Consumers accessing travel sites via mobile browsers soars

ComScore data reveals that across the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain, there were almost 7 million mobile browsers that accessed remote services or information related to travel, a significant shift given that only a few years ago this number would have been very close to zero. However, EyeforTravel Research clearly shows that is not just mobile web browsing that is impacting the travel industry. Mobile has started to impact across all the consumer touch points.

Read more at EyeforTravel.

Google Travel Search Volumes Rise Despite Recession

Despite the economic problems, Google is reporting that overall travel queries have increased by 12% year-on-year to date and 11.2% for the week beginning May 21. Searches for car-hire and hotels are attracting the strongest growth in search volumes.

Read more in Travolution

Microsoft Launches New Search Engine with Enhanced Flight Search Tools

On Monday, June 1st, Microsoft launched its new search engine named Bing. While Bing is unlikely to take much market share from Google it does offer some innovative new tools and applications that will be of interest to the travel trade.


Microsoft has integrated the Farecast travel search engine which it purchased back in 2008 into Bing. Bing Travel now enables users to find low price flights and then compare the results against many of the top travel sites like Expedia, Cheapflights, Priceline etc.

Read more in Tech Fragments

New Internet Video Marketing Service For The Holiday Rental Sector

Turismotec Ltd (http://www.turismotec.com/) have announced the launch of a new low-cost internet marketing service called VillaTube, designed specifically for holiday rental property owners and agents.

VillaTube enables holiday rental owners and agents to access the huge and lucrative online video market through YouTube and the other major video portals such as Google Video, Yahoo Video, AOL Video, Myspace Video and many others.

Mark Scriven, MD of Turismotec, said "In the current economic climate it's crucial that holiday rental agencies and property owners find new and innovative ways of generating additional bookings. Our VillaTube service is designed specifically to enable holiday rental agencies and owners to put their properties in front of thousands of potential new customers through YouTube and the other major online video portals."

He continues "YouTube is now the 2nd biggest search engine in the world after Google and millions of video searches are made every day. VillaTube will enable any agency or property owner to access this fast growing and highly lucrative market."

VillaTube works by uploading and promoting a high quality video slide show to the main video portals like YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo Video, AOL Video and MySpace Video as well as the main travel video portals such as Travelistic, TripFilms and Holiday Rental TV.

The company has produced a brochure PDF for VillaTube at http://www.turismotec.com/VillaTube-Presentation.pdf.

How to increase your site traffic by 1,100% in just 24 hours for free!

As an online marketing professional how would you go about increasing your website's traffic by 1,100% in just 24 hours without spending a penny? The answer is by implementing a controversial viral PR campaign.

An amazing thing happened to UK based adventure holidays specialist Activities Abroad over the last 2 or 3 days. A controversial promotional email sent to the company customer mailing list sparked a nationwide controversy by offering 'chav-free' vacations.

For the benefit of our non-UK readers, Wikipedia explains the word Chav as generally referring to a "white aggressive teen or young adult, of working class background, who wears branded sports and casual clothing who often fights and engages in petty criminality and are often assumed to be unemployed or in a low paid job." The company mailing promised that on its holidays you wouldn't meet anyone with Chav-like names such as "Britney, Dazza, Chardonnay and Candice".

Although Director Alistair McLean insists "It was a tongue-in-cheek e-mail", a media storm soon ensued with coverage in major national newspapers like The Times, and McLean was also interviewed live on a major BBC radio show.

The result of all this media coverage was a massive surge in visitors to the Activities Abroad website which eventually threatened to engulf the servers. Over the period of just 24 hours the number of visitors to the website exploded by 1,100%.

The equivalent value of this additional visitor traffic in Pay Per Click terms is approximately £4,000 ($5,600) a day, however, the real value is in the additional vacation bookings that will undoubtedly result from this mass media coverage. As McLean explains, "We have had £300,000 worth of PR from this. We had a few nervous moments and knew it was a bold piece of PR but we're getting great results."

So, what can we online marketers learn from this experience? Well, first of all, it demonstrates the huge potential influence that Blogs have and how Blogging has empowered people to such an extent that they can now start a national media storm from their own kitchen table.

This whole controversy was sparked by one single blogger who received the company email and was so angered by its contents that he wrote about it on his travel blog. This was eventually picked up by news outlets across the UK and the rest, as they say, is history.

The second lesson is the amazing power of viral marketing. What started as one man's online rant evolved into a national controversy within a matter of hours. Viral marketing is nothing new, but it takes an event like this to remind us of just how powerful a tool it really can be.

The final lesson is that controversy sells. Whether deliberate or not, the content of the email shot was definitely controversial. Even though the company claim that the overwhelming response has been one of support, it only takes a few outraged individuals to create the kind of national level controversy that we have seen in this case.

Was this really a "tongue-in-cheek" email that threatened to backfire but eventually paid off brilliantly, or was it a piece of clever but highly cynical viral PR? Only a few people within Activities Abroad will know the answer. What is not in doubt is that the results were phenomenal and would delight any online marketing professional.

15% drop off in UK-US flight search traffic

Flight search engine Skyscanner is reporting a 15% drop off in UK-US flight search traffic over the last 30 days despite an overall high level of flight search traffic on the site. This is likely due to the decline in the GB Pound compared to the US Dollar making holidays in the US is about 25% more expensive than the same time last year.

Read the full story in Travelmole.

Vacation Rental Business Dependent on Internet

Endless Vacation Rentals by Wyndham Worldwide and PhoCusWright recently released a report on the $24 billion US vacation rental industry which it described as "one of the untapped travel segments that is poised for significant change and growth".

What becomes evident from "PhoCusWright's Vacation Rental Marketplace: Poised for Change" is that this huge travel market sector is dependant on the internet for its growth. According to the report two thirds of vacation rental guests researched online for their last trip and 20% of online travel shoppers booked a vacation rental in the past year

The report suggests that vacation rental guests are well-off, well-traveled, well-educated and savvy Internet users.

Why You Don't Rank on Search Engines

Ever wondered why your business is not ranking well in the search engines? Have you spent valuable time and resources reworking your website and pouring more money into SEO and still not improved your rankings?

Mike Grehan posted a great feature on Clickz recently which points out something which every good search engine marketing prefessional knows, but which few would ever tell their clients, and this is that very often the reason a website does not perform well in the search engines is down to a flawed business model and not the code or SEP.

As Mike Grehan explains "I ask clients to be very honest about whether they believe they have a business concern online or just a Web site. If we discover they truly have a genuine business that can differentiate itself, we look at the Web site."

Read the rest of the articles at Clickz.

Google UK Revenues "Flat"

Google's UK business generated revenues of $776 million in the three months to end-September, according to the Q3 08 earnings statement from the search giant.

Chief financial officer Patrick Pichette told analysts that the "UK showed some softness" with the $776 million equating to a 17% increase on Q3 07.

However, compared with April to June this year, "the UK return is essentially flat...including the impact of currency."

Read rest of story at Travolution.

We're All Going On a Virtual Holiday

From Yahoo News

A new study out today showed that despite the credit crunch, 64 per cent of holidaymakers have or are still planning to take a holiday this year, and over three quarters (77 per cent) of UK internet users said that they use the net to research the holiday they've booked before they leave.