This year, experts predict that business travel will rebound to pre-9/11 levels for the first time. The National Business Travelers Association says there will be 219 million domestic business trips in 2005, up from 210.5 million in 2003 and awfully close to the 220 million made in 2000. This is good news for travel aggregators and suppliers alike - great news, really. But how do travel marketing executives leverage this upswing in terms of online marketing? Well, luckily there is even more good news: There are still plenty of stones left unturned in the online marketing arena, especially in the search engine marketing space (which I must say is the darling of the online marketing world). READ MORE

When was the last time your company made major changes to its web site? I'm not just talking about adding new specials or changing pricing; I mean some significant redesign. If you haven't done so within the past year or two, it is time. Recent research on hotel websites shows that consumer expectations of hotel sites are rising. So even if your site has not changed it may be starting to look bad versus the competition. And in the web world, you've got a lot of competition. READ MORE

The explosion of the "merchant model" after 9/11 caught the hospitality industry by surprise. Over the last 4 years many hoteliers have been struggling to decrease their dependence on the online merchants and to develop direct online distribution strategies of their own. Hoteliers are also trying to find answers to several critical questions: does the cost of doing business with online merchants outweigh the cost of not doing business with them? What will be those crucial developments in the online hospitality marketplace over the next five years and what can hoteliers do to prepare for and take advantage of them now? This paper provokes thoughts that may help shape executive decisions under the current circumstances. READ MORE

With more and more revenues in hospitality being generated from the Internet, predictions over the next three years from now will see the Internet contributing over 20% of all hotel bookings and convincingly surpassing total GDS bookings. With such an industrial shift toward the web, hoteliers need intelligence tools to measure performance against its competitive set on direct and indirect channels outside of the GDS. Hoteliers are in search of Internet intelligence reports that make sense. Here's what sales & marketing, and revenue managers should be asking in order to competently formulate their online pricing and inventory control strategy... READ MORE

A little over a year ago I published the article "Brand Erosion or How Not to Market Your Hotel on the Web", which created a lot of commentaries and, we hope, made at least some hoteliers re-examine their online distribution strategies. Since 9/11, in times of unprecedented crisis and continued economic downturn, the Web allowed Internet-savvy and proactive suppliers and intermediaries to establish rewarding interactive relationships with their customers, move inventory and stay ahead of the competition. At the same time it punished those suppliers who had no clear Internet strategy and understanding how the Web and online distribution work. What has changed since then? READ MORE