TRAVELODGE EXCHANGES ON 10 NEW HOTELS FOR £47M

Travelodge, the UK's fastest growing hotel chain, has today announced the exchange of 10 new hotels at a combined investment value of £47 million.

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TRAVELPORT WINS PRESTIGIOUS SCOTTISH TRAVEL INDUSTRY AWARD

Travelport, one of the world's leading providers of global distribution systems (GDS), has won the accolade of ‘best technology provider' at the Scottish Passenger Agents' Association (SPAA) Annual Travel Awards held in Glasgow on 5 November.

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FULL CIRCLE TRAVEL LAUNCH NEW LUXURY WEBSITE

Full Circle Travel have launched their new luxury website www.fullcircletravel.co.uk. The new Full Circle Travel website uses CSI Media's Travelmodule content management system technology. Travel enquiries are generated online and the independent travel agent is then able to sell in-house packaged deals.

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TRAVELBEAM LUXURY HOTELS LAUNCH NEW WEBSITE

Travelbeam Luxury Hotels, a specialist tour operator based in Cheshire, has launched its latest luxury hotels website, Travelbeam.co.uk.

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BRITISH AIRWAYS AND TRAVELPORT SIGN NEW LONG-TERM CONTENT DEAL

Travelport, one of the world's leading providers of global distribution systems (GDS) and operator of both the Galileo and Worldspan platforms, is the first GDS provider to reach a new long-term, global full content agreement with British Airways.

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Rich content 'more cost-effective than PPC'

Rich content is now one of the most important techniques for driving consumers to websites from natural search results.

Speaking at the ‘Connect to Content’ session at World Travel Market, Frommer's Unlimited general manager Joel Brandon-Bravo said natural search had become the biggest battleground for travel companies.

He also estimated that website content requires about half the investment of cost-per-click advertising.

Read more at Travolution

Metasearch sites travel conversion rates 4 times higher than Google

Online travel companies are devoting marketing funds away from Google Adwords to metasearch specialists, according to one expert.

While consumers may initiate a hotel search on the search giant they are then drawn to metasearch specialists such as kayak and hotelscombined to gain an overview.

Wouter Blok, chief marketing officer of easytobook said the company has been receiving 30% of its traffic from metasearch sites since the beginning of the year. He expects this to increase to 50% of traffic in the near future.

He said: “We’re now seeing a strong increase from all the metasearchers and the quality of traffic is where it is starting to change. Consumers can choose a number of deals that go through to sites like ours and land on the hotel page with the hotel room, the price they saw on the metasearch site and the availability. It’s very transparent.”

He added that the conversion ratio increases fourfold with traffic from metasearch sites and that Hotelscombined is currently one of easytobook’s biggest affiliate partners.

From Travolution

TRAVEL SEARCH ACTIVITY RISES DESPITE RECESSION

According to Google, the number of online travel searches has continued to grow despite the ongoing global recession.

Speaking at travel trade show World Travel Market yesterday, Google head of travel Europe, Middle East and Africa Andrew Pozniak said in the more mature markets, such as the UK and and Germany, percentage growth of travel searches for 2008/09 matched the growth in 2007/08.

However, Pozniak tempered the positive news by suggesting that more people are searching but less are booking, saying "Activity rates have increased solidly, but conversion rates have been tougher".

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TRAVEL MARKETERS CANNOT AFFORD TO IGNORE INTERNET VIDEO SAYS HOLIDAYRENTAL.TV OWNER

With comScore Video Metrix announcing that more than 168 million U.S. Internet users watched nearly 26 billion videos online during September 2009, Mark Scriven, owner of vacation rental video portal HolidayRental.tv, believes that the time has come for travel marketers to take online video marketing more seriously..

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HOTELLY.COM PREDICTS THE END OF THE 'STAYCATION' PHENOMENON

Travel comparison site Hotelly.com has predicted the end of the staycation phenomenon for Brits who are hacked off with the barbecue summer that failed to appear this year.

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ACTIVITIES ABROAD ANNOUNCE A NEW TWIST ON THE WINTER WEDDING

Winter weddings have long been popular, but activity breaks specialist Activities Abroad have really put the ‘WINTER' into winter weddings by announcing a new line of trips to unique and romantic arctic destinations in both Finland and Sweden.

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BON VOYAGE LTD OFFERING FREE FLIGHT UPGRADES ON UNITED AIRLINES

For a very limited period Bon Voyage are offering free one-way flight upgrades with United Airlines flights from the UK to destinations throughout the USA.

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QUALITY VILLAS TO INCREASE HOLIDAY RENTAL PORTFOLIO IN MOROCCO IN RESPONSE TO GROWING DEMAND

More and more people are discovering Morocco as the perfect holiday destination, with the country recording an 8% increase in holidaymakers in the first half of 2000. Holiday rental specialist Quality Villas is responding to this growth in demand by expanding their property offering.

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CORPORATE EVENTS TRAVEL COMPANY 925 ALIVE OFFERING THE ULTIMATE COMPANY CHRISTMAS PARTY EVENT

925 Alive, a UK based corporate events travel company, announces the launch of a novel way to entertain, motivate and reward employees this Christmas with their action packed weekend breaks in the stunning winter expanses of North West Finland.

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PURPLE SKIs LATEST CHALET DEFINES ALPINE LUXURY

Purple Ski is already a by-word for luxury chalets among the regular visitors to the beautiful ski resort of Meribel, France. Its latest addition, Chalet Foinsbois, sets a new standard in this world-renown ski destination.

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