EyeforTravel’s Online Marketing Strategies for Travel USA conference is scheduled for June 2-3, 2010 at The Ritz-Carlton Coconut Grove in Miami, Florida.

EyeforTravel

This year’s event has added significance due the massive changes in the marketplace since last year’s conference, with an agenda focused on recession-induced changes in consumer trends, location-based targeting via mobile platforms, and the integration of search and social media.

A few highlights from the agenda:-

1. Analyze Key New Trends in US Travel Consumer Behavior - Among other things, this panel will discuss how the downturn and evolving technology have combined to impact how and where (OTAs, comparison sites, social media, etc.) consumers are looking for bargains.

Speakers:- Gregg Truman, VP Marketing, South African Airways
Natasa Christodoulidou, Assistant Professor of Marketing, California State University
Brian Payea, Trade Relations Manager, TripAdvisor

2. Improving Search performance - In addition to the debate over search budgets, keywords & video search, there’s also a couple more very interesting aspects to this panel.

Bing Travel’s Krista Pappas is one of the panelists talking about Google Maps dominating organic search listings and new Google features that might be lurking just around the corner. They’ll also discuss real-time search and the impact of the integration of twitter and other social media channels into search results.

Speakers:- Lynne DeRoche, Director of Search Marketing, Marriott International
Krista Pappas, Global Director & Head of Business Development, Bing Travel at Microsoft

3. Implementing Cost-effective Strategies to Engage Customers via Mobile Platforms - This panel answers questions about how customers want to engage with travel companies via mobile, designing travel apps and the associated ROI along with case studies.

Speakers:- Rob Torres, Head of Travel, Google
Bill Keen, Director of Product Development, IHG

Here’s a few excerpts of relevant comments made by the speakers in interviews with EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta, which should give you a taste of what you can expect at the conference.

Bill Keen: “Location is the holy grail of the mobile experience. If you know what customers are in your vicinity and you know a little about their travel preferences, you can yield at an optimal price.”

Rob Torres: “Google is seeing that mobile Hotel queries have grown almost 3000% in three short years. So, although there are some developing, not quite fully-baked parts of the platform, mobile is a must.”

Danielle Courtenay, CMO, Orlando CVB, talks about transitioning to and allocating resources for social media marketing: “A great way to try it out is launch for a specific promotion or an event. Then there is a clear start and end. If it is successful, the efforts can be transferred. If you decided it is not for you, you have a logical exit.”

Courtenay will be part of a panel discussing how to maximize returns on social media initiatives. The panel will offer a step-by-step guide to success, setting targets and measuring ROI. 

Here’s the full agenda for the conference. More info:- http://events.eyefortravel.com/online-marketing/

For our packed travel blogging panel at the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) tech conference in Austin, my co-presenter Pam Mandel and I put together a surprise for our attendees – a travel swag/gift bag.

We wanted to put some of our favorite goodies into the hands of our digitally-chatty attendees, so we included magazines that we’ve written for, information about books we like and products and services that we support (many of them based in Austin or Central Texas.)

So many companies were unfailingly gracious in response to our requests, and I’d like to show specifically why reaching out to online travel enthusiasts and travel bloggers is a good marketing and public relations move for a wide variety of businesses. Every link below is one more effort to land a roundhouse punch against “there’s not enough ROI (Return on Investment) in social media marketing.”

First, travel blogging panel attendees were enthused about getting an unexpected gift. From a SXSW overview blog post by content aggregators OneSpot:

“The travel blogging panel (#sxswtravel) had grab bags for each attendant ready on our chairs when we walked in. I felt like a Fashion Week attendee! The bag had better swag than the official Interactive [one] (did anyone else get the leather notepad [provided by Condé Nast Traveler.] How sweet was that!)”

Individuals at the panel reacted to the surprise bag on Twitter.

• Bill Hunt (a global marketing guy) liked it.
• Small business expert Becky McCray commented on it.
• Travel writer and Traveling Mama Shannon Hurst Lane talked about it.

Then, panel attendees tweeted about specific bag items.

• Many liked the sample pralines from local Austin company Lammes Candies – traveler CouchSurfingOri talked about the Lammes habanero praline, and so did hedge fund talent recruiter Kim Haynes and Download Squad tech writer CJClark.
• Krista Parry (Park City, Utah resorts PR and marketing) cheered the stickers provided by the Alltop.com Travel topic channel.
• Canadian travel internet marketing guru Todd Lucier was ready to cash in his bag’s Blue Bell Ice Cream free pint certificate, and he told his friends about it.
• The SXSWi Guide talked about Texas Highways magazine.
• And I talked about several of the companies – here’s my tweet on Austin SegCity Segway tours.

So what? What’s the reach?

Well, if you add up the Twitter follower numbers for each person that I’ve linked to above, that’s a total of 23,279 followers of just a few people tweeting about a tech conference giveaway bag.

The products and companies involved with this bag can also be searched and found on the the Flickr photo-sharing Web site, because I described the bag and linked to every contributor in:

• this photo of the contents (also seen at the top of this post.)
• this photo of Pam and I with the bags, recently also added to the City of Round Rock Flickr photo pool because their CVB provided the bags.
• this photo of the bags set out in chairs before the panel started, also now in the City of Round Rock pool.

(I threw in a Flickr photo of bag contributor Driskill Hotel’s historic bar, with a link to them, of course.)

Finally, this travel panel was not confined to listeners inside the Austin Convention Center; it had, and still has, a reach outside the room.

It was livestreamed to the Web via Qik on a cell phone. Travel enthusiasts around the world watched it as it happened (including my boss at the BootsnAll Travel Network, Sean Keener, who watched from New Zealand) and it’s now archived for anyone to see at any time:

• Part One of the panel video (119 views as of this date.)
• Part Two of the panel video (143 views as of this date.)

If a business is looking for a way to get eyes on their high-quality product or service AND take advantage of the power of Web and word-of-mouth marketing, I heartily recommend investigating how to connect with social media-savvy travelers.

Here are the Web sites of every company that contributed to the bag – smart marketing folks, every one of them.

*** Condé Nast Traveler
*** National Geographic Traveler
*** Texas Highways
*** Lammes Candies
*** Tesoros Trading Company
*** Blue Bell Creameries
*** BootsnAll Travel Network
*** Austin, Texas CVB
*** Round Rock, Texas CVB
*** SegCity Austin Segway Tours
*** Yapta ticket price tracking
*** Moo.com printing
*** Alltop.com
*** Driskill Hotel
*** Austin Museum of Art
*** “Historic Hotels of Texas” guidebook, by Liz Carmack
*** Office of the Governor, Texas Economic Development including Texas tourism
*** “Make Your Travel Dollars Worth a Fortune” guidebook, by Tim Leffel