Indonesia adopts a new system to create « Intelligent Airports »

This year, in April, the Indonesia’s state-owned airport operator, PT Angkasa Pura signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with SITA to provide IT solutions in its airports in order to create and develop new “Intelligent Airport’s”.

PT Angkasa Pura is an Indonesian state company, under the control of the ministry of Indonesian Transport, in charge of the exploitation of airports. It owns two entities:

- PT Angkasa Pura I (created in 1964), which operates 13 airports

- PT Angkasa Pura II (created in 1984), which operates 12 airports

SITA (Société Internationale de Télécommunications Aéronautiques) is the world’s leading specialist in air transport communications and IT solutions. The company delivers and manage business solutions for airline airport, GDS, government all over the world. It has around 4.500 employees worldwide and provides services to over 550 members and 3.200 customers.

The first airport from the PT Angkasa Pura’s portfolio, which will be quipped with the new SITA services, will be the International Terminal at Ngurah Rai Airport, which is the most foreign tourist arrival in Indonesia. Those IT solutions will help the airport to provide new passengers services with the latest technology using real-time information.

The service provided by SITA will be focus on business intelligence, infrastructure and operational efficiency. To make this implementation more efficient, SITA will work with both the airlines present in the airport and the airport operator.

The new services provided by SITA will be, Aircom services (aircraft communications links for pilot, air-ground communications), new check-in kiosks, luggage tracking network, Wi-Fi networks or Applications Service Providers solutions.

The objective fixed by PT Angkasa Pura to SITA is to complete the all installation before Indonesia hosts the Asia Pacific Co-operation summit in Bali.

Those articles are based on the interview of Tommy Soetomo (President Director of PT Angkasa Pura) and Damian Hickey (Regional Vice-President South Asia and India of SITA). Those testify, show the synergy created by both company in order to provide new intelligent services to customers.

Wedding buzz

This time we decided to change the topic from serious meetings and conferences to less serious and more romantic event – wedding. And not just any wedding but exclusive and recently most discussed wedding of William and Kate. This girl is demn lucky to become a princess, and even both of us are a bit jealous, the topic of this post is different. We found a lovely article about the buzz in social media that this even has generated.

Special statistics agency Webtrend calculated the number of posts that were related to this wedding and the hard figures showed that this event is more discussed than earthquake in Japan and situation in Egypt. If you think that only English people are buzzing about royal family you should check this out, 65% of posts are coming from US and only 20% from UK. Well, probably these figures did not take into account the population of the countries and internet penetration, and it will be interesting to see them in proportional weight. Another very interesting statistics concerned what type of social media was used and we can see that Twitter is leading (911 000 tweets), followed by Facebook (217 000 status updates) and blogs (145 000 blog posts plus ours).

We can see that these types of events are very important in hospitality industry as thousands of people are coming to UK to see the wedding with their own eyes and become part of this historic event. This bring economic value to the city of London in terms of hotel nights, flights, restaurant bills, but also a lot of people are buying souvenirs to make this day memorable for them. Social media buzz just preheat interest towards such events. Even though event organizers and local tourism industry players are not the initiators of the internet buzz, they are the ones that highly profit from it. So this becomes another very illustrative example of social media importance in event and hospitality.

The Facebook Send button in the travel industry

Mujteba Naqvi, the founder of US-based social travel startup Bonvoy wrote an article on “How the travel agencies can make the most of Facebook Send”.

Celebrating its most successful year, the Facebook Like button has been incorporated through more than 2.5 million websites. Although email is still the largest and most personal social network, the Facebook Send button might just shatter that gap.

Facebook gives us the ability to click a button which helps in sharing contents with whomever we want on Facebook.

Mujteba Naqvi believes that the Facebook Send button has to be also adopted in travel industry, which will help in sharing hotel and trip information. For instance the review sites such as TripAdvisor or Yelp can integrate it so users and their friends can exchange information whilst tapering the field of choices or activity and tour websites like Viator and Trafalgar need the button so friends can discuss what they should do while on their trip. Moreover flash sales sites like Jetsetter or LivingSocial integrate it so that a user can send their deals to a friend with whom they wish to go on a trip, as well as airline, hotel, and car companies should implement this so loyal customers share directly from their sites.

As an entrepreneur in the social travel industry Mujteba Naqvi finds it overwhelming that Facebook validates what they have already been doing at Bonvoy.

Bonvoy is supporting groups of friends on cooperation around any topic, while they have been assisting travel collaboration and planning for groups of friends within Facebook as an app. They are expecting Facebook to continue to integrate, thus giving users the opportunity to be selective with their social graph. “It will be exciting to see how travel sites use the Send button, I can envision friends kicking off trip planning or estimating costs”, says Mujteba Naqvi.

He considers that the mission of most travel websites is to make travelers’ experiences better and he anticipates that the Send button will help in this development and will enjoy scores of success.

It has been explained how Facebook's Send application can be used for the travel sector, it's use divers and useful, it is still not explained how it can be implemented into the events sector and how it will impact it?

For the time being is hard to actually predict how the Send button will affect and influence the events environment, but one thing seems very clear. Facebook will make itself known to that sector shortly. What do you think?

Five future Internet trends that will change Hotel Internet Marketing

With the evolution of the Internet, hotels need to reconsider the way they market themselves through this channel. More than ever, hospitality professionals need to adopt technologies that the Internet user is or will be familiar with in the near future. Consequently, online hotel marketing will go through 5 different kinds of developments:

• Focus on choice
A successful online distribution will come from the choice that suppliers offer to the consumer. Indeed, the consumer is looking for an experience and the success of his experience will result from the variety of options available. Also, hotels will have to give the opportunity to individually book services such as rooms, dining and spa internally and externally, so that consumers can tailor their own memorable experience.

• Irrelevancy of search rankings
Nowadays, an effective Internet search is being complex and does not provided personalized content. For instance, a Google account owner may be given data based on its past search behavior. This tells what tourism businesses should aim at in the future. The most successful hotel search marketing will have to strategically use the benefits of the social search channels’ online communities, as well as the appropriate niche, to optimize its content and target the right audience.

• Development of the online omnipresence: from “web-sites” to “omni-sites”
The evolution of the web throughout the years has allowed any user to create content, whatever his knowledge of web design is. In the forthcoming years, the shape of the online form will change. Consumers and the technologies are being more and more mobile and the online form must adapt so as to be present an all supports: web browsers, mobile devices, televisions, billboards, etc. So the main challenge for hotels will be to make the content available on any device, assured of its usability and its impact on consumers.

• Close relationship between the supplier and the consumer
The Web and the social networks are going to be crucial elements for the communication between suppliers and consumers. Indeed, social channels enable consumers to share their experience, exchange relevant news and help the consumer make his buying decision. Also, it will be important that guests have the possibility to directly interact with the hotel’s representatives. In this way, a special relationship between a hotel and its guests is settled.


• The virtual worls as an opportunity

It is quite a common thing that consumers complain about the information a hotel provides. Indeed, they can show discontent because the photos of the property are limited or outdated. This kind of problem should be less and less frequent in the future, due to the other possibilities the consumer disposes of in order to visit a site (Google Earth for instance or 3 Dimensional views offer by Microsoft’s PhotoSynth). Additionally, potential guests have the opportunity to view photos or videos posted on the Internet by other consumers.

Some of the above developments are already in use. Others may not sound realistic but they will undoubtedly take place in the coming years. Technology is the future and hoteliers seriously need to consider these strategies as they will guarantee a simplified and global vision of the offer.

Image retrieved from:
http://hospitalitymarketingexperts.com/blog/featured-hospitality-marketing-concepts/hospitality-internet-marketing-benefits-from-sales-keywords/109

Social Media and Mobile Devices

Earlier this month, Tourmag gave a rapid overview of the topics which dominated this year’s ITB: Social Media, Mobile technology and the combination of both trends.

The statistics speak for themselves and confirm that suppliers need to be featured on social media and, just as importantly, need to monitor what is being said about them. Users are not waiting for companies to get with the times; they’ve taken things into their own hands and are moving ahead. With 63% of interviewees saying they leave feedback on social media to share their experiences, companies who don’t listen may be left out of a major conversation and a great opportunity to interact with potential clients.

Social Media used to get travel information before booking:

Surprisingly, we notice that only 15% of the 22% social-media users go to the Facebook page or group of a company before booking.

The increasing use of mobile devices expands the access to information as anyone can instantly search internet from their mobile phone or other hand-held device. This therefore expands the importance of social media as people can make and review comments anytime, anywhere much more easily. Furthermore, it facilitates late bookings as people no longer need to be in a room with a computer and an internet access to book their hotel, tour, transport, etc. This means that not only can last minute bookings be made much more easily, they can be just as informed and no longer just the “luck” of the client who walked-in.

As we see in this article, social media are there and it seems increasingly difficult to go against the phenomenon which is evolving from a trend to a way of life. The community is becoming more and more dependent of this easy access to information, where the reputation of a company can be made of gold or sand! All the professional tourism stakeholders should be aware and include social network in their strategies.

Images from:

http://www.lifewithsocialmedia.com/are-smartphones-transforming-our-social-media-interactions/

http://www.tourmag.com/avant-de-reserver-la-moitie-des-voyageurs-passent-par-les-reseaux-sociaux_a44094.html

NYC Audio Tours Application

Launch in January 2011 the NYC audio tour is an application for Iphone and Ipod. The goal of this application is to have a comprehensive audio tour guide of New York City. The article present the different tools of the application and where to use them.

Guide application offers free and easy access to a wealth of must-have travel information. “This application covers more than 100 historical and interesting places that are grouped according to their locations and are situated within walking distance from one another for users' convenience.”
The application offers five major tools to its users. First, it is an audio tour of more than 12 areas in New York City. It also has the navigation functionality with its different maps include in the application. Furthermore users can choose the content they want to see and specify their search. For example you can look for a restaurant or a metro station. You can also thanks to the filter tools select a specific place as a restaurant according to its prices. Finally the Audio guide includes children info as attractions or places to go.

The audio guide is always upload 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to let users know about the hottest restaurants, the most prestigious hotels and all manner of clubs, bars, spas, gyms, shops, markets and sightseeing spots across new york.

Updated regularly with new benefits, new venues and new locations, the guides allow user to know about:
- Where to stay
- When to go
- Where to eat
- What to see
- What not to miss
- How to get around (with GPS satellite directions)

Article name: New NYC Audio Tours App Takes New Yorkers and Visitors on Exciting Audio Tours of New York City

Key words: Computer Electronics, Consumer Electronics, Entertainment, Mobile Entertainment, Telecommunications Industry, Leisure & Tourism, Travel Industry

Antoine Blanc & Marcellin Brunot

KLM wants faces of Facebook fans on the side of an aircraft

In January we discussed an article about the “KLM Surprise”, where the Dutch Airline used Social Media and the information their customers revealed on the internet in order to give them a personalized gift at the boarding gate.

Now KLM came up with a new idea wanting to put the faces of Facebook fans on the side of an aircraft. The correlating article, written by Kevin May on the 28^th of April 2011 discusses an innovative way of using Web 2.0 in order to engage customers and create awareness.

The campaign is called “Tile & Inspire” and the idea behind it came from a popular Dutch tradition of placing ornate blue ceramic tiles, painted with pictures, around a person’s home. The tool used is a Facebook application that allows the airline’s page fans to place their picture and an inspirational message on a tile. If the project launches, KLM will be using a Boeing 777-200 and paint it entirely with the gathered “tiles” from their Facebook page.

This project is taking the use of Social Media one step further and will surely arouse a lot of attention. The good thing is, KLM will not be using just regular fans of their Facebook page but only those ones agreeing on the special application’s terms. In other words, KLM respects their customers’ privacy if they do not want to appear on the aircraft.

By introducing this new project, KLM again proves their creativity by using Facebook and engaging their customers. The “KLM Surprise” that we mentioned earlier, was a very successful customer loyalty tool and millions of people twittered about this experience. By picturing one’s own face on a passenger aircraft, this could create some real and authentic feelings towards the airline.

In our opinion this campaign is creative and revolutionary, and it could develop into a real marketing success. However, the high costs involved in repainting an entire aircraft, might exceed the return on investment of this campaign, so we question ourselves- is it worth it?

A cost-benefit analysis will show if this project is feasible and viable as a long term investment.

Source: http://www.tnooz.com/2011/04/28/news/klm-wants-faces-of-facebook-fans-on-the-side-of-an-aircraft/

Crowdsourcing & Tourism Campaigns! Using the Power of the Crowd

“Simply defined, crowdsourcing represents the act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call. This can take the form of peer-production (when the job is performed collaboratively), but is also often undertaken by sole individuals. The crucial prerequisite is the use of the open call format and the large network of potential laborers” Jeff Howe, originator of the term in 2006 (crowdsourcing.typepad.com)
Tourism Authority of Thailand Launches “The Most Amazing Show On Earth”

Every journey has a story, and the Tourism Authority of Thailand is calling upon past visitors to share their stories of Thailand in its latest campaign for a chance to win a cash prize and become the inspiration for a film.

In the recruitment phase of the campaign, the Tourism Authority of Thailand has sent out an open call for submissions. From April 8 onwards, TAT is accepting submissions of “Amazing Moments”, or unique stories from anyone who has visited Thailand in the form of photo essays. By logging on to http://www.MostAmazingShow.com, users can upload their photos or sync it to an album on Facebook, mark the regions/provinces to map out their journeys, add descriptions, and share the story with others via social media. These moments will then be collected and shown as part of “The Most Amazing Show On Earth”, a website where visitors can browse stories of Thailand from all over the world.

By capturing real stories from real visitors, the TAT hopes to be able to give prospective visitors a diverse and realistic portrait of tourism of the whole country through the eyes of other visitors rather than an organization.

In the second phase, TAT will develop a film inspired by the submissions. The film will be divided into short episodes to be broadcasted online, with each episode featuring different regions and provinces in Thailand and a sample of the experiences they can offer. In addition, the film will involve online participants further by allowing viewers of each episode to tag gifts related to each particular episode for a chance to win the gifts and have them delivered to a physical mailing address.

Source: www.prweb.com
“Share Your Washington” campaign

The $300,000 “Share Your Washington” tourism campaign kicked off April 18. The mostly-online campaign asks Washington residents to invite their friends and family to visit the state, as a way to pump up a hospitality industry bracing for the imminent demise of the state Tourism Office because of budget cuts.

Web viewers can click a button to instantly send scenic online postcards to their friends and enter a drawing for prizes from sponsor Alaska Airlines.

Marsha Massey, who directs the soon-to-expire state tourism office, said there could be 20,000 new tourism jobs if each Washington resident got a friend to visit. ”This is saying, ‘You can be part of the solution — You can be part of economic development for the state,’ ” she said.

Tourism officials expect people to see the campaign on Facebook or at www.ShareYourWashington.com, although there are also TV and radio broadcast versions, too. The new nonprofit Washington Tourism Alliance is working on a plan to take over the ad campaign as well as state’s tourism promotion website, www.experiencewa.com, when the tourism office closes June 30.

Source: www.bizjournals.com
Getting the Irish to “Talk for Ireland”

DiscoverIreland.ie has just launched a dynamic new campaign called “Talk for Ireland” aimed at getting people to talk passionately and with pride about holidaying in Ireland.

The aim of the campaign is to encourage people to share their favourite destinations, activities, attractions and festivals with each other on the new DiscoverIreland.ie Facebook page as a way of encouraging people to take breaks in Ireland this year.

“To really get the ball moving we would like to encourage any tourism business already active in social media to share this campaign with their followers via their website, Facebook and Twitter accounts”.

Those willing to share their favourite places to holiday in Ireland will have the chance to win weekly prizes, as well as entry into a grand prize draw where they’ll get to experience the current Discover Ireland ‘The Fun Starts Here’ TV ad for themselves! The competition will be promoted on the Breakfast with Hector Show on 2FM and the RTE Guide as well as a range of national newspapers.

To enter the competition, participants simply have to upload a video, or a captioned image, onto Discover Ireland’s new Facebook page www.facebook.com/discoverireland.ie, which expresses exactly what it is they love about taking a break in Ireland.

Source: www.failteireland.ie

When words get in the way of a Google search

The applications for mobile phones come to the tourism industry to stay. Every month the new mobile applications are emerging. We can see the variety of mobile services and applications that facilitate virtual experiences to tourism with consideration of the destination marketing organization’s innovativeness and consumers’ needs. In March 2011, Google launched the upgraded Google Search application. The newly upgraded app makes it easier to scour the Web with pictures straight from smartphone camera. The application’s feature, a point-click-and-search ability called Google Googles. Google Goggles lets to tourists use pictures taken with their mobile phone to search the web.

Everybody knows how sometimes difficult to find the right words to describe something that’s unfamiliar to you. The developers of Google Googles wished tourists could hold up a photo and find this, and make it snappy. This application is ideal for things that aren't easy to describe in words. The tourists don’t need to type or speak their query. All they have to do is open the application, snap a picture, and wait for search results.

Using this travel tool, tourists can find the information ten times fast. Application not only recognizes visual cues, building, architectural landmarks, artwork, etc. but translates words from English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

The testing of this device in New York City shows that Google Googles can even recognizes Ney York City’s lesser-known objects, such as the Grace Building and Bryant Park.

The practical uses of this application are endless. Tourists can make the trip abroad without fear of being linguistically weak. Also, very often tourists have pictures from when they traveled and didn’t label very many. Sometimes they can only have a general idea and wonder exactly they were. Google Goggles works with pictures of books, landmarks, barcodes, logos, contact info, artwork, text. It can recognize up to three items at a time. The application is not so good when taking pictures of animals, plants, cars, furniture, or apparel. Developers of this application recommend, for the best results when taking pictures, hold the phone in "left landscape" mode. Google Goggles is free for Android devices, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 devices, iPad, and iPod.

What is the next? What kind of new mobile applications will add the value for our tourist experience? We hope that the next year students of Skema Business school will describe it in their blogs.

Summary - DEEP MAP Challenging IT research in the framework of a tourist information system

Information systems play a Key role in the Tourism Industry today. This Article gives a general overview of the relation between information systems and the tourism industry. This article was published by the European media library in Heidelberg, Germany.

This article is mainly research based and describes various surveys conducted in the field of information systems used in order to make the tourism systems smoother. The article describes how I.T has made it easier for tourists to get access to information about a particular destination. It sites examples of hotel information being easily available online or even other necessary information which makes travelling much easier for tourists.

This article is very much based on opinions of tourists themselves. It says that tourists who were surveyed had mixed opinion about the use of information technology. Some wanted to carry a mobile computer along with them for trips; on the other hand some were very much resistant to the use of technology while travelling.

A lot of other issues were also surveyed to which tourists had a varied opinion as well, but the general trend was that people are willing to use more and more technology wherever possible, especially information technology.

Source: Malaka, R., & Zipf, A.(2003). DEEP MAP Challenging IT research in the framework of a tourist information system, European Media Laboratory

Hotel Technology Evolution Continues to Gather Speed

This article is actually an interview with the technology director at Quadrig, Marc Budie, who exposes the driving force behind the current change in the hospitality sector (such as changes complex solutions & converged technologies) and how the company is working with hotels to meet these needs.
*”Quadriga Worldwide Ltd works with the world’s leading hotels to support their brand and help them to differentiate themselves from their competition, providing the hotel’s single answer to guest communications, delivered through integrated internet, network and IPTV technologies. Quadriga specialises in creating communications solutions for hotels and guests, delivered through the TV and guest laptops, providing guests with a gateway to a world of information and content”. (Wikipedia)

The technology needs of the hotel customers have evolved rapidly. Nowadays, many hotels require a certain level of technology that solves business problems and delivers a real business value. Today a growing trend appears among lots of structures: they wish to group their services over a single network. Indeed, their aim is to make business efficiencies by reducing cost and managing complexity through only one a single network.
In a loyalty and retention optimization, Hotels also want to provide at least the same level of quality technology that their guests have already experienced at home: a plethora of TV channels, high definition quality, substantial bandwidth…. As these kinds of requirements are huge for a hotel strategy, the importance of finding a good supplier in order to support the complex integration and merging of associated technologies is a true stake.
According to Quadriga, hoteliers prefer to look for “a single, long term partner to help them navigate increasingly complex technology and convergence challenges, ensuring that they can realise optimal return from their investment”. The director also explained that hotels want to benefit from the technology system in order to generate revenues, reduce costs, promote brand values and drive guest satisfaction.

This article is interesting because it focuses on customer satisfaction through technology service in the hospitality sector. We have seen through this interview that a lot of innovations exist and are provided in luxury or huge structures, such as the network of leading hotels. The reflection concerning what economic hotels have been doing or plan to implement for their technology service could be interesting to analyze and develop.

How to Make Your Event Rank higher on Google

The article retrieved from the website stated above, posted by Julius Solaris on April 25, 2011, “How to Make Your Event Rank Higher on Google” talks about the importance of using SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for your business nowadays, especially in the event industry. It is the authors goal to motivate a maximum of people active in the event industry to be active online and to posture their websites in Google search.

As we agree upon the author’s point of view and think that the visibility of an event website is highly important. In the article it says that selling tickets online is already the first step of doing e-commerce. In order to be successful in this business the website has to be well ranked in the search engine to be found easily by your customers. Here it is important that the website is built up correctly; you have to pay attention to the CMS (Content Management System) of the website. For good content management it is suggested to use solutions such as WordPress rather than Flash on websites. This is even more the case for SEO where a lot of Plugins will help optimizing the content of the website, as well as links and images for a better Google indexing.

Furthermore, to be well ranked on Google, it is essential to choose the right “keywords”. In order to know which keywords are the right ones, Julius Solaris suggests to do first of all careful brainstorming and then test the chosen words for their existence on the web. One good tool that will help a lot is “Google AdWord”, which will show you the number of hits on these keywords and the level of your competition hosting those keywords. The 3 Golden principles are: Be specific, avoid competition and analyze conversion rate.

In addition to the right keywords it is also primordial to have a right website structure. It will be very helpful to read the article of Joost de Valk, available on http://yoast.com/site-structure-seo/ where he explains how to built a clear structure of your website. Once designed the structure of the website, a sitemap needs to be generated and submitted to Google. For this you will have to register with Google Webmaster Tools and update your sitemap. WordPress will here again be helpful as a Plugin performing automatically the process.

Moreover, social media can be a tool to improve the visibility of your website and/or your event. Indeed, they can drive traffic directly to the website as well as enable sharing between members and their friends and rise therefore the number of viewers. Google allow blog's contents to be received as "organic research" which allows users to click directly on it. In addition, blogs, which are added to social media, offer the possibility to upload several different contents such as video, movies, pictures, abstracts etc. Furthermore, given the importance of YouTube, event professionals have to pay attention to be correctly referenced on YouTube and Google video tools in order to be ranked at the top and more easily found on the web. For the particular event industry, video can offer the chance to spread up videos and live streaming in order to reach as many people as possible.

To conclude, the optimization of a website has to go through a particular process:

- Study of the keywords

- Structure of the website

- Using multiple tools (videos, blogs)

- Social media communication and happenings

- BE PROACTIVE with Google analytics

The author ends the article by a quotation of Vince Lombardi that illuminates the purpose to be ranked on top of Google search " The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand."

Managing your online reputation: advice and practical resources for tourism professionals

We are in a period of web 2.0 development. Every day, blogs are created and allow people to write comments on everything, their opinions but also their experiences and travels.

So, the surfer on the internet is no more a simple spectator of what is happening but can interact and produce on the web. It has many impacts on the notoriety and the reputation of the tourism businesses as they are very often named by surfers and criticized. This change in communicating and sharing its experience must be taken in account. Especially as tourism’s customers are very sensible to others’ opinions and testimonies.

This article gives tips,good practises and solutions for tourism professionals in order for them to build their company a good e-reputation on forums, blogs, social medias because it has a direct impact on their turnover and sales.

The first essential element is to continually monitor and interact with the critical comments submitted by customers online on the differents internet supports. For this, the institution may choose to acquire a specialized software that will help automate a number of tedious tasks such as harvesting advice from different sources, and to quantify the analyzed.

Difficult to measure, the e-reputation is nonetheless crucial for the success or failure of a company and even if reputation management in tourism is certainly not requiring millions of dollars, it is a major issue that needs minimal attention and time. It is therefore suitable for industry players to develop and protect their reputation. So, they must be aware of the consequences of a disinterest in this topic. It demands time, a minimum of IT competences and watch of trends. That’s why a specialized software would facilitate the work and centralize every sources.

Finally, for the author of the article, a good reputation is not only generating new customers, it also helps retain loyal customers. It is more likely to return to a hotel where the reception was warm.
As platforms for exchange of opinions as Tripadvisor.com allow customers to share their opinions and experiences about the hotels where they stayed, it’s also very important to have as many as possible good comments from previous customers. The customer satisfaction is an important factor in the development of trade, as the critics of former customers influence on the election that the traveler seeking a hotel.

Mobile Phones in the Travel Sector

Mobile Phones in the Travel Sector

M-tourism which refers to Mobile-tourism now plays a key role in the tourism sector and its importance and market potentials are now being fully awared of by tourism practitioners. Indeed, Mobile phones’ use in travel industry is no longer an emergent phenomenon as more and more people now are turning to their cell phones to search for travel information as well as to plan or even book their travels. As a result, the industry is working on different ways to devise an optimal mobile phone strategy by mainly focusing on budgeting and planning for mobile website/Apps enhancements and mobile marketing initiatives.

In terms of mobile website/Apps enhancements, the idea is to focus on the customer exp

erience instead of basic website/Apps. For example, Sound of data, a Rotterdam-based company recently, is working in conjunction with CheapTickets.nl, introduced the online travel company’s iPhone application. The most important decision was to concentrate on the customer experience rather than creating a full Mobile OTA App in which the company would sell flight, hotel and cars’ inventory. This resulted in a “My Cheaptickets” service offering with a branded itinerary manager with real-time flight updates as the most important item.

With rapid advancements in mobile technology, the lines between mobile apps and mobile websites are disappearing. Newer, more sophisticated mobile devices, mobile operating systems and mobile browsers have enhanced the quality of the mobile web browsing experience tremendously.

Hotel companies plan to test and build out more capability related to mobile marketing inclusive of ad serving across networks and within their owned media with a focus on location aware targeting, using of QR codes and SMS for acquisition and potentially some carrier based solutions.

Kerry Kennedy, VP e-Commerce, Omni Hotels, says, “I believe these are interesting projects to add to the mix of an overall comprehensive mobile marketing strategy. I think that it is important for hotels to consider the key reasons guests book from a particular brand and enhance their mobile sites with functionality that leverage those reasons to keep the guest coming back to the site as well as present the brand voice the customer has come to expect.”

According to Kennedy, emergent marketing channels like QR codes and SMS need to fit the larger overarching strategy of the four marketing P’s (product, place, price, promotion) for a brand while doing so in the new digital channels.

Print media is still expensive, not measurable enough, and not profitable enough. Too many small local businesses never even took full advantage of using the internet to connect with customers, but if there was a steady stream of tourists it often didn't matter. But now with more competition and less people traveling, it is wise to stop spending money on print ads and flyers that visitors never see or just throw away and pay pennies a click to reach them on the smart phones they won't leave home without.

Businesses in tourism industry can use mobile marketing at a low price to directly reach potential visitors and bypass the numerous travel sites which can take commissions. They can easily provide value and earn the loyalty of their clients before they even meet, the potential to get creative with this is great because this method is still in its infancy and whoever gets in now is going to do very well.

Article Source: http://www.eyefortravel.com/news/hotels/mobile-phones-travel-sector-learning-execution-and-feedback

Picture source: http://about.intermaps.com/produkte/?langswitch_lang=en

http://www.mobimento.com/en/mobile-marketing.php

New Technology Brings Added Luxury To Hotel Stays

This following article “New technology brings added luxury to hotel stays” has been published on the AMEinfo.com, the ultimate Middle East business resource on October 21, 2010. This article talks about the new technologies that are rapidly developing and the usual implementation in hotels all over the world.

The quick development of Internet and its content represent a real threat for hotels but also an opportunity to provide new products and services to guests. Before people went to hotels and discovered the new advanced technologies such as TV, WIFI that they did not have at home yet but now it is the other way round and what is more the experience from hotel appears to be disappointed. However some hotels try to be the most updated they can in order to satisfy client comfort. Hotels started to implement a new service around the iPhone in order to guide clients, store their preferences and also geocalize. Moreover some hotels offer iPads in each room. This allows guests to access a multimedia video welcome and control such in-hotel experiences as ordering room service, making restaurant reservations, checking airline schedules, and printing boarding passes.

This article appears to be relevant for several reasons. It allows taking in consideration that technology is changing very quickly and some businesses such as hotels has to stay updated with these new evolutions in order to surprise customers about service, comfort and quality. However some hotels distinguish themselves by introducing technology that is commonly used such as the iPhone and they are doing very well.

This article is interesting but it will be very interesting to go deeper on this subject. It would allow having a better analysis on the link between new technologies and hotels. The idea of introducing the iPhone is a very good idea but some applications that does not already exist should be found by managers in order to improve and bring a new service and to satisfy customers.

Technology and viral marketing: the case of Ireland

Viral marketing through interaction with customers and new technologies are becoming more and more popular while promoting a destination. One of the best examples is the case of Ireland as highlights this article: http://www.siliconrepublic.com/new-media/item/20935-tourism-ireland-launches/. Tourism Ireland has 117 342 fans on its facebook pages and 4 320 followers on the Irish Twitter account. The destination also has a Twitter account for the British followers, one for the Australians and one for New Zeland.

In November, the minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport, Mary Hanafin, announced a funding of €1m towards technology projects promoting cultural tourism. The development of Smartphone apps, mobile websites, online interactive games represent today a great opportunity for the tourism industry. Mobile phone technology presents huge potential for the future of the tourism industry.

Regarding viral marketing, Tourism Ireland launches a Facebook game on St Patrick’s Day called Ireland town. The game based on the principles of Farmville lets players create their own “idyllic Irish town”. There are 32 destinations and nine tasks to complete at each point. Tourism Ireland is hoping to exploit the popularity of social networks by convincing more than 100,000 people to play the game and hopes that the game will bring the experience to life for potential visitors. The DMO claims to be the first to launch such a marketing campaign, which should give a competitive advantage to the destination.

Ireland is the top 5 tourism destination on Facebook in number of fans.

Tourism Ireland has almost 7,500 fans in Australia and launches the Facebook and Twitter campaign for St Patrick’s Day called “how green will you go?” The campaign includes an “green yourself” application to help fans turn their profile picture green. Australians were supposed to tweet a “green” slogan or about a “green” action they did. This is all about creating interaction according to Tourism Ireland: “This year... we have decided to take a more personal approach; so instead of lighting up Australian icons, we are asking Australians to show us just how green they are willing to go for St Patrick’s Day.”

To play the game: http://www.facebook.com/DiscoverIreland?sk=app_197174040303624

More about the St Patrick campaign: http://www.businessandleadership.com/marketing/item/28889-tourism-ireland-launches/

http://www.etravelblackboard.com/article/115886/how-green-can-aussies-go-tourism-ireland

Google & Online Travel Agencies - Episode 2

From: http://www.veilleinfotourisme.fr/1302605857639/0/fiche___article/

By Isabelle Masseglia & Amandine Amphoux.

Last month in a previous article we were dealing with the Google story "Online travel sites are terrified of Google". Here is the follow up from an article published in Le Journal du Net on the 11 of April 2011. You'll see that Google has now the authorization to make itself as an online travel agency but it has to follow specific rules to do so...

GOOGLE IS ALLOWED TO BUY OUT “ITA” BUT UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS…

The US authorities came to an agreement with Google. This agreement imposes specific requirements in order to set limits to competitive distortion during 5 years. A limites period of time established as a security for competition and business survival of the traditional online travel agencies.

The agreement stipulates that Google shall supply the OTA with the ITA software. The Research and Development on this software shall be maintained. Moreover it is not permitted to prevent the OTA from getting information about flights by reaching an agreement with airlines companies.

Another requirement is the creation of a mechanism dedicated to collect and handle the complaints regarding the unfair trade that could occur.

Then an "intern fireguard" has to be set up to stop Google from getting sensitive information from ITA's partner companies’ sites.

Once the acquisition finalized, Google will be able to offer a new service based on search engine that will be easily accessible.

Hopefully some customers may take advantage of this new and shattering entry in the travel online market.

We found interesting to follow on this subject as the question is not totally closed yet. It is a real important issue for online travel agencies as Google is becoming their biggest competitor ever.

This "Giant" of the Web already has many different activities in which it competes a lot with existent businesses who are expert in. If it is going on by attackin the tourism industry, every stakeholders in this fiels should be very carreful toward him...