Consider this scenario. A business traveler is booking a three day trip to Los Angeles. He / she can use their in house corporate Travel Agent or, like is happening more and more often, they are allowed to book their own reservations through Travleocity, Expedia, etc., using their “business & commercial” portals and negotiated corporate rates. “Price and location” are still important decisions in the process, but today there is a very important new twist with this.

%Internet Content and Visibility Becoming More of a Factor than Actual Roadside Visibility / Craig W Cooley / November 2005

tags: hospitality

Group Travel has definitely HUGE potential for online booking channels. The various old and new chain tools targeted at this need are a testament to this fact..as are the new initiatives by 3rd party bookers and merchants to make online group bookings easier. We still have a long way to go in terms of making the process intuitive and hassle-free though..!

JJ

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(Reuters) - Online travel bookers are beginning to court group travelers, customers they previously ignored because of technological limitations.

Experts say the thrust by Internet companies into the group travel market is new, but is shaping up to be a rich frontier for the highly competitive business in which bookers must distinguish themselves by anticipating travelers' needs.

"Group travel is very much a nascent part of online travel," said Henry Harteveldt at Forrester Research, an independent technology and market research company.

Read the original article here: Business Article | US

In an effort to provide an easy and uniquely tailored booking experience for groups, the Hilton Family of Hotels has announced industry-first, new and enhanced services, including the launch of e-Events, Small Group Product and Guest List Manager on hiltonmeetings.com, conradhotelsmeetings.com, doubletreemeetings.com, embassysuitesmeetings.com, hamptoninnmeetings.com, StayHGI.com, and homewoodsuitesmeetings.com.

The e-Events Small Group Product enables meeting planners to go online and book anywhere from five to 25 guest rooms with real-time, instant confirmation on a booking. No RFP (request for proposal) is required for meetings of 25 rooms or less - the entire transaction is on-line.

Read the original press release here: News Release

No one travel search engine is capable of delivering the lowest airline fare or the cheapest hotel rate, so consumers are advised to use multiple sites, Consumer Reports said Wednesday. The consumer watchdog's latest analysis of 11 of the most popular travel search engines found that no single site could be recommended as a one-stop destination for cheapest plane tickets, hotel room and other travel products.

None of the evaluated sites included all of the leading online travel agencies in their inventories, so many "Web-only rates" were not captured.

Read the original article by Antone Gonsalves here: InformationWeek | Online Travel | Consumer Reports: Don't Trust Any Single Travel Search Engine | December 21, 2005

Consumers’ love of online research and purchasing convenience is fueling online retail sales growth, according to a report released Wednesday by Forrester Research Inc.

The Cambridge, Mass.-based market research company is predicting that North American online consumer sales, including auctions and travel, will hit US$329 billion in 2010 -- a cumulative average growth rate over the next five years of 14 percent. The latest sales forecast is $13 billion higher than Forrester predicted in September 2004.

Online sales this year should total $172 billion, with holiday sales shaping up well, according to another research firm, comScore Networks Inc. in Reston, Va. It said that online sales, excluding travel, were up 23 percent to $12.75 billion over the prior year for the 39-day period ended Dec. 9.

Read the whole article here:Forrester sees online sales through 2010 rising - Computerworld

With predictions that online advertising will grow to $18.9 billion by 2010 and assertions that the ROI for online advertising is second only to direct marketing, attendees to the recent Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI) Travel Internet Marketing Strategy Conference, held at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco, CA, were urged to protect their Web sites and their consumers who are being attacked by traffic diversion, identity theft and fraud.

Read the whole article: Online hotel marketers are looking for direct conversion

A look at the growing trend towards 3rd party sites that offer rating and comment facilities to guests (and supposed guests) without a chance for the properties involved to add their feedback or response.

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Handling complaints has traditionally been a one-to-one communication directly with the guest making the complaint. The complaint, or sometimes compliment, is usually answered with a phone call, letter, or both. Smart general managers have a good reliable system to handle service issues. After all, for many managers, there are bonuses tied into getting good guest service scores.

Read the whole article by Neil Salerno, The Hotel Marketing Coach, here: Online Hotel Rating Sites Driving Anxiety Into the Hearts of Many Hotel Managers / Neil Salerno / December 2005

Upstart search engines are giving online travel agents a run for their money. But who can find and compare the absolute best deals on flights, hotels, and rental cars - all on one website? No one - yet.

Travel search engines with unfamiliar names like Sidestep, Kayak, and Farechase may be mere blips on the Internet, but they are generating a lot of buzz.

Read the original article By Bruce Mohl here: Point. Click. Travel. - The Boston Globe

Email marketing software firm Bronto launched an online resource for email marketing statistics - updated weekly, for 14 industries - to help marketers benchmark their own performance.

For the three-month period ended November 20, the weighted average for the covered industries was a 95.5 percent email delivery rate, 24.2 percent open rate and 5.0 percent click-through rate, according to Bronto’s Industry Statistics. But rates vary by industry.

The highest delivery rate is for e-commerce/retail (97.8 percent), whereas manufacturing/distribution has the highest open rate (36.7 percent) and services/consulting has the highest click rate (8.8 percent).

The industries covered by Bronto include advertising/marketing, e-commerce/retail, education, financial services, government, healthcare/insurance, legal services, manufacturing/distribution, publishing/media, real estate, services/consulting, technology and travel/hospitality.

Bronto has also published the first of a planned series of quarterly reports analyzing email marketing statistics and trends by industry.

Statistics for Travel/Hospitality Industry
Three Month Period Ending Delivered Opened Clickthrough
October 2, 2005 93.7% 38.6% 6.3%
October 23, 2005 93.4% 35.7% 5.6%
November 13, 2005 94.5% 34.3% 5.8%
November 27, 2005 95.3% 32.1% 6.0%

Source: http://bronto.com/stats/

Interactive marketing experts at 24/7 Real Media have revealed their Top 10 online advertising and interactive marketing predictions for 2006.

The 24/7 Real Media experts’ Top Ten Online Advertising Predictions for 2006 include:

1. Consumer-generated media will become increasingly attractive to advertisers.
2. Advertisers will continue shifting traditional ad spending to the Web due to increased Internet consumption and better targeting/reporting capabilities.
3. Advertisers, cable providers and interactive marketing experts will collaborate to address “The TiVo Effect”.
4. Brand advertisers will drive the next wave of growth for the paid search market.
5. Best practices in localised mobile marketing will be perfected overseas in 2006.
6. Online advertisers will employ holistic targeting methods to deliver better results and reduce reliance on high-profile, high-CPM ad buys.
7. Technology and better data access will transform online advertising success to a formulaic equation.
8. Japan will be the next frontier for paid search and interactive marketing.
9. Mobile carriers will adopt new ad models to boost revenue beyond usage.
10. Performance-based pricing models will demonstrate the true value of search engine marketing (SEM) as a lead generation channel.

Read the original article here: Press - 2005

The e-mail rules have changed. E-mail success requires knowing how to navigate marketing landmines and the ability to harness the rewards e-mail marketing has to offer. Seven key landmines can cause an e-mail program to blow up:

Prospect e-mail database
Opt-in methodology
E-mail promise
Header information
Above-the-fold content
Relevant content
Landing page

Read the whole article by Jeanniey Mullen here: Watch Your Step: Seven E-Mail Landmines

dohop.com is launching its new flight search engine, which searches across 650 scheduled airlines, including 80 low-cost airlines and finds flight connections.

"This is the first time that people can search low-cost and traditional airlines simultaneously to find the optimal itinerary for a trip." said Frosti Sigurjonsson, dohop's founder and general manager.
"The new dohop.com takes less than five seconds to deliver results from more than 650 airlines. It might actually be the smartest, largest and fastest flight search engine available."