Tour operator First Choice has taken the offbeat step of laying open its lack of a social media strategy and saying it will now have one thanks to a tie-in with a specialist agency. The TUI-owned operator has appointed Brighton, UK-based NixonMcInnes to develop and run its social media "as the company looks to increase customer engagement and brand consideration". To some extent First Choice has mirrored sister brand Thomson until now, throwing videos into a YouTube channel and having internal buzz monitoring systems in place to track mentions, comments, posts et al on the web.... Read More

Amadeus introduced a tool which it hopes will help travel agencies, both online and offline, better merchandise airline fares. The intent of Amadeus Master Pricer Agent Fare Families is to enable travel agencies to group airline fares with similar restrictions -- nonrefundable or fully flexible fares, for instance -- into categories or "fare families" for merchandising purposes. Agencies would be able to establish up to six categories of fares from different airlines. The not-so-subliminal message from Amadeus is that if airlines can get involved with fare families, then travel agencies can get into the act, as well.... Read More

TRX, a provider of travel-transaction processing and data services, and American Express agreed to amend and extend certain aspects of a service agreement through the end of 2014. The TRX press release notes that the renewed agreement means American Express Business Travel will use the TRX CORREX automated quality control and electronic ticketing platform through 2014, and adds that, "The new contract provides direct growth opportunities for TRX in the South American, Asia-Pacific, and previously untapped European markets." All of that indeed may turn out to be true. However, a TRX filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission paints a portrait of the renegotiated agreement that has potentially darker hues.... Read More

Priceline made available a new, free iPhone app, Hotel Negotiator Version 2.0, which uses the iPhone 3G's electronic compass functionality. With Hotel Radar, the name Priceline gives to the main enhancement in Version 2.0, users can point the iPhone in a particular direction and the app displays area hotels, including published room rate, star level and distance. Not a bad mobile option if you are wandering city streets looking for a place to stay or to have a drink -- or if you've already had a drink and are trying to find your hotel again.... Read More

Most popular travel websites in the UK for the week ending January 23 2010. Data includes Top Ten travel search terms and the Top Ten Agency, Airline and Destination/Accommodation sites.... Read More

News Corp-owned Wall Street Journal is to launch its own "online travel agency" this week - joining the ranks of almost every other leading traditional newspaper brand on the web. WSJTravel.com, according to the pre-launch amble, will feature deals related to content appearing on the main online travel editorial channel on WSJ.com. Launching on January 28, WSJ says it will have around 50 planned trips on the system for users to purchase.... Read More

This week will probably see the launch of Apple’s Tablet – the iSlate (I had backed iTablet as the name but apparently there were copyright issues). So iSlate it is. The unveiling of the product will give a big boost to the eReader category and resulting adoption. Lazard Freres analyst Colin Sebastian has done an excellent research piece on the Tablet/Slate/eReader Market in his regular subscriber bulletin.... Read More

Mobile trip itinerary assistant TripChill wants users to Tweet their way through their travels by using a new tool to notify selected friends of milestones along a journey. The simplest execution of the service allows a member to update their Twitter account from within their mobile TripChill application, similar to other Twitter connections with a range of travel managements systems. The more advanced - and interesting - functionality lets users create databases of Twitter friends so that they can be sent a private direct message at different points along a trip.... Read More

There’s lots of discussions going round, especially in the consulting circus about the future validity of OTAs. Will they (we) be around in ten or even five years from now, and what will we look like? Metasearch websites, Google, Bing Travel and other new intermediaries are slowly paralyzing our industry.... Read More

What you missed on Tnooz this week, Sunday 17 to Saturday 23 January 2010. Read on to see the most commented articles, the most controversial topic, and every other article this week...... Read More

UPDATE: Rather bizarre turn of events two hours after this article was originally posted. TripAdvisor is either on a recruitment drive or has turned into one of those companies that likes to create quirky and edgy videos to show off how, err, quirky and edgy it is. Or both.... Read More

Aircell, which is implementing its Gogo Wi-Fi solution on the aircraft of major North American airlines, picked up $176 million in equity financing from new and existing investors. Aircell stated that the proceeds will go "for capital investments for network expansion and operating needs during this rapid growth phase of the business." The company says it has installed its Wi-Fi service on more than 700 commercial aircraft and has commitments from nine airlines. Among them are Air Canada, AirTran, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Virgin America and US Airways.... Read More

A new website -- coming "soon" -- forsakes the comprehensiveness gods and will focus on discount airlines only. Budget Center, which recently launched BudgetHotels through an affiliate deal with HotelsCombined, aims to launch BudgetAirlines.com in the next week or so, and plans to have an exclusive focus on low-cost carriers because "discounted flights and airlines are generally difficult to source on large travel sites such as Expedia and Travelocity and are being under-serviced to online consumers," the company says. The company says BudgetAirlines will search discount airlines -- including Southwest, JetBlue and WestJet -- but "will not search for flights from the major carriers such as British Airways, Cathay Pacific etc. as these airlines do not represent its target market."... Read More

There once was a day when consumers could visit an airline website and simply purchase a flight ticket. In North America, Air Canada kicked off the end of that simple process several years ago when the airline introduced branded fares -- Tango, Tango Plus, Latitude, and later Executive First Lowest and Executive First Flexible -- all with their own attributes. Now, along comes the new Continental Airlines chairman and CEO, Jeff Smisek, who took over these posts Jan. 1, and he apparently has a conceptual vision for Continental's future which parallels what Air Canada and other airlines have done. But to Smisek, it's all about pizza and lactose intolerance.... Read More

Twelve months ago almost to the day Tourism Queensland re-wrote the travel marketing rule book with its widely praised - and much copied - multimedia PR campaign. Ben Southall, winner of the Best Job in the World campaign, ended his tenure on the infamous Queensland island this week and is now hitting the talk shows in the US. The next phase of his "caretaker" job for Reef Island is as an evangelist-on-tour for Tourism Queensland, most notably on Fox News in the US this week alongside Anna Bligh, premier of the Australian state.... Read More