Kerala Tourism Expands Online Hotel Reservation System

The online hotel reservation system of Kerala Tourism is set in for a major expansion with the preparation of a strong database of around 4,500 trade partners. Launched in mid-2009, the system currently has around 200 service providers and more trade partners would join the initiative with the expansion put in place. The system has already proved to be a success with thousands of travelers availing of the facility within a short span of time.

The online accommodation reservation system offers travelers a wide range of choices from five-star hotels to homestays in remote corners of the State. Around twenty-five thousand rooms in Destination Kerala at various destinations, including Alappuzha, Kumarakom, Munnar, Periyar, Wayanad, Kochi and Kozhikode are available for reservation through the system.

With this facility, rooms can be booked online any time by visiting www.keralatourism.org. The booking can be done by using major credit cards, debit cards; through net banking and other facilities like Pay Pal. The specialty of the online reservation platform is that the payment made for reservation goes directly to the account of the property owner.

Search facility:
The search facility in the reservation system enables visitors to make quick choices in simple steps. The two types of search options viz. Simple Search and Advanced Search enable visitors to find out the most suitable choice in a matter of seconds.

“Initiatives like the online reservation system aims at providing travelers a complete holiday experience with least hassles and formalities,’’ says Dr Venu V., Secretary, Kerala Tourism. Over the years, Kerala Tourism has become an active facilitator to the industry, rather than staying as an onlooker, he said.

M. Sivasankar, Director, Kerala Tourism attributes the success of the online reservation facility to the whole-hearted support of trade partners. “The spirit of the travel and tour industry in the State to avail of modern technologies has always helped Destination Kerala to move ahead of times,” he said.

More about www.keralatourism.org
Ever since its launch in 1998, www.keralatourism.org, has played a decisive role in the branding of Destination Kerala across the globe. Over the years, the website has become the one-stop reference for travelers to the destination. The website has won several prestigious awards and honours, including the national award instituted by the Union Ministry of Tourism on four occasions.

The website is available in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Chinese and in Indian languages viz. Hindi and Malayalam. On an average, the site gets 1,25,000 visitors a month and each visitor, on an average spends around seven minutes on the website.

Source: TravPR.com

New Online Holiday Guide To Menorca Launched

TGN Blogs have launched a travel guide for the Balearic Island of Menorca (www.travelguidemenorca.com). Like all TGN Blogs, the site will feature updated articles and tips on travel and holidays in Menorca. New content written by professional travel writers will will be added to the site on a regular basis.

SOPRIZ.COM OFFERING AN INSTANT DISCOUNT TO REGISTERED CUSTOMERS

Global online travel agency SOPRIZ.com announces the launch of a new promotion to its’ registered customers, who purchase low-cost airfares, hotels and car rentals from the website.

Getting a good deal on airline tickets has never been easier; but getting the best offers has probably never been more challenging.

SOPRIZ.com launches a new promotion to all its registered users for all domestic and international flights, hotels and car rental purchases online. An instant discount of up to $20 applies at the time of the purchase for all registered users buying already discounted airline tickets, hotels or car rentals from SOPRIZ.com

For the best travel deals, cheap airline tickets, discounted hotels and car rentals, we invite you to visit www.SOPRIZ.com

For advertising options on SOPRIZ.com please contact sales@soprisgmh.com

About SOPRIZ:
SOPRIZ.com (owned by SOPRIS Global Management Holding) is a global travel website powered by the latest technologies and offers an extensive selection of airlines, hotels and car rental locations with the lowest prices and best options available online. SOPRIZ.com features simple, easy-to-use interface with intuitive navigation tools and advanced filtering capabilities.

Cheap airfares from over 400 airline carriers, more than 85,000 hotels, and 24+ car rental vendors globally and worldwide travel protection plans are offered by SOPRIZ.com today.

Easy to navigate booking process, management and tracking of registered user’s itineraries, the most optimized search engine built, leveraging the advanced and sophisticated technologies and a secured way of transmitting data is what makes SOPRIZ.com a superior, unique and growing travel website in the U.S. and global markets.

Online travel booking users exceeds 30 million in China

China's online travel booking users in 2009 reached 30.24 million, increasing 77.9 percent from the previous year, according to a report released recently by China Internet Network Information Center.

Online travel booking in 2009 saw rapid development and has become a highlight of the tourism market. According to statistics released by the CNNIC, online travel booking users in 2009 increased 77.9 percent to reach 13.24 million. The growth rate is second only to online payment (80.9 percent) and exceeds online stocking (67 percent), online banking (62.3 percent) and online shopping (45.9 percent).

As of December 30, China’s web users has reached 384 million, Internet penetration rate has amounted to 28.9 percent and online travel booking rate has reached 7.9 percent. It is believed that there is huge potential for the development of online travel booking.

From Hotelmarketing.com

SOLMAR VILLAS EMBRACES SOCIAL MEDIA FOR 2010

Following on from the recent launch of a new and enhanced website design, Solmar Villas, a leading provider of holiday villas in Spain and the Algarve, has further boosted its interactive marketing reach with the launch of a Solmar Villas Facebook fan page and a Twitter feed. The company also has plans to build a dedicated Solmar Villas channel on YouTube.

These new interactive channels will provide both regular clients and new visitors with up to date information about properties, resorts, special offers and promotions. These channels will also enable customers to communicate directly with both sales and customer service representatives from Solmar Villas.

"We understand that communicating with our customers is the key to long-term business success and we are firmly committed to expanding our social media channels wherever possible" says Julie Blake, Marketing Manager of Solmar Villas. "These new channels will allow us to provide our customers with the latest company news, inform them of special offers and promotions, provide online customer support and all in a real-time environment" says Blake.

The new enhanced website design went live on March 3rd and the Facebook page and Twitter feed are now fully functional. The YouTube Channel will go live later in the year.

New Travel Guide to Lanzarote Launched

TGN Blogs have launched a travel guide for the Canary island of Lanzarote (www.travelguidelanzarote.com). Like all TGN Blogs, the site will feature updated articles and tips on travel and holidays in Lanzarote. New content written by professional travel writers will will be added to the site on a regular basis.

TURISMOTEC CHOSEN FOR NEW WINTER WEDDING WEBSITE SEO

Activities Abroad has appointed online travel marketing specialist Turismotec to implement an SEO campaign for their new winter wedding product website (www.winterweddingcompany.com)

Activity travel specialist Activities Abroad has launched www.winterweddingcompany.com as a dedicated standalone website for their highly popular and expanding range of winter weddings and honeymoons in resort destinations within Finland, Sweden, Norway and Canada.

Turismotec has been contracted to research, plan and execute a natural search marketing campaign with the objective of building high profile exposure for the new winter wedding product site in the major global search engines.

"We are very excited about the new product and website and have already taken several wedding and honeymoon bookings" says says Stephanie Eddy, Marketing Manager for Activities Abroad. "With Turismotec's help we expect the website to achieve maximum online exposure and become be a great success." says Eddy.

The natural search strategy for the winter weddings website will incorporate site content optimisation combined with content distribution, online PR and social media campaigns to ensure the site achieves maximum online exposure for the target search phrases.

"We have managed online marketing campaigns for Activities Abroad for a number of years now and we are delighted to have been asked to work on their latest project" says Mark Scriven, Director of Turismotec Ltd. "They have an excellent product offering and well designed website. Our job is to make sure that the new website gets the exposure it deserves in the search engines" says Scriven.

The SEO campaign for www.winterweddingcompany.com will commence early March 2010.

About Activities Abroad
Activities Abroad are a leading specialist tour operator for adventure holidays, activity breaks and overseas adventure travel suitable for families, single parent families, adults only, groups, couples and singles.

In response to the increasing demand for holidays and breaks that offer more than just the usual holiday experience, the company has developed an extensive programme of overseas adventure travel options in a number of different countries and featuring a wide range of sports and activities. Itineraries include exhilarating experiences as diverse as canyoning in Provence, seeing the northern lights, dog sledding in Finland and white water rafting in Turkey.

About Turismotec
Turismotec (www.turismotec.com) is a leading specialist search marketing agency for the UK and European travel and leisure industry. Turismotec has been creating and delivering highly effective online travel marketing campaigns since the year 2000 and has built up a loyal client base in many countries.

B&B SITE EXPANDS PORTFOLIO WITH COTTAGES4YOU

Accommodation website www.BedandBreakfastsGuide.com has teamed up with cottages4you to add an additional 11,000 self-catering cottages.

This is in addition to its stock of 16,000 B&Bs, hotels and apartments. Director Nigel Harris said: "We are finding that serviced apartments and cottages are proving to be very popular alternatives, particularly for families and groups who want the freedom to come and go as they please in top quality accommodation. "They are incredibly cost effective when you compare the price against multiple hotel rooms."

BedandBreakfastsGuide.com was re-launched last year with a new look and improved search facilities to ease the booking process. Director David Martin said: "We have already seen huge increases in the number of people using the site to book short breaks, but it's business bookings that are increasing the most, with many companies contacting us directly to locate and book the best deals for their employees out on the road. "This not only saves companies money but also allows them to get on with running their business.

"We now offer a 24-hour hotel booking line, which is great for people already out on the road who need to find somewhere cheaply and quickly".

Harris added: "We are aware that business clients are always looking for lower cost alternatives and simply haven't the inclination or the time to spend searching the internet, so we are very happy to do this for them.

"Because of our enormous database we have places to stay in the smallest corners of the UK and also worldwide."

ACTIVITIES ABROAD LAUNCHES DEDICATED WINTER WEDDING WEBSITE

Winter weddings have long been popular, but activity breaks specialist Activities Abroad have really put the ‘WINTER' into winter weddings by announcing the launch of a dedicated website promoting an expanded line of trips to unique and romantic arctic destinations in Finland, Sweden, Norway and Canada.

Imagine being whisked away to a romantic winter wonderland location for your magical wedding celebration, and then enjoying a range of exhilarating winter activities like snowmobiling, dog sledding, cross-country skiing and ice-fishing. This is the experience being offered by the new winter wedding trips from Activities Abroad.

There is a choice of both modern and traditional venues for the wedding ceremony including the Ice Chapel (made purely of ice) at the world-famous ICEHOTEL in Swedish Lapland, or the more intimate traditional wooden chapel at the Snow Chapel and Igloo Village some 250 kilometres north of the arctic circle.

Other venues include the Northern Lights Chapel where a wedding can be combined with an opportunity to lie on a reindeer skin in the middle of a frozen lake and experience the incredible Northern Lights. After the wedding, guests are transported by sleigh or sleds pulled by snowmobiles to a snow restaurant for a wonderful wedding feast cooked on an open fire.

The new www.winterweddingcompany.com website has been designed to enable the wedding organiser to research and plan the whole event from start to finish, including the honeymoon. Expert staff are on hand to walk the customer through the whole process as well as handle all legal paper work and administration.

"Our winter wedding product line has become so successful that we quickly realised we needed a dedicated website in order to do justice to the expanding number of destinations and services that we now offer" says Stephanie Eddy, Marketing Manager for Activities Abroad. "We designed the new website to be the perfect one-stop resource for anyone planning their dream winter wedding" says Eddy.

Winter wedding trips are available from December to April. After the special day the happy couple have the option to stay for their honeymoon and enjoy a huge variety of exhilarating winter sports and activities.

THE TOP 50 TRAVEL BLOGS HAVE BEEN ANNOUNCED

Rick Steves: Blog Gone Europe, Hole in the Donut and Everything Everywhere have been named as three of the most influential Travel blogs. This is according to the Top Independent Travel Blogs and Bloggers report. The report is designed for Travel companies, PR agencies and Ad agencies that use blogs and social networks to promote their Travel brands.

Using blogs for brand promotion is extremely powerful. The total combined audience for the top 150 independent travel blogs is over three million visitors a month. “That is a huge number of visitors, who read more than seven million pages a month” says Mathew Ryder, the Communications Manager at Konector. “What is even better is these visitors have made an active decision to read the blogs. They have a genuine interest in the content and are often themselves seen as influencers, continuing to spread the word. Travel companies can position their brands in front of these targeted consumers, all 3.2 million of them. They can then monitor the conversations, gather all the feedback and measure the success of the campaign”.

Although the number of visitors is important, it is not the only requirement to make the Konector list. “When ranking the blogs we focus on three main criteria - reach, frequency and interaction,” says Kingsley Maunder, a Director at Konector. “We therefore use our proprietary Online Impact Factor to measure how many people visit a blog, how often they visit that blog, the time spent on the blog and how active they are once they get there.”

So what separates the top Travel blogs from the others?

Konector found many different types of travel blogs, ranging in style and content and identified that the more influential blogs focused on a particular element of the travel experience. Examples of such are Upgrade: Travel Better, aimed specifically at business and frequent flyers, GoBackpacking, which is the “go to site” for budget travelers and students, and Travel Savvy Mom for the family friendly destinations and hotels. Alternatively Go Visit Hawaii, Knowing Rome and India Travel Blog focus on particular destinations.

“Permanent tourist style blogs such as Hole in the Donut and Heather on her travels also ranked highly in the report,” says Maunder. “They connect on a personal level, both blogger and reader together in ways that glossy brochures and highly produced travel commercials can’t possibly match. Bloggers offer inspiration, travel tips, destination advice, travel news and beautiful photos. It is this immediacy and intimacy that makes this particular style of blog a very effective and highly influential medium for brand communications. Bloggers can interact and share their experiences with brands in “real time” influencing their readership and others to engage with a brand.”

Konector also learned that the top bloggers use all possible means to promote their sites and spread the word. “The majority of them use Twitter while some, like Where I’ve Been, 501 Places and My Itchy Feet, also use Facebook” says Ryder. “In addition several of the leading travel bloggers use rich video content to great effect, as shown by Heather on her Travels and Europe A La Carte. The huge advantage of this is that travel companies can also work with bloggers to promote their products on blogs and on popular social networks, significantly increasing brand awareness.”

About the Top Independent Travel Blogs and Bloggers report:

The Top Travel Blogs and Bloggers will give you a detailed analysis of the travel blogosphere and help you understand:
• Which blogs have the most impact in travel
• Which bloggers have the most impact on your audience
• Which bloggers have a captive audience most suitable for your target market (by demographic and location)
• Which bloggers promote and review products and services most suitable for your brand
The Top Independent Travel Blogs and Bloggers report will also give you insight into promoting your brand on social networks, including YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, giving you an opportunity to increase your exposure to this wider audience.

Detailed profiles of the blogs and bloggers are also included in the report. These will give you an idea about the person behind the blog and the most appropriate way to approach them. Where possible we have included the blog history and future plans, to give you insight into the stability and potential growth of the site.