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

Small travel company reservation system technology doesn’t capture the imagination (nor the headlines) as much as other sectors attracting online travel entrepreneurs such as metasearch, consumer reviews or mobile/location services. But bubbling under the surface there are products launching that are changing the way small travel suppliers work with their customers and suppliers. Hotels have long had web based PMS systems but niche tour operators and activity companies are fast catching up.... 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

News this week that Microsoft's fully functioning Bing Travel will not be hitting Europe in 2009 means that another site from the US with air price data prediction tools at its heart, FareCompare, might make it first. Bing says the complexity of gathering historic data about fares over any given period is time consuming and has affected its ability to launch the Farecast system overseas. FareCompare faces similar issues on the number crunching front, but has a roadmap which could see it outside of the US sooner than Bing Travel.... Read More

Bosses at the UK's biggest travel metasearch engine TravelSupermarket will be left scratching their heads this week after learning that the frontman for its sister brand's TV campaign is a big and very public fan of a rival travel site. Peter Jones, a star of the BBC's wannabe entrepreneur show Dragons' Den, is the current face of MoneySupermarket's £14 million push on national TV in the UK. But in his regular Money & Work column for Skymag, the customer magazine for Sky TV subscribers, Jones says the following:... Read More

Worrying developments from Spain with news that online travel agency TerminalA has lost its IATA licence in a row over payments through the Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP). The company is currently only selling air tickets to low cost airlines such as EasyJet after also being removed from the GDS. The BSP acts as a clearing house for payments between intermediaries and suppliers.... Read More

I caught up with Rob Torres, managing director of Google Travel, following his Center Stage slot at the recent PhoCusWright Conference in Orlando. Appearing alongside Suzie Reider, chief marketing officer and head of advertising for sister company YouTube, Torres stressed there are no plans for Google to do a “Troogle” – a bookings site for travel. The Next Big Idea to share, however, is video and the travel category.... Read More

SEO tip #5 - Link Building: As an ongoing element of your SEO strategy, link building needs to be budgeted for accordingly and managed carefully in-house or by a reputable SEO company. If you are recommend your own products, content or website on social media platforms, disclose who you are and your relationship to the company to avoid reputation management issues.... Read More

Just as consumers - and the travel trade itself - thought regulation and insurance issues around bundled online holidays couldn't get any more of a mess, European regulators today stepped into the furore to launch their own new set of guidelines. In a statement released late this afternoon, officials in Brussels (headquarters of the European Union) said the existing Package Travel Directive would be extended to include dynamically packaged holidays created over the internet. The original guidelines, created in 1990 and pre the explosion in online travel, did not include "liability for sub-standard services and protection for insolvency" for holidays.... Read More