The war between direct online travel sales vs middlemen / 3rd party sellers goes on.. now a new survey claims that direct bookings are on the increase. A lot of savvy surfers are using 3rd parties to compare and pull rates from a variety of sources and then booking directly, much to the delight of travel and accommodation providers.

"Internet monitors Hitwise said although website visits to online travel agents remained stable in 2005, visits to hotel and airline websites grew almost 20 per cent."

Web travel bookings cut out middlemen - Breaking News - National - Breaking News

tags: hopsitality

Leah Woolford discusses the power and effect of Work of Mouth Marketing and the role that Blogging and iPods / Podcasting play in today's Marketing and PR world. These are developments and technologies no "e" savvy marketer can ignore - and adopting these the right way can go a long way in terms of maintaining and building on your marketing/PR base.

"In the past couple of years, the hot topics were CRM (Customer Relationship Management) or eCRM -about making sure that you manage customer relationships and marketing. Today and tomorrow, one of the hottest topics is Word of Mouth Marketing online, as it crosses all demographics and proves to be one of the most effective ways to build brand equity online and extend reach and response."

Read the article here: Beyond the Browser

tags: marketing

The battle over unpaid hotel occupancy taxes rages on, as San Diego sues over a dozen Internet travel booking providers, including Travelocity.com, Priceline.com and Hotels.com. In this lawsuit filed in a Superior Court, seeking over $30 million, the city claims that the sites have collected taxes based on retail rates from customers over the past 5 years and paid the city only a tax based on wholesale rates.

Read the story here: SignOnSanDiego.com -- City seeks millions from travel Web sites

tags: ecommerce

Good news for Airlines and Hotels.. Stephen Bleach of the Sunday Times takes a look at the growing surge in online bookings and the choice between booking direct vs. third parties.

The verdict, it seems looks promising for airlines and hotels - while 3rd parties offer enticing guarantees and promises, it is often better to book direct for the best rates. 3rd Parties are an excellent source of research though...and with the new breed of slick meta-search engines like Kayak, Dohop, etc leading the way, direct hotel and airline sales look even more lucrative.

Read the article: You paid how much? - Sunday Times - Times Online

tags: hospitality

Researchers at WebSideStory Inc. (WSSI) claim that online search engines do a better job of converting lookers into bookers...or surfers to buyers, compared to other sites featuring ads and marketing messages.

Bookmarked or directly visited sites had the highest conversion rate of approx 4.23% and search engines came through with a conversion of approx 2.3%...pretty good compared to 0.96% for other forms, like banner ads, etc.

Read the whole article: Study: Search engines deliver higher conversion

tags: ecommerce

SANTA CLARA, Calif. and SEATTLE, Wash.– January 31, 2006 – SideStep, Inc. (www.sidestep.com), the Web’s leading travel search engine, and Amazon Services, an Amazon.com Inc. company (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced the launch of an updated travel store on the Amazon.com Web site. SideStep, an innovator in travel search, now provides travel services through Amazon.com. Customers begin their travel search in the Amazon.com travel store and are delivered results powered by SideStep. Through this relationship, Amazon is providing customers convenient access to the best deals on airfare, hotels, car rentals and vacation packages and SideStep is poised to expand its user base.

Leading Search Site Also Debuts New Logo and Other Site Upgrades

NORWALK, CT - January 26, 2006 - Continuing to push the travel search envelope by developing the latest technology and convenience for consumers, Kayak.com, the comprehensive travel search site, today introduced Fare Watch and KayakBot. Kayak.com's Fare Watch allows users to track an unlimited number of trip itineraries and receive email notification when the fare meets or beats a traveler's specified price. KayakBot provides travelers with flight, hotel, rental car and flight status search capabilities from the convenience of AOL Instant Messenger.