Get Organised: Great websites are organised. Before you create anything, sit down and draw a map, showing all the ways a user could possibly enter your website and how from there they will get into your sales funnel.... Read More

Travel Intelligence has secured its first major white label partnership under the stewardship of ex-Ebookers managing director Alan Josephs - a purpose built hotel booking engine for high-end publisher Conde Nast Traveller. A version of the TI Starfish platform is working behind the main CNTraveller site to provide a fully functioning search and booking facility for around 3,000 hotels around the world. It replaces the old system which saw visitors sent away to the hotel's own website in order to check availability and book a room.... Read More

A dearth of investment in public-funded institutions aimed at tourists is leading some to consider actions which might have the culture vultures spluttering into their lattes. CultureLabel is a shopping service - launched in July 2009 - normally attuned to selling high-end gifts and retail items of the fashion, home living and entertainment variety. But the company is attempting to meet the travel industry head-on with a new initiative to target tourists with ancillary sales coupled with online bookings for museums.... Read More

Amadeus and Fourth Dimension Software integrated some of their tour operator offerings and entered into a co-marketing pact that could give FDS a larger footprint in Europe and fill in some technology gaps for Amadeus. And, oh yeah, the partnership could make things more efficient for tour operator customers, enable them to better package scheduled, charter and net-rate flights using the two companies' integrated services, and provide them with broader options through TravelTainment's multi-channel distribution platforms. Several things drove the arrangement. TravelTainment provides a desktop solution and booking engine for tours, but many tour operators still are using decades-old technology for back-of-the house kinds of things such as inventory management, so there was a need to fill that gap. As Amadeus, like other GDSs, looked to diversify leisure offerings, it went looking for a tour technology partner.... Read More

It may seem astonishing to some but the consortium of rail companies planning a pan-network booking system across Europe - now unceremoniously axed - had actually failed to approach any external companies about the project. RailTeam launched the project at the organisation's inception in 2007 with the promise that travellers using high-speed trains around Europe would eventually be able to buy a point-to-point ticket through a single transaction. It has since emerged that the companies involved had spent the past two years talking amongst themselves about how best to implement such a system but hadn't approached any travel technology firms for advice or to take matters forward.... Read More

Continental Airlines today became the latest airline to introduce a cashless cabin for on-board purchases. So, starting Dec. 1, if you want to purchase an alchoholic beverage or headset on a Continental mainline flight -- with the exception of China routes -- you will have to bring some plastic in the form of a credit or debit card. Hand-held devices, which the airline began testing last Summer, will read the cards, crunch the transactions and help the airline manage product inventory.... Read More

Start with a Great Brand: Building a great website gets a lot easier when you have a solid brand to start out from. But branding doe not necessarily mean putting together a nice logo.... Read More

New Zealand might have secured some hits with its online presence in recent years but it has a long way to go before it reaches the pinnacle of DMO branding achieved by its Pacific neighbour in the fo... Read More

OK, you probably already knew this, but kids have discovered apps. My 11-year-old daughter, Daniela, routinely discusses the apps she has on her Nintendo DSi. And, from his iPod Touch, my 13-year-old son, Yuri, is now sending me e-mails through his Travelocity app, hounding me to take him on another Disney Cruise. We sailed on the Disney Wonder last year, and my kids officially have the cruise bug.... Read More

Most popular travel websites in the US for the week ending November 28 2009. Data includes Top Ten travel search terms and the Top Ten Agency, Airline and Destination/Accommodation sites.... Read More

Whether you are an individual concerned about your stock portfolio or a business, you always need to be concerned about diversification. TRX, the data-reporting and reservations-processing firm majority-owned by BCD, is well aware of that reality as Expedia Inc., TRX's largest client, phases out a big chunk of work that TRX has been performing for it. It is a familiar story. Expedia often transitions out of its relationships with tech suppliers in favor of a build-your-own strategy. However, this change has been a long-time coming as Expedia was the TRX's premier launch client in 1996.... Read More

Rail travellers in Europe will be waiting for years to come before a single ticket can be issued across Europe's high-speed train system after a pan-network booking system was abandoned. European high-speed operator group RailTeam let slip the axing of the project at an event in Brussels last week after spending two years evaluating the system. One of the key launch elements of the RailTeam organisation, proposed when it launched in 2007, was the creation of a Europe-wide booking engine which would allow passengers to have just one transaction and one e-ticket for any journey across the network of operators.... Read More

Most popular travel websites in the UK for the week ending November 28 2009. Data includes Top Ten travel search terms and the Top Ten Agency, Airline and Destination/Accommodation sites.... Read More

With all the talk about digital marketing, many would assume that good old fashioned above-the-line activity was a thing of the past. But take SwissSkyDive, an online portal from Switzerland featuring all things related to jumping out of planes at high altitude and other such adrenalin-fuelled activities in-resort. The company has taken the somewhat unusual route of using outdoor advertising - or ambient media, as the marketing wonks would have us call it - to demonstrate the hedonism plus feeling one associates with activities.... Read More

Tnooz’s ten-part series Online Marketing Tips for Travel concluded last week. The articles were written by Nigel Muir of DBD Media. Each day we featured a different approach to using PPC and SEO techniques (five for each) for travel brands using search engines to spread their message and brand around the web.... Read More