News

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

Adam Healey's Hotelicopter, which launched in a blaze of YouTube fakery in April 1 2009, has unveiled the latest tool to spread its message onto other websites - albeit those at the longer end of the travel tail. The Hotels To Go service works by allowing publishers that have content sites or pages for specific destinations to customise their own search widget.... Read More

Most popular travel websites in the UK 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

Deals publisher Travelzoo is to carry out a major shake up at the top of the business next year with current European vice president Chris Loughlin taking over as chief executive. Loughlin will replace Holger Bartel who is moving to become chairman of the company. Current chairman and brother Ralph Bartel will step down and move to a board director position. The transfer of power will take place on 1 July 2010 in what Travelzoo is calling a "proactive and transparent" succession plan.... Read More

SEO tip #3 - Writing unique, useful copy: Integrate your PPC and SEO by using PPC data to find the keywords for your best converting destinations, or destinations with traffic/ranking potential and optimise these pages individually. Ensure that optimised copy is genuinely useful for users – while it is important to write for the search engines, content should also be tailored for your customers and prospects.... Read More

TripIt introduced a free Android app, which enables travelers to view their itineraries; link to airlines, hotels and restaurants; and make calls directly from their itineraries in their Android devices. TripIt already had, and recently upgraded, its iPhone app, and is testing a Blackberry app, which TripIt hopes to release before the end of 2009. Soon TripIt, TripCase, Dopplr, Traxo and Kayak, among other companies with itinerary-management solutions, likely will be all over all of the mobile platforms.... Read More

What you missed on Tnooz this week, Sunday 15 November to Saturday 21 November 2009. Read on to see the most commented articles, every other article this week, and the most commented articles of all time...... Read More

PPC tip #3 - Search seasonality: Search seasonality can be different from your sales seasonality. Use Google Insights to understand when search volumes peak and trough, and make sure you plan your budgets and visibility around these times.... Read More

I was waiting for my suitcase this afternoon in Terminal C at Newark Airport, having just arrived on a Continental flight from Orlando, where I attended the PhoCusWright conference, when I saw a sign on the luggage carousel. It cracked me up. If you want to retrieve "odd size items" like skis, boxes and car seats, you'll have to meander over to the "odd size area behind carousel 9," the sign reads. Hey, it sounds like a lot more fun than walking over to a normal-size area to retrieve your odd size items.... Read More

TripAdvisor next year plans to introduce summaries of a hotel’s reviews – a way to provide a quick highlight of the gestalt of the property and its amenities – as a means for consumers to avoid having to wade through hundreds, even thousands of user critiques about a single hotel. That news came from TripAdvisor president and CEO Stephen Kaufer as PhoCusWright president and CEO Philip Wolf conducted an “executive interview” with him on center stage on the final day of the PhoCusWright conference in Orlando. Kaufer noted that the Bellagio, for instance, has some 3,100 reviews on TripAdvisor, a daunting read for consumers interested in the hotel.... Read More

Dubai-based airline Emirates is behind an amazing new Apple iPhone application which acts as a translation tool by taking a picture of the handset users mouth and then animates to produce a range of phrases. Built to translate English into French, German and Arabic by Lean Mean Fighting Machine in London, the app is a bit rough around the edges and difficult to set up - but it works. Here is a demo video.... Read More

SEO tip #2 - Outsourcing and cheap SEO: Although it may seem an attractive prospect, cheap, outsourced SEO options often lack the skill and knowledge required to produce results. Outsourcing link building can be dangerous as links built too fast or from “bad neighbourhoods” can damage your visibility in the search engine results.... Read More