Dear Delta and Continental, Thanks For Nothing

Dear Delta and Continental,

We, the American flying public, have put up with a lot to get from point A to point B.  Surcharges, reduced servings of nuts, less leg room, bad movies plus an almost constant pattern of inept employees.  But, through it all we gave you the benefit of the doubt.

While we are certainly guilty of being a bit naive from time to time (we apologize for packing all of those shampoo bottles in our carry-on), we are quite aware of the issues that face major airlines during these difficult times.  You do not need an advanced aeronautics degree to understand why it costs hundreds of dollars to fly from New York to San Diego.

We want to fly places, you need to charge us a fair price for those services.  That is the deal we have so willingly agreed to.

However, you have taken it too far with unnecessary checked baggage fees.

Again, we understand the need to run a profitable business…most of us learned this lesson with our first lemonade stand…but as a group, we are unsure you understand the need to maintain good customer service.

Now, what was an amusing joyride on one of your luxury ships of the sky, has become an all out sprint to the first open overhead bin.  Push the women and children out of the way, I need to get my over-sized, 2-piece Tumi “look how important I am” luggage set into the space over my head just in case I want to pull out my copy of The Hangover (okay, it was funny a movie) halfway to Seattle and laugh so loud the people next to me think I am a going there for treatment.

Forget the mom in the back with the 6-month old, she can hold her diaper bag on her lap, I need my space.  Hey, if you did not want to hold that bag, you should have thought twice before having kids.

And sorry in-flight crew, you have now added the title of ‘bagged handler’ to your resume.  But don’t worry about luggage shifting during flight, we have kindly filled all of the available space with plenty of backpacks, briefcases and duffel bags…not to mention a few bottles of shampoo here and there.

Of course, only the lucky among us get to run the luggage edition of a coliseum battle each and every wonderful trip to the airport.

Let’s not even mention the poor people who fly every other Thanksgiving to Grandma’s house.  Family of 4?  Heading to Cleveland? With 1 bag each?  Oh, there is a small convenience fee for those bags.

Again, we are willing to work with you on this one.  We know there are good people working at your organizations, but we can’t shake the feeling that, well, you really just don’t care.  Oh, sure, you advertising tag line says you care…it even says it on your little name badges…but the fees don’t send the same message.

Well, no hard feelings.  Really it’s okay to keep charging for that first bag, we know a couple of other airlines who actually enjoy seeing us each day.

This way, we won’t have to worry about caring when you go out of business.

Thanks for nothing.

Sincerely,
The American Flying Public

Random Thoughts: 0 = Free

Now, if you could only pack your clothes in 0 bags.

I like Delta.  I really do.  They have been doing some great work over the past year in terms of online, design / branding and general flying.  However, as a legacy carrier, at this point the biggest legacy carrier, Delta falls into the unfortunate position of having to follow the lead of every other legacy carrier when it comes to fees.

Make no mistake, they are just as guilty as American, United and US Airways, for giving us the ridiculous list of fees and surcharges that have turned air travel into the 38,000 foot equivalent of going to a carnival.

‘You want to leave the carnival?  Oh, that will be 2 tickets.’

But, don’t say that they are not trying to make you feel good about flying.  As seen in the image above, if you bring zero bags on to your flight, well, that is free!

Thanks!

Personally, we should really highlight more of these free experiences available on all flights.

Other Free Experiences Include:

• SkyMall
• Safety instructions
• Oxygen
• Looking out the window
• Access to the emergency exits
• Being bumped and stepped on by the guy next to you
• Children who won’t stop crying
• Second hand perfume from the woman who has way too much on
• Random updates from the captain

Enjoy your flight!

Travel Trends – Twares, Women Heart Blogs, There’s More to Maine, Banner Ads, South Carolina v. Columbus

Enough! Enough with all the new twords!

The Good, Bad & Ugly of Twares – Sweet Lincoln’s mullet. Before we go much further, can we put out an official call to the travel industry to stop making up words.  Forget society in general, let’s just start with travel.  Really, United, Twares?  (Twitter + Fares = Twares) Please, Twitter is confusing enough to explain to @oprah, let alone with new Twords popping up all the time.

However, kudos to United for launching the aforementioned (we are not using the word) Twitter fares promotion on Twitter.  As we spoke about earlier in the week (How the Travel Industry Should Use Twitter), how can organizations take advantage of the infrastructure that Twitter has created?

A perfect comparison is the Southwest Ding Desktop app…granted, that was created several years ago, before the miracle that is Twitter came into being…instead of creating an app, promoting it and trying to build an audience for the app via advertising, United used Twitter and it’s community, reach, etc. to essentially run a similar promo.  In this case, with less investment (see $0), less advertising and less risk.  A brilliant use of an existing technology…instead of reinventing the wheel.
http://www.united.com/

Women Heart Blogs – A helpful study on how women use blogs.

From the article:

According to The 2009 Women in Social Media Study by BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners, 64% of women are nearly twice as likely to use blogs than social networking sites as a source of information, 43% for advice and recommendations and 55% for opinion-sharing, while they 75% are 50 percent more likely to turn to social networking sites as a means of keeping in touch with friends and family.

Of the 42 million women engaged in social media weekly:

• 55% of women participate in some form of blogging activity
• 75% participate in social networks such as Facebook or MySpace
• 20% use Twitter
• 45% of survey respondents decided to purchase an item after reading about it on a blog

http://www.mediapost.com/

There’s More to Maine – From our friends in the far northeast, a new campaign from Visit Maine.  Typically, we don’t cover traditional campaign launches, but the connection between the print and website, visitmaine.com,  is quite refined.  Clean, uncluttered and showing the best of Maine…well, I assume the best of Maine, never been there…the homepage is a nice example of directing visitors to the key sections of the site.  The primary callouts acknowledge what the traveling public is looking for in a Maine vacation…Summertime, Cusine (lobster), Lighthouses and Fishing…honestly, what else is there?  Give the visitor what they want and Maine does.
http://www.visitmaine.com/

Banner Ads Are Relevant! – Interesting research that shows the display ad is not quite dead after all.

From the article:

When Internet users were surveyed to find out what actions they took when viewing a display ad on an ad-supported Website, nearly one-third said they clicked on the ad.

http://www.emarketer.com/

South Carolina v. Columbus – From the blog Mengel Musings, a social media smackdown between two friends of the Travel 2.0 blog, South Carolina and Columbus (OH).  The post evaluates the Twitter, Facebook, website and other social media marketing tactics used by the DMO and CVB.  Overall, a nice outsider perspective on the travel industry’s crusade into social media marketing.

From the article:

I’m comparing how two cities are using social media from a travel and tourism perspective. Both have their namesake from Genoa’s most famous navigator and both are home to college football teams I love to hate. Let’s see how Columbus, Ohio and Columbia, South Carolina are cultivating relationships with fans through social media.

If you want to skip right to the finish (spoiler alert!) Columbus wins on an anti-Steve Spurrier technicality.
http://www.amymengel.com/

How the Travel Industry Should Use Twitter

Twitter, how we love thee.

A few weeks ago, my wife Lesley and I were waiting in line for a ride at Disneyland  discussing the pros and cons of organizations, particularly tourism agencies, utilizing Twitter.

After telling the tale of how we were setting up our Twitter strategy at VISIT DENVER, we both agreed that Twitter was not simply a pipeline for distributing non-stop marketing messages, but an opportunity to take advantage of Twitter’s infrastructure to communicate with your audience.

Personally, we, like most consumers, follow the interesting conversations and ignore the marketing fluff.

To that end, Lesley suggested a new use of Twitter for Disneyland.

‘If Disneyland would pay me, I would walk the park and tweet the ride wait times…now I would follow that…that would be a useful service.’

My response was that Disneyland already has a cast member working the ride time wait board.  They answer questions, help guests and literally erase and update wait times on a (granted, really nice) chalkboard.

‘Why are they not taking advantage of this?’

Which got me thinking…how should the travel industry use Twitter?

Thoughts// Okay, let’s get the background info out of the way.  Oregon, by all accounts…namely this one…started tweeting first, then we wrote some posts about the phenomenon that is Twitter and the tweets began.  Now, most…yeah, we can safely say most…CVBs, airlines, rental car companies, hotels, plus your brother, are now on Twitter.

Some in the travel industry use Twitter as a way to establish a new, never before realized form of communication with their consumers.

Others do not.

Theme Parks

Let’s kick off the online fountain of knowledge that is this post with theme parks…namely Disneyland.

As we talked about above, there are ways a theme park such as Disneyland can look beyond simply sending out marketing messages on Twitter.  How can they use the service to provide value to consumers?

The wait time idea is relevant, provides a service that anyone with a 10-year old can appreciate and will prevent you from walking across 6 themed lands of non-stop fun only to find that Pirates of the Caribbean is closed because of those robots (Disney fans, audio-animatronics) got loose.

Additionally, think of Twitter as an opt-in list.  In this case, the family has been to Disneyland, signed up for the updates and completed their vacation.  Now, how to you transfer them to another Twitter account to continually remind them of the vacation and encourage a repeat visit.

For some people, just receiving updates on what is going on at Disneyland is reason enough to subscribe…regardless if they are there or not.

Now, if Disneyland only monitored the trends and claimed their Twitter name years ago, this might be an easy addition.

Even still, a good use of Twitter beyond simply sending out messages reminding people that the Rainforest Café now serves breakfast! (FYI, they don’t.)

Airlines

Ah, our friends at @southwestair and @jetblue, truly, two of the pioneers when it came to the travel industry chirping its way onto Twitter.  They both do a great job of talking with consumers on Twitter.  And, I would venture to guess, provide a good ROI when compared to more traditional loyalty programs.

On the horizon for airlines, pun absolutely intended, is in-flight internet access and the effect that 30,000ft wireless will have on Twitter.  Tweets will no longer be put on hold after you board.  Communication, pick-up arrangements (I will be at baggage claim!), even criticism of the flight will happen in real-time.

Perhaps another look at the opt-in list idea would be helpful to airlines.  Why not ask travelers for their Twitter ID along with their address and email when purchasing airline tickets.  Sure, a bit of explanation would be needed to quell any Twitter spam concerns, but this information could be useful as the tools built around Twitter continue to advance.

Could an in-terminal tweet-up be possible to pass the time between flights?  A Dopplr / Twitter / Airline mash-up seems inevitable.  Or perhaps a feature that would show in-flight tweets on your Southwest profile page.  A map that would tally, display and show your on-board, Southwest tweets.  Honestly, just the flight map would be an interesting addition.

Just a few ideas for a vertical that is already ahead of the Twitter curve.

Cruise Ships

Like airlines, the cruise industry is rapidly adopting free ship-wide wifi, which means you are never far away from a 140 word update.

@cruiseguy: On deck, drinking a pink drink with an umbrella in it, watching the sun set.

Beyond simply frustrating your land-bound followers, how could the cruise lines take advantage of the fact that a large percentage of their guests will have cell phones, internet access and possibly a Twitter account.  Again, utilizing the technology infrastructure that is already available.  Simple updates about cruise deals are not valuable to guests already on-board.

What if, for example, each Carnival Cruise (@carnivalcruise) line ship established an individual ship Twitter account.  This account, run by the Cruise Twitter Director (for the record, we coined that), could update on-board guests about special events and that day’s schedule.  Real-time updates would allow more flexibility than a daily printed schedule.  Ship specials, drink specials, show times, dinner times, reminders that you should be on-board because the Splendor is pulling away from the dock…all valuable.

And again, using Twitter as an opt-in list would allow Carnival to continue to market to these passengers after the cruise:

@carnivalsplendor You should really be on board today. Sunny, 85, 2 for 1 drinks all while docked in Cabo.

Ski Resorts

Colorado and skiing just goes together.  So, how could resorts like Vail (@vailmtn), Aspensnowmass (@aspensnowmass) and Copper Mountain (@coppermtn) tweet about more than just deals and lift tickets?

Like the examples above, so much of this depends on the availability of internet access / cell service and the fact that people now ski with their cell phone in a jacket pocket.  And like the Disneyland example above, how could Vail or Beaver Creek use Twitter to provide guests with updates they find value in.

If you have been skiing, what is the first thing you check in the morning? That would be temperature and trail conditions.  Now, why not use the community and crowd sourcing power of Twitter to provide skiers with real-time updates from other skiers on the conditions.  For example, Vail could create a hashtag like #vailruns, promote the fact that anyone skiing could tweet an update with the latest trail conditions.

Using the power of crowds, plus employees of Vail, the hashtag could provide a valuable resource for skiers / snowboarders who previously only learned about the trail conditions during a morning report.

@skidude: Epic conditions on chopstix at the china bowl. Good powder, only a few tracks. #vailruns

Real-time ski condition updates…a way to provide value and create loyal customers.  Loyal customers who have given you their Twitter name and want to hear from you.

Your Thoughts?

The examples above are simply that, examples and ideas on how the travel industry can take advantage of not just Twitter, but the access that Twitter provides.  How can you take your Twitter strategy beyond a one-way dialogue?

If you want to inform your consumers using a one-way dialogue, stick with email.

If you want to create valuable content, talk with travelers, receive feedback and develop loyal consumers start thinking about how you can really use Twitter.

And not just send out marketing fluff.

We have enough tweets about that already.

Travel Trends – Transmoflection & Vancouver 2010, Jumbo Hostel, Social Network Demographics

Transmoflection in action.

Transmoflection & Vancouver 2010 – From our neighbors to the north comes the idea of Transmoflection, an interesting look into the development of the Vancouver 2010, well, look.  Certainly in the category of a major tourism event, the Winter Olympics in Vancouver will drench the city in Olympic signs, banners, murals, etc and in this case, they look pretty good.  A timeless design…perhaps not, there are some trendy elements, but it does seem to capture the spirit and harmony of the city in a gorgeous graphical execution.  Plus, we love new buzz words.
http://www.vancouver2010.com/

Jumbo Hostel – Let’s call this one recycling technology.  Those of you who are regulars know that Mo and I support not only a green philosophy, but one of sustainable tourism.  Oscar Diös, who we will assume is Swedish, saw an opportunity in a run-down 747 and turned it into a hostel at the Stockholm-Arlanda Airport.  Pictures are here. That’s right, a full-size, intact 747 that you can spend the night in…and no, it does not fly anymore.  Fantastic.  When is the next travel conference in Stockholm?
http://www.jumbohostel.com/

Social Network Demographics – From the minds at Pew Internet, via eMarketer, new stats on social networking demographics.  Again, if you don’t already subscribe to or routinely visit Pew Internet, you need to.

Some good data in there.  However, a final thought from eMarketer needs to be corrected:

“The ongoing headache for marketers is that social networking is such a powerful consumer activity, but incredibly challenging as a marketing medium,” said Debra Aho Williamson, senior analyst at eMarketer.

As we have spoken about at length on the Travel 2.0 blog, marketing is difficult if not nearly impossible on social networks. The key being that social networks are a communication platform, therefore, you need to communicate with members, not market to them.

So, substitute the word ‘communication’ for ‘marketing’ and your social networking strategy should work out much better.
http://www.emarketer.com/

Travel Trends – Tweeting While Crashing, Web Video Use, Social Network Ads, A Mobile Future

Roger, Roger.

Tweeting While Crashing – Airline crashes are near the top of the ‘things we don’t really like to talk about in the travel industry’ list, luckily, in the case of the recent Continental accident at Denver International Airport, few passengers were seriously injured.  And out of those 100 or so passengers, at least one was a tweeter.

Boulder software engineer Mike Wilson…needing to share his experience, he began twittering under the name 2DrinksBehind, broadcasting more than 30 short text messages about the crash and its aftermath and gaining national attention.

Mike’s tweets give the public instant insight into an experience that few of us will ever encounter.  Not to mention provides a perfect example of how interactive and social tools such as Twitter are increasing the role of citizen journalism and allowing real-time updates on major news stories.  A scary accident, but a fascinating perspective.
http://www.denverpost.com/

Web Video Users Are Day Clickers – A small, but still relevant report on web video usage by daypart or time of day from Nielsen Online.  While online video use is continuing to grow rapidly, the lack of saturated broadband internet access at home is creating different viewing patterns for consumers.

During the traditional nine-to-five work week, 65 percent of online video viewers streamed at least one piece of content in October.
http://www.mediaweek.com/

Social Networks: Millions of Users, Not So Many Marketers – Oy, another post about the difficulty of cracking the mythical social networking site advertising code.  How do we get these xx million people to pay attention to our ad on social networking site blank?

Anyone still questioning the efficacy of social network marketing needs to look only as far as the 2008 presidential election. Barack Obama rode a wave of social media support to the White House—using both established social networks and homegrown networking site My.BarackObama.com to build a database of millions of supporters.

But despite these and other success stories, the social network ad market is suffering. In fact, eMarketer significantly lowered its forecast for US social network ad spending.

How did Obama do it? Okay, I am going to give away the Barack Obama social media marketing secret…

People actually cared for and were passionate about his campaign!

There you go, that is it.  With that little bit of passion from the consumer, the Obama campaign could leverage any social network with their message.  Now, does the same formula apply to your brand or product?  Probably not.  Unless your organization has brand fans that are actively collecting everything with your logo on it…Coca Cola, Harley-Davidson or Apple…your social media marketing campaign on Facebook or MySpace is not going to be as easy as the Obama campaign made it look.
http://www.emarketer.com/

The Future of Mobile – Imagining the Internet: A History and Forecast from Elon University/Pew Internet Project is a great look into the future of technology from some of the best and brightest minds in the world.  You could spend a lot of your pre- and post-Christmas ‘work’ day on this site…at least you can say you did some work this week.  For this post, just a couple of highlights from the question about the future of mobile:

The mobile phone is just beginning to touch our digital lives. As these relatively inexpensive devices continue to improve in performance and connectivity, they will serve more as a “remote control” to many of our electronic touch points, such as: purchasing retail items through scanning, serving as an electronic passport, turning on our cars/GPS systems, translating text to talk, and video conferencing with our friends through our online accounts. As we improve visual projection and “plugging-in” to larger display systems- mobile phones can serve as the old laptop we once new and lugged.
–Drew Diskin, director of e-strategy, Johns Hopkins Medicine

Mobile phones also replace our wallets, doubling as identification devices, credit cards, and car keys using RFID tags or a similar technology.
–DJ Strouse, international relations and computer science student, University of Southern California

Mobile phones are affordable, portable, and a virtual appendage for several generations. It is only logical that it will become the primary Internet connection.
–Hinda Feige Greenberg, Ph.D., director of the information center for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, dedicated to improving healthcare for Americans

By 2020 the phone will be melting away into the environment, its functions provided by distributed, intelligent components. People will talk to—and through—their cars, desks, etc.
–Greg Laudeman, utilization catalyst and facilitator, community technology specialist, Georgia Tech Enterprise Innovation Institute

As screens get bigger everyone will use a mobile device to access the Internet. Everyone!
–Dan Lynch, founder of CyberCash Inc. and Interop Company and an Internet pioneer; board member of Santa Fe Institute; director of computing for SRI International in the late 1970s

Fantastic stuff…and that was only a fraction of the responses.  Happy reading over the next few days.
http://www.elon.edu/e-web/predictions/

Travel Trends – Consumer Experiences, Millennial Mindset, Surviving the Downturn

Like many of you out there, we’re going through our biannual planning process at Travel Oregon. Having emerged from almost three weeks of media strategy meetings, reading research reports and other miscellaneous fun projects, this morning I’d love to share some recommended “critical reading” as you embark though planning for the next year.

The Millennial Mindset: The Millennials (those born roughly 1980-1990) have been coming of age over the past few years and are a galvanizing a force in today’s consumer culture.  How will your media and outreach strategy evolve to cater to a this “super connected” set who’ve never seen a recession in their lifetime (until now!) and have always had the “safety net” of their helicopter parents?   Check out this presentation that was given by Drew Guiteras, a Strategic Planner at Weiden+Kennedy at the recent Marketing Outlook Forum for a primer on who the millennials are, what life forces shape them and what destinations can do to reach out to them.   To jump forward to Drew’s conclusions:

1. Push don’t pull – Use a multitude of channels to be a resource and “push information”
2. Arm consumers with instant information – E.g Twitter, Mosio etc.
3. Millennials like the idea of the “open go’ – that is getting on a plane, landing at the destination and having the vacation fall into place.   Don’t think itineraries, think of providing an “idea starter” (e.g. Oregon 365)
4. Think about incorporating “voluntourism” and other service oriented projects in your vacation offerings
5. Help broadcast the show – provide tools for them to “brag” about their experience in your destination

Digital Marketing Now – Seven Strategies to Survive the Downturn: Geoff Ramsey, the always effervescent CEO of eMarketer recently published an interesting paper making the case that tough economic times can help digital marketers as CEO’s are looking to allocate their dollars to media vehicles that are “efficient, targeted, measurable and proven to demonstrate positive ROI.”   True to classic eMarketer form, this report is filled with a dizzying array of charts and numbers and some grounding advice on how to sharpen the focus of your digital marketing.    I highly encourage you to download this report (Sorry, registration required).  Geoff’s seven principles are:

1. Accountability – Make sure your programs are accountable – If you’ve read our analytics and “engagement” posts in the past, you’ll know that Troy and I are huge proponents of measuring the meaningful impact of your efforts and documenting them for future
   
2. Search – Get re-aquainted with your old trusted and true friend…search.  While Geoff focuses more on SEM (paid), one cannot forget the more  powerful “editorial” provided by SEO;
3. Branding – Couple search with branding efforts (display ads); search works best when complemented with branding that helps “create awareness, interest and desire” (or maybe Geoff is single-handedly trying to stimulate the online ad economy!)
   
4. Stay close to connected consumers via Email Marketing (still a very high return!) and social media.  Beware though…social media does have a low entry cost but does takes up a tremendous amount of staff time.
5. Cultivate trust with consumers – In dire times, consumers reach for deeply discounted products or slip to the comfort of trusted brands;  one way to encourage trust is to perhaps cultivate your community of fans by asking for their feedback, featuring their stories (reviews) on your site and listening to their wants and needs (hey this sounds like “social media” does it not?)
6. Engage customers via video – If a picture is worth a thousand words…what’s the value of video?  Having video on your site makes it more sticky and makes for a powerful influencer.
7. Test, test, test – With consumers in a more deliberate mindset and open to trying new things, isn’t this the perfect time to experiment?
   

Feed: Are widgets the TV sets of the future? Does social media impact consumer purchasing? Do people really use Twitter? This and more are part of the new Avenue A report, FEED: The Razorfish Consumer Experience Report. With a healthy dose of research into “super connected” consumers and what tools they’re using and some interesting insight into how digital design, usability and portability will morph over the coming years, this annual report is something I highly anticipate and devour each year.   While I have to admit that there isn’t anything tremendously earth-shattering in this year’s report, I’d recommend at least a cursory review.  At least this year you don’t have to register for it!

Travel Trends – Disney, TripAdvisor, Boomers Go Online

Can you hear me now?

Disney To Offer Mobile Tours – A quick excerpt from a recent Disney corporate communication email (MouseMail: An Update for Community Leaders):

Marking a first in both the travel and mobile industries, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts and Verizon are teaming up for a multi-year relationship designed to enhance the guest experience – before, during and after guests arrive at Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland Resort. This new service allows guests to have a personal tour guide in their wireless phones. Early next year guests will also use Verizon Wireless’ technology when experiencing Disney’s Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure, an ultra-interactive attraction coming to Epcot® in Walt Disney World Resort. “Imagine receiving up to the minute tips on special Park activities with just the touch of a button or receiving a call from Buzz Lightyear welcoming you to the Magic Kingdom,” said Jay Rasulo, chairman, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.

Unfortunately, not a lot of substance to that story, however an interesting offering from Disney that expands their utilization of an increasingly common touch point for travelers, the cell phone.  As many of us within the travel industry (any industry for that matter) have seen during the past several years, the rapid adoption and refinement of mobile technology is presenting new methods for guest relations, marketing and communications.

For Disney or any organization, offering interaction via a cell phone is a logical next step.  Receiving ride wait time updates, text for dinner reservations or on-demand audio tours of the parks are ideal ways to leverage the use of cell phones.  As we have all seen, the airline industry has successfully used mobile technology for online check-in, flight status and updates.

With the continuing advancements in mobile tech, expect to see further integration and opportunities for travel organizations.

Negative Reviews on TripAdvisor – For those of you who do not belong to the Travel 2.0 group on LinkedIn, you should join.  Currently, there are quite a few good discussions among the more that 3,500+ group members, including this one about TripAdvisor.  Here are the highlights:

Original Question:

We all have had at least one bad review. Let’s face it; people complain a lot faster and louder than they compliment. I was pondering the idea of sending an e-mail SOS to my current client list with the request to post a review of the hotel on TripAdvisor or any other review site of their choice. I wondered if I could make it a contest, say, e-mail me with the link to your review and have it entered into a drawing for a free weekend, with no preference of good or bad reviews. Does anyone have any input on this idea?

Some of the 19 (and counting) responses:

Another idea: you can address the bad review directly on TripAdvisor (if you have claimed your listing). A simple note from your GM either clarifying inaccuracies or apologizing and offering corrective measures can go a long way on these user-generated sites. Most complaints just want to be heard, and engaged. I have all of my clients draft mock-answers, and reply to EVERY review (on TripAdvisor and a few other sites).

– one answer for a compliment
– one answer for a negative and inaccurate review
– one answer for a negative and accurate review

By starting with sample replies, you just need to tweak them when needed instead of starting from scratch. Also, keep in mind that no one has 100% good reviews…it looks staged if you do. One bad apple amidst a lot of great reviews can actually help your credibility.

—

Senior staff need to take a close look at the property and devise a plan for property upkeep and feedback. If they know of any guests who were not pleased, they may want to invite them back with a complimentary night or reduced rate to show them the improved look at the resort.

—

Plus, a great response from Brian Payea at TripAdvisor:

(And kudos to Brian for joining, listening and responding on behalf of TripAdvisor to the question.  Social marketing at it’s best.)

I’ve been a member of this group for a while, and this is my first post. First, I’d like to thank everyone for their spirited discussion of TripAdvisor – you’ve given us a fantastic opportunity to explain a few things to a very heavily invested community, and we really appreciate it.

Jenifer’s initial post started with a common misconception – she expects that people are much more inclined to complain than compliment. On TripAdvisor, it’s actually much more common for a traveler to praise a hotel than to complain. The most common rating (41% of all ratings) on TripAdvisor by a traveler is five “owls” – the top rating. The next most common is four owls, accounting for 27% of the ratings. Only 12% of the reviews give a hotel a one-owl rating. Travelers email us frequently to explain that they see TripAdvisor as a community, and when they benefit by reading another traveler’s reviews, they feel like they want to give back to the community and share their stories to help others plan and have a perfect trip. So it’s more often about helping others have a great stay than reporting a bad experience. But reporting a bad experience is also very important and is one of the reasons so many travelers trust the reviews – because they’re independent and unfiltered.

Natasha suggested ways to solicit reviews from guests, and we actually encourage hoteliers to ask their guests to submit reviews, but not by offering incentives such as a complimentary overnight. Incentives are a violation of our terms of service. When we learn about those types of practices, the property’s listing on TripAdvisor is affected, but the property is not removed from the site.

A very powerful but extremely underutilized tool is TripAdvisor’s management response. When a hotelier posts a management response, it sends a strong message to future guests about their commitment to guest satisfaction. Oftentimes, the management response can do more to influence a traveler than the original post, even if the review was a rant. Management response guidelines are posted at http://www.tripadvisor.com/pages/management_response.html

As to Mark Scott’s question – five years from now? Who knows? I can report that it’s very difficult to build the critical mass of reviews necessary for a site to be relevant to a large number of travelers. It took years for TripAdvisor to hit a million reviews and opinions, and then the viral effect kicked in and we began doubling rapidly – and as our founder and CEO often says, it was hard work. It’s also a challenge for sites to host reviews of their own properties and convince readers that they are impartial. I’ll be very excited to come back to this forum in five years and see where the industry stands.

As for now, we’re offering a number of tools for hotels and destinations to take the content from TripAdvisor and publish it on their own sites in a widget. If they want to add fresh, independent reviews to their web site, all they have to do is scroll down to the bottom of their hotel page on TripAdvisor and click on the owner’s link to get started.

Adrienne suggested that management monitor reviews for their hotels. It’s very easy to monitor TripAdvisor reviews. Every hotel detail page on TripAdvisor includes a tab at the top of the page labeled “feeds.” By clicking this tab, a manager can subscribe to an RSS (real simple syndication) of the reviews for their hotel. When they open their RSS reader (free from Google, MSN, etc.), the most recent reviews of their hotel are delivered right to their desktop.

Thanks again for the opportunity to participate in this group.

Boomers Go Online – Stats on the rise of Boomers online from eMarketer:

Boomers have never lacked for attitude, and now they make up the largest group of US Internet users. At 56.7 million strong they constitute nearly 30% of the online population.

“Marketers targeting boomers online would be mistaken to treat them all alike,” says Lisa Phillips, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, Boomers Online: Attitude Is Everything. “Older boomers, ages 54 to 62, use media more like the ‘matures’ who precede them, and younger boomers, ages 44 to 53, act more like Gen Xers online.”

About 74% of boomers use the Internet at least once a month.

However, their attitude toward the Internet is less a love affair and more a marriage of convenience. They go online to get things done, such as finding information on products and services, shopping, and staying in touch with friends and family.

http://www.emarketer.com/

Random Thoughts: Social Behavior of Airline Passengers

The food court at T5.

Back from a long and enjoyable Thanksgiving break, I thought a quick post on airline travel would be a good topic for today.  I love flying.  Well, more than that, I love watching the public interact in the oh-so social space that is an airport.

How everyone follows everyone else, lines up well before the boarding time and generally behaves like a lost flock of sheep, searching for the farmer.  The artist / planner / designer in me loves looking at the directional strategy that each airport employs, how do you use signage, color, text to direct the eye and the mind to the next gate or Starbucks.  Great stuff.

Plus, how technology, iPhones, cell phones, kiosks, etc. are changing the way we travel through airports.

But, for today, a quick thought that applies to everyone in the travel space, whether you are JetBlue, a hotel or a visitors center:

‘The airport should deliver as much of an experience as the flight itself.  There are a million little touches that we’ve sprinkled throughout T5.  We chose Italian furniture that’s both sturdy and beautiful; we used indirect lighting and installed colorful, custom-design carpeting.  If a space looks like a food court, people will treat it like one.’

…If a space looks like a food court, people will treat it like one.

Fiona Morrison, Director of Brand Management and Advertising for JetBlue Airways, Page 29, November 2008 issue of Fast Company

A great quote.  Remember, your brand, experience, marketing goes beyond your print or outdoor ads, beyond your website, your brand represents everything your organization stands for.

Even your choice of carpet.

Random Thoughts: Thanksgiving Travel

Are you crazy?

As requested by Dave, a quick post on Thanksgiving travel.  First, my tip for traveling during the Thanksgiving holiday…fly on Thanksgiving Day!  The airports experience (what appears to be) an average travel day, shorter lines, less people, less hassle.  This Thanksgiving will be my 3rd flight on turkey day and I love it.

Sure, you might be a little late for Thanksgiving dinner, or if you are lucky, just have your parents / siblings / friends celebrate Thanksgiving on Friday.  Honestly, you are important enough to wait for, right?

However, considering it is the day before Thanksgiving and many of you are reading this via your Blackberry, iPhone or G1 while sitting on a runway, it is a little late to change your travel dates.  Luckily, both Orbitz and Travelocity are providing travel updates.

Similar to our post last year (Thanksgiving Blogging), Travelocity, via it’s The Window Seat blog, has a Thanksgiving Task Force of 10 bloggers at some of the nation’s busiest airports (including PHX!) providing updates on lines, parking, flight delays, etc, etc.   Simply based on the fact that this is the 8th year for the Task Force, Travelocity must see some success from this campaign.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the OrbitzTLC Traveler Update section.  Perhaps it is simply a minor issue with the site, but the most recent update on the entire system was 13 days ago.  The most recent tip for PHX, 8 months ago.  Which is too bad, the idea behind the travel update system was a solid one.  Perhaps a lack of promotion or interest from the traveling public.  Or, perhaps it was replaced by Twitter.

Ah, Twitter, how thankful are we today (okay, tomorrow) for the service? A quick search via search.twitter.com reveals that the most recent update on travel conditions from PHX Sky Harbor was 20 minutes ago.  Much better than 8 months ago.  The tweet:

spyrodeath: Second trip through sky harbor airport wasn’t too bad either. – http://bkite.com/02Ci8

Travel updates from real travelers, another reason to love Twitter.

On that note, have a great Thanksgiving all.  Keep traveling!