Travel planning website NileGuide is using a new commissioned-based payment system that it hopes will attract beleaguered journalists and writers from destinations around the world. The programme works by paying each writer a flat fee (undisclosed) but then rewarding them further with additional payments depending on traffic. NileGuide has so far recruited around 100 writers - including journalists, concierges, freelancer travel writers - to its content creation programme.... Read More

BigMouthMedia recently carried out a survey in conjunction with Tnooz. The questionnaire was framed to gauge the opinion of industry professionals and their company's plans for marketing spend online into 2010. Here are the full results:... Read More

Disappointment for those eager to see the Farecast system on Bing Travel hit Europe and elsewhere with confirmation Microsoft will not be able to roll it out to territories outside of North America in 2009. Microsoft is believed to have originally wanted to launch the Farecast technology behind its Bing Travel portal in at least the UK by the end of this year. Officials in the UK office said this week that the metasearch engine and price prediction technology associated with the Bing Travel brand in the US would remain under wraps elsewhere for the time being.... Read More

Not a day goes by these days that we don’t get something in our mail box about social media. If it’s not another article telling us how to incorporate it into our business strategy, it’s another webinar featuring experts in the field. And, oh yes, it’s the most discussed topic in boardrooms.... Read More

PPC tip #5 - Know and engage your audience: Inspire interaction with your ad by making it stand out from the competition. Research what competitors are doing and make sure your ad is different.... Read More

At 13:34 EST yesterday, I ranted in a post that Continental Airlines' social media response to the Aug. 8 Rochester, Minn., tarmac incident, in which passengers on Continental Express flight 2816 were marooned for almost six hours overnight on board the aircraft, was lame. Within 30 minutes, without referencing the Tnooz post or providing any context that the U.S. Dept. of Transportation had just tagged the airline and two others carriers with precedent-setting fines, Continental tweeted: "We continue to work with our partners & others to reinforce our Customer First commitments. We will comply with DOT’s consent order." What does this impersonal, legalistic tweet, brimming with marketing-speak, actually tell Continental customers about the airline's approach to customer service and passenger rights? Not much.... Read More

Ian McCaig, CEO of European OTA lastminute.com, is arguably one of the more upfront and realistic executives on the travel circuit and his latest appraisal of the industry isn't for the faint-hearted. He was recently quoted widely as saying 2010 will still be a tough year for many companies in travel, despite a chink of light at the end of an extremely dark tunnel of recessionary gloom. Spain will struggle next year, France and Germany are best placed of all European countries to emerge quickly, while the UK will attempt to soldier on.... Read More

Most popular travel websites in the US for the week ending November 21 2009. Data includes Top Ten travel search terms and the Top Ten Agency, Airline and Destination/Accommodation sites.... Read More

RoomAtlas is a map-based hotel search site and is the plaything - in their own words - of the recently retired former-banker Roger Middleton and his son. The site aggregates information for almost 55,000 hotels around the world on a single Google Map and streams in TripAdvisor reviews and information about each property. All well and good so far.... Read More

SEO tip #4 - Internal linking: Sites with many destinations and deep content structures should link to key areas/pages from stronger pages within the site, such as the homepage. This passes the link strength effectively through your website.... Read More

The U.S. Dept. of Transportation set a couple of precedents today as it fined Continental Airlines and ExpressJet Airlines $100,000 for their parts in causing passengers on Continental Express flight 2816 to be marooned on board the aircraft at Rochester International Airport in Minnesota for almost six hours in the early morning of Aug. 8, 2009. Mesaba Airlines, which didn't operate the flight but was responsible for its ground handling at the airport, also got whacked with a civil penalty of $75,000. Continental joined Twitter Aug. 2 and has had little to tell its customers and Twitter followers about the incident other than to post a press release Aug. 21, expressing gratitude at the time that the DOT recognized that the ExpressJet crew tried to get the passengers off the plane.... Read More

The USA Today Cruise Log reports that Royal Caribbean's new 5,400-passenger Oasis of the Seas will feature iPhone rentals, which will enable cruisers to keep in touch with one another onboard and to track their wandering kids. Passengers will be able to rent these Royal Connect-branded phones, which facilitate onboard calling and texting, for $17.50 each starting in January, and about 800 of them will be available for rental in the initial rollout on the new ship. Such a system is said to be a cruise industry first. So is the Oasis of the Seas, which is the largest passenger ship in the world.... Read More

Predictably, FlightCaster, which attempts to alert travelers about flight delays before they occur, introduced a public API and a licensing model to enable developers, online travel agencies, airlines and travel management companies to integrate FlightCaster into their own applications. Developers can get more information about the API at http://api.flightcaster.com/. FlightCaster's value proposition is that travelers -- and corporations -- have an insatiable desire to figure out if passengers are likely to spend five hours on the tarmac or if their flights will be canceled.... Read More

PPC tip #4 - Offline integration: Most travel companies have an offline marketing presence of some sort. It’s crucial to be able to track, de-dupe and integrate all marketing efforts for the most effective and efficient impact.... Read More

Coca-Cola has embraced social media with its Expedition 206 campaign, and the company has been getting lots of positive press from the likes of Advertising Age and Jaunted, for instance. The idea behind the campaign is that three selected Happiness Ambassadors will galavant around the world to the 206 countries where Coca-Cola has a presence, and will tweet, blog and post videos and pics with the aim of presenting "that spirit of happiness, optimism and enthusiasm that we like to think is emblematic of Coca-Cola," says Adam Brown, the company's director of digital communications and social media. So, this is the face of the new corporate social media marketing campaign and I applaud Coca-Cola for being smart enough to grasp the marketing requirements of the new era. However...... Read More