TravelWatchNews-Blog

Case Study: Hotel Social Marketing that Boosts Bookings

noreply@blogger.com (Ian R Clayton) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:19:00 +0000

SocialIndexEngine Hotel Marketing Campaign Case Study

The Social Index Marketing campaign to promote St. Lucia’s Marigot Beach Hotel is less than 6 months old, but the results have been very encouraging.

With our new SocialIndexEngine Travel Strategy, special offers and promotions were loaded into our travel publishing systems and blasted out to a vast network of travel sites. Content from the same systems are published to Facebook and to our own network.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p17knXD0o70

The Social Marketing is combined with the blogging, article marketing, SEO Mobile Marketing, Travel Blast and Videos.

It is a complete, done-for-you social media management and brand marketing that drives bookings directly to your website and builds sustainable brands.

Compared to the same time last year, the hotel has had a 200% increase in bookings. The page rank for their website, MarigotBeachClub.com, has increased from PR3 to PR4.

The campaign is a kick-start package. Following a successful kick-start, we will re-evaluate the position of the Brand and devise a strategy to build on new niches with consistent blogging, video distribution, mobile and social media management services providing information to build authority and give answers to travellers.

This success was a result of the new strategies and technology built by AXSES. About a year ago, we noted that traditional Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) was not working. Getting links from other sites used to help us get top position in Google and other search results. Then the Engines like Google saw that a lot of this was paid-for links or reciprocal links (I link to you if you link to me). The result is that reciprocal links now don’t count and general links from directories etc have little or no SEO value.

>>>> More to get the full tutorial and whitepaper on the new SEO and Relationship Marketing sign up at http://SocialIndexEngine.com

We used to comment on blogs; now Google looks to see who is commenting, what their history is and what their score is. Yes, SCORE! – Google actually rates advertisers and applies a Quality Score based on the merit of the work. This Quality Score was first used to weed out advertisers who were not contributing ads of good value; now it is one of the components of the social index that determines who you are, your authority, your influence and your value. Today it is used everywhere – But beware! Putting up a Squeeze page (a page that tries to grab an email and provides only promo material) will decrease your Quality Score. Have a slow-loading site and down goes the Quality Score.

Then there are articles. Article marketing was hot in 2010, but in 2011 a whole bunch of article sites got slapped by Google for populating duplicate content. This was Panda; many site just disappeared over night and articles with duplicates were ignored. Later in 2011, Google started assigning a negative score to website with non-original material. This hurt the e-commerce sites and particularly the affiliates who resold the product and copied the content of- like hotel room description, rates, etc. - from an OTA like Expedia.

All of this was unfortunate for bona fide distributors and travel marketers. The fact is that Google was not after the reputable marketers; it was clamping down on the absolute nonsense that affiliate marketers where putting on the net to game the system and sell their affiliate offers, like Teeth whiteners. The net had become proliferated with poorly written, low-value articles and a lot of trash. They had to do something, as search results were becoming irrelevant.

In marketing today, you cannot ignore Google. It is massive. ComScore reported in September 2011 that Google had almost 66% of all search traffic. So you absolutely must know what it is doing.

To be successful in today’s media, one has to know what Google is looking at, where it is looking, what it is looking for and what it does not want. Make a mistake and Google will slap you right out of the ring.

To be successful in internet marketing today, you need to be where Goggle is looking

What I can tell you is that Google is looking at Social Media. It is looking at what you are doing on social media, social networking sites like Facebook, sharing sites like YouTube, bookmarking sites like Delicious, Wikipedia-type sites, and news sites like Twitter. It is very interested in mobile sites which are, in fact, the most social of all, and mobile is soon going to overtake OC as the main method of Search and Internet access!

We have noted that Google likes video and that consumers are searching for videos to evaluate a product or service and get answers to questions. Hence, we use a lot of video. They are informative videos; not too sales-oriented and definitely not glitzy. Videos that work in Social Media are local, personal stories and honest accounts, if they get too polished and too glib they loose appeal. Never put fancy effects and glitz into your videos.

Knowing all of this, our SocialIndexEngine is about building your social presence and making it work. It is not restricted to Social, but pretty soon there will be little else but Social. It really is the new way of marketing, permission-based, non-invasive and informative, supportive and engaging communications.

Gone are the days of hype and spin. Mostly all of that has been the result of too many products in the market. It was not always like this, the cave man did not wonder around with a placard marketing his wares. In fact before commerce, man existed in agregrian communities bartering with neighbors.

Now we have Pepsi reusing the word "Refresh" for its emotional appeal and Coke competing for emotional space with "Open Happiness". I think it is all rather ridiculous.

The new marketing is going back to its roots in many respects. Friends, acquaintances, business partner and one's own circle or community are a growing factor in influencing what you people buy and where. The new technology is drastically changing the way we market. With so many consumers becoming vocal, publishing options, sharing views and insights: the traditional media of newspapers, radio and the broadcasters and finding themselves lost in a sea of voices and the new paradigm of participation. I talk about this in the preface to my book "How to Build your Business online by Ian R. Clayton"

>>> http://buildyourbusinessonlinebook.com

It's available in paperback on Amazon and Kindle, as easy read and full of helpful insights and how to's. Will share with you the process of publishing it in an upcoming blog - Keep Watching!

This new marketing is at the core of our approach to SEO. We have built an overall strategy that includes our e-commerce engine and our publishing machine. We even do magazines and all the usual brochures, but now always published on on-demand, available instantly, online with digital format for download to mobile devices and by regular mail.

Everything is going online and you need to be there with the best you have in a format, message and engagement appropriate to your niche.

>>> Subscribe to SocialIndexEngine Free newsletter and tutorial to find out more

New Video blasts boost booking 200%

noreply@blogger.com (Ian R Clayton) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:12:00 +0000

We have just published another video blast for Marigot Bay in St. Lucia for http://travel2exoticplaces.com/ . Unlike the previous video, which focused mainly on the Marigot Beach Hotel, this one is featuring the destination of St. Lucia.

We are publishing a separate blog that describes the success of this campaign, explains what we did and why and offers some insights as to why this technique we call SocialIndexEngine works.

It certainly did work. The hotel bookings increased by 200% over the previous year. Not only that, their Page Rank (PR) went up from 3 to 4. PR is a Google measure of the site’s relevance. The higher, the better. Barbados.org has a rank of 6. Expedia is 8 by comparison. Small hotel websites rarely get higher than 3 and to increase rank is very difficult.

More about the tecnology and marketing strategy see video below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5MZWrz3OYY

The system we use is a new set of integrated technology and strategies that we have perfected in late 2011 and are launching now in 2012. It involves using our own e-commerce systems to blast out travel content and promos to social media and 100s of travel sites. We are building an elaborate array of our own sites such as Travel2ExoticPlaces.com and working with established travel portals, shopping sites and social media (posting offers and bookings to Facebook).

A large part of our success is now based on strategic use of social media, using it as a platform for marketing and also building sales funnels into services like Facebook.

For more on this, please make sure that you subscribe to our blog at http://feeds2.feedburner.com/blogspot/kXYq

– That way, you will be advised when the next blog is published.

The next blog is going to be very helpful. Not only will we tell you why this campaign succeeded, but we will also tell you why traditional SEO is dead. That’s right: SEO is DEAD. The old techniques do not work and we will document why.

Just subscribe to our blog at http://feeds2.feedburner.com/blogspot/kXYq to be sure you get this.

The video is being blasted out to video sites and it is featured on the video channel http://www.youtube.com/user/traveltheexotic . It is also being blasted out to the social networks and made available for the Marigot Beach Hotel to post on their own website.

The video promotes Marigot Bay as one of the most picturesque bays in the Caribbean and one of the most exotic coves in the world. It is nestled in the west, in a secluded section of St. Lucia that is surrounded on three sides by steep hills covered in tropical rainforest. This historic Bay has been a refuge to ships, pirates and adventurers for centuries.

To get to the Marigot Beach Club Hotel, you take a short ferry ride in local pirogue-style boat. It is a wonderful way to start a holiday: your first dip into the Caribbean Sea in a local boat as you drift across the bay to the soft white sand beach where you step off and into the Marigot Beach Club Hotel.

Guests staying in the Marigot Bay area will be delighted by the beautiful landscape, made complete by the variety of flora and fauna on the island. Travellers can book a tour with the hotel to see St. Lucia’s natural attractions. These include native animals - birds, reptiles and other creature that have made this exotic island their home.

Guests can also visit the many scenic places for on activity-based tours, such as hiking on rainforest trails, taking an off-road jeep ride, or sailing in the bay.

Sailing in the Marigot Bay is quite popular, as it is an exceptionally relaxing experience. It provides great photo opportunities, and you also get to rub shoulders with other international travellers who may just be in the night, or for the weekend, on their way to or from the other Caribbean islands.

Organized scuba diving trips, as well as scuba classes by certified professionals, also enhance the trip for those more active travellers.

For the full article, see our hub at http://irclay.hubpages.com/hub/Travel2Exotic-Marigit-Bay-Stlucia

Subscribe to our blog at http://feeds2.feedburner.com/blogspot/kXYq to get the latest news and research.

We can learn a lot from afiliate marketers

noreply@blogger.com (Ian R Clayton) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 20:25:00 +0000

Jeff Johnson is probable the best Affiliate marketer ever. We use some of his techniques in our http://SocialIndexEngine.com.

He constantly wins competitions and out preforms in building traffic for his Brands.

Pay attention to his solution and to his warnings - Its easy to run afoul of Google.

Here is his story and his warning:

http://www.salesautomator.com/app/?af=1407239&u=www.nonstoptrafficformula.com/sq/7867-140k

Helping Bolivia Cultural Tourism

noreply@blogger.com (Ian R Clayton) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 15:14:00 +0000

In our research in building the marketing strategy for our client, we decided that Bolivia would be best promoted with appealing tours and packaged holidays. All will be locally managed with local experts who have an understanding at the grassroots level of the special places and popular attractions. It’s a huge country and travellers will need to visit several cities to see its many unique points of interest.

Today we have published a new Video on Bolivia. You may see this on the YouTube channel.

It is also published with separate and unique blog posts on several other channels and, of course, here in TravelWatchNews.

In addition, there are several articles and several more videos planned to help promote Bolivia Hotels and Tours for our client.

We take pride in this work as Bolivia is a beautiful country with a culture and lifestyle that has existed almost unchanged for centuries. It is the home of the Incas and the Tiwanaku before them and the ruins of their monuments, temples and building are scattered in the landscape.

Our client, Hostal de Su Merced, agreed and went to work on creating the tours and teaming up with other hotels to deliver a countrywide experience. There is much to explore in Bolivia, from the footprints of the dinosaurs to the floating island in Lake Titicaca as well as amazing landscapes and wildlife.

The program is in the early stages and we are implementing a basic Social Index campaign that has already shown results. This includes publishing several videos, articles and blogs. We have created a social network for Bolivian hotels including authority social bookmark, status sites and video sharing portals.

Stay tuned for more as we progress with this project and update our blogs. Enjoy the video and we hope that you learn something about this unique country. Perhaps you will visit Bolivia and stay at Hostal de Su Merced, or contact them to discuss their special 3-City tour.

For more information on the tours and hotels see http://BoliviaHotelSpecials.com

For more about this type of content and video marketing, keep tuned in to this channel. Coming up next, we will share with you a video and review of article blogging for Dominica. In this case study we share the successes and disappointments. What we have learned is put to good use in our new fully managed SocialIndexEngine and its marketing strategy.

Search as Media #4: Google's Hotel Finder

noreply@blogger.com (Ian R Clayton) — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 18:23:00 +0000

Today we look at Google’s Hotel Finder. This is still at the experimental stage. It's supposed to be open to the world but you can't find the Caribbean or any place in the Caribbean that are like their places. Google is targeting major destinations first.

It starts with an intelligent mapping system that allows you to define a catchment area for the hotels that you want to see. and they are displayed in the hotel listings.

You can change your dates, which would make a difference. If the date change causes a different price to be calculated, then they would be reflected in the results up here. But, as you can see, you’re getting star ratings and prices.

Right away, Google is treating hotels as somewhat of a commodity here; nothing on the features as yet, but that will probably come. The 'word on the street' is that Google is planning to do a lot more with regard to filters for hotels. When you click on a hotel, you get hotel details similar to an Expedia layout here or an OTA of any kind.

Note that there are hotel reviews by Google users; they’re quickly moving into the TripAdvisor space.

You can add a hotel to your shortlist, a comparison list similar to what we do with Barbados and the mapping systems. This allows you to select the points and add them to a list.

You can at any point go back to your shortlist, have a look at your shortlist on the top and remove an item from the shortlist or, in fact, book it on the shortlist.

And you get the options to book with Expedia, Travelocity and the major Online Travel Agents or go to the owner's site!

The information is well presented and useful. This is a powerful solution for anyone that’s looking for the hotel in a particular destination, and you need to be in here. I don’t think you can not be in here.

If you are not a Travelocity or a major brand, you are not automatically going to be on Google radar and thus not included in these listings.

How to get listed

The way to get on that radar is through search engine optimization, listing in authority information sites, and building your u,brand authority with social media and social indexing to create a presence that Google will take note of. All this and more is done with the SocialIndexEngine.com marketing services.

It is time to start thinking about it because this is the next phase of Google as Media. It is going to be very easy for travelers to get to this service and to avoid having to wait through all of the other services that are in there, including the organic search results.

So that’s all we need to say for right now. Another reason to consider marketing yourself, another reason to consider making sure that you get on to Google’s radar and another reason to look at services such as SocialIndexEngine.com which will put you in the right place.

To get more information, go to http://SocialIndexEngine.com

- enter your email, first name and website address and we will get back to you immediately.

Related links.
The New Media

#1: Is search the new media
#2: Crowding out organic search
#3: How small hotels can compete in the new media

Get more details on SocialIndexEngine for Hotel & Tourism Marketing

How Small Hotels & Tourism Co's can Compete in the New Media Landscape

noreply@blogger.com (Ian R Clayton) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 11:44:00 +0000

Our last blog showed how search results are favoring advertisers, and how Google is offering eCommerce services, embedded in search results.

Advertising will be a necessity
We are going to see more advertisers and more Google results versus Organic. It’s going to become more important to advertise, more important to be a preferred supplier and more important to get Google’s attention so that you get into their Maps and get into their supply lists.

Shopping Services will be ubiquitous
There is going to be more eCommerce driving business to suppliers. I don’t think that Google is going to go into the transaction business; they’d be crazy to do that. There are enough eCommerce systems and services and those are their customers.,But it appears that Google might be very selective in who they choose as preferred supplies. Clearly Google will be offering more shopping services; this is to be expected as travelers want to know price and availability.

Enabling Participation
You’re going to see a lot more enabling processes like hangouts, chat, video sharing and GoToMeeting-type services. All of this is going to be there to help search users participate and help us find the right suppliers. But the question is: who are the right suppliers? That’s where we have to be very careful. Be aware also that these processes, social interaction and engagement will present a new layer of application and engagement at the point of decision and will affect where travelers go and which sites they visit. If you are not in the process, you are not in the game.

A single correct answer
Remember that Google is trying to deliver a single result to a single person for a single inquiry. What that means is that the result going to YOU will not necessarily be the result coming to ME for the same question. That means that everyone may have a very personal result based on their personal profile and current interest.

That means Social Media is really going to be increasingly important. This is why Google has made such an effort to develop and push Google Plus. Social Media is the source of who we are. Your reputation on sites like TripAdvisor and others are all going to play into Google's selection of who and what the authority for a particular result is.

The question is: What do we do about it?

We need to create our own authority status. Here is how you can do that:

Get Links from top sites. Sites with PR 6 and up; the higher the better. Linking from Barbados.org is a good example. It’s a highly relevant site and is considered an authority site. We have seen that people that link from that site will automatically get pulled up in the rank and pulled up in the Google results.
We need to publish. We can’t rely on other people to carry our message, because that’s going to undermine us totally. We can’t rely on Expedia carrying our brand - they won’t. We have to do more to brand ourselves in the travel industry. We must do that by publishing: comment on other sites, engage with social media, blog, create informative, educational and entertaining videos that are not totally self-serving messages. There are all sorts of ideas for video and YouTube is now the second largest search engine. Make sure you have a YouTube channel and add videos to it.
And finally, we will use Google Plus. I think that this is going to be very important because Google is looking at its Plus activity to gauge who we are. Google accounts for 70% of search now. If you are not on Google results you will miss out big time. The objective is to be on Page 1 for key phrases. You cannot do this on your own, but you can use services like http://SocialIndexEngine.com and you will have to.

Need to Take Charge of Brand Marketing
It's important that we see the implications of what is happening here and why it’s becoming so essential for you to take charge of your own marketing and your own brand. The market will not take care of this for you. The OTAs can bring you business but they do not build sustainable brands for hotels. You cannot abdicate this job.

Managing marketing, social media, publishing and content marketing is a lot of work. Hotels will increasingly have to subcontract the job out because they do not have the time or the inclination. And they should not; running a hotel and managing staff, looking after guests and maintaining the property, standards and service is a full-time job. Hotel managers do not have the skill sets or the understanding of the new media landscape.

AXSES can help. We have an arsenal of unique technology built to do the job. We have a team who understands the market and the resources and we are teaming with the very best Internet Marketers and Social Media professionals in the world. We answer the questions, like what you need to do and we can show you success.

If you would like to find out more, please visit http://SocialIndexEngine.com and fill in the "get more info" form.

Links

Previous article: Is search hurting independent hotels

Is Search Depreciating Organic Search & Hurting Small Hotels?

noreply@blogger.com (Ian R Clayton) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 01:30:00 +0000

There are big changes in the wind that are going to shake up travel shopping and eCommerce. This article is a must-read to understanding what is happening.

In a previous blog (Is search the new media), we talked about how Search is changing and become more like Media. We suggested that Search is the perfect example of the sort of platform and function we can expect in the new media of the future.

We saw that Google is upping the ante for organic search and featuring its own properties, as well as preferred suppliers and advertisers, in preference to organic search.

To illustrate the point, we have created a video here. You will notice Google advertisers are on top on the right and its own places now above organic results. Organic is way down the list on many result pages. Ads on the right, sponsors on the top, Places under that, leave organic off the screen and much depreciated.

Notice also that Google Search is now in the eCommerce business, offering rates by date and links to booking options. And Google is providing its own places' websites in several cases. It lists seven properties on top of the map; these are 7 they think are the most appropriate search results. The mechanics of choosing the top 7 is not clear at all.

The fact is that Google is becoming a full-service platform providing websites, hosting, technology and fulfillment. But it is not necessarily working with YOU!

We note that Expedia is well represented in Google Places' results and we know that Expedia is a big advertiser. But we also notice that a small hotel who does not advertise (Dover Beach in Barbados) is on Places and when you click on the link, it takes you directly to Dover Beach Hotel's official website. This is encouraging, as we were instrumental in getting Dover Beach Placed. It shows that big advertisers do not necessarily dominate. They do things right, they are authority sites, and they get listed. But as a small hotel owner, You too can be listed and linked directly. And it is not always the big OTAs that are the preferred suppliers. In the case of Coconut Court Hotel a small OTA is listed, and that is likely a result of their work in listing the Place and marketing it.

When you examine the Map-Website that Google creates for properties, you will notice that it is getting its photos from Panorama. So Panorama is a good place to put your images. It's an authority site respected by Google. Be there and you increase your chances of the largest search engine in the world listing you.

Summary

Its clear that search is transforming into a much more encompassing media. It is becoming a full service solution, offering e-commerce and fulfillment. Its methods to evaluate ranking are favoring large companies who are the major advertisers and depreciating organic search results. It is already very difficult for small hotel and tourism operators to gain first page ranking for their target searches. Small companies do not have the collateral of the big companies, they don’t have the content, and are not woven into the web in the same way as the big companies. They don’t have the know how or the time and resources to compete.

The new changes appear to make it almost impossible for small travel companies to get into the first page of search results for generic terms other that their own name.

Coming Next

In our next Blog we will look at these issue in detail and suggest what a small tourism company can do to market its brand and sustain its niche against these odds.

Be sure to read and watch the next video.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel to get notices of our latest video. Subscription is free. http://www.youtube.com/user/social4travel1

We also offer free consultation, white papers and marketing newsletter: You may subscribe or contact us at http://Social4travel.com

SEE NEXT ARTICLE how-small-hotels-tourism-cos-camplete

AXSES launches Social Marketing For St. Lucia

noreply@blogger.com (Ian R Clayton) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 15:27:00 +0000

AXSES Social Marketing For Travel (Social4Travel.com), which harnesses the Internet, Social Media and Mobile Marketing to enhance the business of hotels and tourism firms, is proud to be working in conjunction with Marigot Beach Club in the Caribbean island of St. Lucia (see http://MarigotBeachClub.com).

Marigot Beach Club is an exclusive villa-style resort on Marigot Bay in St. Lucia. It is an ideal destination for travelers seeking a romantic getaway or a memorable family vacation.

Marigot Beach Club is being marketed with AXSES SocialIndexEngine.com which includes being featured on high-quality sites in specific markets and special purpose site like http://Travel2ExoticPlaces.com, launched for this project. AXSES also produces several videos, articles and blogs (see video example below.

AXSES Social Marketing for Travel (Social4Travel.com) helps clients in the travel industry, gain increased online visibility, more Internet traffic, more customers and ultimately, a higher number of direct bookings.

The procedure is very intensive. A comprehensive marketing campaign combining technology, video, magazine placement, publishing and advertising can easily exceed $50,000 US for launch and management in a year.

But with a Joint Venture approach, a hotel or travel company will pay AXSES as little as 10% of the cost and share in the revenue. This way, the risk to the hotel or tourism company is minimal.

About AXSES Social4Travel Technology & Services

The core travel technology is the arcRes Tourism Publishing System. This provides a convenient way to publish promotions, photos and content to social media sites as well as affiliates, independent travel sites, shopping sites and magazine sites across the Internet.

Key arcRes applications include: Facebook Marketing, Booking Engines, SmartphoneTraveller Marketing Systems, Destination Systems, a network of sites, affiliates and a basket of marketing applications for tourism: from mobile apps to Facebook apps like arcResBookings and FanPagePosts.

With Social Media demographics, arcRes Publishing can now target specific audiences such as families, single travelers and travelers in certain countries, as well as by their own special interests.

arcResBookings for Facebook features direct sales and bookings with no commissions, Fan Page Branding, Marketing and a professional Content Management System, that keeps content fresh and current. The arcRes secure Booking Engine for Facebook provides safety and peace of mind. Family plans, flexible terms, payment plans, inventory choices and many marketing options are available. http://facebook.arcres.biz

FanPagePosts allows hotels and tourism companies to post special offers to their Facebook pages, Wall and news feeds. This gets the word out about the Brand. It is effective, as fans are always on the lookout for a fair deal and a Special Facebook offer. It can create viral exposure, as friends and friends of friends read each others’ news and share the offers with other. Ultimately, it means more direct sales. http://FanPagePosts.com

With the arcRes Specials and Packages Publishing Tool, hotels and travel companies can publish travel deals and promotions through an easy click on their computer keyboard. The publishing network is vast and includes AXSES’ own sites as well as 100s of affiliates, travel sites and services that subscribe to the arcRes RSS Feeds. http://specials.arcRes.biz

The arcRes Mobile Travel applications give smartphone users an easy-to-use format to search, explore, plan and book their holiday at anytime, from anywhere. Hotels and restaurants can easily create their own comprehensive Mobile websites and booking engine using the arcRes Mobile Publisher. The sites can be accessed on the iPhone, BlackBerry, Android and any smart mobile devices. The smartphone websites and applications also help the Brand get found on Google Mobile Search. http://smartphonetraveller.com.

All of these are integrated with AXSES SocialIndexEngine which creates the social footprint using a mix of strategies and techniques. For this project AXSES has also created a new site http://Travel2ExoticPlaces.com to help market Marigot Beach Club

Subscribe to our YouTube video tutorial and marketing tips

To receive our video information news and tutorials please visit our YouTube channel Social4Travel1 and click subscribe

How Content Marketing Creates Top Brand Positioning

noreply@blogger.com (Ian R Clayton) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 21:47:00 +0000

Content Marketing with Articles

This blog is about how articles can get you to the top of Google, especially if it’s done in conjunction with video blogging and the full social media indexing.

Social media is about conversation publishing: making comments in blogs, articles, videos, tweets and to web properties, about telling people something which is of interest to them and sharing your knowledge and experience.

The best way to describe this is to take you to an example. We were commissioned to build an eCommerce marketing platform for Dominica and to integrate that with the official Dominica website. We built the Bookings Dominica Central Reservation System. We created about 50 pages of information and wrote a major article: a Travelogue. From this we built several videos, articles, a magazine, bookmarks, tweets and press releases.

We then published the articles and videos. Articles must be unique; otherwise you might get ignored by Google and in some cases slapped. But videos can be populated over the net. We published the videos to our network of sites such as adventure travel destinations, romantic holiday destinations and many others.

We also used our eCommerce engine as a publishing system for travel products, specials, promos and packages. This is very effective way of advertising a car rental, package, room, holiday experience, etc. arcRes will publish these to our own portals, on the destination portals, the suppliers' own websites and hundreds - or thousands, in some cases - of affiliate sites.

We build magazines, another way to get good quality content into high quality sites, and create footprints on the internet. We’re doing this for entertainment, for education, to publicize, and most importantly to get links back to our sites and clients' sites. Google counts links; they see and rank this activity because it is useful quality content on quality sites.

The name of the game is to publish and market your brand in the best possible places, ones with high relevancy to the content and which are highly regarded by Google.

We then turn around and market those same places that are carrying your brand. It sounds like a lot of work and it is. That’s the subject of our next video, which you can get by just subscribing to our YouTube channel, Social4Travel1:

I’d like just to share with you the results of this particular program for Dominica. The website that we’re promoting primarily was the BookingsDominica.com website. We gained a PR4, a page rank of four, in just under a year. This is good; by contrast, the Dominica Authority Sites have a PR of 6, but they have been in business for many years and have a significant budget and network of links.

We had 500,000 Unique Visitors in that year, 30,000 linked directly to the Hotel Members' Websites. We will create a video detailing this shortly, which will be available to anyone who subscribes to our Social4Travel1 YouTube channel.

Article Marketing is a major component of AXSES SocialIndexEngine.com
The Complete "Done for You" Social Media Management and Brand Marketing Program that Drives Direct Bookings to your Website on Autopiulot.

We will be sharing a whole library of HOW TO Market Travel videos. To find out more or to see the next articles, all you need to do is subscribe to our video channel, which is YouTube.com/user/social4travel1, click on “subscribe” and you will then get notified of any new videos that we produce about how to market travel, hotels and toward some destinations.

If you would also like to subscribe to our Social4Travel newsletter, just enter your email on http://social4travel.com; you’ll also be able to access white papers, reports, PDFs and information on how to market your travel business.

LINKS - Video Blogging

Dominica Video Example

Is Search the New Media?

noreply@blogger.com (Ian R Clayton) — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 15:50:00 +0000

Search engines have elevated certain sites, notably Social Networking sites, Bookmarks and Web 2.0 properties to "authority status". In many cases, Fan Pages will outrank the official website. Done right, bookmarks, fan pages and social profiles help company sites rank well and get found in search results. In effect this makes Marshall McLuhan's, "The Media is the Message", a tangible reality. In other words, say it on a social media site and your message will have more visibility and more impact.

Search Engines are a vital part of the new media; it too is morphing into a far more interactive channel, as we see with maps and pricing options now right in search results. The answer to the question "are search engines the new media?" is not so simple. But look at Google + and ask yourself: where this is heading? Media, I say. Look at Google + Hangouts - a go-to meeting-like option. There a small business can conduct its own impromptu team meetings, seminars, share documents and interact with customers. In this case Google is enabling us to publish and engage, by delivering the tools we need. Recall that the new media is not about broadcasting (see the future of media) but about enabling participation. In this respect Hangouts is an enabler, is it media?, perhaps it will be!

Where will Google draw the line on process? It's moves into shopping, e-commerce and fulfillment on search, is starting to get creepy: booking flights, creating webpages for small business, choosing which hotels it maps, which Online Travel Agents Agents (OTA's) it displays in Google Places. Google Places now takes up the top of the search results, meaning organic search is way down the page. It is getting a little scary and clearly could lead to a realignment of business services. Business as we know it may never be the same if Google takes over website provision and hosting.

I fear that the New Media may displace many small businesses, and that could be evil. But give them some slack, these are early days and Google is not evil.

I have spent some time with them on online seminars, product reviews and open discussions and i am impressed by the character of its people. These are not tycoons, but rather bright and enthusiastic people who care about what they are doing and the world they might be creating. I believe that Google cares about its bottom line, but it also cares about the little guy and my instinct is that it will build systems for all. That just my instinct and perhaps my hope. Nevertheless we need to be watchful. Innovation and change is rampant and some change may hurt.

We are witness to the birth of the new media. Traditional channels, processes, form and function are all morphing in some way to be relevant in the new age of participation. Search will be more Social and be more interactive, enabling participation. I like using search as a metaphor of the new media because it is interactive and enabling. YOU search; you ask the questions; you select the answers.

Search delivers maps, prices, content and process. It is, like media, supported by advertising. I see it become more and more a media offering rich content to complex queries, including seasonally relevant rates and "personal" packages.

The maps on Google are still limited but look at Bookable-Maps, as seen in the Tourism Marketing of Barbados.org (http://bookable-maps.com). These are good examples of the interactivity we will see more of in the digital age of participation. It will be in search. Search will evolve and become more social, it will evolve to answer question of price, availability, shopping and fulfillment.

Google's aim is to deliver a single right answer for every single query by a single person. In other words the answer that I get will often not be the same as the one you get. And that means Google will know an awful lot about you and me, and our preferences and interest at any one particular time.

Google plus with its circle of friends and interest will be a key player in defining these very personal search results. So will social media. Our profiles, bookmarks, friends, business and our activity all make up the index which search engines are accumulating.

Going forward it is important to be prudent in what we do and how we do it and especially how we market.

Social Media Marketing for Travel & Tourism

noreply@blogger.com (Ian R Clayton) — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 15:38:00 +0000

AXSES launches Social Media Marketing for Travel

http://SocialMarketing4travel.com

A complete system of services and technology for hotels and tourism companies.

What is Social For Travel

AXSES has been a leader in Social Media for Travel over the last several years. We were the first company to develop a booking and marketing system, for Facebook. When we went to the market with this product in 2008, it was considered a technology without a market. Our Search Engine Optimisation consultants said they could not help us market the product because there was no demand for it. That proved to be very wrong, and we took pride in helping small hotels, car rental companies and tourism operators in Barbados to be the first in the world to add bookings and marketing to their Facebook pages.see arcRes Facebook links at end of page

Since then, we have upgraded the application a couple of time. It now creates a Reservations Page automatically as it loads and manages brand content right onto the page. It is integrated with our arcRes V5 upgrade that effectively displays and markets all brand products.

More Breakthrough apps for Facebook on the way

We recently launched another addition to arcRes for Facebook that helps tourism suppliers automate posts and build a larger Fan base. This is a great help to hotels and tourism companies who are finding it difficult to manage posts and engage fans. So we will be offering a solution and a service to do it for them.see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QD6nXZcTYKI

AXSES’ leadership in Social Media for Travel was recognized by the New York Times, who interviewed us for their article on Social technology in Travel and featured AXSES in their report.

Social Marketing for Travel Goes Beyond Facebook

But Social Marketing for travel extends far beyond Facebook. Over the last year we have been putting all the pieces in place, integrating our travel technology with proven techniques in Social Media Marketing and Social Networking. The result is a new service in Social Media with a focus on travel described as SocialMarketing4Travel. It incorporates videos, mobile, bookmarks, podcasts, articles, blogs, Twitter and other social sites like LinkedIn. It is geared to the new media landscape which we discuss in our hubs pages on the future of social media for hotels and tourism marketing.

The full service is a combination of the very best marketing gurus’ techniques and strategies, with our own focus on marketing travel and tourism. We have not just studied the gurus; we have subscribed to their training and partnered with them to provide a unique set of travel-focused social media services, technology and products.

Building with the Best from the Best

Our gurus include the best of the best: Jeff Johnson, the man who consistently wins all affiliate contests and has built an empire on Internet Marketing. Mike Koenings, founder of Main Street Marketing & Trafic Geyser and a Video Marketing genius. Jeff Walker of Product Launch Formula. Don Crowther of Social Profit Formula, who has worked with Fortune 500 companies and small business, helping them use the media to their best advantage, and is making it work. There are others, like Howie Schwatrz of Black Hat fame, who are going main stream with cutting edge techniques that might, in some cases, still be too close to the wind for us. He is one of the most knowledgeable gurus on Google’s latest moves, so we follow him and we have tested many of his system and products.

Strategies for Tourism Businesses who want results beyond advice

We are going to share our strategies and our new technology over the next several months. We will introduce our own breakthroughs and new travel marketing products for social media and beyond.

For example, we will be offering a social indexing package (Social Index Engine) with article blogging and video marketing FREE to all clients who purchase 3 arcRes products (i) in 2010. This is a winning formula: you can choose to get an arcRes Mobile Website, an arcRes Facebook Reservation page and arcRes Specials Marketing for just 150$ one-time and 75$ monthly. In addition, we do a complete analysis or your social footprint, your target market and brand position and engineer your social index strategy. Then, we implement it.

We do all the work; we do the articles, the video blogging, create your niche profiles and post them out to 100s of sites. No one else has this combination of the technology and systems together tied together with knowledge and expertise of social media marketing for travel

Proudly Grass Roots

Even before it is officially launched, we have enquiries every day from across the globe. Tourism companies are looking at how to use social media, video blogging and even the largest companies are outsourcing social media management.

We are very proud of our client-driven initiative, that are featured in the New York Times and that have a global reach. Thanks to our loyal customers who have helped us formulate and perfect our services we continue to role out leading marketing and services for tourism.

Subscribe to Social4Travel.com for our Complimentary "How To" Videos
Be sure to subscribe to SocialMarketing4Travel.com to get the latest free reports on video and on everything Social 4 Travel.

- What is article Bloging for travel and how to use content to build your market

- What is video blogging for travel and how to use videos to publish to 100s of sites

- 10 top strategies for creating travel videos quickly and at low cost

- What are bookmarks and how best to use them

- How to make twitter work for you

‘- Google +1 and Travel

- Making Facebook work for travel

- 10 top things you should do with Facebook for Travel

- How to use linkedIn for Travel

- Your Social Index and how you create it?

- Mobile Travel: Latest research, facts and case studies

- The Social Media Platform

Resource

Clay Shirky - How Facebook and Twitter can make History

Signup for arcRes Facebook
Bookings app http://facebook.arcres.biz
arcRes Fan Page Posts - Special Offers
http://TourismMarketingPlatform.com

Social Media is not about being Social

noreply@blogger.com (Ian R Clayton) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 22:00:00 +0000

Social Media is an odd name for any kind of business medium. It is a misnomer. Created on campuses and made popular by teenagers, wanting to check out and check in with friends, share ideas, lusts, growing pains, disappointments and glory; it has transformed into the most pervasive marketing concept of our time. But "Social" is the wrong word and its roots have nothing to do with its current place in history and its future.

For business, social media is not about being social.

Its not about making friends and sharing personal details. It is in fact an evolution in communication brought about by the Internet and explosive innovation in technology which is transforming the way we do business and market our products and services. It is a pervasive network that adapts to everything and permeates everything.

Clay Shirkly, professor, teacher, writer and philosopher has put it into perspective. He refers to this new evolution of connectivity and communication He calls it "The largest increase in expressive capability in human history". But as you listen to him its clear that the new media he refers to is not about being social at all.

Social is a word that fits an aspect of what it is, it connect everyone instantly. Now consumers are producers, and every kind of Media has migrated to the Internet; they are neighbours on your desktop and in your pocket. You can view a movie on your smartphone, read the NY times, pay bills, trade in the stock market, book a hotel, see an advertisement, on a screen, in a mag, anywhere all at the same time, and share it with family and colleagues.

Community Collaboration vs Communication will drive business

Clay refers to the new media as participatory. I think "participatory" sums it up better than social. We are all participants in a new democracy of communication that are more community based and more collaborative. With it the very core of connection and communication has shifted. Take a moment to listen to his speech, it can shift your thinking.

Media Becomes an Enabler

Clay reminds me of Marshall Mcluhan, but he is more understandable because he is more rational. Mcluhan was an artist and a poet. Many of his ideas and statements were designed to provoke, like "the future of the future is the present". You have to be a poet to get that one. On the other hand he coined the "Global Village" and the "Medium is the Message" over 50 years ago. How topical they are now, how true?

Clay will tell us more earthy things that are just as deep, "media is more and more about convening rather than publishing" and "things gets interesting when technology gets boring". This is true, in fact little happens with brand new technology until their is a critical mass. See our blog on the new order.

For tourism marketers, the follow insights from Clay are worth pondering:

1. Communications is moving to group orientation, its no longer one to many, but many to many, between peer groups and individuals where there are many connections and dialogue is bi-directional.

2. Media has migrated to Net. All Media is beside each other and on your desktop and in your hand.

3. Consumers are publishers. This means a vast expansion in channels and mediators who transpose information relative to their peer group, and even to fragments with in peer groups.

4. The network that is vast and growing exponentially. The size is the square of the of number of nodes. Message will be vastly differentiated and targeted.

5. Media is more about convening communication and participation than delivering the message.

Implications for Tourism Marketing

Tourism destination, tourism operators, hotels and travel marketing companies absolutely will not be able to avoid the this thing we loosely call social media. I suspect the word Social will be meaningless in the years ahead as all media will have a social aspect. All will be participatory. The result is a collective intelligence and relationships that determines outcomes and markets. All successful Businesses will build face-to-face communities across online, mobile and traditional media.

The message, the media, the messenger and the consumer will have many guises in a landscape where we are all each one of these at sometime, and sometimes simultaneously. Conventional marketing is already changing. The message will not be the driving force as in the past. Participation in a social network is not about crafting the message and presenting it, but about listening and providing useful solutions, knowledge and processes that allow participation. Communications will be less about messages and more about processes, it will be two way rather than one way broadcast. Blasting out youtube video, Facebook messages and Tweets is not the way of the future.

Branding in the age of Participation

In a fully semantic world of Web 2.0, html5 and applications, messages will be interactive, encouraging participation and collaboration. Brand advocates are the new messengers and with this shift in marketing the brand will often be controlled by forces outside of market strategy and planning. In the age of participation the Interactive-Brand will be defined by its users as much as by its owners.

Travel technology firms and tourism marketers will find more channel and devices with which to engage. Technology will integrate and aggregate information and process, repackaging and re-purposing products, services, information, media and messenger to suit the occasion.

On-Line Travel Agents (OTAs) are aware of this fragmentation and the opportunities. Because of their size and technical savvy, they may gain ground relative to Brand owners. Hotel and tourism owners will need to be alert to losing “ownership” of their customers in the emerging interactive-media, and growing channel options.

With so many others speaking for them, from OTAs to advocates and dis-tractors, the hotel and travel owners must listen and participate in order to be relevant. All travel shopping will be interactive. Traditional ads that are static broadcast just will not win favour in the interactive world.

Related Blogs
What is Social Networking http://irclay.hubpages.com/hub/The-Future-of-Social-Media-for-Hotel-Marketing-Travel-and-Tourism

New Order http://axses-ianclayton.blogspot.com/2009/04/neworder.html

Interactive-Brand Blog: http://axses-ianclayton.blogspot.com/2010/02/interactivebrand.html

arcRes in New York time http://axses-ianclayton.blogspot.com/2011/04/axses-facebook-booking-app-in-new-york.html

Sea more of Clay, its good for the mind. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=clay+shirky&aq=9&oq=clay+s

Charts "Where do buyers get information" Source: http://adobe.ly/r4q6Qv
How National Geographic sold 2,500 Subscriptions in One Day

Contact us to Optimise your Social Marketing for Travel

Sign for Free Consultation at http://SocialMarketing4Travel.com

Follow us on twitter

arcRes Facebook Posts Engine - Get More Fans

noreply@blogger.com (Ian R Clayton) — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 12:44:00 +0000

Facebook Posts and Updates are Important, but Tedious to Manage

Posting updates and interesting comments to your Facebook Fan Pages and Facebook Wall is one of the most important things you can do to get Fans and engage them. It is also one of the most tedious and time-consuming activities for any business. Many businesses are seeking to outsource this activity, because it is not in their core competence. Now with arcRes new FanPage Posts engine the job of building the Facebook Fan pages and posting content is automated.

Timely and Relevant Facebook Posts For Special Offers

"Posting Special Offers and Packages" are great content for Fan Conversation, status updates and wall posts। They are engaging and shareable content that get mileage. Specials can be scheduled for every festival, holiday and event of the year. They can be targeted to families, couples, singles, by country, special interest groups, etc. The combination is endless. With arcRes Special Offers for Facebook app, Hotels and Tourism suppliers can easily build and display content for any target market and interest group within Facebook.

Special Offer Posts are Advertisements

Facebook, with its huge Market reach and 600,000 loyal followers, has become a major advertising medium for the largest travel companies, like Expedia. Now, even small hotels and travel suppliers can step up their Fan engagement and attract more Fans and bookings with automatic posts managed by arcResBookings tools.

Example of a Wall Post/Facebook Advertisement

With the arcRes option to create ads for specific dates and to change any special at any time; fan page and wall post updates can be current and fresh. With frequent updates and new offers, Fans are more likely to watch for the latest news and offers and return to the page frequently.

arcRes "Special Offers" Builds "Like"
Pages to Entice Fans

The app is also set up to encourage new visitors to "Like the Page" and become a Fan in order to access the information. The Like Page feature is optional. Providing extra value for Fans-only brands provides an incentive for liking the page and building a loyal Fan base।

If specials are shown only to Fans, non-Fans receive the message below and a prompt to LIKE the page (i.e., become a Fan). Non-Fans can still access the page Wall, Photos, etc.

http://arcres.com/facebook/posts-get-fans.cfm

SPECIAL OFFERS FACEBOOK POSTS IS JUST THE START

Social Media Marketing is the new norm, but it only works if it is done correctly. A good Social Media Strategy is to make engaging Fan Page posts often. Good posts get attention and are shared by Fans on their walls, in their news feeds and by active linking and emails. No posts and poor Fan posts means poor Fan engagement and fewer Fans. Fans are not only good for your facebook business, they also help get you indexed by Google.

We know that Fans like coupons and special deals. In Travel, the Special Offers and Travel deals are perhaps the most important shopping criteria. Discounts and packages have led to the skyrocketing success of Online Travel Agents, like Expedia. Price is a market-leader; it is why Google has moved to put rates and costs on local search results for travel.

Special Offers, Coupons, deals, promos and packages are the top search criteria when buying almost anything these day and travel deals are no exception. It is logical to make special offers a big part of your Facebook posting and status update strategy.

But this project is far larger, FanPagePosts beyond Special Offers are a pivotal part of the new AXSES Social Media Marketing plan. Soon we will have fan page post engines for all events, news, reviews, comments and conversation starters.

NEXT - SocialIndexEngine

The project, spearheaded by Kathy-Lynn Ward, COO Of AXSES, called SocialIndexEngine, is a new platform for Social Media that covers Social Media Indexing, Marketing and Maintenance. It includes social media marketing bookmarks, blogs, video, mobiles and SmartphoneTraveller marketing, article marketing as well as social status sites like LinkedIn and Facebook.

It is a very comprehensive solution that is right on the curve of where marketing is heading and slightly ahead of where most small hotels and travel companies perceive. It is also an incremental package, so that Hotels and Tourism, as well as businesses of all types, can start at a place and pace that is comfortable for them. From there, they may add more options as they see results and learn how to use the new media to get more direct business.

We will be unfolding this important platform in stages over the next several months. In this article, we are pleased to share our FanPagePost strategy.

RESOURCES
http://fanpageposts.com/

http://socialindexengine.com/

Bookings and Marketing for your Hotel and Tourism Facebook Page: http://facebook.arcres.biz/

Facebook Travel Promo: Win a Free Caribbean Holiday in Barbados

noreply@blogger.com (Ian R Clayton) — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 12:39:00 +0000

In our ongoing involvement with Facebook as a travel marketing channel, we are running a Sweepstake on our Barbados Tourism Encyclopedia Fan page. The sweepstake offers a free holiday to one winner. All are invited and the rules are simple: anyone interested in winning a Free Caribbean Holiday at Yellow Bird Hotel in Barbados can simply 'like" our Barbados Page and enter the competition.

YouTube - Win a Free Caribbean Holiday: Facebook Prom o

Barbados.org Blog | Enter to Win at http://barbados.org/win

The entry deadline is June 30th, at which time a winner is chosen by a random number generator. The winner will get 5 days accommodation, sponsored by Yellow Bird Hotel.

The Sweepstake is advertised on Facebook for the entire month. Kathy-Lynn Ward, COO of AXSES, says, "We are running several ads, all targeted to markets in Canada. Some ads are far better that others and it's quite a job to manage the variables such as demographics, interest, geographic targets, images and text to capture what is working. We are learning a lot about advertising on Facebook, which we will translate into a real advantage for our travel customers."

The objectives of the Campaign are:

1. Generate more Interactive Fans for Barbados.org From a marketer's perspective, a Fan is someone who may follow you on Facebook, is receptive to your news, announcements, events, etc, and who will often tell their friends what you are doing. When you post to your Fan page, the post can be displayed on all followers' walls, which means it can be seen by their friends. Fans are customers and prospective customers, influencers and interested parties: They represent a high-interest client base that you can keep in contact with. Getting more fans is a high priority in social media marketing.

Running a competition on Facebook is a a good way for any hotel and tourism organization to increase fans and interaction. Competition gets good play within the Facebook community and are spread around by word of mouth. But one has to subscribe to the Facebook guidelines on how to run a competition, choose a winner, etc.

2. Test Facebook as an advertising media. We are evaluating what works and why. And, most importantly, want does not work. Our intent is to provide consultation to travel campaigns and offer advice and services on how to effectively use Facebook in Travel.

3. Expand AXSES Facebook marketing. We believe we were the first travel company to build a direct booking application for hotels and tourism who wanted to quickly and easily build a Facebook reservations Fan page that allowed fans to see current seasonal rates, specials, photos, brand content and to be able to get an instant quote and book online. We are integrating the arcResBookings application with a full marketing platform for Facebook.

4. Evaluate other social media and marketing channels. In addition to Facebook advertising, the campaign also includes promotion on other social platforms and traditional websites and distribution channels. The performance of these channels vs. Facebook will be evaluated.

5. Make more people aware of the special and unique features of a Barbados Holiday.

The marketing is fully funded by AXSES; Yellow Bird Hotel provides the accommodation.

The Next Step -

Please follow us to learn the results and insights we learn from this campaign. We will be putting this to use by creating packages and a template for marketing hotels and tourism using Facebook and other social media. We are offering consultation, services and technology to help tourism use social media: see http://SocialMarketing4Travel.com

Click the follow button below to get updates on this campaign:

Advertising Your Mobile Travel Site on Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Ian R Clayton) — Tue, 17 May 2011 15:14:00 +0000

This is a follow-up on our previous discussion on Facebook advertising for hotel and tourism mobile marketing (previous study)

The conclusion is discussed here and illustrated in the video below.

YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YezSUrhg1rQ

Case 2 - Advertising TravelOnTheGo.mobi to Facebook Desktop users

The study tracked advertising of the AXSES site http://TravelOnTheGo.mobi on Facebook.

TravelOnTheGo.mobi is home to hotels and tourism operators who are using AXSES SmartphoneTraveller.com marketing Services. This is a comprehensive mobile marketing platform that includes listing hotel and travel mobile-optimized sites on our own TravelOnTheGo.Mobi directory, as well as marketing via the DotMobi distribution. Each client gets a 14-page .Mobi website that includes map location, photo galleries, a booking engine and the ability to add specials and packages.

Call to Action on the Landing Page Essential

The specials and packages are very key to the study. In the first study, we advertised Special offers to Facebook users, but travelers had trouble finding the specials. They had to visit each hotel site and, as several suppliers did not have a special deal or a package, we found that they were getting frustrated and quitting early.

In the second phase, we added specials to the directory. This means that mobile travelers see the specials being offered right on the first page they visited. Facebook desktop users who click the ad see the same.

High Interest from Facebook Fans

The results were tracked using Clicky and showed a marked interest. Visitors stayed on average over 2 minutes on the site and visited several pages. They went directly to the suppliers' offers and even chose to look at options using the booking engine.

The cost of the ad was on average .19 cents per click (CPC). The campaign resulted in just under 1 million impressions and 330 Clicks to the target websites. The Click-Through Rate (CTR) was 0.037%

Comparison with Google AdWords to Mobile Users

By contrast, a campaign on Google's AdWords had an average stay of under 30 seconds and many visited no pages. This was not a split test, as the format and wording of the ad were different. The target was similar, but it was limited to Smartphone users. The ad had good CTR and comparable costs. We expected that by targeting Smartphone users, the length of stay and activity on the site would have been better. In that respect Google Adwords under preformed where Facebook exceeded expectations. We will review and explore this in a following case study.

Conclusion

Facebook clearly attracts attention and gets qualified traffic, (i.e.: consumers who have an interest and stay on the site). We know that this works for traditional websites (see first test) and for mobile websites, even when the mobile site is viewed on a desktop!

Facebook Ads, unlike Google and the Search ads, do not target people who are actually searching for a product or service. This does not mean that the Facebook visitors are not interested in buying, but only that they have not got to your site by searching for your product or service.

The Facebook visitor is interested in your product and service and may well want to buy it, but we suspect that the decision to book will not be immediate in most cases (two of the visitors in this time span actually contacted the hotel directly).

Most travel shopping is a long process where travelers will visit 25 sites on average.

Converting Travel Shoppers is a complex issue but we know that offering rate guarantees is a vital feature.

Special and packages do entice buyers, but it may be important to also say that it is the best price. Without this, travel shoppers tend to look around and may drop off the radar.

Keeping your hotel in front of the traveler is where Facebook can be very important, especially if you engage them with interesting stories of happenings, offer Best Rates to Fans, and get them to be your Fan.

Fans are good prospects for your service and you can keep in contact with them throughout the Facebook pages.

All research shows that Fans like to stay within the Facebook setting.

Mobile is Significant in Travel Research and Planning

Mobile users are 100% connected most of the time. Those with smartphones are browsing the net to plan shopping and travel (smartphone devices are the fastest-growing sector, accounting for about 25% of all mobile and expected to be near 50% in 2012). Currently about 34% of smartphone users use the device for travel shopping.

For more on this, read our FREE Mobile Travel White Paper at http://arcres.com/smartphonetraveller-whitepaper-download.cfm

Recommendation

Hotels and tourism companies need to be seen on mobile searches and have a mobile-optimized website in order to feature in this market.

Hotels and tourism suppliers should have Fan Pages and encourage guests and potential guests to become Fans. Travel companies should add "Like" buttons to all mobile web pages.

We recommend that Hotels and Tourism operators add Special Rates, quotes and bookings directly to their Fan Pages.

Fan pages should have all of your rooms, products and the best pictures right on the pages where Fans might make a booking.

Advertising should contain a mix that includes Facebook. We see Facebook as having long-term benefits. For marketing, it has targeting and engagement benefits not available on other platforms.

Keep Tuned in on Insights, Developments and Case Studies

Google AdWords allows you to target your ads to smartphone users, and this is a distinct benefit. We will be looking at this channel of advertising in a future case study - To keep tuned in - please follow us

arcResBookings Fan Pages Builder and Facebook Bookings

We invite you to a no-obligation Free trial - go to http://facebook.arcres.biz

TravelOnTheGo.mobi directory listing
dotMobi publishing to 1000s of directories
Your hotel special promotions displayed on networks of 100s of travel sites
iPhone and Android application
Advertised on the Internet and direct to mobiles/smartphones
14-Page mobile-optimized website; get more "Direct Bookings"

Related links

Advertising Travel with Facebook see
http://axses-ianclayton.blogspot.com/2011/04/facebook-travel-ads.html

Google latest study show Smartphone users searching on mobile: " Make sure you can be found via mobile search as consumers regularly use their phones to find and act on information" see this study at http://googlemobileads.blogspot.com/2011/04/smartphone-user-study-shows-mobile.html

Marketing Mobile Travel with Facebook #2

noreply@blogger.com (Ian R Clayton) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 16:51:00 +0000

AXSES launches Hotel and Travel Specials/Packages for Mobile Websites Marketing!

Our previous study of social media hotel marketing for mobile demonstrates that Fan Specials can be an effective part of the marketing mix.

Offering a hotel special to Facebook fans gets a significant response, but we ran into hurdles linking desktop users to a mobile website, TravelOnTheGo.mobi.

The problems revealed with the study #1 were:

1. A mobile display looks a bit lost on a desktop and does not take advantage of the full screen. It was dissonant to desktop users but it did have merit.

2. The landing page for our ads (travelonthego.mobi) did not show specials. The guest was required to visit a hotel site, but they did not know which had specials. For those looking for specials it was a waste of time!

Solution to problem #2

A. Banners
Add specials to the landing page of the mobile site. We did this in two stages; on the home page we serve up a rotating banner that displays all specials for which we have a Mobile Page. The banner gets attention and travelers can click on a rotation and go directly to the .mobi special page and book it with our hand-held booking engine.

B. Lists

For travelers who want a list of all special, we created a new page that lists all specials. As the offers grow, we will add categories and some other navigation and search features.

With that done, we are still left with the problem #1.

Solution to problem #1

A. Advertise to mobile users only
Only show the advertisement to Facebook fans who are engaging with their mobiles (about 25%). Unfortunately, Facebook does not offer an option to show ads to mobile user, at this point. Also it will mean that we are restricting the ads to 25% of our potential market. We really want to display the ad to all our market. 75% of our potential fans are not using their mobile when accessing their Fan pages. Many have mobiles and can be interested in getting specials delivered to their smartphones.

B. Create an online landing page
It makes sense to link potential guests to a site that explains what the special holiday advertisements are all about and offers them the special when they next use their smartphone.

There are a couple of options for the landing page:

1. Link to a Facebook fan page that offers them the explanation and the offer

2. Link to a non-mobile site that does this

We decided to do both and to do a split test to see which performs best. We suspect that the Fan page will win, but there are some constraints on the design and we want to evaluate the Fan page against an optimized landing page.

We also want to know how the new specials-enhanced .mobi site will perform.

Will direct links to the .mobi site that has specials advertised on the two landing pages be valid? We did have fans who “Liked” this original TravelOnTheGo.mobi site so we want to see if the "Likes" will increase now that we have specials and a more apparent action! Also some of the users will be on mobiles, so in both cases, we will link to the mobile site. We will implement this adv. immediately, while we we build the online web pages and do the split test.

Tracking

It is vital that we track these approaches carefully. We use Google analytics extensively on our sites, but this is not real time. For the test, we will also use Clicky analytics. Clicky tells us instantly when a user visits a target page, where they come from, what links they came from and what they did. It measures clicks, downloads and video views at the instant they use it. Clicky is very useful for measuring split tests and immediate results.

The ads will be the same ads we used previously, which were very successful in getting attention and clicks.

Watch out for the results in our next blog!

The result and analysis will be put to good use in building winning strategies for Hotel and Travel Marketing. We have strength in 3 important, related areas:

1. First Facebook Bookings app for direct Hotel and Travel Bookings and Branding
2. Mobile strategy for Direct Hotel Bookings
3. Using Facebook to market Hotels and Travel

We believe social media is going to be one of the most important travel marketing channels. We intend to be a leader in providing know-how and technology for hotels and travel companies. Our focus is building a hotel-owned system for direct marketing and and direct bookings using social media mobile.

Facebook leads in social media and has a mobile platform that complements AXSES arcResbookings.com and AXSES SmartphoneTraveller.com marketing platform.

Keep tuned in for breaking news!

Please Follow me - it will really help us all in marketing travel

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Previous blog http://axses-ianclayton.blogspot.com/2011/04/facebook-travel-ads.html

Realted links

New York Times: AXSES Facebook app & amp; Mobile Marketing featured in New York Times
http://bit.ly/nytimes-facebook

FAN Special for Hotel Mobile Marketing:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Smartphonetraveller-Reach-5-billion-mobiles/179886612057757

AXSES SmartphoneTraveller Strategies
http://smartphonetraveller.com

Put your hotel brand and Bookings On Facebook
http://arcresbookings.com

Video illustrations of this blog:

EXISTING TRAVELONTHEGO.MOBI CLIENTS UPGRADED!

In harmony with the present Special Offer, all existing clients have been upgraded to Specials & Packages on their mobile sites. Please "Like" us on SmartPhoneTravellers' Facebook Page if you wish this upgrade to be continuous.

Conclusion see blog http://axses-ianclayton.blogspot.com/2011/05/advertising-your-mobile-travel-site-on.html

AXSES FaceBook Booking app in New York Times Today

noreply@blogger.com (Ian R Clayton) — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 17:32:00 +0000

AXSES is in the New York Times Today.
"Axses Systems Caribbean, a company in Barbados, has helped about 30 small hotels and chains in Barbados and nearby make their reservations available on Facebook since early 2009. Ian Clayton, the chief executive of Axses, said he hoped that by offering reservations directly, while customers were excited by the property, his hotel clients would lose fewer bookings to online travel sites. "

Example:When you click on the Facebook icon on the home page of Rostrevor's website (left bottom corner) On their WALL (left column), click RESERVATIONS.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rostrevor-Hotel-Barbados/96980647512?sk=app_64886344728

BUSINESS DAY | April 19, 2011
Itineraries: Hotels Turn to Social Media to Connect With Travelers
By JULIE WEED
Hotels are using Facebook and Smartphone apps to take bookings directly from customers, rather than relying on travel Web sites.

video on YouTube http://youtu.be/BnC-XebZw78

This is a good time to explore the arcResBookings application for Facebook. We are offering several Facebook specials listed below. Many are with the first 90 days free with no obligation. Our SmartPhonetraveller marketing and TravelOnTheGo.mobi web sites can also be integrated with FanPages

AXSES Facebook application not only puts bookings right within reach of Facebook fans, it also loads and manages a hotel and tourism brand right into the FanPages.

A description of the hotel tailored to Fans, Special rates for Fans, photo, room info and all seasonal rates are added with a click of a button. Any changes in arcRes (our publishing system) automatically update the facebook pages.

Letting your Fans get instant quotes is a great way to engage them. Try it at http://facebook.arcres.biz

450 active monthly users

Marketing Travel with Facebook Ads: #1

noreply@blogger.com (Ian R Clayton) — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 15:32:00 +0000

With the unprecedented move by Expedia to advertising on Facebook, we ask the question: is Facebook Advertising right for Travel? And the best way to answer that is by doing a test.

Proof of Concept

Objective: To test if we can get Facebook fans to a landing page and establish the cost per fan. We are not concerned with the effectiveness of the landing page in this stage. That will be evaluated and optimized later. For this test we worked with Errol Griffith of Freemind Institute who had commissioned AXSES to develop the booking portal for Great Barbados Soccer Classic (GBSC). GBSC is a sport tourism invitational for 2012. Errol has negotiate rates with several hotels to participate and with this he is able to offer a discount to Fans. The test campaign could result in some Fan sales going to his hotel, which would be good business for his group. The test product is deployed using GBSC, with a bit of tweaking.

Fan Holiday Special: We set up a series of ads for a Caribbean Fan Holiday Promotion, using Toronto, Ontario, Canada as a test market for the proof of concept. Facebook users respond to special offers, we did not test a non special offer, and don't intend to as all the study indicate offers work.

The first ad targeted the Toronto area exclusively. We aimed to display the ad to males and females age 25 and over, within a 50-mile radius of Toronto. With Facebook demographics, we can target those in relationships, single, married, by interest and by education. As Facebook users also describe their interests, we can target those who have an interest in travel, etc. The demographic and social graphics targeting is very detailed and unique.

Estimated Reach:

26,480 people

who live in Canada
who live within 50 miles of Toronto, ON
age exactly 25 and older
who like 'i love travel' or 'travel'

Date	Imp.	Social	Clicks	CTR (%)	Avg. CPC ($)	Avg. CPM ($)	Spent ($)
04/06/2011	151,306	0.0%	33	0.022%	0.77	0.17	25.35
04/05/2011	203,077	0.0%	47	0.023%	0.75	0.17	35.45
Lifetime	558,733	0.0%	127	0.023%	0.76	0.17	96.25

In 2 days, we had half a million impressions, and 127 clicks to the landing page at a total cost of $96.25 USD, or less that a Dollar a click. A pretty good rate for a hot search item, and a lot less than it would cost on search advertising.

So far, a good proof of concept. We consulted our Facebook Guru, Martin Maybrook, who agreed it was a good market, but we needed next to work on the target and the landing page. Martin liked the idea of offering a Facebook Fan Special -"all Fans like the idea that they are special"- but seeing as we only were featuring Barbados, he suggested doing another ad for Barbados only. In this, we added the Discount. The number of Facebookers who like Barbados is far smaller, so in order to grow the market, we made this ad available to all in Ontario, Canada.

1,960 people

who live in Canada
who live in Ontario
age exactly 25 and older
who like Barbados

Date	Imp.	Social %	Clicks	CTR (%)	Avg. CPC ($)	Avg. CPM ($)	Spent ($)
04/09/2011	5,629	0.0%	1	0.018%	0.45	0.08	0.45
04/08/2011	25,886	0.0%	22	0.085%	0.57	0.48	12.52
04/07/2011	12,417	0.0%	14	0.113%	0.57	0.64	7.94
Lifetime	43,932	0.0%	37	0.084%	0.57	0.48	20.91

For about $100, we have completed the proof of concept, defined a lively target market and a successful ad and ad copy. We will tweak the ad by running many split tests, where we vary the message and the image. At the same time, we will begin to build a conversion strategy and an effective landing page. These campaigns will give Hotels the option to advertise to a focused Facebook marketplace with managed campaigns that deliver direct business.

Facebook users like to stay on Facebook. We want to restrict the special only to new fans and we want to build a fan base. So we will run several ads with options for people to 'Like'.

The best strategy is to get users to link to a fan page were they must 'like' the page in order to get the special fan offer; similar to what we are doing with our SmartphoneTraveller marketing. Here the users is invited to click 'Like' to become a Fan.

On clicking 'Like', the page changes to a Fan Offer (on Facebook), which links to the sign-up page. These are Business to Business ads, which so far do not seem to be performing well on Facebook.

The Business to Consumer Travels ads are, however, doing very well, as noted above.

AXSES arcResBookings.com, our Facebook Hotel and Tourism Application that adds hotels rates, room, photos and brand info onto Facebook pages, now has over 350 active monthly users, and those hotels who offer fan specials are seeing good value in booking from their Facebook pages.

Facebook certainly has come of age for Travel!
What you notice with Facebook advertising is that it is Instant! As soon as the ad is published, you get results. Ads on search engines, by comparison, will take several days to get approved and to get results.

Stay tuned - Next we will optimize the Facebook Holiday Specials - Create target ads for Themes, like romance and adventure, and invite our Facebook clients to participate in targeted and tested campaigns.

Contact us for a campaign designed just for you, or to be included in our next group marketing on Facebook.

links:
Sign-up for FB Bookings http://facebook.arcres.biz
Join AXSES Facebook Hotel & amp; Travel Marketing fbads@axses.com

Please leave your comments and suggestion below.
Tell us what you like us to test next and follow us to keep informed

NEXT in the series >> http://bit.ly/facebooktravel2mobile

Kalinago of Dominica- Migration. War and Warner

noreply@blogger.com (Ian R Clayton) — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 02:44:00 +0000

Following on from the first article on the Kalinago People of Dominica we have added a new issue to explore this fascinating people further. The story of Carib Warner and the people of his time is a fascinating drama.

A 13 year boy the son of a lord and Kalinago Dominica woman, leaves his home in St. Kitts and returns to Dominica on his fathers death. There he adapts well to his mothers people and becomes their chief. Later as Governor he negotiates a treaty with Kalinago and British. He is murder by his half brother, son of the same farther.

Its a compelling story within many stories. The Lord Thomas Warner and his Kalinago Mother appear to be outstanding people living in an extraordinary time. Both of them are strong characters dealing with their own story. It is a Caribbean story of the people who are the ancestors of many who live here now. It is also the story of early colorization, of abuse, greed, power and in some cases great tenderness.

We will be writing more. please stay tuned and subscribe if you want to be advised. Please have a look at the story. Click the 'Like" button at the top of the page will help publicize the story. See War and Warners

arcRes V5 new Features for Hotel Bookings & Travel Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Ian R Clayton) — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 15:00:00 +0000

arcRes publishes rates special and packages to
mobile phone, social media and travel shopping sites

The new arcRes V5 combines the arcRes real-time booking with a host of unique travel services and marketing options.

arcRes V5 brings new Web 2.0 properties to the booking engine streamlining the booking process, making it more intuitive to use and manage. It is more effective in marketing the brand and closing direct bookings.

arcRes V5 new look and customized design for brands provides improved marketing, more selling options and higher conversion.

The design is a simple, compact page that is clear, concise and flexible, allowing hotels and tourism partners to offer many rate plans, specials, packages, affiliate promotions and affinity discounts.

arcRes direct marketing mail systems allow hotels and tourism suppliers to prospect and follow up with interested travelers. Contact-management is geared to tracking bookings. Sales message may be broadcast to travelers, targeting specific interest, regions, and by booking status and dates etc. The mailing database can be imported into iContact for more advanced tracking and marketing.

An availability calendar is built into the reservation process and will appear to show available dates for units that are fully booked for the selected dates. Travelers often have some flexibility in dates, and the calendar allows them to adjust the stay to fit.

V5 builds on the arcRes Tourism marketing Platform that encompasses mobile marketing and bookings, social media marketing, distribution, direct sales, advertising, content management and publishing.

Brand content, rates, specials, packages and photo galleries are published to over 1000 travel sites and subscribers that include the AXSES travel network, mobile websites, Smartphone applications, social media, independent shopping sites, travel affiliates, syndicate travel sites and subscribers.

The new customized and brand-focused design option allows AXES to offer personal marketing service to individual hotels and travel brands. These can include SEO optimization, directory submission, video blogging, article writing, bookmarking, publishing and distribution. All marketing works in concert with arcRes publishing, specials marketing and distribution, which spreads the brand URL (e.g. http://yourhotel.com) across the Internet. This creates a wide footprint of the brand on the internet, increasing hotel ranking on the search engines, making it easier for travelers to find the brand and book direct.

The default payment option is Credit Card Guarantee (CCG) , similar to that used by the Global Distributions Systems like Sabre, and by OnLine Travel Agents like Booking.com. CCG is the preferred option for direct booking at hotels and tourism operations, where the operators have generally excellent merchant rates with their local banks and traditionally accept a credit card to secure a booking. The card is processed in the event the guest cancels. Other payment systems and payment gateways can be integrated.

All hotel rules, rates, terms and conditions, even down to family plans, are accommodated.

arcRes was designed for tourism properties as their own booking engine. There are no fixed rules: Child ages are set by the hotel and tourism supplier according to their own preferences. A child rate can be free for the first child with charges for the second, or it may be charges for the first and free for the second, or any combination. Similarly, deposit requirements, cancellation policies, check-in times and terms are customized to the brand.

Hotels, car rentals, tours, activities and all tourism suppliers may use a custom-designed booking widget on their website or select from any standard widget available on http://bookingswidgets.com. The widgets are recommended for each page of the site, as this has been shown to increase bookings. The widgets are available for all major hosting platform, including Wordpress, Facebook, Java, Flash and html.

All inventory models are available: request to sell, block a request, freesell and full allocation.

The request to sell system is most popular with small hotels who do not want to manage inventory. All reservations requests are accepted by the system and are subject to confirmation by the supplier.

Block request is similar, except that the supplier can block any unit for a specific period. If it is blocked, it cannot be booked. If available, it is still treated as a reservation request and must be confirmed by the hotel or tourism supplier.

The advantage of the request system is that it is easy to maintain (no allocation, no inventory management). Its disadvantage is that it requires more follow-up and does not offer a real-time confirmation which many travelers expect.

The Confirmed booking system requires Inventory Management or Freesell

With full inventory management units may be allocated to channels and to website bookings. 5 units for the website, 4 for OTA, 5 to xyz, etc. This can get tedious if their are many channels.

In Freesell all units are considered available unless they are blocked. arcRes allows units to be blocked by day for any period.

AXSES offers a channel management service, using technology that allows our consultants to manage rates and allocation across multiple distribution points.

All of these features have been available in arcRes for several years. V5 is a streamlined and more effective system for the brand and the traveler. It sells more units, provides more immediate data to travelers, allows better rate management, upgrades and up-sells and converts more bookings.

AXSES offers a channel management service, using technology that allows our consultants to manage rates and allocation across multiple distribution points.

All of these features have been available in arcRes for several years. V5 is a streamlined and more effective system for the brand and the traveler. It sells more units, provides more immediate data to travelers, allows better rate management, upgrades and up-sells and converts more bookings.

For more see our video at hhttp://arcres.com/upgrade

Subscribe to arcRes marketing http://specials.arcres.biz
Put arcRes on your website to book more http://bookings.arcres.biz
Subscribe to arcRes-powered smartphonetraveller.com

AXSES' arcRes Bookings Plugin for WordPress Approved

noreply@blogger.com (Ian R Clayton) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 16:00:00 +0000

AXSES has launched a booking engine plugin for WordPress. WordPress is growing as a content management and marketing platform for hotels and tourism companies. It has come a long way from its early blogging days, but blogging is still an important feature of the service. WP also has many plugins and services that are attractive to travel marketers. These include easy to use Social Widgets, SEO plugins, contact forms, blog responder, chat and so forth. There are many design templates that can also be used to quickly create a professional-looking site along a particular theme, like families, romance, etc.

We have been watching hotels, using this resource, and feel that it is the right time to offer an arcRes bookings widget plugin for hotels that want an easy and effecting booking engine that can allow users to get instant quotes and make bookings or just reserve hotel rooms and activities.

The arcRes is a good match for WordPress. It provides flexible inventory and payment options and can work for WordPress merchant gateways. It also provides a credit card guarantee system which is becoming very popular, as many hotels have excellent discount rates with local banks. Credit Card Guarantee is a standard used by the majority of international hotels for hotel and activity reservations. It is very suited to small hotels who don't have a need for Internet merchant accounts. It is quick to implement and easy to manage. Credit Card Guarantee is used by major Online Travel Agents (OTAs) for hotel reservations. These include Bookings.com, the Global Distribution Systems (GDS) and by many hotels chains, as well as independent hotel and tourism operators.

Both reservation requests and real time confirmed bookings are available and managed by arcRes.

arcRes is a full feature booking engine that is also a content manager and publishing system. It manages specials, packages, add-ons, numerous rate plans, family plans and themes marketing.

arcRes content is published to the AXSES network, to social sites, Web 2.0 properties and to affiliate travel site. It provides effective and low-cost marketing for hotel and tourism brands to a network of over 1000 sites and subscribers. arcRes also powers AXSES dotMobi marketing via the http://smartphonetraveller.com platform. It publishes brand rates, images, content and bookings capability to Facebook. It publishes specials to Twitter, Google Shopping, Craigslist and many others.

The WordPress Bookings plugin means that any hotel on WordPress can now use arcRes for their WP brand website, and at the same time take advantage of its extensive marketing coverage.

Get the arcRes Bookings plugin for WordPress at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/arcres-booking-engine/

Use arcRes to publish to Social Meda and travel sites http://specials.arcres.com

Get more info on latest version of arcRes http://arcres.com/upgrade

Quick Review of WordPress for Tourism

We have been experimenting with WP for several months. Our Global marketing site, http://Adventure-Travel-Destinations.com is build with WordPress. It uses auto-blogging and we have built RSS feeds that push all of our client special, packages and deals out to Adventure Holidays Specials on the site. We have found it requires a degree of effort and time to understand its many features and plugin options. We recommended it as a platform to hotels who have a WP professional available to help in installation and management. As noted By Alex in Blogessive "While working with it as a website CMS will not allow too many customizations for entry-level developers or users, in the hands of a pro WordPress is ready to perform miracles".

We note some issues with the all-in-one SEO plugin, which appears to conflict with manual entries. In our own case, the development and installation was out-sourced and we are now bringing it in-house on our own server. There are issues with the auto-blogging and we believe Google is flagging sites with auto-blogs and duplicated content. In our view, this is affecting the Page Rank of WordPress sites with the WP auto-blogging plugin and we do not recommend using this plugin. Hotels should build unique content on their sites. Even in blogging, make your content original, not copies of news, but news in your own words and with your own special insights and interpretation.

arcRes Links

http://TourismMarketingPlatform.com | http://BookingsWidget.com | arcRes Bookings plugin for WordPress

High Rates Hurt Direct Business - Will Google Places Help Hotels

noreply@blogger.com (Ian R Clayton) — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 16:54:00 +0000

The new PhoCusWright study on travel trends shows that Hotels lost Direct Booking to Online Travel Agents (OTAs) in 2010. The lost market share is both in head count and in hotels' ability to convert visitors into bookings. The OTAs are doing a better job by providing the systems and the pricing that travelers are looking for.

Travel Shopping is complex. Travelers aim to get the best deal at the best price, the best service, the best experience and best value, meeting their needs and fulfilling a dream. The travel product has many dimension, appealing to diverse needs, dreams, aspirations and expectations! The travel consumer has as many dimensions.

There are many 'yous': You as an individual, as a family person, a business person, a romantic, an adventurer, a party person, quite, friendly, soulful, lost, worried, aloof, retreating, exploring, expansive, restrained, extrovert, and introvert. You may be all these things at sometime and the travel product that is right for you may change over time and by situation as you shift between 'yous' and moods.

The travel product is personal, and over the years travelers have show a desire to deal directly with hotel owners. Historically, hotels have been growing their market share, but this trend has changed in 2010, as OTAs have been more sensitive to travelers, cutting back in times of uncertainty and restraint. OTAs have been more able to offer travelers services that compare options and help in travel planning to package air and activities with a hotel room.

OTAs have gained market share at the expense of the direct channel. They have gained power and influence, increasing their merchant discounts to 35% in just a few years. Price is a huge reason for their success. OTAs often advertise 50% discounts on Hotel rooms, and have been know to sell below cost. They create the expectation that they have the best deals around, which is not hard to do when hotels publish Rack rates on their websites. Hotels have been asked to step up the game with Deals and Specials layered onto the already deep discounts, leaving many with little margin on rooms sold in the OTA channels.

In the process, travel is under threat of becoming a commodity. This very personal business is loosing its character to mass marketing and price merchandising. Loyalty and alliance are shifting from the supplier to the largest OTA, who controls and dominates distribution.

With Googles ITA acquisition and it new moves to put prices and check-in dates on its places, hotel executives are worried that Google will become a reseller of travel.

No Rates for hotels direct
In the above map from a Google search for Barbados Hotels Maps (link), you will see check-in dates and hotel rates. As you change the check-in dates, the rates may change. The rates are gathered from OTAs. The hotel suppliers are hardly listed, and if they are, there are no rates or the wrong rates!

Many Hotels can't List in Google Places
But that is just the beginning of the problem. The bigger issue is that many hotels cannot list their hotels on Google Places. Try adding a hotel in Barbados, u have to have an address in USA or somewhere other than Barbados because Google does not have all countries enabled!. Then there is the problem of many OTA listing a hotel by name and with the local address (they can because they are international and an authority recognized by Google. But its deceptive and is plagiarism, the OTA is trading of on the brand name and travellers often do not know where they are booking from. lastly their is the matter of what Rate. What is the point of putting Rack rate when travellers are comparing to OTA discounted rates! See Rates Management and Marketing

What Rates and at what Cost?
Google has announced it is working with Pegasus to offer rates for hotels.
Pegasus has its own database of hotel rates (ODA) that its uses to publish to the Global Distribution Systems (GDS). Many hotels add their Rack rates into this database. Its not going to match up against the discounts offered by OTAs but it is a step in the right direction.It will be interesting to see what Pegasus charges hotels for this. It used to be that you used Pegasus to get onto GDS and their are high rates to entry and in transactions fees. 10% commission are set aside for distribution, in theory that does not apply, or does it?. In any event its not free and min cost are liely to be at least 10%.

Is Google Selling Travel
While Google says it is interested in getting hotel rates, the fact is that it will be quite a challenge. Google is working with large CRS of the chains and with GDS via Pegasus, but so far it is getting most of its rates from OTAs and driving traffic to OTAs. This is very unfortunate for direct bookings. I suspect Google knows where the bread is buttered and is perfecting a PPA (pay per action) merchandising system for large customers like Expedia.

I suspect that it will not sell direct, as that will kill its lucrative advertising business. But it may very well get payed in other ways for enabling the technology and market access. As a reseller of travel, Google will be nothing more that another OTA. Its business model is likely to involve building new business partnerships with travel members and that can including hotels and tourism operators. If so, the move has the capacity to change travel shopping and boost direct sales with suppliers. It may not do so, but it can.

Google's advertising model is morphing into a shopping experience that can facilitate and also rival OTA. It can help hotels get more exposure and direct sales, offering service that travelers need. It can bring direct sales and build hotel brands. But for this to happen, hotels must get organized with CRS and have rates readily available in a format that Google and other search engines can access and interpret.

These new pricing systems are very crude systems compared to others like our own Barbados.org's interactive Google maps, but it is a start. I am sure Google will perfect it in time. We have seen shopping carts and cost compare services similar to http://BookingsBarbados.com creep into Google shopping. We will see more bookable-map, bookable-banners and smart interactive advertising like AXSES' own http://bookable-ads.com.

Google's business is advertising, but the method of paying for ads and the process of adverting is changing. Pay Per Click may become Pay Per Action, or Pay Per Transaction. Advertising, once a distinct activity aimed at informing, influencing and "persuasion", has embraced action and bookings.

AXSES pioneered many of these ideas in our own niche markets and we have a fully interactive direct travel shopping experience. The trend of interactive ads is now being adopted across the net and is accelerating as new and merging technology becomes more accessible and expands the possibilities.

Travel Shoppers Need 3rd Part Technology & Services
Travelers shop at 20 sites, including social media, portals, articles, review sites and destination guides. The sites are for, the most part, unconnected and isolated. Travelers go to a hotel website but cannot add a room or a package to a wish list, and to do that have had to go to sites like Expedia or Travelocity, or to niche sites for direct shopping, such as http://BookingsBarbados.com. In our direct travel shopping sites, travelers shop and compare products, package products, adding activities and rooms to a wish list, save and book direct.

Google may well move into doing just that, adding global reach and exposure.

It can scout the net to find best rates and display them. We hope that Google will look for content from many sources including hotel Property Management Systems and CRS systems like our own arcRes.

In the meantime, hotels and travel companies must guard their brands and regain control of direct sales. Suppliers' websites are losing ground to OTAs, and are converting less business on their sites. Carroll Rheem, director of research at PhoCusWright, suggests lack of adequate price management is the cause: “The drop in conversion rates among airline and hotel websites was likely the result of supplier-driven price increases.” See more about price management

Get your direct Booking Engine and direct marketing system with arcRes - V5 Customised SEO & amp Marketing bookings and publishing

Realtime Confirmation VS Request to Sell

noreply@blogger.com (Ian R Clayton) — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 15:22:00 +0000

AXSES pioneered the idea of an open booking engine that does not require inventory management and captures all lookers in a marketing database. It gives travelers a quote for the dates of their holiday and allows them to save it or request a booking. It is an easy system to work with and very popular with hotels and tourism operators, especially those who follow up and send out direct mail to all those lookers who get quotes and show interest. The arcRes system includes a database marketing system that can be integrated with commercial marketing systems like iContact.

Travelers check out approx. 20 sites before they book, so capturing them in a database to follow up gives a hotel a definite advantage.

Issues with capturing lookers

Getting emails for lookers has some disadvantages, in particular, we do get interest that is not genuine. We discard invalid formatted emails and emails that do not have a valid TLD. Some well-formed email that are not valid do get through.

We also know that asking a looker to enter their email address can turn them off. These travelers can be good prospects who just don't want to share their personal details with a hotel they have not decided to travel to. Asking for an email address before we get them interested is a real turn off and many go elsewhere. In some cases we have seen 60% drop out.

Trade off

The approach used by many shopping sites is to give quotes to all without trying to capture emails. This means less drop outs (bump rate down) but a huge drop in the marketing database.

Its a trade off; we know that hotels can close the interest/quotes at the rate of about 2.5% on those who just get to interest and 2.5% on those who get a quote and drop out. By capturing emails with a bump rate of 50% we loose 2.5% of potential bookers.

Look at this from another angle: if we are dropping 50% of our prospects by capturing emails, 50% less travelers become booking candidates.

On average 23% of all our registered lookers get to success. If we did not require an email address, we may have 50% more lookers getting a quote and going to success. 23% X 50% is 11.50% more success.

Hotels are closing 30% of what we call success requests. 30% of 11.5% success is 3.45% more bookers.

As you can see from this crude analysis, we are better off by NOT requiring travelers to enter their email address. We gain 3.45% more bookings by letting more get to success (no bump) vs loosing 1.5% potential bookings from the lookers we can close.

That assumes that the 50% bump rate is because of the email requirement, and that those who drop out are as valid as all those that do enter their email address.

Trends

We expect that travelers will favor more interactive system and more immediate response; as such the bump rate might grow, which will mean we loose more. Spam is a huge issue now on the internet and some travelers just don't want to enter their email address online at an interest stage.

The request system has some other issues. Some travelers can get confused, thinking that they have a booking when they get to success. Having guest arrive when you have no rooms is a liability. It does not happen a lot, but if we are taking credit cards on a request system, chances are that a good number of travelers will think the reservation is confirmed. Also, as the request cannot be confirmed reservation on request, it's more work for reservation staff. Staff still has to enter into dialogue to close the business.

The solution is a compromise.
Give travelers immediate information, without having them enter anything. No Name, no email address, not even a date. We use a default date based on the average forward booking time and allow travelers to change dates easily. We display all units that are available and allow them the OPTION to enter an email address in exchange for entering the hotel club for special rates, etc.

Freesell
To move away from request systems we suggest that hotels, who hate having to manage allocation, go to a FREESELL model, where everything is confirmed if it is not blocked. As an option, we offer a service to update the allocation and block dates for our clients. Hotels send out a stop sell and we do the updates for them.

Availability Calendars
The solution is implemented with a streamlined system that displays all units on a single page. Travelers can change dates, see units, total costs and availability. Many travelers have some flexibility on dates. Displaying availability in a calendar can help them select alternatives.

The solution is implemented in arcRes V5 Upgrade.

See more at http://arcres.com/upgrade

We are tweaking this system based on feedback and requests from our clients and travelers. We appreciate all feedback and strive to make arcRes the very best marketing technology for direct travel shopping and hotel & amp; tourism bookings. We also note that some hotels are very effectively using the request system, converting 15% of these leads and closing 505 of successes. These hotel prefer to maintain the existing request system using Block sell, to close bookings when full. Request to sell is unbeatable in this case. These hotel do use our email optional solutions.

Bump Rate |   Interest/Quotes Convert | Bookings Lost |
50%             |     5%                                   |    2.5%              |

No Bump Rate |   Lookers to success    | Success Added | Succces Book Rate | Bookings

50%   More        |     23 %                               |    11.5 %         |      30%                         | 4.5%

See more at http://arcres.com/upgrade

dotMobi Leading Marketing to Travelonthego & Smartphonetravellers

noreply@blogger.com (Ian R Clayton) — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 14:07:00 +0000

Our previous blog announcing the launch of smartphonetravellers.com 4 phase mobile marketing with http://travelonthego.mobi websites, directories, special deals and smartphone apps has been featured on the dotMobi website. The dotMobi page, quotes AXSES R&D and 'point of view' on the mobile marketplace.

AXSES research is well documented in our hub pages at http://hubpages.com/hub/travel-on-the-go. dotMobi is the only mobile address that is listed in the ICANN Zone Files which is distributed to 5000 search engines and mobile directories, thus making sure that .mobi address are published and included in the internet directories and resources.

mobile search ranks .mobi first

search from a non mobile devic

dotMobi addresses rank first on all top search engoines accessed by mobile devices.

In test done by dotMobi using the free downlaod mobile switch, dotMobi urls are listed first on Google, Yahoo and Bing search results.

This is an important marketing advantage, as more and more smartphonetravellers are searching the net, rather download applications.

dotMobi provides a set of standards for .mobi websites and tools to validate and improve site preformance. Building websites to the .mobi standards insure that the website wil be seen on the widest selection of mobile devices.

"The .mobi domain is given the top position in the mobile search results".

AXSES Smartphonetraveller.com gives users all of these advantages.

for more see http://smartphonetraveller.com

Sign up to travelonthgo.mobi website. .mobi marketing and AXSES Travel Shopping applications.

Click here to subscribe to AXSES Mobile Marketing

Facebook Phones for Smartphone Travelers: Social Search Gets Local

noreply@blogger.com (Ian R Clayton) — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 22:17:00 +0000

We just posted a new blog on Facebook phones at http://facebookhotels.weebly.com/facebook-blog.html

HTC and INQ both unveiled a couple of new smartphone model for Facebook. These are phones that launch with your Facebook page and make it easier to use Facebook on a smartphone to connect to others, share information and find local travel attractions and resources near to you. For Facebook "travelers on the go" - it will be useful to look up Facebook offers at a local hotel, restaurant and activities nearby. Primed by the Geolocation capabilities built into the phone, it makes search personal and local.

In 2010, Facebook surpassed Google to become the most visited website and served up more display ads than either Google or Yahoo! People are checking with friends to find reviews and get recommendations more and more.

Now, with Facebook in their pocket, they can check what's local - get reviews and look for local Special Facebook offers, without Googling!

Be sure to be on a smartphone mobile near you with http://SmartphoneTraveller.com - The ultimate DotMobi and smartphone applications marketing platform.

Combining 4 Mobile strategies:

1. dotMobi ICANN-registered websites are distributed to over 5000 directories and search engines
2. The TravelOntheGo.mobi directory markets your property to web users
3. Your own .mobi booking website - 14 pages with packages and specials
4. Marketing Specials and Packages with our SmartphoneTraveller.com iPhone & Android Travel Shopping applications

Subscribe to smartphone mobile marketing and your own TravelOnTheGo.mobi website for only $35 US /Month: http://SmartphoneTraveller.com