Chris Anderson’s Free & the Booking Engine

I’ve been a huge fan for Chris Anderson for a long time. It seemed to me that the “Long Tail” completely supported my own motivation behind building Rezgo, a web based booking engine that would put inventory and distribution control into the hands of the individual supplier. Now with his latest article in Wired magazine and his upcoming book, I am again inspired by his words. In his article titled “Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business“, Chris explains that because of the decreasing costs of hardware and bandwidth, it is possible to monetize digital businesses... Read more »

The long tail of travel - Niche tour operators can now unite

The longtail concept has been around for a long time. Chris Anderson popularized it in his creatively name book “The Long Tail“. The Wikipedia definition is that “The distribution and inventory costs of these [longtail] businesses allow them to realize significant profit out of selling small volumes of hard-to-find items to many customers, instead of only selling large volumes of a reduced number of popular items. The group of persons that buy the hard-to-find or “non-hit” items is the customer demographic called the Long Tail.” This concept has been applied... Read more »

Social Applications dominate the web

according to this presentation by Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker, reported in Tech Crunch | View | Upload your own Here are some more figures that show the rapid growth rates of he major social sites: * YouTube + Facebook page views > Google or Yahoo page views (and may be bigger than both combined) * 6/10 top internet sites are social (youtube, live.com, facebook, hi5, wikipedia, orkut); none were on the list in 2005 * YouTube has 258 million users, 50% visit weekly or more * >50% of Facebook users log in daily, 95% of Facebook users have used at least one third party application *... Read more »

Future trends in hotel e-business

There is an excellent article on Future trends in hotel e-business at Hotelmarketing.com reporting from the HEDNA conference currently taking place in Lisbon. Many key points apply to other branches of the tourism industry as well. Henry Harteveldt from Forrester says, you have to evolve from selling to engaging. "To truly engage digital travelers, hotel e-business must evolve from channel to gateway, from single purpose to all encompassing, and from functional to fulfilling."Heiko Siebert from Mövenpick Hotels and Resorts forecasts:"Content will replace price as a deciding factor for customers."Marc... Read more »

“Travelers don’t believe hotel marketers anymore”

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Sneak peek at new Joggins Fossil Centre

Although the 'new' Joggins Fossil Centre doesn't officially open to the public until May 17, I was delighted to receive an invitation to attend its opening ceremony last week. There is much buzz in our region about this very welcome addition to the Bay of Fundy 'product'. My first glimpse of the new centre certainly did not disappoint!! It is a beautifully designed experience both inside and out. Here are some highlights:Local stones were layered on the exterior facade to replicate the site's adjacent fossil cliffsThe site will generate about 60% of its own power through wind turbines & solar,... Read more »

The PATA CEO Challenge has been officially opened

Reporting live from the PATA CEO Challenge in Bangkok: Jens Thraenhart - Tourism Internet Marketing Blog H.E. Weerasak Kowsurat, the Minister of Tourism and Sports of Thailand formerly opened the first PATA CEO Challenge in Bangkok after the PATA CEO Peter de Jong and PATA Chairman Brian Deeson made their opening remarks. The Minister was very proud that Bangkok was chosen as th venue of this important event, and stressed the vitality to collaborate and work together as it relates to climate change. Thailand itself is taking th issue very seriously itself. The keynote speaker Dr. RK Pachauri,... Read more »

Interview with Peter de Jong, CEO of PATA at ITB Berlin

Everybody is talking about China, India, and Vietnam…what is really going on in the fastest growing tourism destination in the world? I have had the pleasure to sit down with Peter de Jong, CEO of PATA (Pacific Asia Travel Association) to learn about the challenges and opportunities facing the Asia Pacific region. In particular, Peter addressed the issue around climate change, and how the markets such as China, India, and Vietnam have to focus on infrastructure issues and sustainability in order to be able to cope with the increasing demand. These are all topics that will be addressed at... Read more »

Taking the message global…

Travelmole and “Tips from the T-List” collaborate on delivering the content from the PATA CEO Cahllenge in Bangkok to the global travel and tourism industry. Pictured are Charlie Kao, CEO of Travelmole and Jens Thraenhart, Editor-in-Chief of “Tips from the T-List”.  Read More →

Sri Lanka first carbon-neutral destination in the world?

Maybe a bit too early to say, but aspart of the Boardroom Challenge panel moderated by CNN anchor Ms Kristie Lu Stout, Renton de Alwis, Chairman of the Sri Lanka Tourism Board made a presentation on Earth Lung, a program that was announced during the UNWTO Summit on Climate Change in Davos in 2007. A very interesting initiative that according to Mr. de Alwis is supposed to turn into a community - maybe also online? A website is in development at www.earthlung.travel. You can download the white paper online. Jens Thraenhart - Tourism Internet Marketing Blog  Read More →

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