This is a roundup of product news and announcements for travel MARKETING in tourism and hospitality for April 2014.
Thursday 24 April 2014:
Spain seeks destination naysayers
Spain is targeting the one-in-10 visitors who don't like the destination. The Spanish Tourist Office has unveiled "The More You Live It, The More You Like It" campaign to get people to return and give it another try. The promotion will feature clips of people saying what they do and don't like about the country with a public vote via social media channels to decide who should be sent back to be convinced.
Trainline pushes app via TV campaign
Thetrainline is looking to boost its mobile application via an advertising campaign featuring all the things the app can't do such as help with IT problems. The 'Brilliant for train stuff' television campaign will run throughout the year and was devised by DLKW Lowe.
Wednesday 23 April 2014:
ArrivalGuides partners with Knowledge Travel Partners
- The agreement between the parties will enable Knowledge Travel Partners' to invite Japanese travel operators to be part of the ArrivalGuides network of 260 travel partners and 50+ million travelers who actively use the ArrivalGuides destination content. The first Japanese destination, Matsuyama, went live in the network on April 23, 2014.
Tuesday 22 April 2014:Trippiece launches English-version site
- Japan-based social travel service Trippiece has launched its English-version website. The company also recently expanded its service to other Asian markets by establishing a Singapore office. In August 2013, Trippiece secured $2 million funding from Draper Nexus Venture Partners and other investors.
Skyscanner sponsors an IPL team
- The travel metasearch service has sponsored the Delhi Daredevils team in IPL season 7. Flight search queries from India to UAE (the destination where the first leg of IPL matches happen) have increased 360% for the month of March 2014 over February 2014, claims the company.
Monday 21 April 2014:TripFactory sponsors an IPL team
- Every year, Indian Premier League (IPL) creates a cricket-fever in India, and Indian travel brands have been riding on this cricket wave to market their services. TripFactory, the semantic search-based travel technology startup (watch for TLabs soon) has sponsored Kings XI Punjab team in an effort to increase brand visibility and reach millions of cricket fans.
Uber launches in Brisbane
- After launching in Sydney and Melbourne, now Uber has launched in test-mode in Brisbane. To create an impact about the launch, the company is offering the rides for free during the initial test phase.
Thursday 17 April 2014:Expedia India's new Ad
- The Indian arm of Expedia has launched a new ad that highlights the various types of hotel offered on site. The ad titled "What is your hotel type" was executed by creative agency Lowe Lintas. An another ad (a slightly modified version of below ad) can be seen - here.
Wednesday 16 April 2014:
Netherlands tourism board goes for cool route again
- Following the success of its original "Holland is cool" campaign in early-2013, Dutch tourism bosses are at it again with Pim returning in a series of YouTube clips to explain even further why the European country is the coolest on the planet.
Sojern claims data footprint reaches 200+ million traveller profiles
- The advertising engagement platform says the milestone was reached with data points now in 196 countries. The company says it doubled revenue in 2013 year-on-year (no figures disclosed) and has worked with more 600 customers around the world, giving it the chance to increase the workforce by 50% over the past 15 months.
Thursday 10 April 2014:
Call Korea Travel Hotline via Skype
- In an effort to make inbound travellers easily access Korea travel related information, the Korea Tourism Organization has made its "1330 Korea Travel Hotline" accessible via Skype. Now, users with Skype installed in their system/device will be able to make free Skype calls to 1330 travel hotline at www.visitkorea.co.kr.
Ho Chi Minh City to digitize cultural and historical relics
- Under an IT initiative and part of the city's Vision 2020,the cultural and historical relics, and museums will be digitized to make it easily available online for inbound travellers. To implement this, technologies such as 3D, RFID and GIS will be used. This project is estimated to be complete by 2015. Tourism revenue for the city reached $3.9 billion, an increase of 17% over the same period last year, and it contributes up to 11% of the city’s GDP.
Uber officially launches in Bangkok
- After a soft-launch period of about 45 days in Bangkok, now the company has officially launched its service in the city. In the Asia Pacific region, Uber has its presence in 19 cities.
Wednesday 9 April 2014:Swiss International Airlines revamps website
- The revamped website has a responsive design, and other key new features such as: Providing personalized content/flight-specific information for the customer, a new inspirational section offering travel guides and crew tips to its 77 destinations, a new iPad app offering travel advise (flight related information and travel guide in offline mode), and a digital product and brand experience site with interactive content called World-of-SWISS.
TourRadar launches group referral program
- TourRadar, an online travel agency, has launched a group referral program that credits $70 to a new-sign-up user (via referral), and credits $70 to the refer-er when the referee makes a booking. Travellers will be able to use their Travel Fund credits to reserve thousands of eligible tours featured on its site.
Wednesday 2 April 2014:FlipKey claims 300,000 property mark
- The TripAdvisor-owned vacation rental service says it now has properties in 179 countries around the world. The announcement comes as the service relaunches its website and upgrades its mobile offering to users.
Destinia claims Bitcoin first
- The Spanish online travel agency will now take the Bitcoin currency from users to book rail products in the country. The move to include RENFE tickets made available for Bitcoin users comes after Destinia introduced the currency for flights, hotels and packages earlier this year.
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NB2: Travel marketing image via Shutterstock.