Amadeus recently announced a partnership with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to provide the GDS’s customers information about their air travel carbon emissions. Given the negative environmental impact of travel coupled with widespread online distribution of travel content (schedules, pricing, images, product details, etc.), I wondered how all the GDS’ were addressing the growing demand for more specific CO2 emissions data, specifically in air travel. First, some terminology.... Read More

UK online travel agency OnTheBeach claims a world first today with the launch of a Facebook application to allow a customer to organise bookings for friends. Once the BeachMate application is shared around a group of people, each member can input a unique BeachMate reference number of another person's holiday into the service and be directed to the relevant booking page on the OTB website. The application then aggregates friends into groups of those going on a particular trip.... Read More

Information is beginning to leak out that travel technology provider and global GDS Amadeus and British Airways are ready to sign a new multi-year, full-content deal. The Madrid-based firm will be the second of the global GDSs - after Travelport in November - to secure a long-term deal with the under-pressure BA. BA officially says that for the moment the negotiations are still ongoing, but it is understood that both parties are in agreement and an announcement will be made shortly.... Read More

Linking It Up: Hopefully you have a few key, select social media networks to help promote your business and your website. Your social media profiles probably link to your website (if not, fix it) but make sure your site links to your social media presence.... Read More

Travel technology beasts Sabre and Amadeus are at the centre of rather bizarre war of words - except one is gagged from saying anything. Two weeks ago Amadeus issued a press release to say it had won a standard but nice piece of business within the STA Travel empire - grabbing the GDS elements of the agency's retail presence in the UK. The sense of excitement was obvious given that "STA Travel is one of the UK’s largest travel agents and was previously with Sabre". Unfortunately, not all was as it appeared.... Read More

In a suite of announcements today - including how real time search will look in results - the new photo search product Google Goggles has plenty to get the traveller excited. The new product has a limited release on Android-powered mobiles at present but is essentially a photo recognition system which allows users to send a snap from their phones to Google and receive information back about it. Sounds simple - and it is.... Read More

Solutionz Media, a new venture by travel industry veterans Chicke Fitzgerald and Tiffany Topcik, partnered with GuestCentric Systems to go after business from independent hotels looking to enter into and/or monetize their social media efforts. Solutionz Media, a unit of the Solutionz Group, will do much of the consulting and strategizing for independent hotels as they implement GuestCentric Systems' Customer Engagement Platform, which was an entry in PhoCusWright's recent Travel Innovation Summit in Orlando. The platform, available in Software as a Service mode for a monthly flat fee, contains marketing and distribution components, including social media monitoring and promotions.... Read More

Most popular travel websites in the UK for the week ending December 5 2009. Data includes Top Ten travel search terms and the Top Ten Agency, Airline and Destination/Accommodation sites.... Read More

Get an External Opinion: You, your designer, and your staff are too close to your website. You can’t see how the latest tweaks are meshing with the original structure, and you’ll look past minor niggles that could be causing real problems.... Read More

Just days after Travellerspoint revealed its simplistic, on-demand email city and country guides, social and travel publishing giant Time Out unveils its own take on the on-the-go guides. The publisher's popular city guides are in the process of being formatted for eReaders, Blackberry, PDA and web and will available for download from its own store and other online retailers this month. Time Out says the eBooks will be fully interactive and include the usual mapping functions and ability to add bookmarks and make notes against the content.... Read More

It’s Not a Billboard: This one is easy: unless you make more off those advertisements than you do by selling your products, get rid of them.... Read More

What you missed on Tnooz this week, Sunday 29 November to Saturday 5 December 2009. Read on to see the most commented articles, every other article this week, and the most commented articles of all time...... Read More

Add Value Not Noise: Now, we said less is more but let’s be realistic. You need a good base of content to attract traffic and to help convince your customer you are the expert.... Read More

No sooner had world football governing body FIFA announced the draw today for the finals in South Africa in June 2010, travel websites around the globe were quick to offer fans a variety deals to watch their favourite team. The four-week extravaganza is probably one of the biggest attractions in world sport - some say more popular than the Olympics - and an obvious tournament for travel firms to focus on with bundle deals, flights and hotels for the ten venues in the RSA. With tickets going on sale tomorrow (Saturday 5 December), travel companies will be jostling for position as the best providers of packages and deals.... Read More

At this moment, around 1:10 p.m. EST on Dec. 4, 2009, The New York Times article, Organizing the Chaos of Online Travel Tips, by Riva Richmond, is the #1 most e-mailed story on the newspaper's website. The article, published a couple of days ago, is an overview of the array of travel-planning websites and tools at your disposal. I take heart in the article's popularity despite the fact that perhaps readers of this type of piece might be the most prone to e-mailing it along to friends and cohorts. Ahem, fellow travelers?... Read More