Travel Industry

In June 2009, New York based Oyster Hotel Reviews launch was announced, backed with $6.4 million in Series A funding from Bain Capital Ventures. Oyster’s plan: to provide professional hotel reviews for consumers, written by mainstream travel journalists after in-person visits to the property.

Oyster Hotel Reviews

They promptly hired 20 reporters and at least three editors, who were sent out to stay in and review hotels with all-expenses paid trips.

In September, Bain agreed to an extended $4 million Series A round, bringing the total to $10.4 million.

But $10 million doesn’t get you what it used to. As the year draws to a close, Oyster has dramatically changed its trajectory, with 17 staffers being laid off, including over half the reporters. Elie Seidman, Oyster CEO and co-founder, says the layoffs are part of a plan to focus on “winning in the markets we’ve already covered” and slow down the rate of new market coverage.

Fact remains that slow growth wasn’t part of the announced plans in September. This chapter in the Oyster story is one we have seen before: failure of travel editorial based exclusively on a direct-to-consumer model. Examples of prior failed editorial efforts: Gorp (now owned by Orbitz) and most recently in the rise and fall of Professional Travel Guide (formerly – owned by travel content giant Northstar Travel Media).  The issue isn’t whether a travel editorial site can create a compelling experience. They can. It’s that a direct-to-consumer (only) business model can’t support the editorial costs.

And perhaps direct-to-consumer (only) can’t even support the operating costs of a site when they get the content free. Despite getting “free” content from Northstar. Professional Travel Guide was unsuccessful.

Let’s clearly separate editorial-for-consumers-only businesses from other successful travel editorial businesses that are doing well.  NorthStar’s core business model is solid. They, and others like Frommers and Fodors have built lasting brands and profitable business models based on licensing and book sales. Others like 10Best and wcities are profitable solely licensing their content.  Supplier licensing drives the business model of other editorial companies like VFM Leonardo and Tripfilms.

As Oyster starts its search for additional funding and embarks on the path to profitability, it will rekindle the debate over user generated content vs. professional/editorial content (see Dennis Schaal, Troy Thompson, Pauline Frommer, Robert Flynn).

Oyster Hotel Reviews was differentiating itself from TripAdvisor as a source of authentic hotel reviews.

Oyster vs Tripadvisor

Professional Travel Guide’s failure and Oyster’s slowdown will likely tilt the favor in favor of the UGC proponents {disclosure: as a semantic search engine that searches over 5,000 sites including editorial sites like Frommers and Fodors as well as consumer UGC sites like Yahoo! Travel, TripAdvisor, we are agnostic in this debate – other then knowing different consumers want both types of content at different times but generally most want the ‘gestalt’ necessary to make a confident decision}.

The blogosphere hasn’t been kind to Oyster, but Oyster’s reviews are of very high quality and we hope Oyster is able to raise additional funding and create a viable business.

What do you think? Can standalone consumer-only travel editorial sites create a viable business? Or does new travel largely come from consumers in the future?

In a surprise announcement on Wednesday, 25th Nov, 2009, Dubai made it public that it was seeking a 6-month delay from creditors on about $60 billion worth of debt – mostly held by Dubai World and its real estate division  – Nakheel Builders.

In the US, their hospitality investments include the Mandarin Oriental and W hotels in New York, and a $375 million investment in the Fontainebleau Miami. Their biggest investment in the US hospitality sector is with MGM Mirage, where they plowed in nearly $6 billion in 2007 for a 50% stake in the City Center project and a 9.5% stake in MGM Mirage. 

City Center, Las Vegas

The 67 acre, $8.6 billion project is too big to fail, with the fortunes of tens of thousands of people in Las Vegas riding on it, not to mention the future of MGM Mirage, Las Vegas tourism and the political future of Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV).

For the record, MGM Mirage has put out a statement asserting that Dubai World’s decision to delay debt repayment does not change anything, including the phased opening schedule and operations which begin on Tuesday. The last thing that City Center needs now is talk about uneasy lenders.

To make matters worse, Dubai World has already tried once before to back out of its funding committments for the project. Dubai World’s subsidiary Infinity World, which is the on-paper partner with MGM Mirage, filed a lawsuit earlier this year in March, asking to be freed of its obligations.

Their reason for backing out was an SEC filing made by MGM Mirage on March 17  which stated that they “cannot provide assurance” that City Center would generate sufficient cash flow from operations to meet future payment obligations and other liquidity needs. Dubai World wanted out because they apparently believed MGM and City Center was heading in a -quote “unsustainable direction”.

Or they already knew Dubai had a big debt crisis about to blow, and the City Center lawsuit was one way of starting disengagement. Either way, MGM Mirage was in a soup.

Sen. Reid's City Center ad

Sen. Harry Reid and investor Kirk Kerkorian (who has a 37% stake in MGM Mirage) stepped in, and made calls to the banks and lenders, cobbling together a $1.2 billion financing package, which helped stave off a crisis at that point in March.

Sen. Reid has been running a campaign commercial touting how he saved City Center from being shut down by the banks and saved 20,000 jobs.

But now, as Dubai’s debt crisis hits Las Vegas, and Kerkorian – one of Sen. Reid’s close friends, says that he might reduce his stake, MGM Mirage is officially on it’s own now, with a massive project being unveiled one week after it’s partner country goes broke.

City Center photo by snowpeak

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The next time you visit Florida, the magnificent view of the Atlantic from Florida’s beaches may include drilling platforms under construction, with dead fish, oiled birds and tar balls lapping at your feet, along with the tide and the soft sand.

Oil Slicked Bird

That would be because of a tag team effort by offshore drilling proponents – one in the Florida State Legislature and the other one in the U.S. Senate.

State Legislation – The decision on whether to drill in Florida’s coastal waters (3-10 miles off the coast) is in the hands of the  State Legislature.

Florida’s House has already passed a bill authorizing this in April 2009, but the Florida Senate has not. They are going to take up the issue again in March 2010, and there’s a pretty good chance that it will pass this time.

Federal Legislation – The Climate Bill (S. 1462, American Clean Energy Leadership Act) being crafted in the US Senate to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has only one chance of getting bipartisan support – if it includes a provision to allow drilling 45 miles off Florida’s Gulf Coast and 25 miles south of Pensacola, in the Destin Dome area.

Currently, drilling for oil and gas is banned within 125 miles of the coast. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has already passed its version of the Climate Bill, which includes an amendment to overturn the ban.

These are the figures:-

Expected drilling royalties from inside Florida’s coastal waters – $1.5 billion per year. Benefits of federal offshore drilling outside the 10 mile zone – a price drop at the pump of 3 cents per gallon by the year 2030, according to the Energy Information Adminsitration (EIA).

Florida Tourism statistics for 2008, as per Visit Florida:-
Number of visitors:  84.2 million;
Total tourism spending:  $65.2 billion; 
Sales tax revenue from tourism:  $3.9 billion;
Number of people employed by Tourism Industry in Florida:  1,007,000

Out of the 84.2 million annual visitors, 33 million come for the beaches and coastal waters. And the marine fishing, boating, tourism, recreation and ocean transport industries bring over $400 billion every year to Florida, according to the Florida Oceans and Coastal Resources Council.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita caused over 743,000 gallons of petroleum products to spill offshore and 457 pipelines to break, according to the U.S. Minerals Management Services.

Given the severity of Florida’s hurricane season, this is a problem which Florida – and their visitors, will have to live with, if they authorize offshore drilling. Due to Florida’s fast moving loop current, even a relatively small oil spill would pose a threat to the Florida Keys and end up polluting the Southeast Florida beaches.

If Florida passes its drill bill, it will be under the assumption that the benefits outweigh the risks.

To be fair, Florida Senate President Jeff Atwater has called for a comprehensive review of the implications of drilling, to be done by agencies  not associated with the oil industry. But that might be a moot point, if the US Senate’s Climate Bill includes a provision to allow offshore drilling.

And one more important point – Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is running for the US Senate next year. And he now supports drilling, which means he could very well end up persuading both the Florida Legislature and the US Senate to authorize offshore drilling.

Photo by marinephotobank

On Tuesday, SPI – the Plastics Industry Trade Association, announced that it is dumping Chicago, and shifting NPE – their plastics industry trade show, to the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida for 2012 and 2015.  

McCormick Place, Chicago

Founded by SPI in 1946, NPE has taken place at Chicago’s McCormick Place since 1971.

The organizers justified the move to abandon Chicago by citing savings of over $20 million for both exhibitors and attendees, with more than half of that coming from lower travel related expenses in Orlando, including for hotel rooms, restaurant meals and parking.

SPI conducted a study this year by comparing costs of the 2009 show in Chicago – which was held in June with 44,000 attendees and total spending on the local economy worth over $95 million, against projected costs for NPE2012 in Orlando. Turns out they would end up saving 23% on lodging and 11% for travel.

SPI’s announcement comes on the heels of a similar backout by the Healthcare Information & Management Systems Society, which shifted its 2012 venue from Chicago to Las Vegas.

Orlando and Las Vegas, which have seen their own share of lost conventions and corporate events over the last year due to the AIG Effect, will no doubt be happy to be at the recieving end for once – and hopefully, this will serve as an example to other corporate groups, and put an end to the AIG Effect.

As for Chicago (and other labor strongholds), this signals the start of a ‘Reverse AIG Effect.’ At a time when destinations and travel companies are offering heavy discounts and deals to attract Conventions and kick-start the Meetings & Events sector, labor strong-holds are being left behind due to the inability to cut costs and reduce workforce.

Chicago Mayor Daley called the loss of the NPE and HIMSS trade shows “a very serious loss” and called for changes at McCormick Place – Chicago’s Convention Center. In response, officials from McPier – which operates the convention center, and ChooseChicago – Chicago’s Convention Bureau, are meeting on Wednesday with Labor and representatives for the city’s restaurant and hotel owners.

This joint taskforce is expected to set aside their differences and come up with a plan to make McCormick Place and Chicago a more competitive destination for Conventions and trade shows.

For the workers, it looks like a no-win situation – They’ll have to give up hard-fought ground on a host of issues – from work rule changes to benefits, layoffs and unionization - if they agree to cooperate. And if they don’t – they’ll likely end up losing  more jobs in the future and having to make even bigger concessions, as other trade shows and conventions follow suit and give up on Chicago.

Photo by Rob Jacob

Elliott Ng will represent UpTake during  the PhocusWright 2009 Conference, Blogger Summit Town Hall on Wednesday, November 18th at 9:00 a.m. Ten topics were suggested by the panelists for discussion during a planning meeting a few weeks ago. We decided to collect the best posts and  examples about each subject and showcase them. We hope this series lends itself to more insightful discussion during the Town Hall presentation.–Patricia Jenkins, Editor

Why do people blog, or read blogs? If you restrict the discussion to travel blogs, it gets rather interesting. Here’s a breakup and some examples of the different types of travel blogs, which should offer some answers as to their utility for both consumers and the industry.

Bootsnall

UGC Blog Networks – Where every traveler and blogger is also the consumer. Examples include TravBuddy, Bootsnall and Real Travel. Members publish travelogues, and others read it. Provides authentic destination and attraction reviews for consumers, and this aggregated UGC database is what travel content providers are looking at as a source for travel guides.

Gadling

Company Owned Blogs – These blogs aim simply to inform and interact with visitors, and engage the community. Examples include Worldhum, Gadling and Jaunted. As far as consumers are concerned, they get the latest travel news, reviews and trends.

Worldhum belongs to the Travel Channel which Scripps is buying from Cox Communications, Gadling is part of the Weblogs Inc. Network which belongs to AOL, and Jaunted is part of SFO Media which in turn is a part of Conde Nast. Inspite of the tangled corporate web, these blogs are stand-alone, in the sense that the business model is based on revenue from ads, and not as part of a larger strategy to promote the parent company.

UpTake

Travel Company Blogs – Where the blog is part of an overall corporate strategy for brand promotion and marketing. Examples include UpTake’s blog network (more details here), and the Oyster Hotel Reviews blog.

 Of special note is the photo fake-out section on the Oyster blog, where they show side-by-side pictures of promotional images put out by a hotel, and the real ones taken by Oyster’s own reviewers. This section on their blog has gained Oyster lots of free publicity and media references.

Travel Rants

Consumer Travel Blogs – Focused on issues important to real travelers – complaints, problems with service, solutions to make travel easier, etc. Examples include Christopher Elliott’s Elliott.org and Darren Cronian’s Travel Rants.

These blogs form a bridge between consumers and the industry, and offer an outlet for consumers to voice their complaints and get some response from an errant company. 

Marriott on the Move

Corporate Blogs – Blogs run by corporate executives of a travel company as part of a marketing strategy to improve brand visibility, put forward a human face as a representative of the company, and aid traffic acquisition.

Best example is the Marriott on the Move blog authored by Bill Marriott, which has accounted for $5 million in sales for Marriott International.

More examples include  Arthur Frommer Online, which is providing a whole new level of visibility to Frommer’s Travel Guides; and Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein’s Why Not blog, which aims to take visitors into a behind-the-scenes look at Royal Caribbean’s ships. 

Goldstein has been providing running commentary on the progress of ‘Oasis of the Seas’ – the world’s biggest cruise ship which set sail from Finland on its maiden voyage, and is expected to berth in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. on Nov 13.

These corporate blogs also provide an excellent platform for the company to convey its vision to, and communicate with, the company’s own employees.

Visit Florida blog network

DMO Blogs – For blogs run by Destination Management Organizations (DMOs), the main objective is to introduce the destination to prospective visitors.

When the information comes via a blog with an individualistic voice and offers something more than the usual boiler-plate, it makes the DMO – and the destination, seem that much more attractive.

Examples include Visit Florida’s Travel Insiders blog network, GoPhila’s uwishunu.com and San Francisco’s Foodie411 blog.

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Elliott Ng will represent UpTake during the PhocusWright 2009 Conference, Blogger Summit Town Hall on Wednesday, November 18th at 9:00 a.m. Ten topics were suggested by the panelists for discussion during a planning meeting a few weeks ago. We decided to collect the best posts and examples about each subject and showcase them. We hope this series lends itself to more insightful discussion during the Town Hall presentation.–Patricia Jenkins, Editor

The battle of bloggers vs journalists ended a long time ago. Simply put, journalism got taken to the woodshed. Which is why we’re talking about the blending of blogging and journalism. The MSM (mainstream media magazines) have since taken to blogging with a passion, backed up by massive resources, big brand names and the reporting and writing skills that journalists possess.

On the other hand, individual bloggers who have never seen an AP-stylebook or a grumpy editor in their life are increasingly being considered as respectable sources for breaking news and analysis, aided by the viral nature of social networking which heavily favors the voice, passion and timely news offered by bloggers and citizen journalists.

The two sides are heading towards a convergence which is still a work in progress, the rules for which are being made up along the way. A few examples from the travel industry which throw some light on this ongoing convergence:-

LA Times

Jen Leo (Los Angeles Times) – Jen Leo is the star of the LA Times’ Daily Deal blog, which offers a mix of breaking travel news, deals and special offers, and reviews of hotels and destinations.

For LAT readers and other travel media professionals, Jen Leo is a blogger. But as far as travel companies who are the subject of the news are concerned, Jen Leo is a journalist and a reporter for the LA Times.

NY Times

New York Times – Probably the best example of how the MSM has co-opted blogging and turned it into a cocktail of traditional journalism on a blog platform. When you read a post by Matt Gross – The Frugal Traveler, or on Globespotters, In Transit or The Times Traveler, you wouldn’t be wrong in saying that the Times has some amazing bloggers. But it’s not as simple as that.

This excellent Venturebeat piece explains how a blog post published on an NYT blog is a team affair – “Times bloggers don’t work on their own. They don’t handle every aspect of their blogs. Who does what is divided up to bring specific expertise to bear on different parts of each post.” And the team effort continues even after the blog post is published, with promotional efforts on the site and on social networks being divvied up.

TSA Scanning

Nicole White – Freelance writer who runs a personal blog got embroiled in a massive controversy last month, when she accused the TSA of ‘taking her child.’ The blogosphere piled on the TSA in support of Ms. White, and the story quickly went viral. Then the TSA released video which categorically disproved most of the accusations.

Fact remains that no one checked the facts, and almost every major travel blog picked up the story and hit the TSA hard, accepting Ms. White’s version of events on face value. This wouldn’t have happened back in the days when the MSM didn’t publish anything until it got cross-checked and the sources verified.

Press Trips, Freebies & Junkets – Should a blogger accept freebies & junkets? If not, then it becomes virtually impossible to make an in-person visit to a destination before writing a review. Jeremy Head, Tnooz, laments the fact that he was “recently offered $300 to write a 1,500-word feature about El Salvador by a major UK national newspaper. Not just to write it, but to go there, do the trip, take the notes, come home, write it up. And no expenses either.”

Basically, journalists from major magazines and lowly freelance bloggers are now on an almost equal footing, as far as freebies are concerned. And if it is ok to accept freebies as a necessary evil, should there be a disclosure about it included in the post? As per a recent FTC ruling, “the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement” and needs to be disclosed, or face a $11,000 violation.

Offbeat Guides

Travel Guidebooks based on Blogs – Books and reviews in big magazines published by well-known writers who travel the world are now giving way to travel content sourced from local blogs.

David Sifry’s OffbeatGuides, which allows you to create custom travel guides, sources its information from the internet, and combines it “with information from established authors and thousands of locals who are always updating the information about where they live.”

Tnooz

Blog Networks hiring Journalists – Until recently, popular bloggers were snapped by the MSM and put to work as journalists. But nowadays, with newspapers everywhere shutting down or downsizing, it is the blog networks that are doing the hiring.

Tnooz editor Kevin May, with a 16 year background in journalism, says that Tnooz has “a mixture of professional journalists and a range of industry bloggers and other experts in the sector. And, for me, there is no distinction between them all. They all produce unique content for Tnooz and in turn reach a wider and global audience.”

La Times Building photo by Omar Omar; NY Times building photo by alextorrenegra; TSA photo by hughelectronic; Logos courtesy Offbeat Guides & Tnooz.

Elliott Ng will represent  UpTake during the PhocusWright 2009 Conference, Blogger Summit Town Hall on Wednesday, November 18th at 9:00 a.m. Ten topics were suggested by the panelists for discussion during a planning meeting a few weeks ago. We decided to collect the best posts and examples about each subject and showcase them. We hope this series lends itself to more insightful discussion during the Town Hall presentation.–Patricia Jenkins, Editor

How does social media marketing fit into your overall marketing plan? How to get corporate execs to buy into social media as part of your strategy? Some of the examples provided below demonstrate how corporate execs are warming up to social media marketing and factoring it into an overall strategy.

Lonelyplanet

Lonely Planet (www.lonelyplanet.com/) – The dominant publisher of travel guide books is rapidly shifting from books written by LP writers to digital content partly aggregated from the community.  As a result, Lonely Planet has been ramping up their Thorn Tree Community Forum, factoring it into the future development of their main business, and encouraging their website visitors, guide book readers and purchasers to become contributors.

Lonely Planet CEO Matt Goldberg says the shift in focus towards the community and digital content is part of a plan to provide solutions to consumers’ needs, instead of being only a content provider.

Carnival

Carnival (www.carnival.com) – The Carnival Cruise Line, as mentioned here, is aggregating UGC on Twitter and Flickr published by cruise passengers while on-board Carnival’s ships, and keeping up the engagement via John Heald’s blog, and CarnivalConnect.com - an in-house social media platform for their community, and FunShipIsland.com – an interactive virtual tour. All three sites now routinely bring in over 1 million visitors each, and are being used by Carnival for strategic brand positioning.

But it didn’t start like that. John Heald started blogging to create buzz for the launch of a new ship. CarnivalConnect was launched to encourage guests to send invitations to their friends and family. Carnival saw the potential across these platforms, and merged it all into an overall strategy of showing new visitors what’s happening on board, and allowing new and prospective visitors to engage with loyal customers via social media.

Banff

Banff Lake Louise Tourism (www.banfflakelouise.com/) – BLLT was chugging along like most other tourism organizations in Canada, when the Banff Crasher Squirrel popped into a photo and triggered a viral tsunami wave on social media platforms – over 300 blog-posts, 5,000+ tweets, and 650+ facebook posts.

BLLT understood the potential early, and set up a YouTube video, a twitter account for the squirrel, and a Facebook page, along with a search-engine marketing campaign with keyword “squirrel.” End result – $3 million in ad value, reaching out to 80 million people in North America and Europe via online channels, print and TV. The squirrel is now on billboards marketing Banff, and has established a permanent presence on social media platforms.

Affinia

Affinia Hotels (www.affinia.com/) – For hotels wanting to wade into social media marketing, Affinia offers a valuable lesson – It’s all about listening, and responding on time. They’re all over Twitter, talking to their guests, offering assistance and answering queries.  Their My Affinia program allows guests to customize and pre-select in-room amenities – from pillows to iPods. Items are added on to this list or modified based on the feedback that the Affinia reps get from the social media chatter. 

Another good example of a hotel implementing social media marketing as part of an overall strategy is the Roger Smith hotel – details here. The fact that Chris Brogan gives them high marks for listening to their customers and being social-media savvy is a testament to their success at playing the game.

Southwest

Southwest (www.southwest.com/) – Southwest Airlines looks at social media as an extension of their customer engagement offline. Their ‘Nuts About Southwest’ blog is a lot more popular than any blog owned or run by any other airline. The Blog-o-spondent video contest run on the blog went massively viral last year. The blog is updated constantly by a team of Southwest employees.

Newly uploaded videos can be seen every week on Southwest’s  youtube channel. Thousands of networked Southwest employees form a web that stretches into every corner of Linkedin. Jeremy Jameson, Corporate Strategist,  Strategic Planning for Southwest Airlines, says that the social media success is simply an online extension of their corporate culture of engaging in authentic relations and conversations with customers.

Virgin Atlantic

Virgin Atlantic (www.virgin-atlantic.com/) – Richard Branson’s mothership offers a valuable lesson in course correction. After taking flak last year over the firing of 13 employees who posted derogatory remarks about customers on Virgin’s corporate Facebook page, Virgin seems to have retooled their approach.

The airline now has a cross-functional Social Spaces Forum group comprised of personnel from eCommerce, PR, customer relations, product and service, marketing etc. The team works closely to understand the social marketplace, shape the direction for activity in social spaces and develop a framework for the business in this area, according to Allison Wightman, Head of Marketing Systems, Virgin Atlantic Airways.    

United

United (www.united.com/) – Again, a lesson in how to turn around a bad situation on the social media networks. Only, United hasn’t done it yet. I’m sure you’ve heard the viral Dave Carroll video on Youtube, which the Canadian singer created after United broke his guitar and refused to pay for it.

In a similar situation, Electronic Arts was hit with a user-uploaded video of a glitch in their game which showed Tiger Woods walking on water. EA promptly responded to this with a professional ad video featuring  Tiger walking on water, which in turn again went viral and nullified all the negative impact of the first video.

As Julie Sturgeon notes, the right approach for United would have been to co-opt Dave Carroll and turn it into an ad, or put out a video of their own in response. 

AA

American Airlines (www.aa.com) – American isn’t usually counted amongst the savvy kids on the social media block, but they have taken a right step with the creation of BlackAtlas.com – a community site offering travel insights from an African-American perspective. No other airline has a brand community like this, and it should go a long way towards helping AA score some much needed social media creds.

According to Roger Frizell, American’s vice president of corporate communications, they’re planning a site in 2010 which would collect in one place all the social media videos and chatter about AA. American, he says, intends to be a part of the conversation, instead of just letting it happen without them. 

Wyndham

Wyndham (www.wyndham.com/) – Again, Wyndham is probably the only hotel group to offer a community site – Womenontheirway.com – which aims simply to foster a sense of community among female travelers.

This community goes a long way towards humanizing Wyndham and adds a touch of gentleness  to the corporate image.

Elliott Ng will represent UpTake during the PhocusWright 2009 Conference, Blogger Summit Town Hall on Wednesday, November 18th at 9:00 a.m. Ten topics were suggested by the panelists for discussion during a planning meeting a few weeks ago. We decided to collect the best posts and  examples about each subject and showcase them. We hope this series lends itself to more insightful discussion during the Town Hall presentation.–Patricia Jenkins, Editor

It’s hard to overstate the importance of being able to game the media and keep your company in the news. But at the end of the day, this is a losing proposition - there’s a limit to the number of press releases, interviews and travel columns you can  squeeze out of the media before they get tired of your PR pitches.

To get past the traditional media barriers, some travel companies are straddling the divide between making the news and breaking it – by becoming a part of the media. The travel companies listed below are the ones who are stealing the media’s mojo and beating them at their own game.

Cheapflights

CheapFlights (www.cheapflights.com/) – CheapFlights has a news section where you’ll find plenty of breaking news. It’s not just about air travel - they write about all things travel – hotels, vacations, legislation, destinations, etc. Even more important – the news really is breaking news, and they consistently publish it before everyone starts weighing in.

Bing

Bing (www.bing.com/) – Microsoft’s Bing Travel hosts a community travel blog with some big-name contributors, including Pauline Frommer, Peter Greenberg, Joel Grus and Rick Steves.

  Entries from this blog are getting a lot of exposure in discussions of hot topics in the news, and it’s quite safe to say that this is one of the things that Bing is doing right. 

Uptake

UpTake (www.uptake.com/) – The sum of it is that the traditional media approach was found lacking, so UpTake took a large part of its PR budget, and launched a blog network with 7 blogs and 50 bloggers, as part of a plan to inflict lethal generosity on the travel industry.

UpTake co-founder Elliott Ng explains it in this Businessweek piece – “Now we’re breaking industry stories… covering other companies’ launches… getting invited to cover conferences as bloggers. We’ve built real relationships with people in the media rather than just pitching stories.”

CarRentals, UK

CarRentals, UK (www.carrentals.co.uk/) – Has a news section, entries from which have started turning up in breaking news alerts of late. The news section features stories from a wide range of subjects, most of which have something to do with either travel or the UK or both.

Rogersmith

Roger Smith Hotel (rogersmith.com/) – Take a look at Roger Smith Life and Roger Smith News and you’ll find that everything – the news, the art and all the people – leads you right back to the hotel in New York. And the connections are a lot deeper than just plain talk.

Earlier this year, they ran an ‘experiment’ where a couple from the UK was put up in a storefront recreation of one of the hotel’s suites. Basically, the couple was living in a see-through glass room on the street in New York City, and it was an art experiment by Roger Smith Life covered by Roger Smith News which brought in huge publicity for the Roger Smith hotel. 

Hilton

Hilton (www1.hilton.com/) - Hilton’s Homewood Suites recently launched a family travel blog and community site named SuiteTrip.com. In their own words, “SuiteTrip.com is your go-to guide for everything family travel-inspired.” 

Another Hilton outreach is into Travelskoot’s Videos (www.travelskoot.com/hilton) - Hilton provides destination videos featuring concierges working at Hilton hotels in these destinations.

Starwood

Starwood (www.starwoodhotels.com/) - Starwood runs a blog for its SPG members, called The Lobby, which is more of a traditional travel blog talking about destinations and attractions from all over the world, rather than just a Starwood blog talking about Starwood hotels and resorts.

Related Posts:- Some Travel Companies Just Get It

Orbitz Blogger Day

By Whit Honea, Vacations Blog Editor

Orbitz Worldwide hosted their first annual Blogger’s Day early this week at their headquarters in the beautiful city of Chicago.

Orbitz was an incredibly gracious host and really went out of their way to ensure the comfort and enjoyment of all their guests, which included some of the biggest travel blogs on the web today (yes, even us!).

There are a lot of big things on the horizon for Orbitz and they were kind enough to share them with us, unfortunately they made us pinky swear not to cover all of it.  Something about swimming and cement shoes.

What we can discuss is the excitement and passion that is Orbitz and how it runs throughout the entire company.  They are generally giddy over the news regarding their change in Orbitz fee policy.  They are obsessed with hotels and customer service.  Technology drives them.  Also, coffee.

Barney Harford, the Orbitz President and CEO gave us a good portion of his day and he was happy to do so.  He even laughed at my jokes, which was probably forced and mere politeness, but I’ll take it.

In addition to Mr. Harford we were able to chat with Sam Fulton (Group Vice President, Retail), Chris Brown (VP, Product Strategy), Carolyne Crawford (Sr. Director, Customer Relations/Training), Roger Liew (VP, Technology), Julie Szudarek (VP, Strategy and Planning), Brian Hoyt (VP, Communications and Government Affairs), Eric Brodnax (VP/General Manager, The Away Network), Jan Lofgren (VP, Account Management and Development – Orbitz for Business), Chris Hills (Air Traffic Lead Team) and many others, including Kate who does a lot of the blogging and social media for Orbitz.

A special thanks, hence her own paragraph, goes to Marita Hudson Thomas, for everything.

Stay tuned to UpTake for more on Orbitz news and hovercrafts.

Jalapeno writing

If you are interested in more than just travel, I recommend you skip down this page and open a few links.

Go direct. Take a little tour of the blogosphere where bloggers write for themselves and reveal their lives and interests with unedited opinions and unwavering honesty from insights into managing a mid-life crisis, to being a foodie and yes, some kid and family travel tales too.  You will find all kinds of tones from sweet and kind to piquant and sharp.

Still curious? For everything you wanted to know about each of our blogs including insights from each UpTake editor about their blog, their writers and their plans for the future, check out their intro pages and meet the UpTake writers:

• Whit on The Vacation Blog tells about his bloggers’ of leisure.
• Gudrun on the Attractions Blog gives an intro to the Attraction blog writers and where they live to prove we are really local.
• Sebastien discusses beaches, beach bars, everything beachy. I think he and Barbara are a little obsessed.
• Colleen promises details, stories and off-kilter anecdotes on hotels.
• Nancy offers the best lodging tips in the U.S.A on the lodging blog.
• Alison shares savory excursions on the Restaurants blog.
• Travel Industry News, this blog, is our corporate blog and the UpTake corporate team will be offering our opinions on the travel industry, travel and technology and events.

I suggest you take a little trek through the UpTake blogs for some new takes on travel.