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Happy 1st Birthday to The Travel Marketing Digest!
On the 21st July 2012, from a farmhouse in Strathkinnes near St Andrews, Fife, Scotland, we sent our first The Travel Marketing Digest. The initial circulation was to 600 of our close contacts in the travel industry. Since then we have grown our circulation to over 4,300 active contacts.
The Top 12 Travel Marketing Stories from the Last 12 Months
Below we list our view of the Top 12 Travel Marketing stories from the last 12 months:
1. Facebook emerges as a major travel influencer
 Facebook have certainly bounced back after their post IPO fall in shares. Advertisers are beginning to believe in the model as Facebook enables greater levels of segmentation and provides dashboards to monitor performance. The travel sector is a clear winner in this channel. Facebook users' are passionate about sharing their travel experiences. According to Facebook 42% of stories shared to users Facebook timelines were travel experiences, more than double that of the next category.
Facebook will provide an update on Travel Marketing via their channel at The Global Travel Marketing Forum.
2. Priceline acquires Kayak
 In November 2012 Priceline, one of highest valued internet properties, announced its intention to acquire Kayak, a leading travel search engine, for $1.8bn. The merger was completed by the end of May 2013. The Priceline Group is composed of five primary brands - Booking.com, priceline.com, Agoda.com, KAYAK and rentalcars.com, as well as several ancillary brands. The Priceline Group provides online travel services in over 180 countries and territories in Europe, North America, South America, the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East and Africa. The acquisition certainly strengthened Priceline's market position in North America versus Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz.
3. Expedia acquires trivago
 In December 2012 Expedia announced that it was to acquire a 61.6% equity position in trivago, a leading metasearch company headquartered in Dusseldorf, Germany, for total consideration of €477 million (approximately US$632 million, based on current exchange rates) including €434 million in cash as well as €43 million in Expedia, Inc. common stock. trivago is an online metasearch site which compares hotel rates from over 600,000 hotels on over 140 booking sites worldwide; while also offering over 34 million integrated hotel reviews, accompanied by 14 million photos. Over 18 million visitors per month use trivago - recently rated by Research Now in the top five travel sites in the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy. www.trivago.com
4. Google acquires Frommers & then Frommer buys it back again
When Google bought the Frommer's brand of travel guides last August, it was an unlikely combination of old and new publishing.
It didn't last long. Arthur Frommer, the 83-year-old founder of the company, announced in April that he had bought the brand back from Google, which did not publish any Frommer's guidebooks. He is moving quickly to release his first batch of books in October under a new name, FrommerMedia. In a recent interview, Mr. Frommer said he had struck a deal with Publishers Group West, a member of the Perseus Books Group, to distribute and help market and promote the books, a major step in reviving the publishing machine of one of the most renowned brands in the travel industry.
5. Emirates ranked as #No1 Airline Brand by value (announced at our event, The Global Travel Marketing Forum)
 In what has been a very challenging climate for the airlines industry Emirates has climbed to become the most valuable airline brand in 2012 with a value of US$3.7 billion, a 2% increase on last year but enough to fly ahead of Lufthansa for the first time. The rankings were produced by Brand Finance.
This performance has been driven by growth in passenger revenues and important strides made in the long haul passenger market.
Emirates airline continued to post strong growth with connecting traffic through its hub, whilst successfully sustaining growth into new international destinations. It has recently signed a 10-year alliance with Qantas airlines which will also contribute to the airline's aggressive growth ambitions moving forward. Emirates continues to improve its customer brand experience through investment in quality product and service concepts to provide passengers with a world class on-board experience. The airline's focus on brand building and sponsorship activities together with its efforts to reposition the airline towards becoming more of an aspirational 'lifestyle brand' are apparent and Emirates retains its strong AAA- brand rating, despite stiff competition from other international airlines.
Brand Finance will present further insights into Brand Valuation in the travel sector The Global Travel Marketing Forum.
6. Google exits airline reservations development
 Towards the end of May 2013 Google posted this announcement on their web site: "We're discontinuing the Passenger Services System (PSS) for airlines. We're doing this to enable our team to focus on other travel solutions for users and partners such as Google Flight Search and Hotel Finder, and ITA's QPX software suite.
"Cape Air is live on this system and we'll continue to work with them under our agreement. We won't be launching PSS with other clients. Going forward, we're excited to keep developing new, innovative travel solutions for our users."
This announcement comes eight years after signing a deal to power Air Canada's reservations system and two years after Google acquired ITA Software, the company is withdrawing from the airline reservations business. According to Google this does not impact its on-going commitment to Google Flight Search, Google Hotel Finder, and QPX (the system that handles airfare shopping on many airline and travel agency websites).
The airline reservations systems market still remains on the whole with five players, Amadeus, Sabre, Hewlett Packard, SITA and Navitaire.
7. Wikipedia launched Wikivoyage
 On the 15th January 2013 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.
8. Emirates & Qantas announce strategic alliance
 In April 2012 Emirates & Qantas commenced and celebrated their official start to the ground breaking alliance where the two carriers will collaborate to deliver integrated network, lounge and frequent flyer benefits.
9. PATA launches the concept of the "Complete Visitor Economy"
 At the PATA Annual Summit in April 2013 the concept of "The Complete Visitor Economy" was endorsed by speakers from the private and public sectors including the Secretary General of the UNWTO.
The concept is simple and that is to generate and execute integrated strategic plans to responsibly develop Travel and Tourism. Those that do so are more likely to succeed.
PATA are setting out their agenda to create recognition for all aspects of the highly interdependent Travel, Tourism and Trade sectors. Martin Craigs, PATA CEO, stated in their newsletter "Our agenda is to make sure that Travel and Tourism - aka "The Complete Visitor Economy" - gets its fair share of investment and is included at the highest levels of government. For the most part, government ministers in Asia have seen the light. They are generally pro-tourism. Many governments in developed Western Economies have a lazy, exploitative approach to tourism. They see it as an easy tax option. They see the travel industry as divided and unwilling or unable to fight its corner. They are wrong".
Martin Craigs will provide an update on the progress of his campaign at The Global Travel Marketing Forum.
10. World Economic Forum ranks Switzerland as most effective at Tourism Development and the UAE as having the best perception of development amongst executives
 Tourism competitiveness is an important economic indicator. It is a major element in economic stimulation packages. Tourism is among the largest employers in most countries and also a fast-lane vehicle into the workforce for young people and women. Encouraging travel boosts consumer and business confidence, it strengthens two-way trade and promotes export income.
Under the theme "Reducing Barriers to Economic Growth and Job Creation", The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2013 assesses 140 economies worldwide based on the extent to which they are putting in place the factors and policies to make it attractive to develop the travel and tourism sector. Switzerland retained its number 1 position.
One of the factors that make up this index is the perception of over 15,000 executives when asked the question o n which countries they feel are the most effective in their marketing and branding campaigns. The results below are a weighted average of the same question asked in early 2011 and again in early 2012.
The UAE comes top which reflects their drive to promote themselves as a destination. The UAE's travel and tourism industry is growing significantly faster than the world growth average, according to new economic research released by The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC).
11. Starwood immerses headquarters in Dubai for a month and announced an expansion plan in The Middle East & Africa of over 50 hotels over the next 5 years
 In March 2013 Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. announced that it will increase its MEA portfolio by more than 60% with nearly 50 new hotels set to open over the next five years. With over 20 hotels expected to open by the end of 2015, Starwood is on track to reach a milestone 100 hotels across MEA.
"Starwood continues to see demand for growth of all of our brands across the Middle East and Africa despite economic and political uncertainty in some parts of this incredibly diverse region," said Frits van Paasschen, President and CEO, Starwood Hotels & Resorts. "Rapid economic growth, rising personal incomes, a growing middle class and ever greater global connectivity are driving new travel patterns and demand for travel, and this region is at the center of these trends and a key focus of our growth strategy."
Further underscoring the importance of the region as one of Starwood's fastest growing hotel and travel markets, the company relocated its global headquarters from Stamford, Connecticut to Dubai for a month-long immersion.
12. MasterCard city arrivals studies shows Bangkok as being worlds #No 1 and Dubai as fastest growing
 Bangkok has now topped the MasterCard city arrivals rankings for the first time. This year is the first that an Asian city has made it to the number one position with Bangkok seeing visitor number growth rates of more than 18 per cent in 2011 and 2012, and 9.8 per cent this year.
Dubai is set to be the seventh most popular city globally in terms of inbound international visitors in 2013, outranking cities such as Hong Kong, Barcelona, Milan and Rome. At 10.9 per cent, Dubai (along with Bangkok) shows the strongest growth in arrival numbers among the top ten global markets, with 9.89 million overnight visitors expected this year.
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