62 days 'till Canada-e-Connect eTourism Strategy Conference 2011

While there are only 23 days 'till Christmas (Happy Hanukkah, btw, Dec 1 to 9), there are only 62 days until Canada's national etourism strategy conference, Canada-e-Connect, presented by TIAC and PhoCusWright. Register by tomorrow, Friday December 3, to get a shot at a brand new iPad 16G.

This year the CeC has put together another great program. Speakers include Scott Stratten @unmarekting on "Unmarketing" fame, Tara Hunt @missrogue, and Amber MacArthur @ambermac, one of the leading social media experts in Canada and author of Power Friending (my review is coming on this blog soon).

The first Canada-e-Connect conference held in Vancouver was all about "joining the conversation," the second Canada-e-Connect in Toronto in 2009 was about the "Digital Revolution," and how digital technology is the new gauge (see Dr. Ian Fenwick's DigiMarketing), content is personal and content travels and engaging instead of targeting. The third installment of Canada-e-Connect in Montreal was not only about joining the conversation using digital media, but how to go beyond and create conversational capital (see Betrand Cesvet's "Conversational Capital"), conversations that enhance brand equity. What will Canada-e-Connect IV be all about?

We all know how fast technology moves today. At the second Canada-e-Connect in January 2009, while I was interviewing Ted Souder, at the time Head of Travel Central Region at Google Inc., during a luncheon session, I asked if anyone in the audience had a twitter account. Besides me and Ted, only 2 or 3 people tweeted! That was less than 2 years ago! Today we are seeing an explosion in geo-location services and group buying might be the next big thing (Google might be buying Groupon as I write this).

How are you adapting your strategy to take advantage of the ongoing digital revolution? Come to Canada-e-Connect 2011 in Toronto and get ahead of the curve. There will be sessions on geo-location, video as a branding, marketing, communications and sales tool, what's going on in the mobile space, of course social media, branded content and very importantly - measuring it all. And if a session does not cover a particular interest of yours, I am sure you will meet people who can either help you or point you in the right direction. Network with experts in their field.

Canada-e-Connect 2011, February 2 to 4, 2011. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Register early.

Hope to see you at CeC 2011

Jaime Horwitz MBA

Past Chair Canada-e-Connect

member advisory committee

@jaimehorwitz

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 #2 Twitter

Last year at Canada-e-Connect 2009 in Toronto, I had a conversation with Ted Souder of Google (head of Industry Travel Mid West - named "25 most extraordinary minds in sales and marketing" by HSMAI in 2006). This conversation took place on stage during the luncheon as a keynote presentation. At that time, I asked the audience whether anyone was using Twitter. This was January 2009. Only one or two people in the audience of more than 200 raised their hands. Many hadn't even heard of Twitter (Ted, of course, not only had heard, but was using it already), so I proceeded to do one tweet live from the stage about interviewing Ted Souder of Google at CeC2009.

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12 months is an eternity in digital time. At Canada-e-Connect 2010, pretty much everyone knew about Twitter and the majority of attendees (I think) have Twitter accounts. But not all. In fact, about a dozen people started tweeting for the first time at Canada-e-Connect. The fact that #CEC2010 became a trending topic in Canada during the conference bodes well for Canadian Tourism. It should very much be an example of the kind of exposure and "word-of-mouth-on-steroids," to use PhoCusWright's Philip Wolf's phrase, that social media can provide for an event or a destination. I know that Montreal, CEC2010's host city, is very happy about all the mentions that it too received from hosting the event.

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While Twitter, just as any other element of Social Media or of the marketing mix, is not the end all and be all, I think it is clear that it has become an extremely important tool (if used well) for tourism. What better example to confirm this than Ken Lambert's statement. Ken is VP of Sales and Marketing for Delta Hotels and Resorts, and a great panelist at CEC2010's Hoteliers 2.0 session. Ken said (I'm paraphrasing here) that "Twitter is very important for us and it's growing tremendously. For us Twitter is more important than Facebook."

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 Joe Buhler, panelist Mobile and Mobile Challenges, Canada-e-Connect 2010

Joe Buhler, Senior Destination and Social Media Marketing Analyst, PhoCusWright, has seen it all (well not all, but almost all) in the travel business. With wide-ranging global experience in destination marketing, the airline industry, retail travel and wholesale tour operations, Joe Buhler advises organizations on how the latest web developments impact customer interaction and travel marketing. Prior to joining PhoCusWright, Joe was Executive Vice-President, Business Development and Strategic Alliances of EuroVacations.com, and also worked for Switzerland Tourism, where he managed the development and realization of the award-winning myswitzerland.com. Joe is also an avid industry blogger and member of the T-List with his blog Marketing on the Smart Web.

Joe will bring his significant experience and vast knowledge of eTourism to the Canada-e-Connect 2010 panel on Mobile and Mobile Challenges. In the past couple of years we have all witness the revolution on mobile communications that is taking place around the world. As recently, as yesterday, January 12, an article in the Globe and Mail indicated that "Consumers are shifting away from land-line phones to wireless, with 28 per cent wanting smart phones and 19 percent a Qwerty keyboard...new research suggests the next six months will see 55 per cent of Canadians buying a new handset, likely a smart phone."

Moreover, the explosion of smart phone apps (ie iPhone), including thousands of travel related ones, has big implications for travel marketing and travel product distribution, from hotel rooms to activities to events.

While you don't necessarily have to develop a mobile app yourself, you should make sure that consumers can find information about your destination through your mobile device. The behemoth Google has entered the fray with its Nexus One device anticipating that the mobile device will be the computer of the future. Apple's tablet is generating enormous buzz in technology circles with some pundits saying it'll make the iPhone look like a toy.

Whatever the future holds in mobile technology, one thing is certain: tourism organizations and businesses must at the very least understand how mobile technology works, how consumers and travelers are currently using it and how they may want to use it in the future.

The Mobile and Mobile challenges session at Canada-e-Connect will take place Friday, January 29 at 2 pm. Time is ticking and the conference is filling up. If you plan to attend, register now before it's sold out. www.canadaeconnect.com

See you in Montreal,

Jaime Horwitz MBA

Co-Chair Canada-e-Connect 2010

Spotlight on Philip Wolf, president and CEO of PhoCusWright - Canada-e-Connect Montreal 2010

It would be very hard to say which presentation at Canada-e-Connect 2010 will be the most important to attend. One would think that it depends on the nature of your business or your role within the Canadian tourism industry. I also believe, based on past experience, that delegates to the conference will want to attend every session because the program is full of interesting, stimulating, and most of all, informative content. But, having said that I believe that one of the most important presentations to not miss at CeC 2010 will be Philip Wolf's. Philip Wolf is the president and CEO of PhoCusWright, the leading eTravel and eTourism research organization in the world that also happens to produce the most important travel and technology conference on the planet, the PhoCusWright Conference. Philip has been at the leading edge of innovation since the beginning of the online travel revolution.

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I have met Philip on two occasions in the past when I have participated in the PhocusWright Bloggers Summit as a member of the T-List - once in Berlin for PhoCusWright at ITB and once in Hollywood for the PhoCusWright Conference. I have seen Philip in action as a speaker and I can assure you that his presentation will be nothing short of fantastic. During his keynote address at Canada-e-Connect, Philip will share his outlook for the future of our industry. Find out what trends, technologies and paradigm shifts will change the face of travel in 2010. Whether your tourism business or destination is small or large, you will learn something of interest to your organization during Philip's presentation. Don't miss CeC 2010. Register before it's sold out.

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Canada-e-Connect 2010 marks the first collaboration between The Tourism Industry Association of Canada and PhoCusWright, a partnership that demonstrates both organizations' commitment to helping the Canadian Tourism Industry become more competitive in the fiercely competitive eTourism space.

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Jaime Horwitz MBA

Co-Chair Canada-e-Connect 2010

TIAC

PhoCusWright

Canada-e-Connect

Spotlight on Maria Ziv and Emmanuelle Legault - Canada-e-Connect 2010

Maria Ziv and Emmanuelle Legault are two of the foremost experts in the new digital marketing space. Or as experts as one can be with such a dynamic and revolutionary medium. Perhaps we can call them Digital Media practitioners and strategists. Maria is the Marketing Communications Director at VisitSweden and one of the people responsible for the fantastic and award winning social networking site CommunityofSweden (or CoS as some of us members call it). Community of Sweden is one of the most successful destination related social media websites.

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Emmanuelle is the Director of Communications at Tourisme Montreal and one of the main architects of Tourisme Montreal's Digital Strategy. Under her leadership the digital marketing team at Tourisme Montreal embarked on a bold assignment by shifting their entire budget online, 100%. Emmanuelle announced this initiative at last year's Canada-e-Connect conference in Toronto generating a lot of buzz in the eTourism blogosphere. The results for this bold move have been very positive, increasing bookings for Montreal's Sweet Deal packages by 51% and generating countless mentions, blogposts, comments and other social media goodies. Read more about this here: Tourisme Montréal: the shift to 100% Web-based advertising yields positive results.

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Maria Ziv and Emmanuelle Legault will present and discuss their respective e-tourism strategies at Canada-e-Connect 2010 in Montreal on January 28. Maria and Emmanuelle will engage in an interactive discussion over what tools and techniques have and haven't worked for their destination. It should be a not-to-be-missed session.

Register before it's sold out at www.canadaeconnect.com

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Jaime Horwitz

Co-Chair Canada-e-Connect 2010

Presented by TIAC in collaboration with PhoCusWright

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

PhoCusWright begins.

The leading technology and travel conference in the world is almost underway in Orlando, Florida. I am very disappointed that I was not able to attend this year. But there's always Twitter. Or, you can also purchase an online ticket that allows you to attend from your desktop or laptop. Visit http://www.phocuswright.com/ for details

To follow the conference tweets, I suggest

On Twitter
http://twitter.com/phocuswright
Hashtags to follow #pcw09 and #PhoCusWright

or

On Twubs (www.twubs.com)
http://twubs.com/phocuswright

Cheers,
Jaime

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

BazaarVoice, another interesting company I met at PhoCusWright

BazaarVoice is a software as service company that offers ready to use tools to add Web 2.0 to companies in just about any sector. BazaarVoice offers three core product/services: Ratings and Reviews, Ask & Answer and Stories. For the travel industry I believe the most useful service is Ratings and Reviews followed by Stories. These two services can be managed by BazaarVoice thereby freeing up human resources (and therefore cash). Ask & Answer is not as easy to outsource because responders must be experts in the destination. I have not used the service and this is NOT a paid plug for BazaarVoice, but from my interview with Greg Brown and Jonathan Wolf at PhoCusWright 2008 (photo) I got a good impression for the company and I think it deserves a look. In addition, BazaarVoice already has prominent Canadian corporate clients in the retail space. I invited them to consider going to Toronto next January to attend Canada-e-Connect where they can network with Canadian tourism industry players. It seems to me that if they offer these services at a cost effective price there should be Canadian travel organizations, be it DMO's or tourism businesses interested in this kind of outsourced Web 2.0 capabilities. Check them out at BazaarVoice.

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Jaime Horwitz MBA

VacationRoost vacation rentals, one of several vacation rentals firms at PhoCusWright -

Vacation rentals are an area of tourism worldwide that's ripe for well managed trusted online services where travelers can research and book holiday properties. A very small percentage of the market books vacation rentals online. VacationRoost and other companies are trying to change this and take advantage of this profitable segment of the tourism industry. I posed the question about trust and branding to Julian Castelli, CEO, and Michelle Hagen, VP Customer Experience (photo). One reason why potential customers don't book online may be because they don't trust the website and are afraid of a SNAD (significantly not as described) incident. VacationRoost is very much aware of this and offers a 24/7 customer service phone line (operated in the United States). Another way VacationRoost addresses the issue of trust is by working only with professional property managers. I suggested to Julian and Michelle to add a tab to their home page to explain why first time users should trust VacationRoost thereby answering that question right of the bat so people can then search and book with confidence. VacationRoost is mostly focused on rentals in North America. In Canada, VacationRoost offers many vacation rental options in Whistler. Overall, I found the site easy to use and now that I know I can trust it, I would consider booking a vacation rental with VacationRoost.

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Jaime

Worldmate an example of Mobile travel services

WorldMate is a mobile services company that offers WorldMate Live "a travel service that makes it easy for business travelers to plan and manage their trips." The application is available for BlackBerry and Windows mobile enabled phones. Users send in their travel plans, Worldmate Live creates an itinerary, automatically syncs it between a personal web site and mobile device. The service sends flight changes alerts, allows users to book hotels on the go and share their itinerary with friends, co-workers and family. Basic services are free for users but they offer a more robust service for a fee. Jon Michaeli, VP Marketing (photo) told me that Worldmate Live has over 330,000 users mostly in the US but also in Canada (60/65% US, 10% Canada). The service is more suited to the business traveler but leisure travelers may find it useful as well. For the leisure traveler I prefer I'm@ from the Interactive Mobile @dvertising (in a future post), one of PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit's winners.
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Jaime

PhoCusWright Day 2

Day 2 of the PhoCusWright Conference in Hollywood is Workshop and networking day. I will be at the Mobile and Its Role in the Travel Experience Workshop, the Managing Online Customer Esperience MUST be a Top Corporate Priority Workshop and the Understanding Today's Digital Marketing Landscape: Making the Most of Your Online Marketing Budget. In addition I will be networking and interviewing innovators in the eTourism space. I am also taking the opportunity to tell many of these eTourism practitioners about Canada-e-Connect eTourism Strategy Conference 2009, since I believe that it will be a great opportunity for some of these experts and companies to network with Canada's Tourism Industry leaders.

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stay tuned for my posts about the one2one interviews with some eTravel innovators.

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Jaime

www.twitter..com/jaimehorwitz