One Night Only

For those of you in the San Francisco area this week, make sure you stop by the e-Tourism Summit and say hello.
The team who arranges the summit has been kind enough to ask me to present on a panel at the conference on the subject of blogging, specifically ‘Blogging 360: A new medium or a [...]

Travel Trends – Get Social Now!, Travel 2.0

Your Audience Wants To See You on Twitter – First, thanks to Martin (@coldinpdx) for spotting this story.  Some interesting stats from a recent survey on corporations, social media and the public’s expectations.
According to the 2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study, 93 percent of Americans believe a company should have a presence in social [...]

Hotels.com Visualizer

Imagine your ideal vacation escape. For some this may entail hiking the Appalachian Trail in Asheville, for others standing atop Peak 9 in Breckenridge on a cold, sunny morning. Perhaps the perfect vacation for you is figuring out a way to see every sight in Disney’s Magic Kingdom, or making certain that you see nothing [...]

Why Don’t Hotels Have Very Simple Alarm Clocks?

Why does a banana cost twenty cents at the supermarket and $1.61 at SFO? Are hungry people supposed to subsidize non-hungry travelers? When I go through security, why do I need to remove a cardigan sweater but the woman standing next to me can keep her cashmere blouse on? Are certain kinds of [...]

Mistaken Identity

Revenue Science, one of the leading players in the business of targeted advertising, gathers information about consumers and then sells it to marketers. According to the company’s “file” on me, I’m a “hip homemaker” who probably trades stocks and buys expensive clothes and boats.
Actually, I’m 24, single and I live in a cramped New York [...]

10 Reasons Your Company (Destination) Shouldn’t Blog

With alarming regularity, most recently yesterday, I get inquiries from companies who want me to create a blog for them – usually for the CEO. And nine out of ten times, I talk them out of it.
The top 10 reasons I tell companies not to blog are:

The blogs most companies want to create are guaranteed [...]

What the Twitter?!

A few weeks ago, we told you all about Twitter and how destinations and brands are using Twitter to connect with their fans. For an even more background on the rise of Twitter, check out “Twitter in Plain English” below.

Spanish-Language Content Surprisingly Lacking on Internet

Participation is all the rage these days — or is it?
I suppose it depends on how you define it. If you talk to the Web 2.0 crowd or all the marketing execs waxing poetic about social media, you’d think everyone, from mainstream to emerging segments, has a big seat at the Long Tail table.
Then again, [...]

Word of the Week – Gammas

You have been waiting for a new word to use in meetings, admit it.  Staycation seems a little old, doesn’t it?  Then you are going to be a huge fan of ‘Gammas.’  From what we can tell, our friends at Meredith are the biggest users of the new buzz word, but we are sure others [...]

Online Co-op. Let’s Hear Your Stories!

As destination marketers, we’ve all become fairly savvy at figuring out how to increase our “share of voice” in media through cooperative advertising programs (yes, the ubiquitous co-ops!).
However, whether it’s offering discounted media rates to partners who buy advertising in the same publications, branded “unit advertising” or a “destination insert”, it has been our observation [...]