Or so says the TNT Travel Show, which surveyed over 1,o00 Brits aged 18 to 35 ahead of its annual travel exhibition in London in March.

Supposedly modern methods of travel research, such as scouring social media-led efforts for ideas for travel recommendations, were favoured by just 14% of those in the survey.

This compared to almost three-quarters (73%) who claimed to prefer word-of-mouth as the best method of getting tips when researching a trip.

Of course, a survey commissioned by an exhibition which features over 100 stands from brands giving word-of-mouth advice would be expected to say as much.

But the results are still interesting.

Travel blogs, lest we forget about their impact on travel planning, appear to be almost nowhere on the radar as influential channels to find advice on places to go, scoring a lowly 13% in the poll.

So perhaps this new generation of supposedly tech-savvy travellers are just a bunch of luddites after all?

According to the survey, 85% of Blackberry users and 68% of iPhones owners would leave their mobiles at home when travelling, preferring (90%) to simply pack a camera (presumably a digital one!).

But surely the cool kids would still be logging into their social networks and updating their own travel blogs when on the road?

Nope.

Three out of ten would prefer to use email to keep in touch, compared to a quarter that use Facebook, 16% opting for SMS text messages, 15% with Skype, 12% preferring to call, 1% via Twitter.

NB: Backpacker image via Shutterstock.

The app enables travel companies to choose from a series of modules including weather, currency and emergency contact information as well as link to their booking system to create their own branded mobile service.

It also enables companies to incorporate Off Exploring’s blog and postcard tools enabling their customers to create and share content across social networks.

Off Exploring director Doug Campbell believes the app ticks all the boxes in terms of removing the cost barrier to mobile, helping companies with a mobile and social media presence and the related search engine optimisation benefits.

The company says existing customers are seeing an upload from the mobile app generating hundreds of new visitors to a company’s website and thousands of page views.

Campbell adds that about two-thirds of blogs written on Off Exploring are now via a mobile device.

Off Exploring plans to charge companies for branding the app with an additional cost if they want to link to a booking system.

Simpliflying has taken a look at what airlines are doing with Google Plus and came up with the following findings:

• There are now 70 airlines with brand pages on Google Plus.
• The vast majority of the pages are in English – about 78.5%. But on average, pages in Spanish are “liked” more often.
• The airline with the highest number of “likes” (known as “+1″s) was Mexican low cost carrier Volaris with almost 3000, double that of the second most popular page.
• The most common type of content on Google Plus pages is brand-related (as opposed to sales related on Facebook or customer service related on Twitter).

Opinion is still pretty divided as to the overall value of Google Plus, compared to rival platform Facebook, but certainly those that have managed to harness some kind of value from it are seeing some results.

Matt Rhodes, strategy director at UK-based agency Fresh Networks, for example, believes Google Plus has the ability to change search in fundamental ways over time and the data which Google is capturing and re-serving through its other, connected platforms is becoming a critical element of the social graph which, inevitably, brands will need to understand and utilise better.

Early days, early days.

Anyway, here is an infographic from the Simpliflying team to showcase the results:

There is one thing those “Ten secrets for a successful startup” articles never mention – the critical business need for a fuzzy shark suit.

Who could have predicted that a costume purchase would spark a burgeoning embrace of social video for marketing and PR at TravelShark?

Even if you don’t have a college-football-quality mascot, and whether you’re a scrappy travel startup or an iconic hotel, here are nine signs it’s time for your company to dive in:

1. You own a fuzzy shark suit, or its metaphorical equivalent

Last June we changed our name from Swiftrank to TravelShark. The inspiration to create a company mascot named Mako Mark and make him our video leading man seemed nearly inevitable.

We binned our plan for a standard press release and instead shot a playful Shark-on-the-Street newsreel outside our office, capturing opinions from the hot dog guy and our mailman. Total spend for the video press release and a few shorts: under $10,000.

The videos made a huge splash in social media, exceeding every expectation, with traffic spikes, thousands of views, Twitter traction, and incoming sales leads. Did we celebrate when we got the news that we won a Gold Adrian Award for this grassroots campaign? You bet we did.

2. You are marketing something with a visual “story”

Video conveys visual and emotional touch points, which are present in almost every travel offering.

Our case and point. Last week we launched TravelSharkPix, a social travel-photo sharing service. We added a charitable component and asked users to help us pick three charity partners.

Cause marketing plus photography made video PR a natural choice. Our tongue-in-cheek launch video shows Mako Mark’s foiled attempts to find a partner.

Over the next week, we are releasing short follow-on charity stories like this one shown first at Tnooz today:

3. You can defuse the “Honey Badger” cynics in your office

I see fear about using video. You pitch an idea, and you get the “this is no Honey Badger” backlash. Instead of comparing your concept to one of the most popular viral videos ever, compare it to your other alternatives.

If your other option is a staid media release with a few photos, you don’t need blockbuster badger stats to score a win.

4. You want to reach consumers

C’mon. You know this one. YouTube is the second largest search engine. Facebook is clocking billions of video views each month.

If you are marketing a travel business to consumers, it likely has a visual story. Video is a must.

5. You want to reach forward-thinking travel executives

You know who they are. Tieless conference-goers mobbed with groupies. You take notes when they talk. They are the new media thought leaders in travel, and if they can influence your customers (or they are your customers), reach them with every arrow in your social media quiver, including social video.

6. You still care about SEO

If in the post-Panda era, you still work at reaching incremental customers through organic search, the YouTube-Google nexus means video matters.

Don’t miss out.

7. You’re allowed to wade in the perfect-is-the-enemy-of-the-good waters

Viral video marketing and PR success rests a great deal on something you can’t control: luck. It’s tough to predict virality, and so don’t break the bank (money or time) on any one video because our best-laid ideas may fall flat.

If your company allows experimentation and testing of “good” ideas, this is your game. If brand standards make “good” not good enough, you’ll spend too much money and time for the likely ROI.

8. You want to get the viral ball rolling with your staff

All those folks in your office may work for you, but if you want them to pull a social media oar, you need to inspire them.
Here’s the math:

Number of employees x (250 Facebook friends + 150 LinkedIn/Twitter) = WOW!

Impressive numbers, but your team members will only advocate for company initiatives on their social graphs if you give them material their friends will love.

A dull industry release is a cul-de-sac. Highly visual video that tells a compelling story – “Check out our new hotel in Da Nang! Let’s go!” – is great fodder for all-company engagement to get that social ball rolling.

9. Your employees aren’t having any fun

Sign out of your email for a minute. Walk around the office and check out the creative energy. Is anyone laughing? Our companies all have stories.

Stories build emotional glue. Videos are a great way to tell those stories, and your people will love being involved in planning, shooting, and giving feedback.

Ask yourself: “What’s my company’s shark suit?”

Armed with that answer, make your iconic story a video star!

NB: This is a guest article by Sue Heilbronner, CEO of TravelShark.

The people behind the annual love-in that is Social Media Week produced a video to mark next week’s event to capture the thoughts of pensioners in 2062 reflecting on the heady days of social media, circa 2012.

It’s rather funny (especially the QR code reference, which is absolutely brilliant).

But as Mike Butcher of TechCrunch Europe says: “Social Media Week in danger of satirising itself.” Suspect it has already.

Enjoy…

The destination marketing organization is giving away tickets, dinners, hotel packages and other perks each day in February and, after “liking” the group’s Facebook page and entering some personal details, fans can return each day to enter the sweepstakes and be eligible for that day’s prize and to improve their chances of landing the grand prize, a red Vespa.

One way to look at it, with the goal being user engagement in social media, is that the DMO could have chosen to run the campaign in January because the month has 31 days instead of February’s 29.

On the other hand, shaking off the New Year’s hangover can be difficult, adding to the challenge of getting anything done marketing in January. And, at least 2012 is a leap year so you have that extra day in February to get involved with Facebook fans instead of the usual 28.

The timing and thrust of the sweepstakes is just fine because visitor research shows a getaway with a spouse or partner is the #1 reason for leisure visits to Philadelphia in January, February and March, says Cara Schneider, a spokeswoman for the tourism body.

In the first two days of the sweepstakes, the Philadelphia Facebook page picked up 2,271 likes and 3,046 sweepstakes entries. (People who already liked the page didn’t have to like it again to enter the sweepstakes.)

And, the page now has more than 108,000 fans.

“Our ultimate goal is ‘heads in beds,’ and 13 of the 29 dates involve a hotel stay or hotel restaurant,” says Schneider, who adds that the group wanted to “hit home a subtle ‘hotel’ message.”

So, the DMO has figured out a way to give a lift — or leap — to its Facebook page, with users opting in and perhaps viewing more news about greater Philadelphia and its tourism allures.

The 29 Nights of Dates is VisitPhilly’s first sweepstakes, although last summer it posted photo albums on Facebook with fans uploading images of themselves in a 3-D replica of Citizens Bank Park, the Major League Baseball stadium of the Philadelphia Phillies.

When a local tourism body gets involved in and creative on Facebook, you just have to “like” it.

During February, both the exterior and the interior of the subway shuttle, which runs from Times Square to Grand Central Station, has been decked out to appear like a Royal Caribbean ship.

The cruise line is calling it the Royal Shuttle.

And, Royal Caribbean International has created a photo album on its Facebook page and has asked fans to upload photos of the shuttle and to tweet them to @RoyalCaribbean, with the hashtag #RoyalShuttle. Here are a few of the images:

Where else can you step off your stateroom balcony right into Grand Central Station?

The marketing blitz comes at a sensitive time for Royal Caribbean, which like Carnival Corp., has seen cruise bookings plunge over the last few weeks because of the Costa Concordia disaster.

Costa is a Carnival brand, but it has hurt bookings for Royal Caribbean and other lines nonetheless.

While booking volumes for Royal Caribbean have declined “by low to mid-teen percentages” in North America, Royal Caribbean says, the drop-off in European bookings has been “higher.”

Royal Caribbean attributes booking declines in Europe, which “vary significantly by country,” to extensive media coverage in the region about the tragedy off the Italian coast.

The fallout from the January 13 Costa Concordia accident occurs during Wave Season, the busiest time of the year for the cruise industry.

Many cruise lines and travel agencies curtailed marketing immediately after the incident, but now they are getting back into gear.

Despite some very high profile and recent setbacks, generally the cruise sector is growing – 16 million passengers cruised in 2011, a 7% increase over 2010.

Around 11 million were North American – heading primarily to Caribbean posts of call. Occupancy rates exceeded 103% demonstrating that demand outpaces supply.

Last year 12 new ships set sail with guest capacities ranging from 101 to 5,400 passengers. By far, the most popular destination is the Caribbean accounting for nearly 42% of all bookings.

According to the Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association:

“We enter an era distinguished by fourteen additional innovative, feature-rich ships; international ports-of-call; and convenient departures from proximal embarkation cities.”

Not only does demand exceed supply in the cruise industry as a whole, growth also supports peripheral markets at destinations where 17 million people descend upon multiple ports of call.

Departure as well as destination

These peripheral markets are more important to the cruisers than any of the amenities on their ships. 74% of potential cruisers regard “visiting multiple locations” as the primary reason for cruising.

By comparison, onboard activities such as fine dining (62%), onboard activities (58%), romance (46%), and family fun (53%) are less significant.

The list of reasons to engage cruisers in off-board experiences is long when it comes to destination marketing at points of embarkation and ports of call.

Not only do three quarters of all cruisers regard visiting new places as essential to a successful cruise, 70% of them experience these new locations for the first time and 50% return based on favorable first impressions.

Moreover, cruise ship calls generated an estimated $2.8 billion in direct spending by passengers, crews and cruise lines. In the Caribbean alone, services and opportunities at ports of call comprise 56,000 jobs.

Since so much money is involved, questions must surround whether peripheral markets can expand and whom these expansions will benefit. To answer these questions requires fundamental re-assessments of what constitutes a peripheral market to cruising and what technologies can reach it.

Traditionally, markets peripheral to cruising have been defined as economic activities at ports of call. There is no argument about the importance of these markets in terms of motivating people to cruise and their positive impacts on local economies.

The term “peripheral markets” has had less to do with activities and opportunities prior to or immediately following cruises.

While there is little doubt that a lot of money changes hands before and/or after actual cruise events, the mechanisms for exploiting them are less readily defined or coordinated among the various operators and local destination marketers at points of purchase.

With this in mind, I would like to expand the definition of what constitutes peripheral marketing to cruising to include the economic impacts on the ports of departure in the days immediately prior to and after cruises.

To do otherwise is foolhardy given that this niche is huge and easily exploitable using innovative and agile travel technologies.

Where technology becomes important

I first got this idea after talking to a smart fellow who prints and deploys QR codes in Florida. What he said was this. In his area, thousands of pre-cruisers show up all the time looking for places to stay, things to eat and things to do during the time leading-up to their embarkation.

Cruise operators and destination marketers must ask how they can satisfy this demand for a variety of reasons. In the case of operators and booking agents, the need relates to offering a wider range of more satisfying services to their customers.

From the perspective of local destination marketers, the need surrounds bringing business to local merchants and introducing the destination as a place that demands further exploration beyond the cruise.

There can be no argument about the breadth of opportunity associated with pre-cruise markets. The point drives home when it is compared to traditional and more well defined opportunities at ports of call.

Average cruise passenger spending per port of call is between $97 and $193 depending on the port.

While the port of call market is worked to death, a market at ports of departure remains largely disorganized despite it’s being more valuable in a hypothetical sense. Consider.

The average hotel price in Miami is $140. Given that cruisers spend approximately $1,770 per person per week as compared to $1,200 for non-cruisers, one might expect cruisers to spend more than the average on nightly lodgings prior to their departures.

Add meals and cruise-related shopping to the mix and actual expenditures at the port of departure can easily exceed port of call expenditures by as much as 288%. Furthermore, these expenditures exclude things-to-do which would be added if the pre-cruiser arrives a day or two before he or she actually embarks.

What we’re talking about here is an enormous market of a type that is highly personalized and can only be responded to through targeted technology and creative solutions that include a confluence of mobile and QR code-led strategies.

To date, I know of no published study of this market niche. What is offered here is a first glimpse that deserves more in-depth investigation.

As you review the graphic below, bear a few things in mind. This survey comprises 76 cruisers. It is confined to Caribbean cruising from east coast US ports of departure. It also derives from surveys conducted through Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter and may disenfranchise some older and less technologically sophisticated cruisers.

Be that as it may, I believe strongly that survey opinions reflect an evolving marketing paradigm in all travel arenas.

When seen from the perspective of greatest good, this survey provides a rationale for affecting a synergy between the cruise industry and local destination marketers.

If successful, it will form the basis for a re-evaluation of techniques as they relate to new directions in mobile applications, webs and social medias at ports of departure.

Summing up

Certain things jump out from our sample and were doubled checked by phone calls to cruise operators and their booking agents.

Across the board, cruise lines and destination marketers fail to coordinate when it comes to pre-cruise logistical technologies related to air travel, hotel reservations, food and local tourism.

While destination marketers do their part and cruise agents chip in, no one seems to have lifted the phone and said something like, “hey, let’s work together and put QR codes in your pre-cruise packages that link to a mobile displays, maps, and/or coupons from local merchants”.

While most cruise lines and their agents offer help with travel and hotel bookings, most defer to local destinations when it comes to street level activities or commerce. The question is why?

All stakeholders should be eager to target as many as nine million pre-cruisers that arrive early, hungry, and eager for something to do.

To get the creative juices flowing – in order to incentivize collaborations among stakeholders toward a technology solution that addresses niche markets at ports of departure – I put dollar signs on the graphic below in all areas where technology can monetize the pre-departure niche market.

As Sherlock Holmes would say: “The game’s afoot.” Let’s go!!

NB: This is a guest article by Mark Mattson, a former university professor who writes agile software solutions for the travel industry through TravelTools, a service for destination marketers.

NB2: Ship in Miami image via Shutterstock.

The Dutch carrier is claiming to be the first airline to integrate social networking within the regular flight process.

KLM says it is trying to give travellers a more ‘inspirational journey’ with the service enabling them to see who is on the flight, perhaps meet for a coffee beforehand, select seats next to each other or share a taxi at the other end.

Meet & Seat is available under the ‘Manage My booking’ function on the website and is only open to users who have linked their social media accounts to their flight.

Users can also choose what information from their social networks they wish to share with others on the flight.

Meet & Seat is available on intercontinental flights beginning with a pilot from Amsterdam to San Francisco, New York and Sao Paulo. The plan is to extend it to other intercontinental destinations shortly.

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

Guestmob is a next generation opaque hotel booking system that uses big data, social data and predictive analytics to re-invent the model pioneered by Priceline/Hotwire.

Our company was formed over a year ago by Yann Ngongang, CEO (former-CEO, eSmog – Partner, Mercer/Microsoft, Bell Labs,other startups, Stanford MBA); Alan Kaiser, CTO (former Chief Architect, Liberate Technologies, other startups, PhD/CS), Damien Keller, Director Hotel Ops (Dir of Sales, Joie de Vivre group)

What financial support did you have to launch the business?

We raised a seed round last summer from Eric Chen (co-founder Tinyprints, investor Palantir), Fabrice Grinda (CEO, OLX), Jose Marin (Chairman ViajaNet, investor eDreams), Ron Rofe, Vaizra fund (vkonkatke.com/facebook of Russia), Joe Lonsdale (co-founder, Palantir), and many others.

What problem are you trying to solve?

For consumers, we offer a much more flexible opaque booking solution. Guests know exactly what hotels they’re getting, and our bookings are refundable: no secret hotel, no bidding, no gimmick!

Our prices are lower than published rates by up to 50%: we track and show the numbers. For hotels, in addition to helping with yield management/filling empty rooms, we solve a timing problem around discounts.

Describe the business, core products and services?

Guestmob core innovation lies in the concept of hotel collections, coupled with a magic pricing algorithm.

Our team spends hours reviewing & curating hotels into collections of 4-8hotels of the same class/location/ratings – we tend to eliminate 30-50% of hotels based on quality.

Then our pricing engine uses an adaptive algorithm to determine day by day the appropriate discounted price at which we will accept booking and guarantee customers a room at one of the hotels in the collection.

These prices tend to be 20-50% lower than the published prices of any hotel in the collection.

The pricing system anticipates the level of discount we are to get from hotels during our regular mob auctions.
Sometimes, we loose money on these transactions, but we guarantee our guests a booking at one of the hotels in the collection.

We see our company as a pricing technology company, as we’re applying the supply & demand science from airlines to hotels. But we do not sell cheap rooms.

We focus on building quality baskets of hotels and optimize for price within these baskets.

Who are your key customers and users at launch?

At a top level, we are going after hotel shoppers with a little flexibility on hotel choices. We serve value-driven customers, but we remove all the friction points of current opaque sites: non-refundable bookings, secret hotels, last minute mobile only, complex bidding.

We’re still learning exactly who that customer profile is.

But based on our initial launch in San Francisco this past fall, lots of people loved our offerings and they tended to book longer stays, well in advance, and were more methodical about finding discounts because they were booking more room-nights.

Did you have customers validate your idea before investors?

We spent lots of time surveying & talking to prior customers of companies like Hotwire & Priceline, lots of time talking to major hotel managers and investors to also understand how to position ourselves effectively for them.

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

We have a traditional merchant model where our revenue is the delta between the discounted price we get from customers, and the mob price we pay to hotels after auctions.

SWOT analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?

Strengths:

• Experienced startup guys
• Strong technology
• Disruptive model

Weaknesses:

• Team needs to be rounded up
• Team’s ability to scale fast
• Potential complexity of our system for consumers

Opportunities:

• Big data
• Social data and machine learning
• Consumers becoming savvy

Threats:

• Traditional online travel agencies (OTA) expanding their opaque-type models such as the Expedia-Groupon partnership

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

Some experienced OTA executives were most skeptical of our model, especially those that fought the battles of the past 10years.

While we have to simplify, simplify, simplify, we stayed the course because our platform brings significant/measurable benefits to consumers, as well as hoteliers.

What is your success metric 12 months from now?

In a year, we will continue to grow rapidly, and will not limit ourselves to the US market.

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

While analysts and tech-heads pored over the finer details of the S1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, shedding light on some of the company’s financials for the first time, TripAdvisor will no doubt be overjoyed at the inclusion of the Trip Friends system it integrated in June 2010.

Facebook is looking raise around $5 billion from the IPO in the US.

The S1 revealed Facebook’s profit in 2011 was a staggering $1 billion, gleaned through revenues of $3.71 billion, while founder mark Zuckerberg still owns around 30% of the business.

Facebook currently has 845 million users worldwide, with more than half using the network every single day.

What surprised some was the letter from Zuckerberg at the head of the filing, in which he pretty much warned investors that Facebook wants to stick to its so-called ethos:

“Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission — to make the world more open and connected.

“We think it’s important that everyone who invests in Facebook understands what this mission means to us, how we make decisions and why we do the things we do.”

He continues:

People sharing more — even if just with their close friends or families — creates a more open culture and leads to a better understanding of the lives and perspectives of others.

“We believe that this creates a greater number of stronger relationships between people, and that it helps people get exposed to a greater number of diverse perspectives.”

In terms of the integration used by TripAdvisor, basically a enhanced version of Facebook Connect, Facebook says the service illustrates how third party sites can “design more deeply integrated social experiences built around users and their friends”.

“By tapping into our rich social data, TripAdvisor connects users to their friends and shares relevant content about where their friends have traveled and where they would like to visit in the future.

“While on the TripAdvisor website, friends can discuss their travel plans and recommendations and build out personal profiles of places they have been.”

While initially it did seem to some sceptics to be just another fancy feature that people wouldn’t use, over time it appears to have started having quite a significant impact.

A TripAdvisor official says by December 2011, over 57 million people had “personalised their trip planning experience” on the site using Trip Friends.

Furthermore, these people are twice as more likely to contribute content to TripAdvisor than its other users.

No wonder Facebook likes talking up the Trip Friends integration in probably the most important documents the company has ever produced.

NB: Facebook Like image via Shutterstock.

The visual social network, which enables you to “pin” images to your pinboard and Facebook Timeline from around the Web, and share them with your friends and others, has become an emerging force and was the subject of a brief discussion during an Association of Travel Marketing Executives panel on 2012 travel forecasts in Manhattan today.

Will droves of travelers one day do their travel planning, sharing inspirational images, on Pinterest, and will it provide leads to airlines, hotels, cruise lines and online travel agencies?

After ATME chairman Henry Harteveldt asked the panelists about their take on Google, Facebook, Apple and Pinterest entering the travel arena, Dennis Corrigan, vice president of sales and revenue management at JetBlue, noted that “a lot of our customers are Gen Y and we want to be where they are.”

Corrigan noted that Google+ recently introduced corporate pages ”and as Pinterest starts to go down that road, we’ll be there, too.”

JetBlue is playing catch-up in the mobile arena — Corrigan hinted that a mobile app will be forthcoming — and apparently has its eyes on Pinterest in the event that it gets some real travel juice.

A Pinterest blog post states that “people use Pinterest to plan their vacations, redecorate their homes, and create menus for holiday dinners.”

By some accounts, Pinterest is larger than Google+ and people already are strategizing about how companies can use it as a marketing vehicle.

Other ATME panelists (from left: Scott Hyden of Travelport GDS; Terry Dale of USTOA; Greg Brown of Choice Hotels; Dennis Corrigan of JetBlue, and Joe Byrne of Tourism Ireland) discussed the emergence of new travel gatekeepers, as well.

Joe Byrne, executive vice president, North America, of Tourism Ireland, said he looks as these social networks, search engines and Apple as “important shopping windows and secondly they are distributors.”

Google wants to be part of the transaction in travel, which already is a low-margin business, Byrne said.

“That distribution cost, which doesn’t exist today, is troubling from my standpoint,” said Byrne, who also expressed concerns about “more fragmentation.”

But, Scott Hyden, vice president of sales in the US and Canada for Travelport GDS, argued that travel agencies are split on Google’s travel efforts and aren’t necessarily having nightmares over the prospect.

“Some people feel, just bring it on, bring on another competitor if they can provide another qualified lead,” Hyden said.

“For every FairSearch member there is, there is another competitor who isn’t scared,” Hyden said, referring to the Google opposition group.

On other tech-related matters, Hyden recalled how Travelport partnered with Worldmate on an itinerary management service in 2010, but said “it didn’t take off as much in corporate travel as we expected.”

He said these types of services have potential for business travelers seeking to pay a bag fee and for other services while they are in transit.

“But, until we get to the place that there is real booking capability, the itinerary management stuff has settled out,” Hyden said.

Both Greg Brown, vice president, loyalty, Choice Hotels, and Byrne of Tourism Ireland spoke of the importance of geo-targeting.

“Today’s retirees are not your father’s retirees,” said Brown, adding that they are more “digitally inclined.”

“This allows you to be a lot more personalized, a lot more targeted, a lot more direct,” Brown said.

Tourism Ireland, meanwhile, is allocating more than 40% of its marketing budget in 2012 for digital marketing and has identified 15 US cities as its “honey pots,” Byrne says.

The tourism body is trying to “focus on the right people” in these select markets, Byrne says, adding, “if you live in the 16th city you don’t see us.”

Unless, of course, a Pinterest user from that 16th city pins a photo of Kilarney, Ireland, and shares it with friends.

Travel suppliers are constantly looking for better ways to effectively market themselves on the internet and inevitably I get asked the question: “Video or virtual tours?”

It is just not that black and white, just varying shade of gray. Imagine you’re the new marketing manager of a resort hotel and the boss asks if you think they should create a promotional video or create virtual tours.

The first question you would ask yourself:

“How’s the photography!?”

Great, still images should be your foundation – that’s the starting point for prospects that may be motivated to see and learn more if they like the photos.

This is where videos and 360-degree virtual tours play a role.

The second question to ask the boss:

What’s the budget?”

A respectable video will cost $10,000 and up! This is not a place to skimp on cost and look for the cheapest production you can find – even when they brag about creating videos in HD (High Definition).

Video options

My six year old can shoot 1080p HD video using my iPhone, but she lacks composition and lighting skills. Good video requires some thought. You should expect a two to three-man production crew with a respectable production package (camera, lens(es), tripod, light kit, etc.).

Additional funds should be considered for production toys like a jib arm, dolly, steadicam, etc – things that help create fluid movement (otherwise you’re shooting postcards).

Other budgetary inflating elements to think about: scripting, voice over talent, music, aerials, on-camera talent (do you get paid models or wrangle hotel staff and guests), hair and make-up, wardrobe, art direction, graphics and special effects in post-production, etc.

You get the idea.

Video can get pricey, but an effective video generates higher conversions and increases the average daily rate because the consumer perceives greater value. A property with no video, or even worse a crappy video or a poorly created photo slide show, may devalue your offering.

Video should be a visual a teaser of the property highlights and your Unique Selling Proposition (USP). Video, especially a video viewed online, should be short – no longer than one to one and a half minutes.

The average viewer abandonment rate is 45% after the first minute (higher if the video lacks appeal). If you feel you can’t showcase the entire property in a minute or less, try breaking it into sub videos – an overview video, and sub videos to focus on specific areas: meeting spaces, golf course, spa, dining, activities, accommodations, and local area (highlights nearby).

360-degree tours

Back to our dilemma – video can be sexy and pricy (done correctly), but virtual tours (also referred to as 360s, 360-degree virtual tours, panoramic images, and virtual reality to name a few) are more affordable, provide a slightly different function in the sales cycle and in may deliver greater value or return on investment (ROI).

The investment to create good looking 360-degree virtual tours ranges from $250 to $500 per image (location). The crew would consist of one photographer with a camera, wide angle lens and tripod (with rotating head).

The production process is much faster and less intrusive to the property’s guests and staff. Like video costing, you can find VT photographers who produce “cheap” 360-degree virtual tours – but the old adage generally applies: you get what you pay for.

360-degree virtual tours have improved dramatically over the last decade – visuals that rival any high quality photo can now be displayed with full screen panoramic imaging that allow consumers to virtually look all around. It gives consumers an honest and accurate representation of the room, lobby, meeting space, restaurant, pool, etc.

Simply put, what you see is what you get.

Consumers interact with 360-degree virtual tours more with by clicking or selecting what they want to see and spend as much time as they want viewing them, whereas video is a linear presentation.

Many of the newer 360 virtual tour players provide additional interactive elements such as detailed text descriptions, interactive property maps, supporting photos, and weather forecast.

Look at the booking cycle from the consumer’s perspective, the first elemental component would be good photography. If your property comes up when a consumer is searching for you and they see appealing photos they will stop and look.

If they like what they see (and it’s in their budget), they will go to rich media and reviews to vet and validate their selection. In the final stage of selecting a room type, a 360 image is a tremendous help.

Luxurious position

If the budget Gods have descended upon you and you can afford to do both, do it – they will both be used in the booking funnel and there’s something for everyone.

Make sure your visuals are in as many touch points with the prospective consumers as possible.

Don’t create a great content (video or VTs) and only show it on your website expecting prospects to flock – your job, as a marketer is to get your best visuals in front of as many prospects as you can within your budgetary constraints – distribute your content everywhere!

NB: This is a guest article by Henry Woodman, president of ICE Portal.

NB2: Hotel filming image via Shutterstock.

NB3: 360-degree tour image from The Raviz Hotel.

The UK advertising regulator upheld a complaint from online reputation firm Kwikchex and two hotels which argued wording on TripAdvisor’s UK website, such as “reviews you can trust…from real travellers…and trusted advice from real travellers”, was misleading because the company could not prove reviews were genuine or from real travellers.

The ASA ruled that the claims implied to consumers that all review content would be genuine and that users might not be able to detect and separate non-genuine content.

TripAdvisor says it stands by its “independently endorsed review integrity process” and has already made the marketing copy changes.

A statement from the company says:

“The ASA ruling flies in the face of common sense, and is out of touch with the millions of real people who use and trust consumer review sites like ours every day.

“It is worth noting that the General Media Panel (an independent group that provides industry expert advice to the ASA) disagreed with the ASA’s view of the claims. We feel the ruling is unrealistic in its expectation of sites likes ours.

“The ASA upheld the complaints on the basis that we could not provide 100% certainty that that every single review on the site was written by a real traveller and could be trusted. No system, verified or not, could provide this.”

TripAdvisor goes on to point out that the complaint to the ASA made last September was not from members of the public but by an online reputation company with an ‘obvious commercial interest in undermining people’s confidence in user-generated review platforms’.

A second complaint to the ASA from Kwikchex around using unverified testimonials in advertising messages has not yet been ruled on.

Chris Emmins of Kwikchex says:

“We welcome that an independent and impartial authority has investigated this matter.It is important to make very clear that when reviews are not authenticated, there is every chance they can be faked, both positive and negative reviews.

“We want to emphasise that you can’t generalise. It is not right to cite overall scale or some sort of ‘acceptable collateral damage’, when it comes to fake reviews. There are real people and their livelihoods unquestionably being hurt very badly.”

He adds that discussions with TripAdvisor have been more “fruitful” recently.

NB: Image via Shutterstock.

In a regulatory filing in the US, Carnival says it has insurance to cover damage to the ship and the company expects 2012 profits to take a $85 to $95 million hit.

Even before the incident, Carnival Corp. was active in social media, with Carnival Cruise Lines “the first cruise line to exceed one million Likes on Facebook,” the company says. It now has more than 1.4 million.

But, Carnival reduced its various marketing activities after the Costa Concordia ran aground January 13 as booking volumes for all its brands in total — without taking the reduction at Costa into account — “declined in the mid-teens compared to the prior year, after bottoming out on January 16, 2012,” Carnival says.

The cruise line says it is difficult to calculate the bookings impact on Costa Cruises, which operates 14 ships, because of rebooking activity and ship redeployments, although the line’s bookings are “down significantly.”

“Despite these recent trends, we believe the incident will not have a significant long-term impact on our business,” Carnival says.

The temporary reduction in marketing notwithstanding, Carnival says it has been expanding its use of digital marketing and social media, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

The cruise line primarily uses Twitter for customer service and public relations.

Carnival also has several blogs, with posts from captains, entertainment directors and other officials.

John Heald, Carnival’s senior cruise director, offered his perspective on the Costa Concordia disaster, in a blog post here.

Heald says he mourns for the passengers and crew who died, but adds that cruising is safe.

He also defends the actions of the crew, saying many “stayed at their stations and did what their training had taught them to do under very challenging conditions.”

The Concordia’s captain remains under house arrest.

The Australia-based site launched in December 2010 [TLabs Showcase - TraceMyTrip] with a promise of a platform where users can book trips, store photos, video and journals, and create maps.

Within its first four months, founder Ryan Adams was claiming 1.5 million people had registered to use the service after the company had secured a “small private investment” to fund the startup alongside his own personal capital.

At first glance, TraceMyTrip had a business model – using what it called a geo-located pay-per-click ad platform as well as a plan to launch a subscription fee for some services in the future.

Within its first year Adams was hoping the site would reach six million active users around the globe.

However, something appears to have gone wrong as the site is currently inactive and redirects to an affiliate link-laden holding page – with the URL apparently no longer registered and now available to buy.

Adams hasn’t tweeted since June 2011 and the official TraceMyTrip Twitter account last posted a message the month before to announce its up-time had returned.

The site was taken down shortly after the TLabs Showcase article in April last year when a number of people questioned the veracity of the claim to have 1.5 million users register for the service.

Adams claimed at the time that the site had been the victim of a hacking attempt.

It is difficult to determine when the site was eventually pulled down completely and when the URL was handed back to a domain registration service.

Strangely, none of the 1.5 million registered users took to the social media airwaves to lodge their dismay at the end of the service.

NB: All reasonable effort was made to contact Adams to discover more about the fate of TraceMyTrip, but no response was forthcoming.

Luckily, such memories are fading away for many as tourism boards realise that the offline experience is equally important as ploughing money into online activity.

Take the UK city of Manchester, birthplace to one of the best music scenes of all time, home to a few mediocre football clubs ( ) but also including a centre which boasts vibrant nightlife as well as shopping and cultural attractions.

The BBC loves the place so much it has (controversially) moved large swathes of its operations to a new development known as Media City, in Salford.

Manchester’s Visitor Information Centre used to be located close to the city’s art gallery, but when major redevelopment took place in the Piccadilly Gardens, officials seized the chance to switch to a better spot, closer to busier thoroughfares and the main rail station.

But rather than simply replicating what went before, a new visitor centre was built with technology at its heart and a rather familiar looking design – that of Apple.

The idea was, in marketing speak, to “truly reflect the original modern essence of Manchester”, but more importantly those behind the new centre wanted to incorporate as much new technology as possible to simply improve the experience of the visiting the place in the first place.

In other words: make discovering information about the city both fun and useful.

The new centre included a number different tech-led activities and displays:

• Mediawall
• Twitter feeds
• Desktop computers
• Microsoft Surface tables

The Mediawall, for example, takes up the entire length of one end of the facility and is used to showcase events and products in the city – visitors will find it difficult to ignore, presumably.

Real-time information is streamed into the centre on screens mounted on the walls, each carrying messages not only from the VisitManchester website but also local tourism businesses as well as residents and visitors.

Andrew Daines, a former-VisitBritain executive who consulted on the project, says tweets are filtered to cut out non-desirable content.

A number of desktop computers are positioned throughout the story, allowing visitors to search and book accommodation, transport and events.

Lastly, and perhaps most impressively, is the use of Microsoft Surface tables.

Each device can be used to search and find content in a more sociable and fun way than a desktop PC. As with other deployments of Surface tables, props can be used to interact with the maps so that users can find certain services such as hotels, bars, restaurants, etc.

Daines claims it is the first time a European tourist office has used Surface tables in such a way.

The most striking aspect of the place is the design – a look and feel which may or not have been borrowed intentionally from the swanky designers that put together Apple Stores around the world.

But has it had much of an impact, got a return for the sub-£1 million spent on the place?

Daines says it has achieved a number of key milestones:

• 52% of visitors used the Surface tables or PCs to get more information – Daines says: “Younger respondents particularly were more likely to use the surface tables and computer without assistance by a member of staff – 43% of those aged 16 to 25 used surface tables independently compared to 20% of those aged 36 to 45″.
• 58% of visitors discovered new places to visit using the tech.
• Two-thirds of visitors cited the technology as a reason why they’d use the centre again.

NB: Daines was speaking at the ENTER2012 conference in Helsingborg, Sweden.

With the airline halting handing out prayer cards, which it has been doing since the 1970s, the Seattle-based airline says it wants to respect the diverse wishes of all its passengers and obviously feels that The Lord’s Prayer is no longer palatable as a side order of spiritual nourishment to accompany Alaska Salmon in first class.

A controversy over the airline discontinuing its dissemination of God’s words on high has been aired all over social media, including Twitter, with people expressing opinions split as widely as the parted Red Sea.

Even former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who has strong views about the separation of church and state, has chimed in, characterizing Alaska Airlines’ decision as “nonsensical.”

Somewhat comically, the cast of the ABC News TV show, The View, has discussed the issue, with Whoopi Goldberg opining:

I don’t understand why you want to panic me. You come over with a prayer card, you’re pretty much saying, ‘Look, I’m not sure what’s going to happen.’

Here’s a video of a discussion about the prayer card issue on The View:

Wondering what to think about the issue and where to turn next, I consulted Jenn, Alaska Airlines’ virtual assistant.

Jenn was totally willing to direct me to information about which Alaska Airlines flights offer meals for purchase, but the virtual assistant was perplexed about my prayer card questions.

The “conversation” follows:

Jenn: Hi, I’m Jenn, your virtual assistant for the Alaska Airlines Web site. If you need help or have a question, simply type it below.

You Asked: Hi, why did you discontinue the prayer cards?

Jenn: I would love to help you, but I am not sure I understand your question. Could you please rephrase that for me?

You Asked: I read that you discontinued handing out prayer cards with meals. Why?

Jenn: In addition to beverage service, you have the option to purchase a meal. Please check the details section of your itinerary to determine which flights offer food for purchase. Here’s more about our Northern Bites Service. View Page.

God bless, Jenn. With a little reprogramming, she’ll get it right eventually.

Launching in early-2009, unfortunately just as the global economic crisis kicked in, Best Job in the World and its various offshoots captured the imagination of marketers for its cross-platform approach and original idea, but visitor numbers to the Australian state did not mirror the enormous praise it received in numerous quarters.

Which is a shame.

But it does beg the question as to whether so-called innovative marketing campaigns, which are said to hit potential consumers in many channels and get huge mainstream media attention, actually make a significant difference compared to “traditional” methods such as long-term efforts through PPC, SEO, above-the-line advertising and others?

A relatively recent viral from MySwitzerland, the consumer-facing website from the Swiss tourism authorities, is called Holidays Without Internet and is, once again, a prime example of a campaign which captured the attention of many blogs, marketers outside of the travel industry and consumers.

First of all, the premise of what looks initially like a promotional video is funny – two elderly farmers from the sticks visit a Swiss town on their tractor, but just when the viewer thinks the clip will focus on stereotypes of a demographic not in tune with the web, both men walk into a cafe and open up their Apple notebooks.

Immediately, the pair start talking via the chat tools on Facebook, making quips about the inevitably rather attractive waitress and if she’ll become a “friend”.

And then the clever bit starts.

The men invite the viewer to connect with them on Facebook. If the viewer agrees (the two men wait patiently for the user to click the Facebook Connect button)

Once connected, the farmers start looking around the user’s Facebook profile…

Checking how many “friends” a user has…

And browsing through the image pages…

Before uncovering the most brutal element of the whole thing – how much time the user spends on Facebook every day (tapping into the API). Which leads nicely into the point of the campaign: the user should be getting away from the internet and enjoying some piece and quiet…

Clearly the cleverest part of the entire campaign is the integration of the user’s Facebook content into the film. It’s very slick and smartly done.

But back to the question: would the user be compelled to research more on the MySwitzerland website to find out where those out-of-digital-reach places are?

Possibly – but not guaranteed. What is most likely is the user would simply send on the link to try it out to their friends or share, inevitably, on Facebook.

NB: For the record, the author does NOT spend 2.67 hours a day on Facebook – just leaves the window open to monitor the Tnooz Fan Page

NB2: MySwitzerland was showcased at the ENTER2012 conference in Helsingborg, Sweden.

The quirky promotion is being run over five weeks on the brand’s Facebook pages for the UK, France, Spain and Italy and invites users to take part in a Turn The World Around Game and explain why they want to visit the destination.

The initiative is part of a wider TTWA campaign with a second phase to be unveiled in the spring focusing on tourism facts and figures.

According to Bob Samii, head of social media and SEO for eDreams parent Odigeo, eDreams has spent the past year building up its social media team and presence and now has a five-strong team dedicated to social channels.

“Social media is a powerful communication tool and there are so many statistics and facts related to tourism that we thought we could try and create some awareness around those facts. There are some great locations around the world but for whatever reason they are not very commercialised so we want to see if we can create a buzz around them.”

The company is also using Twitter and YouTube to support the campaign.

Here’s a clip: