I am constantly wondering what is happening in the travel industry.  I want to stay informed about trends, mergers, acquisitions, closings, deals and general industry news. I rely on industry periodicals like Travel Weekly and HotelMarketing and I look to the blogs.  Here is a list of my favorites from my “reader.”

Elliott.org offers travel information to protect consumers

1. Elliott.org–Written by Christopher Elliott, the blog’s purpose is to inform consumers about their rights, but it also informs me of travel industry trends. His writing is clean, crisp and witty.  Besides the blog, his site also features videos, his columns, and some great headlines like, “Repent, for the end is near! Hotel industry faces its doom.“  A quick scan of the home page will give you an overview of consumer issues and industry trends.  I think his invitation to sign up for an RSS is one of the most intriguing I have seen:

“They don’t want you to click here …Otherwise you might become the travel industry’s worst nightmare: an informed consumer. All the more reason to sign up for my RSS feed or daily e-mail updates. You’ll get the latest travel insights, tips and commentaries.”

T4 by Stephen Joyce

2. T4 Travel & Tourism, Technology & Trends is written by Stephen Joyce, a travel and tourism technology consultant and founder of Rezgo. It  offers a sweeping view of the travel industry and social media and as he says, “share with you some of my experiences as an innovator in this new world of connectivity and build connections for all tourism related businesses both large and small.  He covers industry events, offers site reviews and insights into the industry’s future.  Because he is both a consultant, a blogger and an entrepreneur, he offers a breadth of information on travel. Well worth following.

Jens Thraenhart

3. Tourism Internet Marketing Jens is a rising force in the travel industry and this description from his blog describes him well, “Jens Thraenhart is a globaI tourism and hotel strategist, with a focus on leveraging new media and emerging technologies, who has been marketing travel online since 1995.” He seems to be everywhere, doing all sorts of wonderful things.  I suggest you follow his Tourism Internet Marketing blog because that may be the best way to keep track of him and stay up-to-date on the industry. Claude Benard and Chris Clarke also contribute to this dynamic blog. Of note, Jens also seems to be good at identifying the new start-ups worth watching.

4.  The B.O.O.T- I discovered this blog just before he wrote about our private beta launch.  Tim writes from an insider perspective, (he works at Orbitz) and offers insights into all aspects of the travel industry or as he describes it, “puts the boot into the highs and lows of the online travel business (with an Australasian/Asian bias) with some blogging about consuming and loving travel thrown in.”  His recent post about twitter and the war on Mumbai is just one example of hst style and his insightful blogging.  He does need a logo though.

T-List member invitation

5.  Tips From the T-list–this is the best source of travel info:

“Tips from the T-List brings together the collective intelligence of dozens of influential travel industry bloggers from around the World. The blogs and the authors that are represented in this community are recognized online resources; they are the people the industry turns to for advice, recommendations, tips, and insider knowledge. By sharing their experience with you, these authors are providing you with an opportunity to embrace e-tourism in a new way. Our hope is that this community will provide inspiration and insights that help e-tourism efforts flourish.” They know who they are. Become a member now! UpTake is.

FareCompare

6. Rick Seaney, CEO of FareCompare.com says he discusses helpful travel tips but he really keeps me up to date on the airline industry’s ups and downs.  His short posts feature witty imagery, flowing copy and snippets of helpful information.  Airline news at its best.  Good examples of the type of information include recent posts about Virgin Airs thwarted attempts to get a gate or two at O’Hare and a post about airline scales being out of whack.

Hotel I Tour

7. Claude Benard from Hotel I Tour was one of the first bloggers I met via blogging. He has been very helpful to UpTake. He also covers the gamut of industry news including: etourism, travel 2.0, tourism, the hotel industry and travel technology. I especially like his interviews, analysis and tips & tips sections. You may be familiar with Claude, he  previously wrote for Les Explorers. He knows travel and offers a European perspective to the travel blogosphere.

Happy Hotelier

8.  Happy Hotelier is written by the happy hotelier himself, owner of the luxury hotel, Haagschesuites. This isn’t so much about the travel industry news nuts and bolts, but it is an entertaining blog celebrating travel written from a hotel owner’s perspective. As he say, “a Happy Hotelier with a keen interest in new developments in luxury travel, luxury hotels, luxury B&B’s, architecture, design, travel- and hotel gadgets, guest satisfaction, web design and web promotion of travel sites and hotel- and accommodation sites.” I think his blogroll is one of the best in the industry.  He is tapped into the travel and social media world.  He exemplifies how to promote a hotel through social media.  Based on his blog posts, I would bet his hotel offers an incredible experience.

Tourism Tide, a new favorite

9. Tourism Tide This is a recent favorite. I met Phil Caines at PhocusWright, he works at Rezgo, and discovered his blog. Phil describes his blog, “Tracking the ways consumers and businesses interact with Internet based travel technology. This blog is focused on marketing innovations, interviews and new wave (2.0+) solutions within the Tourism and Travel Industry. My favorite title is ‘All Hail the Google Overlords” maybe because that is how I feel about the awesome Google. It is a good post, too.

Travolution for another take on travel

10. Travolution is an great travel information site.  Their blog offers “More content from the Travolution team, including random commentary, interesting stuff we’ve seen elsewhere and our usual sideways look at the travel industry.”  I especially like the irreverent tone.  I usually stop by the site for news, too. The blog and the site are worth tracking.

11. Finally, just a reminder there are a couple of news sources you must subscribe to via email. I rely them on daily for up to date news on the travel industry, they are  Hotel internet Marketing and Travel Weekly.  Sometimes a good old fashioned news source is just what I need for blog fodder.

I realize I have missed some of the top blogs.  I hope you will send me some of your favorites.  We will add them to our blog roll, to our blog widget and I will add them to my reader.

ICANN crosses over to the Dark Side

To add to the already significant hit from a cratering economy, companies might be required to shell out millions more to protect their brand name from cybersquatters and fly-by-night operators. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which oversees the internet, is actively trying to push through implementation of generic top-level domains (gTLDs) by next year.

There are currently 21 gTLDs (not counting country-code TLDs) such as .org, .info and .biz. ICANN is seeking a radical expansion and commercialization of gTLDs. Anyone with $185k will be able to apply to operate a gTLD. While its a very vast subject with hydra headed ramifications for everyone who has anything to do with the internet, let’s limit the discussion to hotels.

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, Marriott International is considering acquiring the rights for Marriott.nyc, Marriott.travel and Marriott.vacations, in addition to .marriott. Oh, and let’s not forget .hotel. The article adds that a typical company would be required to buy up rights for about 200 of these, which pushes the cost to about $2 million. This is on top of the amounts that companies already spend for country level domains (.ca, .cn, .uk, .us, etc), typos and spelling variations (harbor, harbour, and so on).

If you don’t spend the money, and somebody else takes over, that’s a whole different mess altogether. Worst part is that there’s no positive aspect. The money spent is basically a protection racket. Web traffic is likley to be neglible to most of these domains, even with extensive marketing, so what most companies end up doing is to use a 301 re-direct to their main .com domain.

ICANN, of course, is desperate to push it through, and in fact, they just held a week-long meeting in Cairo, where the 1000 delegates in attendance provided feedback about the gTLD draft proposal, which is open for public comments until Dec 8.

Obviously you won’t find a hotel which supports the gTLD implementation, but a whole bunch are vocally opposing it, and even preparing for it. The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) just announced the addition of InterContinental Hotels Group to its membership. CADNA has a neat calculator which tells you how much your company could be losing from cybersquatting. Bet that calculator will go off the charts if the new gTLDs become available.

The good thing here is that ICANN’s gTLD push is connected to two other highly pressing issues - One is the internationalized domain names (IDN)  project, which weaves in non-Roman character languages. IDN when combined with gTLD will really radically alter the way the internet is used across the world. The second issue is ICANN’s upcoming agreement review with the US Commerce Department next September. ICANN wants to be independent of the U.S. government, so that it can pursue its ‘global vision’.

The point here is that gTLD, IDN and the agreement split all put together represent a threat to the U.S. dominance of the internet, not to mention that its a body blow for furthering the use of English on the internet. End of the day, the decision becomes a political one. And we all know what that means. Kicking the can down the road and maintaining the status quo.

Photo by Joi via flickr (creative commons).

UpTake selected as one of ten semantic web application to watch

Read/Write/Web discussed semantic applications yesterday in a blog post by Richard McManus and highlighted ten applications to watch-UpTake was one of them.  We are celebrating in our corner of the world.  We were selected along with nine other companies:

1. UpTake

2. Freebase

3. Powerset

4. Adaptive Blue

5. Twine

6.  Hakia

7.  Talis

8.  TrueKnowledge

9. TripIt

10.  Spock

As Richard concluded, “it’s an exciting sector right now, because Semantic Web and Web 2.0 technologies alike are being used to create new semantic applications. One gets the feeling we’re only at the beginning of this trend.”

If you are looking for more information about UpTake’s work, I recommend About UpTake and another post on RWW about our launch in May, it offers a description of our ontology.

Go semantic.