Delta Air Lines, ebookers, Aurasma, Jetwing Hotels, SiteMinder, and WordStream all appear in our roundup of the stories making news and driving opinion on 13 November.
DIGITAL MARKETING
Over the weekend, Delta re-launched its website with a significant redesign -- the first since 2010. New features include a dashboard for users, a trip map and an online "wallet" that stores itemised receipts from trips. The site encourages users to link to the brand with their Facebook accounts.
The redesign has led to many glitches, with some non-US users unable to get past the "pick the country of origin" settings.
The most tantalising part of the redesign is that it may have accidentally supported much speculated-upon rumours that the airline is going to roll out a revenue-based frequent flyer programme. Links in the website's rewards page suggested as much, as A View from the Wing and FlyerTalk have pointed out.
DIGITAL SALES
WordStream has debuted its industry benchmarking to its popular, free AdWords Performance Grader, a pay-per-click (PPC) audit tool. Marketers cam benchmark the performance of their Google AdWords campaigns against businesses in the travel industry category with similar spend levels.
HOTEL TECH
Jetwing Hotels, Sri Lanka's most prominent luxury resort chain, is the first of the country's chains to roll out a smartphone app with augmented reality. The free apps are powered by Aurasma's platform, which also powers campaigns for Virgin Holidays and Kuoni.
Dolphin Dynamics has updated its web publishing solution to serve website content ready for mobile devices. The tool could help travel companies give their sites "responsive" design and include YouTube integration.
Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia has begun using a distribution solution from SiteMinder. It's connecting the property management system for its seven properties at Ayers Rock Resort in the Northern Territory and Home Valley Station in the East Kimberley in Western Australia with SiteMinder's Channel Manager to interact with multiple online booking channels globally.
DISTRIBUTION
British OTA ebookers has taken the wraps off its website's Beach Map, an inspiration tool that lets visitors search for seven-night holidays at the same time.
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