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The Travel Marketing Digest
 8th January 2013 - Volume II, issue 2
 

IN THIS ISSUE.....

  

Dear Industry Colleagues and Friends,

 

With January now behind us I am sure you are all flat out with your work activities.  We keep receiving very good feedback on the content that we are producing and our subscriber base is now well over 2,000 people. 

 

Do connect with us on our Facebook and Twitter accounts as this is where we highlight interesting travel marketing stories and material as we find them. 

 

Like us on Facebook

 

Follow us on Twitter

 

Also if you like what we provide forward the mail onto friends and colleagues.

 

In this edition we cover: 

  • An update on The Digital & Social Marketing Summit speaker line up. It's looking like we will have a great and unique event.  We hope you can make it
  • Wikipedia and WikiVoyages create the most significant collaborative travel content location on the internet.
  • An excellent set of case studies from SimpliFlying on airline mobile applications.
  • IATA Airline 2012 passenger results and forecast.
  • Tnooz's Sean 0'Neill's useful review of how travel marketers can create B2C success with Facebook.
  • Two new reports on Asia's booming travel market.
  • A new social media dashboard for the travel industry from the start-up travel intelligence media company Skift. 

If you are able to make it to Dubai it would be great to see you at our next event on 20th March. 

 

Best regards,

Duncan Alexander
Director
The Travel Marketing Store
 
 
 
The Travel Marketing Store Presents: The Digital & Social Marketing SummitDigital & Social Marketing 

Jumeirah Creekside Hotel 20th March 2013 

 

Following the success of our Global Travel Marketing Forum held last September, we are now in the execution phase of our next event.  The Digital & Social Marketing Summit will be both "a conference and an education". 

 

We are assembling a first class line up of practitioners with whom we will explore the latest tools, techniques and traps of Digital & Social Marketing. 

 

LOOK WHO IS SPEAKING

Companies speaking at the Digital & Social Marketing Summit

 

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Wikivoyage logo

Wikipedia & Wikivoyages 

TTMS

 

Will the world of obtaining travel information ever be the same again? 

 

On the 15th January The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit parent organization of Wikipedia, officially launched Wikivoyage. The new site is a free online travel guide that, just like Wikipedia, is edited collaboratively. It currently features about 50,000 articles and has attracted a core group of about 200 volunteer editors. The site is available in English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish.  We checked out the content for Dubai and have to say that it was accurate, up to date and provided a lot of information that we did not know and we have lived here for some time.

 

"There's a huge global demand for travel information, but very few sources are both comprehensive and non-commercial. That's about to change," said Sue Gardner, the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. "Wikivoyage is a great, useful service for travellers, and I'm expecting that with the support of the Wikimedia Foundation and the global Wikimedia editing community, it's going to get even bigger and better."

 

Wikivoyage was first conceived in 2006 as Wikitravel. It operated under parent company Internet Brands until last year when the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees approved a proposal from some of the contributors to migrate the content onto Wikimedia servers. 

  

"The purpose of the Wikivoyage Association is to promote education and knowledge of all countries and regions in the world, as well as understanding among nations," said Stefan Fussan, Chairman of the board of the Wikivoyage Association. "We're very excited about the launch of Wikivoyage as a Wikimedia project, and about the future role of the Association in supporting the Wikivoyage community through its programs."

 

The start point is an excellent one and with continuous editing can only get better.  One issue will be can the site remain neutral and not suffer from competitive interference and bias, issues faced by profit making sites such as Trip Advisor? 

 

If the reputation remains clean and the content authoritative this is likely to be the most visited travel information community site in the world.

 

http://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Main_Page       Like us on Facebook

IATA releases latest traffic information 
TTMS - IATA

 

On 31st January The International Air Transport Association (IATA) released their latest traffic data for 2012.  Passenger traffic showed a 5.3% growth above the twenty year 5% average whilst cargo, a barometer of world trade, fell by 1.5%.

 

International passenger traffic increased by 6% with almost a third of the growth coming from the Middle East which grew by 15.5%.

 

In its December outlook for 2013 IATA projected a 4.5% growth in passenger traffic and a 1.4% growth in Cargo with a total profit forecast for the sector of $8.4 billion at a thin margin of 1.3%.

 

The review the full report follow this link.

Without FrontiersMadibat Jumeirah 

The Global Travel Marketing Forum

Dubai Madinat Jumeirah

24-26th September 2013

 

the marketplace for

travel marketing services   

SimpliFlying logo A review of Airline Mobile Applications 

TTMS - SimpliFlying

  
We came across this excellent presentation on SlideShare submitted by SimpliFlying.  It features mobile applications case studies from a number of leading airlines.  The integrated use of applications in combination with web sites and social media channels is clearly the strategy that many travel companies are taking.  The case studies include Delta, American Airlines, Air France, KLM, Cathay Pacific, Jet Blue and others.
  
Follow this link and scroll down to see the case studies presentation.

Asia Travel Marketing Business Intelligence

TTMS - PhocusWrightAsia

We point you to a number of new available reports on the growth of the Asian Market.  First PhocusWright's China Online Travel Traffic Report produced in co-operation with digital intelligence provider comScore.  The report, which has to be purchased, covers in depth analysis of 2Q12 including online travel agencies, airlines, hotels, metasearch and traveller review sites.

 

PhocusWright's China Online Travel Traffic Report   

  
  
Jones Lang LaSelle have released their latest Hotel Investment Outlook for Asia Pacific.  They predict that hotel transactions will reach $3.5billion in 2013 with Australia, Japan and India being the hottest markets for acquisition and investment.
  
Their global report on hotel investment can be found by following this link
  
New case studies on using Facebook for Travel Marketers
TTMS - Tnooz
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Most travel companies are still feeling their way into social media and as they are doing so the platform providers keep innovating.  Facebook is no exception.  Now a publicly traded company and with over 1 billion active users, 50% of which use mobiles, they have a vast addressable audience. 
  
Sean O'Neill of Tnooz has written a great article on Facebook marketing tactics for B2C travel companies and direct marketing organizations for national tourist offices.  The case studies highlight successful Facebook campaigns by Best Western, Tourism Australia, Kuoni and other travel marketers.  Some highlights are:  
  • In December 2012 Tourism Australia became the most popular travel page on Facebook
  • Facebook has very recently enhanced its conversion and measurement tools to provide more insightful data
  • Usage of Facebook's new mobile tool is dramatically increasing amongst travellers
  • Facebook have made improvements to their product Customer Audiences that was launched last September.  Marketers are able to run more precisely targeted advertising campaigns as they can map their own customer relationship database with data on a company's Facebook brand fan base or potential customers.  This is a significant opportunity for airlines and hotels that hold large volumes of customer profiles in their loyalty systems.
  • Aoife Desmond, Facebook's Europe travel lead revealed at a conference recently that travel stories are the most shared stories (42%) on the social network compared to other life events like moving (18%).
To read this very informative article with travel marketing case studies follow this link  
A new travel social media dashboard provided by Skift
Skift Logo
TTMS - Skift
 
Skift is a relatively new New York based start up.  It's ambition is to be a centre of travel industry intelligence and insights.  They have produced a very interesting social media dashboard for the travel industry which is available on their web site www.skift.com
  
Their data reveals that:
  • Southwest Airlines is the most followed airline on Facebook with over 3.5 million followers.
  • Heathrow is the most followed airport with over 130,000 followers
  • Australia has over 4 million likes.
  • KLM has the most Facebook replies.
  • The National Geographic has the most re-tweets.
  A worthy site to add to your favourites bar and check into.
  
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Nicky Baxter 
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The Travel Marketing Digest 
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