Previously available via its mobile apps, the launch of this feature as a section on the Foursquare website shows the company is making a serious push into local search on the web.

But more than that, the company may have finally nailed the “holy grail” many travel planning startups have been yearning for: utilizing your friends’ behaviors and preferences to recommend things for you to do.

How it works

Let’s take a brief look at how the feature works. Upon loading, you’re presented with a simple dialog asking what you’re looking for:

Note the options in the bottom right. In addition to being able to simply explore new places you haven’t been to yet, you’re also able to easily search for places your friends have been to.

Here’s a quick example of a search for coffee shops in London:

You’re quickly shown a map with places your friends have visited, how often they’ve been there, and what they’ve had to say about them. Of course, this feature exists on countless other travel planning sites.

But Foursquare has a secret weapon that no other travel startup can come even close to matching: Over 1.5 billion checkins worldwide, a truly massive amount of data on past consumer behavior. Each of these checkins has tracked:

• Where the user is
• The time of day the user checked in
• Whether they’re with a friend
• Any comments the user has left via Foursquare’s “Tips” feature
• Any photos the user chose to attach

Utilizing big data technology, Foursquare has been able to analyze this data on an aggregate level and extract value from it by determining a plethora of useful patterns such as:

• What places my friends like going to at specific times of the day, eg: “Your friends prefer these lunch spots”.
• Where my friends like to stay, eg: “Your friends stay at these hotels when visiting New York”.
• What my friends like to do, eg: “Your friends love doing the Eiffel Tower tour when in Paris”.

What’s different about Foursquare’s effort is that unlike most travel planning sites, Foursquare hasn’t had to ask users to recommend things post-facto or bribe them into having to manually enter this data — this data was shared in real-time, giving it authenticity and lacking the sort of bias towards popularity frequently seen on other sites.

But Foursquare hasn’t stopped at just allowing you to search for places: Explore also now searches the massive amount of data contained in Tips and Reviews left by users, enabling a user to free text search for places and recommendations such as “chic boutique hotel” and really dig into what users think about particular places.

The power of this is perhaps best demonstrated when combined with the ability to follow brands on Foursquare.

Imagine you follow The Travel Channel on Foursquare – now, when searching Explore for places to eat, you might find places with recommendations left by popular Travel Channel personalities such as Anthony Bourdain.

Enabling users to easily find things they’ve previously expressed interest in is another important feature of Explore.

Utilizing the “Save for later” feature, a user can easily bookmark spots in a city they wish to visit in the future.

When visiting that city, Explore would allow the user to easily find spots they’ve bookmarked. This is in addition to Foursquare’s Radar feature, which can automatically alert you when you’re near a place you’ve saved.

Why planning startups should worry

It’s easy to dismiss Foursquare’s efforts as yet another attempt at a problem countless other startups have failed at.

But Foursquare has what many travel startups don’t, including over 15 million registered users, approximately half a billion checkins in the last six months alone, and buy-in from some of the world’s largest brands including a recent deal with American Express. In a word, traction.

But beyond traction, Foursquare’s massive data trove will be hard for most startups to catch up with.

By demonstrating true value to users (such as the recent American Express Small Biz Saturday which saw users who linked their card receive a $25 statement credit), the company will likely continue to accelerate its adoption and usage rates.

This will give it an even bigger trove of data with which to work with and launch new features.

And finally, Foursquare has one of the best startup teams out there. Its discipline in growing the company from a simple location-based game to where they are today shows incredible depth and vision.

But…

Foursquare hasn’t won yet. There are of course other companies with even more data making efforts in the local space, including the recent launch of Google’s Schemer.

Facebook can’t be ignored in this space either, tracking the location of its users everytime their mobile apps is launched. The fact that only 5% of US adults use location-based apps can’t be ignored either.

Will 2012 be the year that this changes? We’ll see.

One thing is for sure: By moving Foursquare Explore to the web, Foursquare has a serious contender in the battle for the travel planning crown.

It’ll be interesting to see how other startups respond.

Who and what are you (including personnel and backgrounds)?

Tripbirds is a travel startup in Stockholm, Sweden. We currently have seven people on the team.

My name is Ted Valentin, and I’m one of three co-founders. Prior to Tripbirds I built a network of user generated review sites in Sweden where visitors can rate restaurants, hotels, cafés and more.

What financial support did you have to launch the business?

I cannot comment at the moment.

What problem are you trying to solve?

The main problem is it’s hard to trust existing reviews sites, like Tripadvisor. Old-school review sites attract a lot of fake reviews, and there are even companies helping venue owners with “review optimization” on Tripadvisor.

For users, it’s hard to know which reviews you can trust. The solution is turning to your friends for trip related advice, just like people do in the offline world.

Describe the business, core products and services?

You use Tripbirds to get travel recommendations from friends. If you’re going to Barcelona, for example, you can see which of your friends have been there, which friends live there, and much more.

We collect data about your friends from Facebook, Foursquare, Gowalla and Instagram. The service hasn’t launched yet, but you can sign up for the private beta. When you do, we give you some quite advanced statistics about your friends trips.

Who are your key customers and users at launch?

Since Tripbirds is built on top of checkins from other services, it helps if you understand the concept of checkins. If you a lot of friends that travel, that’s another big bonus.

Did you have customers validate your idea before investors?

We’re doing user testing as we go along. It’s obviously a continous process.

What is the business AND revenue model, strategy for profitability?

The business is built on some straightforward and proven revenue models in the travel space, where we have experience from previous sites.

SWOT analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?

Strengths:

• We have a great, very technical, team.

Weaknesses:

• We’re quite reliant on Facebook, and people’s trust in Facebook.

Opportunities:

• Travel is one of the biggest markets on the internet. I also think the timing for this is quite right.

Threats:

• As you all know there are many new entrants in the social travel space. The biggest threat is probably some awesome startup that hasn’t launched yet.

Who advised you your idea isn’t going to be successful and why didn’t you listen to them?

We have pitched to some people who are not active on Facebook, and they don’t always get it.

One big challenge for us is creating a service that mostly anybody can use, not only tech-savvy people with lots of traveling friends.

What is your success metric 12 months from now?

We’re aiming for a million users. There are social sites and apps have have reached a million users in a very short time in many different areas; jobs, deals, gifts, games, photos etc.

By piggybacking on existing social sites like Facebook, growth can happen quickly. But it still hasn’t happened in travel. It will, though.

NB: TLabs Showcase is part of the wider TLabs project from Tnooz.

The likes of Blumberg Capital and Dave McClure of 500 Startups are part of a group also that also includes Lewis Cheng, Mac Harman, Priyavrat Bhartia, Sandeep Bapna, Aldo Monteforte and Alvaro Gutierrez that have now invested in the company.

The trip planning company, now two years old, says it plans to use the investment round to “expand our global footprint of guides and build out the product”.

MyGola, the brainchild of ex-Googler Anshuman Bapna, is different from many of the trip planning sites hitting the web over the past 18 months or so, being a travel planning service that connects human guides with users, who then do all the online research for a trip.

The Mygola twist is that the answers come not from the so-called crowd or a user generated content-based exchange of ideas with other contributors but from paid staff of guides who research the question and provide and answer.

The first few answers are free, after that there are annual and trip-based pricing plans.

Bapna says the company has built a technology platform that “aggregates the entire travel web and auto-categorizes it – deals, events, hotels, sublets, even tips from locals on Foursquare and your friends who’ve recently been there”.

Other investments from Blumberg include Carwoo and Appboy, while McClure can name SlideShare and Bit.ly on the roster at 500 Startups.

The new product comes through a United-Continental partnership with TopGuest, which just got acquired by ezRez Software. The airlines implemented TopGuest’s white-label SaaS social commerce product, although it won’t be noticeable to mileage buffs as they check-in.

To get the perks, travelers visit MileagePlus.TopGuest or OnePass.TopGuest to register their frequent flyer accounts, link them with Foursquare or Facebook, and then use these social networks to check-in at Continental or United airports in the US.

Travelers will then receive notifications in their email inboxes about receiving the awards miles plus restaurant, merchant and rental car offers from Avis and Hertz, and others. The airline merchandising offers come through a partnership with Thanks Again.

United-Continental and TopGuest note that participating partners include hundreds of merchants at Denver, Houston-Bush Intercontinental, Newark Liberty and San Francisco Airports, as well as some 10,000 restaurants involved in the MileagePlus Dining program.

Obtaining 50 awards miles won’t get you from Baltimore to Beijing, but every little bit helps.

There are a ton of airports where your check-ins will count.

Travelers using the service can accrue 50 award miles once daily and it will take six to eight weeks before they post to OnePass and MileagePlus accounts, the airlines say.

Here are other terms and conditions.

United’s MileagePlus program has worked with ezRez Software for an extended period and, with the merger of United and Continental, the latter is newly affiliated.

Note: Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

Publishers, which would post a Save to foursquare button on their sites, include Eater, TimeOut New York, TimeOut Chicago, Frommer’s, The New York Times and CBS News.

A foursquare spokesperson declined to confirm any pending announcements “at this time.”

Here’s more about the service.

When consumers read about a Portland, Oregon, restaurant they like on Eater or a museum in Paris on Frommer’s, they can click a Save to foursquare button on the websites or using their iPhones, and then the content gets saved for a rainy day in their foursquare accounts.

Six months later, if they happen by these establishments, they get alerted by foursquare about the saved content or if using a foursquare Radar app for iPhone with iOS 5, foursquare will buzz consumers and they can refer back to the content they saved on the publishers’ websites.

So foursquare’s location-based services and checkins are deepening their ties with destination content providers, offering a richer and more immediate experience.

UPDATE: foursquare used its blog to make the announcement about the Saved to foursquare button.

Trippy launched just two months ago, bootstrapped initially, by J R Johnson, former founder of VirtualTourist (later sold to Expedia) and OneTime.

Also participating in the round is SV Angel as well as individuals including Rob Solomon, Tim Ferriss, Brian Lee, Gil Ebaz, Brandee Barker, Chase Jarvis, Randi Zuckerberg, Jason Mraz, and Rachel Zoe.

Johnson says the investment will be used primarily to build the product development end of the business.

Trippy ties into social sites such as Facebook to find a user’s friends who know about where they might be travelling to and who already know your personal details.

The idea is that tapping into the travel experiences of a user’s friends is a more valuable than getting unverified information from random strangers.

Who and what are you (including personnel and backgrounds)?

I am J R Johnson, founder and CEO of Trippy.com as well as three other consumer web startups. My first two travel sites, VirtualTourist and OneTime, were both bootstrapped and ultimately acquired by Expedia in 2008.

I launched Trippy to change the way people travel. Trippy is the first website that allows your friends to plan your trip, helping you travel better.

What financial support did you have to launch the business?

So far, Trippy is self-funded. This is my fourth bootstrapped company, for which we have yet to take any professional investment.

What problem are you trying to solve?

There are hundreds of travel sites made for YOU to plan your trip. This doesn’t really make much sense, considering you’re probably not an expert on places you’re visiting, especially if you’ve never been before.

Trippy is the first web and mobile app that allows your friends to plan your trip, helping you travel better.

Trippy is solving the long-standing problem of untrustworthy and irrelevant travel content. It is a “friend-sourced” solution that avoids the pitfalls of crowd-sourced travel advice – which usually comes from strangers (particularly as paid reviews and questionable content sources have become so ubiquitous).

Travellers want tips from people they trust and who know their interests and needs the best — their friends and family.

Your friends already know your personal details — like if you’re vegan, traveling with kids, or love craft beer — so any recommendation they give is relevant and more valuable.

The travel space today requires a lot of work, and it’s just not fun. This is travel we’re talking about – it should be fun! Creating a truly social experience makes the whole process more efficient (by tapping our social graph) and more fun.

To us, that means creating a product that is social-engineered from its core.

Describe the business, core products and services?

Trippy ties into social sites like Facebook to find your friends who know about where you’re traveling to (those who have checked in, live, work, or go to school there) and who already know your personal details (because they’re your friends!).

The idea is that tapping into the travel experiences of your friends is a whole lot more valuable than getting questionable info from random strangers.

Easy one-click recommendations and Facebook-style comments let friends say what hotels, restaurants and things to do would be perfect for you.

We have an easy auto-complete tool that quickly pulls up whatever your friends are looking to recommend from a whole database of locations. You can also add places you’re already considering so friends can chime in with feedback.

In Trippy’s social setting, friends spur each other on to remember more helpful advice, extra details and insider tips.

Trippy’s mobile app lets friends travel with you by seeing your pictures in real time as you follow their recommendations on your itinerary and share back photos and comments. We’ve also made it easy to copy trips you’d like to take or use as a jump-start to plan your own.

You might have a specific trip in mind, or maybe you’re just dreaming of a “someday” destination. You can use Trippy to keep track of all the trips you’re thinking about.

Along the way, we hope we can spread a little something we like to call “helper joy.” It’s that happy kick you get when a friend has a great experience thanks to advice you shared. It’s just human nature. We want our friends have as great of a time as we’ve had.

You get helpful suggestions to make your trip great, and your friends get to relive their favorite travel moments and share their passion for places they know and love.

Who are your key customers and users at launch?

People who travel, whether for work or pleasure. Anyone can share recommendations for a friend’s trip, whether they’re a Facebook friend or part of your other social networks like LinkedIn, Twitter, Foursquare, Foodspotting, etc.

Did you have customers validate your idea before investors?

This has happened pretty simultaneously, so far. We did user testing from the time the concept was created, while also getting feedback from professional investors and some really all-star advisors (to be announced soon).

We also tapped into over ten years of deep experience we’ve acquired while building online travel communities and social media tools.

What is the business AND revenue model, strategy for profitability?

The business model is based on proven revenue streams in the travel space, through affiliate programs and advertising.

SWOT analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?

Strengths:

• Team/experience/product

Weakness:

• We’re fast and sometimes we break things

Opportunities:

• Huge market and time is right

Threats:

• If people quit traveling or stop talking travel with friends.

Who advised you your idea isn’t going to be successful and why didn’t you listen to them?

It’s interesting. People who are really attached to the crowd-sourced model have a tendency to focus on re-building various takes on traditional travel communities.

Having created and grown both traditional travel communities and more social platforms, we’re able to see that people overwhelmingly prefer advice from friends over strangers. This has really driven our focus on a friend-sourced solution.

What is your success metric 12 months from now?

Trippy is social-engineered and works best with friends. Our tracking is focused on optimizing the social interaction of each traveler and the subsequent helpers they bring in to participate (who then become travelers themselves, starting new trips).

Here is a clip:

NB: TLabs Showcase is part of the wider TLabs project from Tnooz.

A study released in the UK this week illustrates just how far the tentacles of social media are reaching across ages and areas of the country, as well as showing what users are doing.

Produced by social media agency Umpf by way of a study of almost 2,500 adults across the UK, apparently more than half of UK pensioners (over-65s) have a Facebook profile.

While the figure is significantly less than the 95% with profiles for those between 18 and 25 years old, marketing and the potential to engage with those with arguably a higher disposable income should be a wake-up call to travel brands across the spectrum.

Overall, three quarters of the adult population in the UK have a Facebook profile, while a third claim to use Twitter regularly.

What other nuggets have emerged from the study?

• Location-based platforms such as FourSquare are used by 15% of UK adults.
• Around 15% also have Linkedin and Flickr accounts.
• Twice as many men than women have an active LinkedIn profile.
• Almost a third of men check their LinkedIn profile at least once a day, as opposed to 14% of women.
• Four in five woman have a Facebook profile compared to 72% of men.
• Two-thirds of over-65s regularly view YouTube videos.
• South West of England (mostly rural and small towns, only major cities Bristol and Bath) has highest percentage of Facebook and Twitter users.
• Northern Ireland has the highest percentage of YouTube viewers.

Here are results in full:

Facebook launched its assault on the burgeoning Deals marketplace in November 2010, a move which may have stopped even Groupon, LivingSocial and the coupon friends in their tracks briefly, as well as the likes of Foursquare and other location-based services moving into deals sector.

Unveiled initially in a few markets in the US, Facebook Deals was then extended to users in France, UK, Germany, Canada, Italy and Spain in January this year.

Similar to the deals on the likes of Foursquare, users would be given exclusive offers at various locations as and when they checked-in using Facebook Places.

Facebook initially worked with a handful of local companies dotted around the US, but then extended to take deals from tour and activity marketplaces such as Zozi.

Almost ten months on, Facebook decided last week to end the Deals project, explaining in a statement to Reuters:

“We think there is a lot of power in a social approach to driving people into local businesses. We’ve learned a lot from our test and we’ll continue to evaluate how to best serve local businesses.”

So there will be a relatively large sigh of relief at Groupon and others that Facebook has exited from the party (leaving just, err, Google as the other potential elephant in the room).

But while the decision to end the project so quickly will perhaps surprise many, perhaps it says more about the deals marketplace rather than Facebook.

Barriers to entry do appear to be quite low (thus the abundance of sites emerging almost on a monthly basis), but it is the longevity of the model, or supporting it with resources, which is perhaps testing even the likes of Facebook.

Huh?

Would this be like Expedia integrating Priceline?

Not exactly.

In addition to its itinerary management service, Traxo recently launched the Traxo Travel Score, which enables travelers to win perks based on the extent of their past trips.

So Andres Fabris, Traxo cofounder and CEO, says the company tapped into the TripIt API to access data about Traxo users’ past trips recorded by TripIt to ensure they get proper credit to build their Traxo travel scores.

Fabris says Traxo users requested that Traxo access their TripIt data to boost their scores.

Traxo also integrated Foursquare and Gowalla to help build Traxo users’ travel scores, Fabris says.

He says Traxo plans on accessing TripIt, Foursquare and Gowalla data about Traxo users’ past trips and then periodically will get select refreshes to help ensure that Traxo users’ roster of trips are kept as current as possible.

Fabris notes that it is advantageous for Traxo to tap into data from competitor TripIt, which Traxo referred to as a “leading trip information provider” in an email to customers, because TripIt has a “long tail of providers,” touching travel segments such as cruise, rail and boutique hotels, which Traxo doesn’t cover.

TripIt has a much larger footprint with supppliers than Traxo, Fabris concedes.

Traxo and TripIt have somewhat different ways of gathering users’ trip information to build their itineraries.

TripIt users often email their confirmations to TripIt and Traxo scrapes users’ accounts on supplier sites to gather the data.

Fabris doesn’t express any acute concern about Traxo mining data from its much larger rival, TripIt, which has 3 million customers and is growing.

Fabris paints Traxo as more leisure- and social-oriented than TripIt or, as he puts it, an iPhone to TripIt’s more business-travel-oriented Blackberry.

TripIt, of course, has iPhone and iPad apps, 1 million mobile customers (not all of whom are on Blackberrys) and might disagree with Fabris’s assessment of the two companies’ differentiation.

Another aspect of the TripIt, Gowalla and Foursquare integration is that Traxo users will be getting a much richer accounting of their past itineraries as they now will be filled in with check-ins at restaurants and activities etc.

Calling this aspect of Traxo’s service “unique,” Fabris says the integration means Traxo users’ itineraries will includes flights, hotel stays, car rentals, cruises, and rail excursions, as well as check-ins.

All is possible when a competitor integrates a competitor”s magical API.

The partnership comes as FourSquare extends its existing Specials programme to include deals from a range of partners, essentially deep discounts on specific products.

Zozi joins LivingSocial and three other companies working with FourSquare on the scheme.

The tour and activity deal platform will provide products to FourSquare users as they arrive in a particular location, using the Explore tab within the mobile version of the service.

The social element is kicking in, too. Suggestions for products will be streamed automatically to the handset, but also based on whether a FourSquare contact has also used a product.

Most importantly, users will be able to buy the deal direct from the app or from the main website.

Zozi CEO and founder TJ Sassani says:

“FourSquare has one of the most rapidly growing user bases on the web, and when you add that to their vision and ability to target Zozi experiences in a highly relevant and timely manner, it makes them the perfect addition to the Zozi partner family.”

So we thought it was time to go back to basics, with ten simple and relatively easy to implement tips on how to apply such techniques to the hotel industry – ideas that each hotelier can do every day and, hopefully, bring about some immediate return.

We put these together from our daily hands-on experience performing internet marketing for our own hotels.

1. Get a blog

Simple. Hoteliers can use a blog platform to post information on activities, attractions, dining, shopping, nightlife in the local area.

It allows a hotel to provide guests with suggestion on what else there is to do. Moreover it is a constant source of content that you can use to spread on other social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

2. Be proactive

Manage your online reputation, by inviting guests to post reviews on TripAdvisor, Yelp and other review websites. Make sure you also respond to all reviews and that you manage your profile on these sites (description, pictures, contact info).

3. Ask guests to get involved

Invite guests to join your Facebook page (upload their emails), and ask them to post pictures of the hotel and their trip. Panoramia is also a great site to have guests post pictures, as it is also linked to Google Earth and Google Maps.

4. Be neighbourly

Link local companies and attractions in your Twitter and FaceBook posts by using “@” and their profile name. It will jump start your interaction online and grow your sphere of influence.

5. Competitions

Prizes to get the job done. An incentive gets people moving. Give a free weekend in return for the best guest picture of the month …

6. Check out check-ins

Local check-in site like FourSquare or Gowalla can help you gain exposure and promote your food and beverage outlets.

Give a welcome cocktail when checking in online if staying at the hotel. Or a free upgrade based on availability (one per day, of course ), or a complimentary late check-out.

7. Take One!

Find interesting and funny videos of your destination and add them to your YouTube Channel to create a sort of video tour guide. Compliment the “producer” and let them know you put it on your official channel.

8. Recycling

Repurpose relevant content across your social networks. Your positive reviews should be posted on Twitter and Facebook, as well as your blog articles. Gather all your guest pics from Picasa, Flickr and Panoramia into one album on Facebook.

9. Youthful

Get a young, internet savvy person on your team to work on social media. They are fast in picking this stuff and copying best practices from others. He or she will be more personal in speaking to your guests. This is very important.

10. Show your fun side

Be funny and original. A sense of humor works better then a formal and conventional approach. What is the last thing you really clicked on or read on Facebook? I am sure it was funny or original… it’s what works.

Conclusion

These simple steps will help you grow your fan base and create interaction with your guests. Engagement is not easy online, but these tips and best practices should help your hotel’s social media marketing strategy.

NB: More tips about social media marketing here.

Social travel sites appear to launch every day – some get acquired by Google, some are mobile efforts in Asia, others are just riding the crest of the white hot social travel wave.

So, we hear about them every day – but what actually is a social travel website?

Frankly, I wish there was a better definition of what is a social travel website. There are so many applications out there under the banner of “social travel”, which can ultimately be confusing for users, partners, media etc.

Even I am confused, but is it just me? I think not. Let’s look at what a “social travel” website might mean? Frankly, what’s not “social travel”?

I think, however, there is a huge difference in between travel websites that are “social” and “social travel” websites. There’s a difference in utilizing social media in a good way, and in making travel it more social.

For example: a hotel review site with Facebook integration (a wall, Likes, comments etc), is not making the actual travel more social. And the same goes for a photo-sharing site.

Those sites are just using social tools, to enhance a better communication, and sharing functions. Thus, they do not link people in a social way. That’s what Facebook is doing, that’s what LinkedIn is doing and that’s what a social travel website should do as well.

For me, a social travel website is focusing on connecting travellers from around the world, no matter which application they are using.

Even if I am a Facebook user, I would still like to integrate with people who are using the Chinese Renren.com, or with people from a professional network like LinkedIn.

Our human curiosity encourages us to meet new people with different cultures, experiences and backgrounds. It’s about transforming a virtual relationship into a real life relationship, and vice versa.

It’s about using your network to get in contact with friends, or even friends’ of friends, abroad. To get in contact with locals before you get there and to make the world smaller thanks to the social travel connections that can be established on the web.

A social travel website should be social in a way that the word “social” is defined. A huge, if not the most important part of the travel experience is the social part I would say.

It is what we remember and what we think of when looking back on a previous trip – it is the great people we meet, and not the old monument that we already have seen twenty times on pictures before going.

Anyway, the future of social travel is yet to be defined, but we must concede that there is a huge difference between a social travel website and a travel website that is social.

My definition of a social travel website is that it should:

• Link travelers, locals and friends’ of friends from around the world
• Recommend people and places based on your social graphs
• Leverage the power of social purchases
• Make the world feel like a smaller place
• Have a social and global focus through the entire site

Any more?

NB: This is a guest article by David Los, co-founder of Tripl.com.

The two sites, targeting travellers in the Netherlands and Spain, were closed yesterday following a “business review” by TUI. First opened in September 2009 in Holland, Cheqqer then launched in Spain in June 2010 and was expected to see a wider European roll-out over time.

TUI says all of the two million reviews added to Cheqqer in the intervening period have been integrated into a single database and can be used across any of its raft of websites, as well as with the operator’s website that originally had the customer.

“The vast majority of the reviews by far are ‘trusted’ reviews which have been gathered through the ECRM ‘welcome home’ email programme from our customers,” says its managing director Sandra Leonhard.

Leonhard says the Cheqqer project (and its associated technology) has helped customer review collection across the vast majority of the company’s websites, especially in Holland where two of its operator brands, Arke and Kras, have reported an increase in online conversion rates of 100% when reviews via Cheqqer were added.

The fate of the Cheqqer iPhone application, which launched just two months ago in a bid to place its reviews on-the-move but with the beginnings of a FourSquare-style check-in service, is clearer and is expected to remain as a service in its own right for the immediate future.

Recently TUI also finally added TripAdvisor reviews to its First Choice tour operator website, three years after originally announcing plans to do so.

Through The Ritz-Carlton’s new World Concierge on Foursquare service, you can view a steady stream of tips if you follow The Ritz-Carlton on the location-based service, or you can access the promised hidden gems and city secrets by checking into various global landmarks via Foursquare, the hotel says.

“Until recently our concierges have been unable to travel with you, but now with the help of Foursquare it’s possible to access their insight directly. On your phone,” The Ritz-Carlton’s Foursquare profile states. “Follow their advice, it’ll take you to some extraordinary places.”

Concierges from 75 Ritz-Carlton hotels around the world will be offering their advice, the upscale hotel chain says, adding “this is the first time a luxury hotel brand has extended their exclusive services to a mobile public audience.”

For example, the hotel’s World Concierge service notes that Soho Rooms, a nightclub in Moscow, is the “hottest nightclub” in the city, and that the “open terrace swimming pool has one of the city’s best views of the Moscow River.”

And, people considering a Moscow visit can also read the comments that other Foursquare users  make about The Ritz-Carlton’s advice.

For instance, Alex L. chimes in about Soho Rooms: “Great Place. Thursday night is a good night. Pool during the summer on the top floor could be difficult to get in without club card.”

Some of the tips are purely informational and lacking in insider advice.

For example, of the Shanghai IFC Mall, The Ritz-Carlton offers: “The statistics are staggering: more than 180 premium brands and more than 110,000 square metres of store space across three floors, this is Shanghai’s latest landmark to luxury retail.”

The Ritz-Carlton says consumers can also view featured tips on The Ritz-Carlton’s Facebook page and Twitter account.

Some hotel chains, especially of the luxury variety, have been reluctant to get involved with social media.

The Ritz-Carlton’s engagement with Foursquare is another indication that involvement in social media has become an imperative.

As social media and smartphones continue to dominate the landscape and people become more addicted to “checking in” and updating their status, the hospitality industry must continue to leverage these tools.

Audiences are spending greater portions of time on these platforms throughout the day, making it imperative that we look for ways to develop budget-friendly campaigns and marketing concepts that integrate social media with mobile communication tools.

Based on my experience in creating social media and mobile marketing campaigns aimed at growing traffic and awareness within our resorts and food and beverage outlets, I offer the following thoughts on location-based marketing tactics:

1. Understand your options.

As you well know, Facebook and Twitter are affordable and easy-to-use tools that provide quick, direct access to those who are already fans of your brand.

Similarly, Foursquare has also quickly become a mobile phenomenon as smartphone users check in and monitor where their friends have checked in.

While these are some of the more well-known tools, there are many more available, such as Yelp and Google Places that are equally effective.

2. Employ the right tactics.

With little to no budget, we have leveraged social media to grow our online engagement, resulting in better turnout at meet-ups and events and successful promotions.

This success was encouraged by the use of the right tactics. Below you’ll find samples of winning tactics that have grown our social media following:

• Finding potential Twitter followers for our local competitions and following them, with an auto-reply coupon or giveaway when they follow us back.
• Creating meet-up events (Meetup.com) for weekly promotions at participating properties.
• Developing a contest tab on the Facebook page to host challenges including one to see who takes his / her picture at the most participating locations within a certain time frame.
• Posting local trivia contests within the Facebook promotion page related to a featured property or sponsors for a weekly incentive giveaway.
• Developing geo-specific, interest-filtered Facebook pay-per-click advertising to direct target audiences to pages for a featured property.
• Encouraging discounts during promotions at properties for checking in via Foursquare, Twitter, Yelp, Google Places, TripAdvisor and Facebook Places.
• Texting localized notices of events and incentives to opted-in fans.
• Encouraging ratings and reviews on Yelp, Google Places and TripAdvisor during event participation via Foursquare, Twitter and text.
• Developing content for Facebook and Twitter that offers continuity for audiences and efficiency for staff.
• Creating weekly Foursquare specials and promotions with a heavy reward for first check-ins for all participating properties.

Finally, while social media by nature is about instant communication, it’s important to remember to start campaign messaging and engagement well in advance.

You want to give yourself time to solicit follower participation, incorporate key messages on all participating sites, and encourage a feeling of adopted ownership from those who contribute.

Quick Response (QR) Codes are also helping us through collateral, including table tents, menu inserts, signage and plastic cups, to drive additional traffic to our sites for recipes, promotions and giveaways.

Incentives are offered to all staff to help solicit guests to participate using the QR codes to sign up via text messaging for insights to other local events, thereby creating a reusable geo-specific database, as well as additional access to “follower only” promotional collateral and giveaways.

This gives the opportunity to tap Twitter followers to begin pre-party tweet-ups and give incentives to the next promotion.

Monitoring success

Location and mobile-based marketing are, first and foremost, about inspiring dialog, creating advocates and awareness, and contributing to existing conversations on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare.

These are not sales campaigns, and as such, should not be measured by ROI. While each brand must identify its own metrics for success, here are some recommendations for each platform:

• Facebook: Increased followers, contest participants, comments or posts; increased number of ‘likes’ by followers; local sponsor solicitations
• Twitter: Increased followers; increased interaction through re-tweets and mentions
• Foursquare: Increased followers and check ins
• Texting: Number of acquired opt-ins for texts and conversion of contacts to traditional email contacts
• Google Places, Yelp, TripAdvisor: Amount of additional reviews and tone of those reviews

NB: This is a guest article by Loren Gray of the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI) digital marketing board and director of ecommerce at Ocean Properties.

From now through July 31, Starwood Preferred Guest members with confirmed reservations can check in via foursquare from their mobile devices at more than 1,000 hotels in nearly 100 countries and receive 250 bonus Starpoints.

In a promotion running through May 31, each check-in qualifies guests for a chance to win a free resort night, which is hidden daily throughout some of the participating hotels. And through July 31, the check-ins will make rewards program members eligible to win a five-night resort stay with airfare.

And, of course, foursquare check-in are nothing without mayorships. So every month under this new Starwood program, the loyalty program member with the most check-ins across all of the properties will be designated the Starwood Preferred Guest Mayor and be the recipient of “special SPG perks,” Starwood says.

The new program affords local properties the ability “to engage with guests and reward SPG members for their geo-social behavior, leveraging Starpoints as a form of social currency,” Starwood says.

To get in on the program, members need to visit this Starwood Preferred Guest page to link their foursquare and SPG accounts.

Finally, foursquare is increasingly being associated with concrete perks and not just badges and mayorships.

Starting in August, Starwood plans upping the marketing by introducing foursquare specials and bonus opportunities based on hotel brand and region.

Starwood brands include Le Meridien, Aloft, The Luxury Collection, Westin, Four Points, element, Sheraton, St. Regis and W Hotels.

The study by youth marketing agency Dubit (which presumably has a vested interest in demonstrating how tech-savvy youngsters are) made the perhaps surprising discovery when it asked 1,000 British teenagers about services such as Facebook Places, Foursquare, Gowalla et al.

Of the remaining half that had heard of the ability to “check-in” to locations via web-enabled mobiles, 58% then said they didn’t bother because they “do not see the point”.

Around half again (45%) said they felt check-in tools were “unsafe”.

Facebook Places came out on top as the most popular service among those who heard of check-in tools, grabbing 44%, compared to 27% plugging for Foursquare. US-centric Gowalla and SCVNGR hit 3% and 2%.

Dubit head of research, Peter Robinson, told BrandRepublic:

“Perhaps when Facebook’s Deals product gains momentum it will change things, and young people may be driven by discounts, but at the moment the brands who are using these platforms, and the platform owners, need to be telling teens why they should be using them and how they can do so safely.”

The Dubit study emerged the same week as US-based ComScore found one in five smartphone users had checked in to a location in March 2011.

ComScore data revealed 16.7 million US mobile subscribers used location-based check-in services on their phones, representing 7.1 percent of the entire mobile population, while 12.7 million check-in users did so on a smartphone, representing 17.6 percent of the smartphone population in the US.

The split between between male and female users was almost equal, the data shows, with 49.2% and 50.8% checking in respectively.

In terms of age ranges using smartphones to check-in:

• 13 to 17 – 8.3%
• 18 to 24 – 26%
• 25 to 34 – 32.5%
• 35 to 44 – 18.7%
• 45 to 54 – 9.7%
• 55 to 64 – 3%
• 65+ – 1.7%

ComScore VP of mobile, Mark Donovan, says:

“Although still in their relative infancy, location-based mobile check-in services are seeing rather impressive adoption among smartphone users.

“The ability to interact with consumers on this micro-local level through special offers, deals and other incentives provides brands with the real-time opportunity to engage consumers through their mobile device.”

But what else are check-in service users doing with their smartphones?

• Accessing restaurant information – 45.9%
• Accessing news – 40.3%
• Accessing online retail – 32.6%
• Accessing shopping guides – 25%
• Accessed travel services – 22%

Meanwhile, good news for advertisers, with 38.7% recalling mobile or app-hosted marketing messages.

Gogobot, the social travel-planning site, has integrated Foursquare and Facebook Places check-ins — a move that could dramatically upsize the site’s content.

When you give Gogobot permission to access your check-ins from the two largest location-based services, the check-ins — whether it is the restaurant you checked into 18 months ago or the hotel you checked into last night — appear in your Gogobot passport, enabling you to share the experience with your friends.

“Check-ins mostly have been a quick and fleeting experience,” says Travis Katz, Gogobot co-founder and CEO. “We’re giving meaning and context to this whole game of checking in.”

The integration dramatically increases the places you’ve visited in your Gogobot passport, and you can add photos and reviews to round them out. You also can delete any that you wish.

Instead of actively deciding to add places you’ve traveled to your Gogobot account, you can sit back and passively watch them accumulate as you go about checking-in on Foursquare and Facebook Places.

For Gogobot, which has seen users share more than 350,000 places since it launched three months ago, the check-in integrations thus may dramatically increase the sharing because it accesses your recent and historical check-ins.

Katz says the integration will enable Gogobot and your friends to make better travel recommendations.

Interestingly, Katz says the heavy lifting in the integration wasn’t connecting to the Foursquare and Facebook APIs, but it was in building a sophisticated algorithm to match the various names a venue might go by with the address and to weed out check-ins — from conferences and workplaces, for instance — that aren’t travel-related.

“It was a huge data challenge,” Katz concedes.

To get your check-in streaming in, go to your Gogobot account settings and select linked accounts. From there you can choose to give Gogobot access to your Foursquare and Facebook check-ins. If you had already signed into Gogobot using Facebook Connect, you were already asked to grant permission for access to your check-ins.

Cheqqer today launches Triplog, a service initially for Apple iPhones which allows users to keep track of destinations they have visited in a virtual logbook and then share with friends on Facebook and Twitter.

Nothing particularly new about that, except the Cheqqer system has also integrated a FourSquare-type system so users can check-in (“cheq in”) at destinations and earn Cheqqer badges.

Users will be able to compare badge ranking with their Facebook friends as well as obtain exclusive destination content only after they check in at one of the 55,000 locations in the system.

Reviews to the wider Cheqqer service can also be added from within the app, while image upload and itinerary building tools are expected to be added in the near future.

Cheqqer launched with a Facebook service (similar to TripAdvisor’s Trip Friends system) in September 2010 to let users see property and destination reviews being posted by friends.

The division’s managing director, Sandra Leonhard, says Facebook integration with the Triplog smartphone application is also due to be added in the future.

An Android version of the application is expected shortly, Leonhard says.

Cheqqer is 18 months old and now claims around 1.5 million reviews across six languages.