I spend a lot of time everyday reading the travel industry tea leaves (press releases, blog posts, twitter feeds…), and there’s something funny going on the last month or so – people are talking about opportunities and ideas and product launches. When did the travel industry stop whining and pick itself up off the mat? All the roads lead back to Atlanta – where the U.S. Travel Association’s Travelcom ’09 was held from March 31- April 2.

Roger Dow at Travelcom

That doesn’t mean Roger Dow was handing out magic potion, but what the 40 or so high-profile speakers shared with the assembled delegates seems to have struck a chord. The speakers laid out clear and simple business practices which put them ahead of the competition and allowed them to cash in on untapped segments.

Here’s a brief round-up of the highlights of Travelcom ’09, including video interviews with CEOs present at the conference who talked to Elliott Ng, VP Marketing at Uptake.

First out of the gate was Forrester Research’s Henry Harteveldt, with a keynote entitled There’s No Room For Maybe. It was a call to action for the travel industry to overcome uncertainty and help consumers make more confident decisions and spend money on travel. The result? The Travelmuse Yaycations Calculator, which made a pretty big splash in the media.

I do believe that the Yaycations concept is a direct result of Harteveldt’s stirring call to action. And here’s the video interview with Travelmuse CEO Kevin Fliess while he was at Travelcom.

Another very well received speaker was Christine Petersen, CMO of TripAdvisor. She scored bigtime when she credited the Beatles as the role model for TripAdvisor’s strategy. TripAdvisor also won the Established Innovator Award at Travelcom. A lot of people present at the conference took their cues from TripAdvisor, and are working hard to re-tool their strategies in areas as diverse as meta-search, social media outreach and brand marketing, and international presence.

Tripit CEO Gregg Brockway, in this video interview, explains his vision for integration across systems and tying information together across travel providers, and shares his thoughts on the economy.

Dealbase CEO Sam Shank, who also founded TravelPost.com, outlined strategies for dealing with a challenging economy.

David Sifry, CEO/Founder of Offbeat Guides, served as the best role model for the travel industry’s new gung-ho spirit. In his video interview, he says “because he just started, his business has nowhere to go but up.” He calls this period of time the “new normal.”

This from the man who founded Technorati. Sifry’s Zen-like state of calm and sunny optimism about his foray into the cutthroat world of travel publishing, while in the middle of the biggest recession since the Great Depression, sets the tone for the travel industry. And the USTA and Travelcom organizers deserve credit for getting all these people together, so they could share their experience and vision, and help put the travel industry back on the right course.

Photo courtesy U.S. Travel Assocation – www.tia.org/

Eli Goodman is the evangelist for comscore.com. He offers insight on the travel behavior in the new travel economy. He offers recommendations and ideas to improve results for online travel.

About Eli Goodman

“Eli Goodman is the evangelist at Comscore.  He is a 10-year veteran of the technology and market research industry, with experience in marketing research, search, online media, and events.

Prior to joining comScore, Eli worked at Hitwise, where he honed his knowledge of the web analytics industry, specifically focusing on search projects related to retail, travel, financial services and publishing.

Eli began his career at Gartner, Inc. as a member of the business development team for the Research & Consulting division. In this capacity, he worked with technology vendors utilizing Gartner research for market sizing, product development direction and public relations.

Eli earned a BA in Organizational and Behavior Management from Brown University in Providence, RI and currently resides in New York City.”

Travelcom Related Posts:

• Kevin Fliess, TravelMuse, Video Interview
• Gregg Brockway, TripIt, Video Interview
• David Sifry, Offbeat Guides, Video Interview
• Travelcom 2009: TripAdvisor, “Going Here, There & Everywhere“
• Travelcom 2009 Keynote-”There’s No Room for Maybe”

Created by Elliott Ng

David Sifry, CEO/Founder of Offbeat Guides  is upbeat about the travel industry. He said, “because he just started, his business has nowhere to go but up.”  He calls this period of time the “new normal.”  This an interesting take from a successful entrepreneur.

About David L. Sifry – Founder and CEO
“Dave Sifry is a entrepreneur with over 20 years experience in the I.T industry.  Most recently, he founded Technorati, the largest blog search engine in the world, and was CEO from 2002-2007. He is Chairman of Technorati’s Board of Directors. Dave was a co-founder and the CTO of Sputnik. Prior to Sputnik, he was co-founder, CTO, and Vice President of Engineering at Linuxcare, Inc, having built Linuxcare’s services infrastructure. Dave is a recognized expert on leadership development, blogs and the massive changes in the digital media environment, Open Source development, and the Linux operating system. He is also the creator of Projectdocs, an online document management and collaboration service, and Hoosgot, a lazyweb service. He served on the founding Board of Directors of Linux International, the Advisory Board of the National White Collar Crime Center, and the Technical Advisory Board of the National Cybercrime Training Partnership for law enforcement. He has a B.S. in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University. Dave lived and worked in Kobe, Japan for Mitsubishi Electric, and speaks Japanese in a rusty kansai-ben. While he now lives in foggy San Francisco, one of his top travel destinations is Yosemite, in his hometown state of California, although the lure of London and Paris frequently beckons.”

Travelcom Related Posts:

• Kevin Fliess, TravelMuse, Video Interview
• Gregg Brockway, TripIt, Video Interview
  
• Travelcom 2009: TripAdvisor, “Going Here, There & Everywhere“
• Travelcom 2009 Keynote-”There’s No Room for Maybe”

Gregg Brockway, CEO of TripIt, discusses what keeps him awake at night in today’s economy with Elliott Ng, VP of Marketing at UpTake.com. He believes now is the time for a service like TripIt.com to emerge. His vision of interconnectivity between systems, easy integration, and tying information together across travel providers  is a vision that will clearly come to pass. The question is when.

About Gregg Brockway–Gregg is an online travel industry veteran, former co-founder of discount online travel company Hotwire and former president of Expedia’s luxury travel company Classic Vacations, Inc.  Prior to his work in the online travel industry, Gregg was a director at the private equity firm Hellman & Friedman and worked in the merchant banking group at Morgan Stanley & Company. Gregg received his MBA from Harvard Business School.

Travelcom Related Posts:

• Kevin Fliess, TravelMuse, Video Interview
• Sam Shank, Dealbase, Video Interview
  
• Travelcom, TripAdvisor, “Going Here, There & Everywhere“
• Travelcom Keynote-There’s No Room for Maybe