News

I've seen the light and I now can share with your travel company how to crack the nut of international expansion in as little as 30 days. So, Bing Travel, are you concerned with how to expand into Europe? And, Fly.com, does a launch in Germany whet your appetite? The simple answer to all of your needs is Translations.com, which specializes in website localization and translation services.... Read More

Many hotels on TripAdvisor have long felt ripped off because reviews of their properties make TripAdvisor and its advertisers -- often competitors of the hotel -- big bucks, but there are no direct links or contact information for the property itself. TripAdvisor announced today that the policy will change on all its global websites beginning Jan. 4, 2010. At that time, hotels on TripAdvisor will have the option to pay a flat-fee annual subscription for TripAdvisor Business Listings and will be able to display their properties' URL, telephone number and e-mail address.... Read More

It would seem that least a couple of the innovations in this year's list of thirty-four innovators presenting at PhoCusWright's second Travel Innovation Summit have some application to long tail travel companies. For me, this is an important indication that perhaps the industry in general is starting to pay some attention to this important, yet highly under appreciated segment of the travel landscape. The two innovators are Goby and TourAbout. Let's take a quick look at why I think these two could really add value to small tourism companies.... Read More

PPC Tip #1 - The travel buying cycle: Take the travel buying cycle into account and structure your PPC campaigns around it to ensure your brand is visible at the research, comparison and decision stages.... Read More

Most popular travel websites in the UK for the week ending November 14 2009. Data includes Top Ten travel search terms and the Top Ten Agency, Airline and Destination/Accommodation sites.... Read More

Most popular travel websites in the US for the week ending November 14 2009. Data includes Top Ten travel search terms and the Top Ten Agency, Airline and Destination/Accommodation sites.... Read More

GDS and travel technology supplier Amadeus is to place a major emphasis on providing inspirational tools and intuitive user experience for inclusion in third party websites. Two projects have been developed within the Madrid-based giant – at the Amadeus IT Group and leisure division Traveltainment – and will be launched Traveltainment’s system is currently being trialled by STA Travel in Germany and is a front-end search and booking platform for consumer websites.... Read More

There is a small division in the giant that is Sabre Holdings whose workers might argue they have a travel technology equivalent of the so-called Best Job in the World in Queensland. Created a few years back, Texas-based Sabre Travel Solutions exists solely to develop tools for its sister departments around the company and for the wider travel industry. The team was behind the widely praised Cubeless online community system in 2008 and, for its pet project in 2009, created the TripCase mobile application.... Read More

Tourism Queensland is still revelling in the praise from a kowtowing advertising and PR industry for its offline-online-social media push earlier this year. The eventual winner of the Best Job in the World “competition” – Brit Ben Southall – is two thirds of the way through his tenure on Hamilton Island and coverage in the mainstream media, blogs and social media channels continues. Those behind the project deserve the gushing of their peers – most notably with the second place at the Cannes Lions ad festival behind the Barack Obama election campaign – for almost single-handedly writing a new rule book for how to manipulate and prod the media into covering what was actually a rather simple idea.... Read More

Doubts continue over the long term relevancy of Twitter as a meaningful tool to promote product or engage customers - but travel firms across the world have embraced it with open arms. So what happened when 50 of the world's travel firms joined the Twitterati? Find out here...... Read More

In a blockbuster move, Pegasus Solutions, the hotel technology and distribution services company, signed a 7-year deal to outsource the day-to-day management of Pegasus's applications, data center services and network management to HP Enterprise Services, the company formerly known as EDS. The two sides declined to tell me the dollar value of the deal leading up to today's announcement, but I expect those figures to emerge later today. One of the most important aspects of the agreement is that Pegasus's RezView NG, which enables the melding of CRS, property management and Web functionality for hotels, would be integrated into HP's Travel Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) platform.... Read More

Not to be outdone, the PhoCusWright Conference has released its iPhone app available for download now through the App Store. The PhoCusWright iPhone app was developed by Quickmobile, a firm based in Vancouver, BC who specializes in the development of mobile applications. I have known the CEO, Patrick Payne, for a few years and we have had the opportunity to meet at a number of travel industry conferences during that time.... Read More

What you missed on Tnooz this week, Sunday 8 November to Saturday 14 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

Private equity has returned to travel with news that Hellman and Friedmann has purchased Dublin-based Web Reservations International, the budget accommodation booking service better known for its consumer brand Hostelworld. WRI is not disclosing the fee paid for the company by H&F but some reports in the Irish media suggest a figure in the region of round Euro 200 million has changed hands. Deals of this size in travel and travel technology have been rare since the major PE-led takeovers of the GDSs.... Read More

Sydney and California-based TourAbout has partially opened the doors to its new social distribution system, launching in private beta and expecting a public beta launch in January 2010. The system works by allowing tour operators and activity providers to interact directly with potential customers through a number of unusual processes. One of the primary ways is through a question and answer platform where visitors can throw a query into the system and any product provide can reply.... Read More