Comptoirs du eTourisme Marseille Travel Massive - DMOs, Bloggers and Digital Marketers working together.

Last week I participated in Marseille's #Travelmassive organized by my friend @claudebenard of Hotelitur. It was a fun and interactive chat among Keith Jenkins, blogger extraordinaire of VelvetEscape fame, the sweet and brilliant Fabienne Wintle of Untanglemyweb and myself. We connected to the event via Group Skype, and even thought we had a couple of technical glitches, we did have a great time. Our task was to address the question of how can digital marketers, travel bloggers, hoteliers and destination management organizations (DMOs) best work together? Not an easy topic to summarize because there are many variations on the theme. For example we talked about the different types of travel bloggers and their different objectives. A professional blogger working for a large organization (like Conde Nast, for example) would not have the same objectives that a blogger who does note depend on his or her blog to generate revenue. We commented as well on the different projects a digital marketer might encounter. Fabienne, for example specializes in assisting, training, educating and helping small tourism businesses in Australia on the various topics related to digital and social media marketing. Her challenges are very different than those a digital marketer/consultant working for a large DMO or a multi-national hotel chain might face.  Keith addressed the issue of fees for blogging - something that might have been taboo 2 years ago, but something that's very important. Some bloggers are quite happy with getting travel invitations from destinations and blogging about them without getting paid for this content hoping that they will generate revenue through advertising. Other bloggers are offering sponsored blog posts thereby getting fees per post.  Still other bloggers are now getting speaking fees at various conferences and events.

My conclusion after our very interesting chat is that there are great opportunities for bloggers, digital marketers, hoteliers and DMOs to work more effectively and strategically to achieve the ultimate goal - more satisfied visitors and guests.  One of the points we touched on was international collaborations wherein we could share our audiences with each other, offer a syndicate of bloggers (guest blog posts as well) to destinations, access our different networks to offer clients more bang for their marketing dollars - bring in our Facebook and Twitter followers.  For example, I offer my clients campaigns that include display advertising, blogging, tweeting, facebooking which reach Hispanic travellers everywhere. What if when I am pitching to them I can offer increased reach by offering them coverage from Keith who reaches another audience altogether. Destinations do this all the time with bloggers. A group of bloggers (Kim Mance, Wendy Perrin, and Shannon Hurst Lane), were invited to Toronto for Canada-e-Connect 2010 in Montreal. Since they  were going to be in Montreal, Ottawa invited them to visit there before or after the conference. So destinations and bloggers can reach out to each other to maximize social media and digital marketing opportunities. 

As for Travel Massive Marseille, I hope a group of us bloggers get together in Marseille in the near future under a strategic digital marketing plan from the DMO there. We can certainly get some traction in the blogosphere. En Français, in English y en Español.

Bon voyage,

Jaime

What do Social Media managers do? Who plays the role in your Tourism Business? No one?!?!

The roles of Social Media Manager and Director of Social Media (or similar titles) are very new. Even as recent as a year ago you would have been hard pressed to find any organization with a manager or director of Social Media. Some companies had people doing some of the things that social media managers are doing now. Many organizations delegated the functions to an outside Ad or PR agency. Some other organizations delegated some of the activities (or all) that social media managers should do to someone in their IT department or a Webmaster. Recalling Dr. Ian Fenwick's remarks at Canada-e-Connect 2009, having an IT professional doing digital (or social media) marketing is insane! Even today, I come across job postings looking for Social Media expertise that are more focused on technical aspects, like programming or CMS expertise, instead of communications and marketing backgrounds.

Canada is just beginning to catch up to other parts of the world (mostly the US and the UK to be more precise) when it comes to creating specific roles for digital and social media marketing practitioners (one job posting that I thought was funny was one in which the organization was looking for someone with about 8 years experience in Social Media - laughable, right? there was NO social media to speak of 8 years ago when Google was barely 3 years old!).

So what do the responsibilities of a Manager of Social Media would look like on paper?

Strategy - work closely with the appropriate colleagues to devise and implement the organization's social media strategy

Content (is still king) - create and agglomerate content from colleagues or outside sources, get approval for posts if needed) and publish content across social media platforms (make the content travel). Maintain the organization's social media presence up to date.

Engagement - harness the power of super fans of the brand, product, destination, by designing ways to reward these consumers for their contributions

Training - train and educate colleagues in the organization on the relevant aspects of social media depending on the organization's objectives

Research - stay informed on latest developments and trends in social media and communicate these to colleagues in the organization - monitor competitors' digital presence.

Measurement - use relevant metrics to measure effectiveness and prepare reports

Analysis - make recommendations on marketing initiatives based on sound analysis

Jaime

www.cactusrock.com

Canada-e-Connect 2010 went viral and international. Musings #CEC2010 Post #4 Cajun_Mama's video: the Travel Bloggers Forum

Shannon Hurst Lane set up her laptop to Ustream our Canada-e-Connect 2010

Travel Bloggers and Twitterers panel with her, Wendy Perrin and Kim Mance, and myself moderating

Thanks Shannon.

Canada-e-Connect 2010 went viral and international. Musings #CEC2010 Post #3 Twenty interesting things

Some key phrases and thoughts from Canada-e-Connect 2010

1. Conversational Capital - Rituals, initiation, icons, relevant sensory oddity, exclusive product (service, experience) offering, over delivery, tribalism, endorsement, continuity. "the medium is the message" McLuhan "the consumer is the message" Cesvet
2. From Claude Benard of Hotelitour to Hoteliers. (paraphrasing) "Use the OTA's for search. Maximize all your channels of distribution, but most importantly maximize your own direct channel (your chain's or hotel's booking engine and website)
3. From Philip Wolf, President CEO PhoCusWright: "Strategically correct yes, politically correct, no"
4. From Philip Wolf, President CEO PhoCusWright: "Brand matters"
5. From Philip Wolf, President CEO PhoCusWright: "Premature ROI analysis stifles opportunity before it has a chance to develop"
6. From Kim Mance, founder GoGalavanting and the Travel Bloggers Exchange community: "You need to be louder" (after my question about why aren't Americans coming to Canada, what are we doing wrong or not doing?)
7. From Cajun Mama, Shannon Hurst Lane, founder TravelingMamas.com, ShannonLane.com: (paraphrasing) many people market to the coasts (of the US) "they think that's where everybody is and they forget that there is this huge country between those two coasts. (after my question about why aren't Americans coming to Canada, what are we doing wrong or not doing?)
8. From Patrick Payne of Quickmobile: Mobile's 7 P's Presentation, Presence, Proximity, Personalization, Privacy, Payments, Push (also contender for the most tweeted tweet)
9. From Philippe Fabri of Atout France: 100 mini-sites. being specific in promoting destinations
10. From Maria Ziv of VisitSweden: Digital Embassies as opposed to one huge website. Focus on images (everyone has ADD these days)
11. From Jens Thraenhart, DragonTrail.com: (paraphrasing) "China is a huge opportunity...there are more bloggers in China than in the United States"
12. From Philippe Fabri of Atout France: eTourism as cloud
13. From Vicky Brock of Highland Business Research, Scotland: "Strategy without metrics is merely wishes. Metrics without a strategy are meaningless." (perhaps the phrase most tweeted at the conference)
14. From Carroll Rheem of PhoCusWright: The Long Tail of OTAs (Online Travel Agencies) is getting fatter.
15. From Walid Salem, Exec Dir eBusiness, Canadian Tourism Commission: "Take advantage of the millions of dollars in free advertising and PR that the Olympics will provide"
16. From Ken Lambert, VP Sales & Marketing, Delta Hotels and Resorts: "For us, Twitter is more important than Facebook."
17. From Jaime Horwitz, Cactus Rock, Digital Marketer and Strategist, Co-Chair CeC: "It's Tasty" after tasting Poutine with Fois Gras for the first time (at the Restaurant au Pied de Cochon in Montreal)
18. From Jaime Horwitz, Cactus Rock, Digital Marketer and Strategist, Co-Chair CeC: "To increase destination fans be specific: fans of poutine, fans of Grand Prix du Canada, fans of Tamy Emma Pepin (not just fans of Quebec)"
19. From Joe Buhler, BuhlerWorks, PhoCusWright, Marketing in the Smart Web: "data roaming charge is the elephant in the room" (at the Mobile issues and opportunities session)
20. From Wendy Perrin, The Perrin Post, Traveler Magazine: "I love talking to travelers, I love helping them with their travel..."

Jaime Horwitz MBA

Digital Marketer and Strategist

Chair Canada-e-Connect 2009

Co-Chair Canada-e-Connect 2010

Member of TIAC since 1999

Canada-e-Connect 2010 went viral and international. Musings #CEC2010 Post #1 The Stars

Quickly: Top of Mind. Who were the stars of the Canada-e-Connect eTourism Strategy Conference 2010 in Montreal? In no particular order:

1. Twitter
2. Maria Ziv VisitSweden.com
3. Kim Mance - GoGalavanting.com
4. Wendy Perrin The Perrin Post Conde Nast Traveller Magazine
5. Shannon Hurst (Cajun Mama) TravelingMamas.com Shannonlane.com
6. Philp Wolfe President CEO PhoCusWright
7. Bertrand Cesvet SidLee.com
8. Vicky Brock Highland Business Research, Scotland
9. Philip Fabry Atout France
10. Emmanuelle Legault Tourisme Montreal

The above are my top of mind, quick-tell-me, stars of #CEC2010. If you attended the conference you might have a different top-of-mind list. Share it in the comments here. Just now, as I write this, I remembered Jens Thraenhart (DragonTrail.com), for example, and his impressive presentation on the eTourism/Online landscape in China.

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Jaime Horwitz MBA
Chair Canada-e-Connect 2009

Co-Chair Canada-e-Connect 2010

Spotlight on Kim Mance - Canada-e-Connect 2010 Travel Bloggers

I met Kim virtually when I joined the Travel Bloggers Exchange community, a worldwide community of travel bloggers, journalists, writers and travel professionals who meet annually and which she founded. Kim is a travel writer, editor, and new media broadcast personality based in Chicago, IL. Kim hosts the lively web travel series Galavanting, is editor-in-chief of the online women's travel magazine, GoGalavanting.com, and writes about travel for outlets like MarieClaire's Travel Diaries, Indie Travel Podcast magazine, and The Huffington Post. She is currently writing the first Insiders' Guide to Chicago for Globe Pequot Press.

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I am delighted that Kim will be one of the panelists at this year's Canada-e-Connect 2010 Travel Bloggers (and Twitterers) session which will take place this coming Friday, bright and early (8am) at the Delta Centre Ville.

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Jaime Horwitz MBA

Co-Chair Canada-e-Connect 2010

Spotlight on Shannon Hurst Lane of TravelingMamas.com - Canada-e-Connect eTourism Strategy Conference

Shannon Hurst Lane has been a freelance travel writer for almost a decade and has always dabbled in the online world sharing her love of all things travel with her readers. She is the author of travel guides and the self-help book The Definitive Guide to Travel Writing. She is the creator and curator of the TravelingMamas.com blog. I read the Mamas every now and then to learn about various NorthAmerican destinations and little known travel spots, but it's clear to me that their content is geared to women for the most part. TravelingMamas write, among other things, about Romantic Getaways, Family Travel, Culinary Travel, Girlfriend Getaways and Adventure Travel.

One of Shannon's websites was named as a Nielsen Power Mom site, and she is proud to be able to provide valuable learning opportunities through travel to younger generations. Shannon has devoted herself to sharing social media strategies with the travel industry, through speaking engagements and one on one consults. Shannon is the CEO of Lane Media, LLC, a Louisiana-based media publishing company.

I am looking forward to moderating The International Travel Bloggers & Twitterers Forum – Presented by Ottawa Tourism and the Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership at Canada-e-Connect Montreal 2010 where Shannon, Kim Mance and Wendy Perrin will be the panelists.

A bientôt,

Jaime Horwitz MBA

Co-Chair Canada-e-Connect 2010

Spotlight on Wendy Perrin Canada-e-Connect eTourism Strategy Conference

I can't remember how I found Wendy Perrin on the Web, but I often check her blog the Perrin Post and I also follow her on Twitter. You can learn a lot about what's hot in travel around the world by following and reading Wendy. Wendy is also Condé Nast Traveler’s consumer news editor and writes the magazine’s practical advice column, The Perrin Report. She is one of the most respected travel bloggers I know about and, even though, she does work for a mainstream publication, she has a reputation for honest reporting and opinion. I am very excited to meet her next week in Montreal and share the stage with her and Kim Mance of GoGalavanting and Shannon Hurst Lane of the TravelingMamas.com blog. The travel bloggers session promises to be one of the most interesting parts of the Canada-e-Connect 2010 program.

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Jaime Horwitz MBA

Co-Chair Canada-e-Connect 2010

Spotlight on Bertrand Cesvet and Conversational Capital - Canada-e-Connect 2010

Bertrand Cesvet is brilliant. Yes, a brilliant communicator and AdMan, Cesvet is the chairman and chief strategist of award winning agency Sid Lee. The AdMan term in this day and age is not quite appropriate. The advertising business has been turned on its head by the advent of social media and the power of the consumer. Cesvet understands this better than many in the advertising and communications business. His book Conversational Capital, co-written with Tony Babinki and Eric Alper is a case in point. Cesvet understands that today conversations have more power than ever. We've always known that positive word-of-mouth is the most powerful advertising any product can have. The difference today is that this word-of-mouth can now spread virally to thousands of people (and in some cases hundreds of thousands) very quickly in social media. Enter Conversational Capital. At its simplest, I understand Conversational Capital as the value of the conversations generated by a product, service, artist, or in the case of tourism, a destination or an experience. The hard part is how to create this Conversational Capital. It's very hard. But not impossible. And, contrary to what some people may think in regards to social media, creating word of mouth does not only happen through happy accidents (Banff Squirrel, Knut the Polar Bear), but through careful planning, flexibility (you must be ready to act at a moment's notice) and lots of creativity (Dove). And it may not be inexpensive as some people think when it comes to social media.

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The challenge for tourism marketers is to translate the lessons of the book into action. Tourism is very different than most other products, especially those that are known by their brands. One of the reasons for this is that the relationship with tourism product is normally very fleeting, a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing. Not much repeat business -except perhaps for tourism products in certain categories, like skiing and beach getaways and business trips that take a traveler to the same city over and over again. While, I don't have hard data, I tend to believe that most vacationers want to go to many places around the world, but will not necessarily go back again and again, given the myriad destinations available. Thus the relationship with a destination is not the same as with other products like a car, a smart phone, an artist who has a new movie or a new album out every so often. Once, you've been to Paris you may want to go to Rome next time.

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So how can you work with the 10 engines of Conversational Capital - Rituals, Initiation, Exclusive Product Offering, Over-Delivery, Myths, Relevant Sensory Oddity, Icons, Tribalism, Endorsement and Continuity - to attract tourists to your destination or attraction? This is the key question, one, that I'm sure Bertrand will address during his keynote presentation at Canada-e-Connect eTourism Strategy Conference 2010 next January in Montreal. Try not to miss it. Register at www.canadaeconnect.com .

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Jaime Horwitz

Co-Chair Canada-e-Connect 2010

A TIAC conference in cooperation with PhoCusWright

PhoCusWright 2009

I was not able to attend the PhoCusWright Conference in Orlando this year, but I kept more or less informed by following comments on Twitter and Twubs. Now that the conference is over I can recommend UpTake's Elliott Ng's summary for those who want more details as to this year's conference revelations. Elliot's takeaways:

• Mobile will open up new opportunities for in-trip planning, shopping, and booking.
• Sensors, system data, and geolocation-tagged data will be everywhere
• An Epic Battle over the social web is ensuing between Facebook and Google, creating opportunities for all
• Online search and discovery is still the biggest problem in travel planning and shopping (in other words plenty of need for the kind of stuff UpTake is doing)
• The industry continues to focus on using data to drive better ad targeting and site conversion.
• Social media is changing travel marketing, distribution, and customer service, and new tools are being created to help companies monitor and manage this new channel.
• Many consumer-oriented startups still seem to be in the “build it and they will come” approach toward traffic acquisition. C’mon, don’t do that to yourself. Stop it. Now.

Read Elliot's complete wrap up on UpTake's Travel Industry Blog

Cheers,

Jaime

Online travel trends from a Travolution blog post

One of my favourite blogs to follow is the Travolution Blog. If you work in the travel industry, this blog is a must read. A couple of months ago it published an interesting piece by Professor Dimitrios Buhalis, research editor for Travolution and chair of the Enter09 conference in Amsterdam. The post's title was "24 things to think about if you are involved in online travel." I won't reproduce the 24 things here (clic on the post's title to read the whole thing). I just want to comment on some of them:

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1) Context is king - due to the relevance to consumer needs - this includes location, party, purpose of visti, timing, etc. Absolutely agree. Context and content go hand in hand, but relevance is everything when marketing your destination, hotel, attraction, etc. Twitter's success notwithstanding, search is still the biggest digital tool and what searchers want the most is truly relevant results to their queries. Right now, for example, might be a good time to ramp up Golf marketing campaigns since golfers are beginning to plan as the weather gets better.

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2) Content needs to be reorganized and presented to serve context. It almost goes without saying, but much harder to implement.

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3) Gadgets that can be plugged into iGoogle, Facebook, Vista and other platforms which can extend the reach of a website. Content travels and as Dr Fenwick pointed out at Canada-e-Connect 2009, content has been liberated from devices. Destination should spend some time and effort developing engaging gadgets, widgets and iPhone/Blackberry apps.

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9) Two conflicting trends - from "Personalisation/CRM/need everything about the customer - to "leave me alone/give me what I want/you don't onw me. Permission is everything and it is a challenge. How do you get potential customer's permission to market to them? One way is to make it fun first perhaps via an iPhone app or perhaps by building a follower base on Twitter or a fan page on Facebook. Or making use of interactive outdoor campaigns using QR codes to engage people. Whatever the media, it will become increasingly important to get people's permission to address them directly given the proliferation of digital addressable media.

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12) Twitter is becoming the next big thing and many predict that it will have a similar success to SMS due to its simplicity, interactivity, speed and relevance. Agree. Twitter seems to be already the next big thing, even though it only has about 7 to 8 million users currently. But don't go all crazy about Twitter just yet. Twitter's strength at the moment (and it attractiveness to companies like Facebook and Google rumoured to be courting Twitter) is in the aggregate. At the individual, DMO or small business level I see Twitter as a complement to all other marketing tools in the mix. I will write an assessment of Twitter in a future post soon.

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13) Impossible to concentrate with so many channles of interactivity interrupting everything - relevance is vital, once again. True. Goes almost without saying. The explosion of channels, tools, apps, etc., requires an effort from consumers to filter out annoying things. This is one of the reasons I am a bit turned-off from Facebook. Many of the apps on Facebook are very intrusive and "force" users to annoy their friends and connections by sending all kinds of invitation to all kinds of quizes, contests, etc., that for some of us are a bit of a waste of time.

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17) Most Destination Management Organization (DMO's) are totally inadequate to meet the challenges of the future. I don't agree with Prof Buhalis on this one. First, I think he does not understand DMO's very well (BTW I believe the initial M is for marketing not management). I will agree that many DMO's are indeed inadequate to meet the challenges of the future. But there are many destination that are doing great things in the digital space and also offline. At Canada-e-Connect we learned about Tourisme Montreal's digital strategy for 2009 and everyone at the conference was very impressed with it. Sweden's Community of Sweden social networking site is a success. VisitLasVegas is another DMO that has been doing very innovative Web 2.0 marketing.

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18) Only agile desinations as presented by bahamas.com Minister of Tourism and Aviation for the Bahamas, Vincent VanderPool-Wallace, will use innovation and eTourism for destination strategic advantage. Agree with the "only agile assertion," but Bahamas is not the only DMO doing good work in this space.

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20) VisitBritain takes 202 bookings per month!!! What is the return on investment on that? VisitScotland nationalised their booking service company whilst Tiscover was fully privatised and purchased by HRS.com. The jury's still out as to whether tourism board websites can successfully offer bookings direct to consumer. Some Canadian DMO's have indicated that their booking numbers are very good (although I've never seen specifics).

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23) Increasingly virtual worlds and immersive technology (developed in gaming and military applications) will be critical in marketing and cultural heritage representation. Not very much is said or written about regarding digital games and immersive technologies vis a vis eTourism, but it is an area with incredible potential. However, in order to be successful in this area, tourism businesses and destinations must be very creative (going beyond placing ads in a virtual world a la Second Life or within a Wii game), perhpas develop original games that promote the destination while providing fun to the users (and perhaps even an additional revenue stream for the DMO).

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24) We need to think differently and strategically as well as use the digital tools to raise our game to the global challenges. Couldn't agree more. But change is hard and it takes time. The purpose of the Canada-e-Connect eTourism Strategy Conferences is precisely to foster new thinking, strategic thinking in our industry vis a vis Tourism and eTourism. However, I have noticed that many in the industry resist change and while there is progress in the digital marketing space (e.g. Tourism Montreal, Tourisme Quebec and the CTC are working on very interesting projects in the space) inertia is very strong and we are not moving as fast as other competitors.

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To read the Travolution post clic here: "24 things to think about if you are involved in online travel."

Regards

Jaime Horwitz

Fabulous, scrumptious lunch in Montreal with Tourisme Montreal

Yesterday, after a very productive meeting, I had the pleasure of having lunch with my friends from Tourisme Montreal. Carmen Ciotola and Emmanuelle Legault took me to Alexandre et Fils on Rue Peel. Strange that in all my years of visiting Montreal I had never heard of Alexandre's. I was very pleased with the service, which reminded of restaurants of old (with professional Maitre’D and servers). The ambiance and concept are French all throughout. I had a small salade verte to start with, which was fine. But then I had a salmon tartare appetizer and things got more interesting and enjoyable. The tartare was fabulous. For my main course I chose the chef's special of the day, Canard (duck). I don't usually eat duck (hard to find chefs who truly know how to prepare duck, but also I feel a bit like I shouldn't eat duck, like eating a loon, national symbol and too cute, like bunnies). But duck I ate, and it was absolutely scrumptious (my apologies to my beloved Muskoka loons). Perfectly cooked, melted in the mouth.

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All of this brings me to a canadian (or fill in the nationality of your choice) tourism business point. Many people want to know how to get the attention of bloggers. One way is to hire one (or many) to blog about your business; another is to pay for a blog post on a particular blog - not things quite encouraged by some blogging purists - in the age of transparency - but more readily accepted if the blogger discloses the realtionship). More importantly, in my opinion one of three things must be present for bloggers (b - as in blogger - to c) to be interested: Either a very bad experience, an excellent experience or a very creative event. Run of the mill average mediocrity is not really conducive to writing about. As I replied to Carmen and Emmanuelle when they asked me how the duck was, I said "excellent, definitely bloggable." Of course, you might say that Alexandre et Fils got lucky (in the case of my blogs) because someone took me there for lunch. And you would be right. Most bloggers don't make a living blogging. They blog because they are passionate about the medium and want to express themselves. For some lucky ones, blogging may lead to a consulting gigs, a higher profile in their industry, decent advertising revenue or a big buyout; but this is rare. If you want a blogger to blog about your business try and contact him or her and ask what would it take for them to do it. It may be as simple as inviting them for lunch.

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Salut,

Jaime Horwitz MBA

www.blogdecanada.com

www.canadamigos.com

Musings on the PhoCusWright Conference Hollywood 2008

Final thoughts on PhoCusWright 2008 in relation to Canadian Tourism

The PhoCusWright Conference in the US (either in Los Angeles or Orlando – it alternates venue) is perhaps the largest conference of its kind in the world. The focus of PhoCusWright is mostly on the technologies and technologically based services that drive travel around the world. What this means in today’s travel business environment is digital technologies, the Web, Mobile devices, intranets, B2B and B2C, etc. The emphasis for the most part is in the distribution of tourism product around the world. While there were many workshops, panels and presentations only one workshop focused on marketing per se and in my opinion it was more about online advertising than marketing. (lots of data on clicthrus, effectivenes of search vs. display ads, search and display combined, etc.)
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While the US conference is mostly US centric (there are international PhoCusWright conferences in partnership with other organizations like Travolution in the UK) most of the companies at this year’s event have an international or global perspective. PhoCusWright is overwhelmingly a gathering of private sector organizations in the travel space whose goals are to generate travel sales, be it airline tickets, hotel bookings, activities’ purchases or vacation rentals. In addition many of these companies also play the role of media, i.e. offering content to online visitors and advertising services to tourism organizations. One thing most of these companies have in common is that their services don’t favour one destination over another. Their mandate is to sell travel or advertise tourism businesses regardless of their location. From a Canadian Tourism perspective, the question arises as to how Canadian destinations can take advantage of the myriad of digital channels available to them in order to be top of mind when consumers are making travelling decisions. Another important area for Canadian Tourism businesses is distribution. In addition to the traditional OTA’s like Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz, companies like Adventure Link and Isango.com may be of interest to many Canadian small activity and/or adventure operators who want to extend their reach internationally.
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Attending The PhoCusWright conference would be valuable to marketing officers and eBusiness managers at Canadian DMO’s PMO’s, CVB’s, etc., in terms of learning about the latest trends in eTourism technology and eTourism companies as well as in terms of establishing relationships with technology companies and eTourism businesses that can be valuable service providers to a destination, whether in the area of eMarketing or eDistribution. While the content of the conference may be very interesting and valuable, that’s not always the case depending on what your organization does. But, what was evident from spending time and observing the proceedings at PhoCusWright and I believe a key reason why so many people attend is the networking and business opportunities available. The list of attendees is very impressive, a veritable who’s who of eTravel and travel technology companies.
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The PhoCusWright Conference this year launched a new component, the Travel Innovation Summit. A group of 32 eTravel or travel technology companies were vetted by PhoCusWright to make presentations to attendees who then voted to select the top six who then went on to present at the conference's main event. A select group of judges then selected a winner as the PhoCusWright Innovator of the Year, Best of Show. The coveted prize went to IM@ (www.imatnow.com), an innovative mobile advertising service ("IM@ provides interactive, "geo-intelligent", mobile visitors guides for major travel destinations"). Other intersting innovators who participated: RezGo.com, TripTelevision, Yapta, TripIt, eKit, Cadabra, PlanetEye, Triporati, TravelBeen, TravelMuse, Uptake, Worldmate, Wandrian, Nile Guide and others. In addition to these innovators I met other companies that are doing interesting things in the travel space, such as TravelScream, the TravelChannel, wCities, TvTrip and BazaarVoice.

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Another component of the PCW conference is a series of Sponsored Workshops on various topics of interest to eDistribution, eMarketing, and technology officers in travel. "Industry leaders will present educational and dynamic content, covering a variety of the hottest topics for the travel marketplace" This year there were workshops on Green Travel, Vacation Rentals, Search Data, The NEXTGen traveller, Mobile, and of course the Bloggers Summit presented by the T-List (of which I'm happy to be a member).

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The main event at PhoCusWright is Center Stage, which took place over a day and a half. Center Stage presents global leaders in the travel technology industry talking and discussing the issues that affect the industry at a macro global level, such as the session about "Retailing, Distribution and Technology in a New Global Marketplace" led by Sam Gilliland, Chairman and CEO, Sabre Holdings Corporation.

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Overall, one must conclude that PhoCusWright lives up to its implied promise as the premier conference in travel and technology. While not all of the content may be of interest to every registrant, when it comes to travel and technology, the networking, partnership and business opportunities may be unparalleled. The conference also provides a forum for participating companies to launch new services, make announcements or organize meetings with press and bloggers . Furthermore, PhoCusWright supports its conferences, which it purports to constantly improve and differentiate, with a very robust website that allows attendees to schedule appointments and plan ahead. The production and logistics of the conference were almost perfect. PhoCusWright does not spare expenses when it comes to the technology used to enhance the event, whether it's flat television panels, audio transmitters/receivers (had some glitches), sound systems, large screens and wireless access everywhere. (Frommer's sponsored the program schedule via mobile as well as Frommer's mobile guide to LA) Breakfasts and luncheons encouraged networking (although tiny plates at breakfast were a bit difficult to use while carrying your laptop and there was little space to sit down).

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PhoCusWright is not cheap, but it does offer three ticket levels over the four days of the conference (first two days, last two and a half days or the whole three and a half days). Given the uncertain and difficult economic times we are living these days, technology for tourism marketing and distribution is becoming more critical to organizations who are looking to cut costs, save money, compete more effectively in the marketplace and be more accountable to their stakeholders. That must be why there were over 1,000 total registrants at PhoCusWright 2008 (and why, by the way, I believe Canada-e-Connect Toronto 2009 will be sold out.)

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Jaime Horwitz MBA

Blogger
Member of the T-List

Chair Canada-e-Connect

Aftermath or Afterglow PhoCusWright eTravel conference 2008

While the markets saw a horrible week travel and technology professionals got together in Hollywood to learn about the latest trends in eTravel techonology and distribution, make new connection, network with leaders in the industry, launch new initiatives and form new partnerships. The economic horizon in the short term looks bleak to be frank, but in the medium and long term travel will continue to be the largest industry in the worl. Travel is innate in the human being, something inside most of us compels us to travel and explore new places and new cultures. One of the facts that comes out of the current economic environment is that globalization is real, our world is more interconnected than ever. Travel will come back in a very strong way. Unfortunately, as with every economic crises, some tourism businesses will fold. The smarter, stronger, and most customer oriented ones will survive to see the next boom. I'm working on my assessment of the PhoCusWright conference vis a vis Canadian Tourism. I should have a review here very soon, come back often to this blog.

Rob Torres, Google's manager for travel takes questions on the last day of the conference (photo PhoCusWright media team)

Jaime Horwitz MBA

Say Goodbye to Hollywood. Going back to T.O.

Unfortunately, I have to be back in Toronto tomorrow afternoon so I will have to miss PhoCusWright's last day. I will read the posts and twitters from the T-List and write my final assessment and impressions over the weekend. It's been a very interesting and productive three days and I look forward to future PhoCusWright events. But next week I will be turning my attention to the Canada-e-Connect eTourism Strategy Conference 2009 The Shift to DigiMarketing, which I'm Chairing for the Tourism Industry Association of Canada. I hope to see many of the friends I met at PhoCusWright in Toronto from Jan 21 to the 23d.

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Jaime Horwitz MBA

www.canadamigos.com

TripTelevision

TripTelevision is one of the companies from the group of innovators at the PhoCusWright Innovation Summit this past week. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to interview President and COO Kulin (Colleen) L. Strimbu (photo) about TripTelevision's technology during PhoCusWright. TripTelevision has developed a unique video player that is meant to be used as a sales tool and not just a player. Their video player can be customized to better address clients' needs. It can be used for online advertising by repurposing the video and, through its partnerships, TripTelevision offers an online distribution service. TripTelevision's video player began its life in the music industry and the technology won an technical Emmy from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. One of the neat features is TripTelevision services is post-production. Whether they shoot your video or you provide the footage they can cut it to appropriate lengths and incorporate the clips into the player itself. The viewer then can see one clip or any of the clips. The video supports advertising (you can quickly deploy high-quality, high-CPM video advertising campaigns in your content). I found the player very easy to use and see great potential for those canadian tourism organizations that may be considering deploying an online video or online TV strategy. From my conversation with Ms. Strimbu I gathered that the cost of investing in this technology is quite accessible to most tourism businesses and o rganizations. TripTelevision

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Jaime

PhoCusWright Images

Bloggers and media area at PhoCusWright's Center Stage event

Networking patio

Endless Vacation rentals sponsored water bottles at PhoCusWright. Great idea: Fill the bottle not the landfill.

With friends and fellow T-List Bloggers Claude Benard and Jens Thraenhart

Lunch on the second day of PhoCusWright 2008, announcing Travel Innovation Summit finalists

With Kulin L. Strimbu, President of TripTelevision a cool digital video application and service (interview blogpost coming soon)

Part of the Canadian contingent at PhoCusWright 2008. L2R Me of Cactus Rock, Yen Lee, founder of UpTake (formerly of Yahoo), a new innovative trip planning website, Jens Thraenhart of Chameleon Strategies and Stephen Joyce of RezGo.com

Lunch on the second day at PhoCusWright, perfect for a Mexican Canadian blogger.

Talking business in the hallways at the Renaissance Hotel Hollywood

Cheers,

Jaime

Tips from the T-List at PhoCusWright

The most impressive group of travel industry bloggers (B2B) must be the T-List. "The T-List (T standing for Travel) is basically a collection of travel blogs on the Internet that was first compiled by Mathieu Ouellet in March 2006 (www. radaron.com) with just a handful of blogs." Today, the list has grown to a large group of international bloggers with different points of view and focusing on various areas of the travel industry (many wiht a focus on technology). Further to Mathieu's idea, Stephen Joyce of RezGo.com (Sentias Software) and Jens Thraenhart of Chameleon Strategis (former Director of eMarketing at the Canadian Tourism Commission) took it upon themselves to give the T-List a stronger profile and a virtual home. They also came up with the idea of producing a book compiling relevant blogposts called Tips from the T-List that would (and was) distributed at the first Canada-e-Connect eTourism Strategies and other prominent eTravel conferences around the world. They also worked on launching a website that would aggregate the bloggers posts in one virtual home (with lots of work from RezGo's Phil Caines). Thus the Tips from the T-List website was born. TFTTL is now a respected group of eTourism professionals who blog for the benefit of the travel industry world wide. All of us have our regular day jobs but we are passionate about eTourism and its power. To read a breadth of information about the goings on at PhoCusWright go to Tips from the T-List at PhoCusWright.

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Cheers,

Jaime

The Travel Innovation Summit Finalists PhoCusWright 2008

Attendees to the PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit 2008 voted and the six top etravel innovators were announced at a very well attended luncheon this afternoon. "The Travel Innovation Summit demonstrators afforded attendees a sneak preview of the next big wave of ideas that will shape the travel marketplace over the next 12 to 18 months," noted Philip Wolf, PhoCusWright president and CEO. The finalists will have an opportunity to pitch their companies to a panel of judges at PhoCusWright premier event Center Stage. One will be chosen as the 2008 winner.
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Home&Abroad: Fogglight—a free platform that enables travel businesses to integrate trip planning and booking tools into their online service offerings. It allows users to create a travel Web site from scratch. www.fogglight.com
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Interactive Mobile @dvertising LLC: iM@ (I'm at) —a geographically-aware content management platform providing travelers on-demand access to destination-specific information on accommodations, transportation and entertainment on a variety of mobile devices. www.imatnow.com

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TripIt: An online platform that builds a travel itinerary from various booking confirmation emails and integrates travel information, weather, maps, and city guides to an itinerary that can be shared via social networking. www.tripit.com

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Triporati: Offers an online platform which assists customers in selecting a travel destination by matching the needs and affinities of the traveler with the unique character of over 1,000 global destinations. www.triporati.com

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Wandrian Inc.: Wandrian API—integrates global rail booking systems and allow travelers to search, shop and book global rail travel from a single platform. www.wandrian.com

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Yapta.com: Your Amazing Personal Travel Assistant—a travel shopping Web site delivering a unique combination of price assurance and transparency to consumers who have purchased air travel online. It also alerts customers of price changes and changes to rewards redemption values. www.yapta.com

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While I didn't expect all these companies to make it, I did think that FoggLight, Triporati and I'm@ would. I also wanted RezGo (www.rezgo.com) to make the finals, not only because they're my friends and Canadian, but also because I think they are very innovative in terms of bringing powerful eCommerce tools to the long tail of travel, the small businesses that make up the majority of tourism businesses around the world. In addition to RezGo I also had Nile Guide, Clairvoyix and TravelMuse as favourites. I like NileGuide because you can plan a trip build an itinerary and at the end of the process print your own neat personalized travel guide to carry with you. Clairvoyix is direct marketing on steroids, a good example of what companies can do with data. Many Marketing professors and business pundits have said it again and again, many companies collect reams of data but don't really take advantage of this information. Clairvoyix offers solutions to take advantage of the data. And TravelMuse I liked because of an innovative way of looking at trip planning in a well good looking site.

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Jaime Horwitz MBA

DigiMarketer

TVTrip a video hotel search and booking website from Europe

TVTrip is a unique search engine for hotels. It is not the only website that is using video to showcase a hotel but it is the only one I've ever seen where video is at the centre of the business model. A few years ago this idea would not have worked (or worked very well) because of low speed Internet connections. But in today's YouTube era, video is the fastest digital tool/service (web and mobile). People want Video (from the Latin "I see" from the verb videre "to see."). We are a visual species and when it comes to travel planning the more we can see (provided we believe that what we see is authentic) the better. This is the TVtrip's unique selling proposition . With the cooperation of the hotels, they show you everything they can from the properties on their website (mostly European Hotels plus New York - while they do list hotels in Canada they have no video for these hotels yet).
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TVtrip was created in 2007 by travel and Internet experts with backgrounds in companies such as Expedia, Air France, Lufthansa, Microsoft and Lycos and is based in Paris, Munich and Brussels. I interviewed Marc Ruff, CEO and Co-Founder and Steve Stollerman VP North America. They indicated to me that the company is very interested in expanding their filmed hotels by adding Canadian cities' properties to the site. This should be of interest to Canadian hotels interested in European travelers because TVtrip has a broad user base in Canada's traditional inbound markets like the UK, France and Germany. In addition to the well produced and detailed videos, another aspect I liked about TVtrip is its multilingual capabilities. I hope they can go to Toronto in January to attend Canada-e-Connect. One possible problem with the model though is the videos' shelf life, e.g. what happens if a hotel remodels and redecorates its rooms or common areas. How long can the videos last before they become dated. A question I did not think to ask Marc and Steve, but I will via email and report back on this blog. See TVtrip here.

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Jaime