Posts tagged as:

innovation

Society of Government Travel Professionals Keynote

September 9, 2010

The Society of Government Travel Planners EdCon’10 Keynote Address focused on growing traveler needs for Relevance, Mobility, Personalization and Community. Developing effective strategies to address deep search, the splinternet, convenience and security will be essential. Eventual winners will be the smart, the unique and the engaged.

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Orbitz Improves Its Hotel Search – Is It Enough?

August 10, 2010

A recent Orbitz press release touted “Orbitz Launches Groundbreaking Hotel Search Experience with Industry-Leading Property Comparison Features.” In reality, the changes are incremental, mostly derivative and unfortunately not significantly innovative. With Orbitz indicating that growing its hotel business is a top priority, they need superior product functionality to climb back up to last year’s second place share of unique visitors from this year’s fourth place share. While the enhancements give Orbitz functionality similar to its competition, its price guarantees remain the most customer friendly in the industry.

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Big Brother in 1984 Apple Macintosh Ad was Steve Jobs!

July 12, 2010

When Apple introduced the MacIntosh computer during the 1984 Super Bowl, Steve Jobs defined the Apple brand promise by daring a community of creative individuals to fight conformity, support innovation and combat overbearing corporations. Too bad that a quarter century later, Apple’s strategies have begun to make Steve Jobs look a lot like Big Brother from that commercial. By controlling the hardware, software and advertising platforms of its mobile devices, Apple has created a totalitarian state that is making decisions for its customers and inhibiting access to information. This former fanboy is disappointed.

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Day 2 Highlights – 2010 Association of Travel Marketing Executives Conference

June 18, 2010

The second day of the 2010 Association of Travel Market Executives conference included keynotes by marketing leaders from Priceline and Wyndham, sessions on mobile marketing and new distribution channels, plus perspectives on retail and the airline industry. This year’s conference theme was “The New Now & The New Next”

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Day 1 Highlights – 2010 Association of Travel Marketing Executives Conference

June 16, 2010

The first day of the 2010 Association of Travel Market Executives conference has wrapped up and provided its audience of travel marketers with statistics, strategies and technologies to consider. The conference theme was “The New Now & The New Next”

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What Smartphone Should I Buy?

June 11, 2010

With legions of swooning fans and impassioned critics, the mobile turf battles have erupted beyond the mobile carriers and have simultaneously broken out between handset manufacturers, operating systems and rich media platforms. The burning question for millions of US consumers is “What Smartphone Should I Buy?”

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Impact of Structured Data on Travel Search

May 6, 2010

Search is radically changing to become more contextual, relevant and focused on producing the right answer for the user. Structured data sourced from the Deep Web is essential to provide a solid foundation for linked data to define semantic relationships between pieces of information. This is what transitions the web of documents to a web of data. The resulting relevant, convenient and highly personalized search experiences create trust. Whoever earns the trust of the consumer wins. The endgame for Web 3.0 players has never been more clear. Presented at the Open Travel Alliance 2010 Advisory Forum.

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Individualization of Travel – ITB Berlin Convention

March 13, 2010

Text of opening remarks by Robert Cole when moderating the Individualization of Travel panel on March 12, 2010 on Marketing & Distribution Day at the ITB Berlin Convention. Key takeaways included travel is both an intensely personal and highly social experience. It is also a very complex multi-step process. A massive quantity of potential options exist, as well as dramatically different personal decision making processes. Now, social media now enables a transition from mass broadcasting brand messages to establishing relationships with customers and interactively communicating.

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High Points from PhoCusWright@ITB 2010

March 13, 2010

The PhoCusWright@ITB 2010 conference just concluded and, as always, provided a number of interesting points to consider within the travel industry marketing, distribution and technology landscape. My recap of the sub-conference within the massive ITB Berlin exhibition has been published as a guest post on Josiah Mackenzie’s Hotel Marketing Strategies Blog.

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How Google Can Help Simplify Online Travel Planning

November 5, 2009

The planning phase of the seven-step travel process is a hot area for travel startups that are developing innovative solutions to address a complex problem. Google, with 70+% share of US search traffic and many existing travel planning tools is perfectly positioned to improve and simplify the travel planning process. In the future, end-to-end planning of complex travel arrangements will result from enhanced profiles supporting trip-centric traveler personas and geo-aware itinerary sequencing tools. The introduction of hard and soft filtering will provide support for emerging Web 3.0 technologies capable of providing more relevant travel product recommendations.

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