed to get very little attention during the tcamp and post summit discussion is SpeedRFP.
In a nutshell, here is why I like what SpeedRFP has done.
It would seem that least a couple of the innovations in this year's list of thirty-four innovators presenting at PhoCusWright's second Travel Innovation Summit have some application to long tail travel companies.
For me, this is an important indication that perhaps the industry in general is starting to pay some attention to this important, yet highly under appreciated segment of the travel landscape.
The two innovators are Goby and TourAbout. Let's take a quick look at why I think these two could really add value to small tourism companies.
Not to be outdone, the PhoCusWright Conference has released its iPhone app available for download now through the App Store.
The PhoCusWright iPhone app was developed by Quickmobile, a firm based in Vancouver, BC who specializes in the development of mobile applications.
I have known the CEO, Patrick Payne, for a few years and we have had the opportunity to meet at a number of travel industry conferences during that time.
According to Merriam Webster, the definition of fear is: “An unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger.” Or: “A reason for alarm”.
There is a very marked and prevalent fear of social media in individuals and organizations who have yet to adopt social media in their businesses.
And I doubt that many would actually admit to having such a fear.
Both Tim Hughes and Norm Rose have recently written about the emergence of mobile as an emerging distribution channel for travel (check previous Tnooz post Augmented Reality, mobile, search and (maybe) getting it wrong).
I completely agree, but from a very different context.
While the big players like Expedia and Air Canada are jumping on and creating iPhone and Blackberry applications to sell last minute hotels and speed up check-ins, I think the real opportunity exists for destinations and local in-market attractions and tours.