A website is for life, not just Christmas: Work on the website doesn’t end once the site is built and homepage optimised.... Read More

Despite protests to the contrary, the move by Carnival Corp.'s brands in North America to bar travel-agency partners starting Jan. 1, 2010, from participating in keyword bidding on the lines' trademarks likely comes down to an economic decision. You know, in these things, you have to follow the money. It likely has become so expensive for Carnival to bid on keywords in the Google, Bing and Yahoo search engines and then to consummate a booking that it is tempting for the cruise company to try to swat away the bids of those online travel agencies and other cruise sellers that it can pressure to bow out of the process. Carnival's decision has created an uproar in the ranks of some major online cruise sellers.... Read More

The widely praised augmented reality iPhone app Sekai Camera has launched globally after a hugely successful introduction to the Japanese market. Named the best app of 2009 by Apple Japan, Sekai Camera is the brainchild of the Tonchidot Corporation in Tokyo and throws location-based AR functions against social elements such as trip and point sharing and text/video communication. Users are able to identify and obtain information about existing tourist sites and other locations on their iPhone, similar to existing AR tools on the market.... Read More

MarketWatch reports that major online travel agencies, plus ASTA and the U.S. Tour Operators Association, filed a lawsuit against New York City over its new law that holds intermediaries responsible for the tax on the retail rate when they sell hotel rooms using the merchant model. This marks the first time that tour operators have taken sides in the OTAs' national battle with cities and counties about the hotel tax issue. The law, which went into effect in September 2009, says "room remarketers" are responsible for the full rent, meaning they would remit tax on the net rate to the hotels, as OTAs customarily do, and then pay tax on the remaining rent, including service fees, directly to the NYC tax commissioner.... Read More

Finland is the latest destination to try a quirky web-based promotion in the hope that it will be another stroke of viral marketing genius along the line of the Best Job campaign in Queensland, Australia. The campaign asks for users to upload their wackiest travel-related photograph to the new VisitFinland website and let other visitors to vote on the best (or worst?!) one. Launched this week to coincide with the new VisitFinland website, each photograph is also stamped with a "I Wish I Was in Finland" motif.... Read More

Spread the word: So you’ve built a lean, mean impactful website with great landing pages - now you need the customers. Spread the word through social media websites. Ensure you post relevant news, offers and updates to these sites.... Read More

Some developments in the ongoing FlyGlobespan saga with the administrator asking for under-pressure technology provider to place the £34 million it allegedly owed the airline in a special account. PricewaterhouseCoopers says discussions between it and the credit card processing firm have taken place but "progress has been limited". EClear is being urged to place the disputed £34 million owed to the collapsed airline in a joint account immediately.... Read More

U.S. airlines took in some $2 billion in fees for ancillary services in the third quarter, a 36.4% increase over the same period in 2008, and Delta Air Lines clearly was the most aggressive carrier in its fee-collection activities. The details, from a report by the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, show that Delta's ancillary revenue efforts, which brought in $447.5 million, had no serious competition. American Airlines came in second at $261.2 million for the quarter. Plus, when you take into account that merged airlines Delta and Northwest Airlines reported their numbers separately, then their combined $670.8 million in ancillary-fee revenue stands out as even more impressive -- or notorious, depending on your perspective.... Read More

Most popular travel websites in the US for the week ending December 19 2009. Data includes Top Ten travel search terms and the Top Ten Agency, Airline and Destination/Accommodation sites.... Read More

The weekend's chaotic scenes on the Eurostar service from the UK to France and Belgium need little introduction given the widespread coverage in the mainstream media. As it stands, services from London St Pancras International to Paris and Brussels are suspended as engineers attempt to work out what went wrong on Friday night and Saturday amid calls for a full investigation. There was plenty of hand-wringing over the weekend about the failure of Eurostar officials to communicate to passengers what was going on via Twitter - a perfectly acceptable but inevitably and solely Twitter-driven level of outrage curiously not seen on the same scale earlier in the week when FlyGlobespan collapsed.... Read More

Optimisation: Make sure people can find your site by ensuring your homepage is optimised for search engines. Use keywords in your title tag (the text that appears right at the top of the browser window) and in your h1 tag (the main heading of your page).... Read More

Most popular travel websites in the UK for the week ending December 19 2009. Data includes Top Ten travel search terms and the Top Ten Agency, Airline and Destination/Accommodation sites.... Read More

Let’s face it – a seat is a seat is a seat. Or is it? When you think about the motivation you have to choose one airline over another – in the past it was accepted that you would purchase a bundled product. Thus the sale of the final item required an assessment of a basket of features that came bundled with the ticket.... Read More

As revealed on Tnooz two weeks ago - although heavily denied at the time - British Airways and Amadeus have reached agreement to extend their distribution deal until 2013. Press released today, Amadeus says it has achieved a "full content" partnership with BA to give agents access to the same information that consumers going direct to BA.com would have. This includes, according to the release, "fares, schedules and inventory" for bookings will be the same as those offered through any "direct or indirect channel, distribution provider or website".... Read More

Mobile: As more and more users access web content via mobile devices, the need to develop user friendly versions for this medium will become all the more important.... Read More