Marketing your small tourism business in the 21th century: #4 Encourage Your Customer to Share their Experiences

As I mentioned before, word-of-mouth has always been the best marketing vehicle in travel. But unlike mass media, it has been invisible. Not anymore. People are now sharing en-mass on message boards, blogs, review sites and social networks. So this is part where we’ll save you some time and money by encouraging your customers to share their experiences online so you can reap maximum bennefits generated by word-of-mouth. In #1 Be Remarkable I explained that you first need to give somebody something worth talking about. In #2 Get your website in order we gave consumers a place to go after they... Read more »

From Tourism-Review.com

A special issue of the magazine Ethical has been published on Barrier-Free Tourism. The 13 page pdf download is available here. Articles include: Tourism Accessible for All in Europe 0,6 Mb For those who associate tourism only with holiday and leisure and luxury it should be mentioned that tourism is a sector of remarkable economic importance. The European tourism economy contributes to about 5 % (depending on its definition up to 11 %) to the GDP of the European Union and provides between 8 and 24 million jobs (depending on the definition of the sector). Furthermore, it should be taken into account... Read more »

Unique Small Hotels - Nothing Zen part 8

I discovered Unique Small Hotels. It seems a derivative of Booking.com, but because it unveils very little about itself I’m not sure. As owner of a unique small luxury hotel I am always looking for small luxury hotels and B&B’s. After checking out some of their offerings I can agree with many of their picks. Maybe I should look at them first for my next Nothing Zen series of posts. They have the following categories of hotels in various countries: Unique City Hotels Unique Chateau Hotels Unique De Luxe Hotels Unique Culinary Hotels Unique Small Hotels Unique Spa Hotels Unique... Read more »

On My Way

There is usually not too much positive to write about when it comes to airline travel these days but here is a new service introduced by our neighbors to the north called aircanada.com - Travel Info - On My Way. It offers a whole range of support services in the event of flight delays caused by weather conditions, airport and air traffic delays, which, as we all know, are all too frequent these days. Who knows, maybe one of the U.S. carriers will come up with a similar solution. It wouldn’t be too soon. This article was originally posted on Marketing on the Smart Web.You can read and comment... Read more »

Tweet this! Invest in your Cluster with audio and video

Click to Play Host Todd Lucier talks about Twitter and how to use it for your Tourism business. Also, how can your cluster do things that individual businesses can’t do for themselves. This article was originally posted on Internet Marketing for Tourism.You can read and comment on the original article here.  Read More →

A “Revolutionary” Campaign with wings

This award winning case study of a campaign to build viral buzz on MarketingSherpa caught my attention as not too many are from the travel industry. It explains in detail how Germanwings used web 2.0 tools to involve their audience with their brand while at the same time grow their database of new customers. A key element of the campaign was a specific micro-site. This is what I have proposed a number of years ago to DMOs to build rather than drive traffic to their main website where interaction is limited. The added benefit is that such a site can be deployed more quickly and in... Read more »

International Coalition Launches Groundbreaking Disability Rights Fund

Press Release: BOSTON, MA – The Open Society Institute, The Sigrid Rausing Trust, the United Kingdom Department for International Development, and an anonymous donor today announced a groundbreaking collaborative to support the human rights for people with disabilities. Launched on the first anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CPRD), the Disability Rights Fund will provide financial support for human rights advocacy in the developing world and Eastern Europe/former Soviet Union. The broad objective of the Fund will be to empower disabled... Read more »

Are you delighted by Twitter?

I’ve been using Twitter for a while, but am only now fully grasping the value of sending and receiving Tweets. Sort of like instant messaging, but you can choose to pay attention or not on your own time - because each Tweet essentially becomes a Web page. Although Twitter is often used to share updates on what you are up to, or following others, without a doubt the best use of Twitter is sharing links . If you sign up for a Twitter account you can follow me at http://www.twitter.com/toddlesby If you have people that you follow or people that follow you, you can let them know whenever you... Read more »

Thousands of extra £19 Travelodge rooms

Travelodge will be offering 1000s of additional rooms on their £19 advance booking, non refundable Saver rate, available for booking from 06:00 tomorrow, 3 April 2008 until 7 April for stays during May. With two Bank Holidays coming up in May, this could be an opportunity for a budget short break. Family rooms at Travelodge can sleep up to 2 adults and 2 kids. This article was originally posted on Europe A La Carte Blog.You can read and comment on the original article here.  Read More →

Do travel brands matter to you?

Are you loyal to any travel brands?  I began to wonder about this issue as I wrote my post about the citizenM concept hotel for Wandalust today.  I suppose I can only answer for myself.  My greatest travel brand loyalty probably lies with the Travelodge budget hotel chain.  This is mostly based on price as I can book a room for £19 on their advance booking non refundable Saver rate.  The majority of Travelodge rooms in which I’ve stayed have been good to acceptable with the odd exception which is why I rate Travelodge as the best UK budget hotel chain. Ryanair has a pretty negative... Read more »

Next Page »