Online travel is becoming extremely popular, and Orbitz travel is taking the lead in addressing the issue of travellers wanting to know more details about their preferred destination by introducing live destination specialists. 

Potential travellers can access these destination specialists by going to Orbitz.com.  Any queries regarding the travellers preferred destination will be answered by a local destination specialist, and if required the specialist could put together the perfect travel package.

This is something that the South African Travel Industry could implement giving international and local travellers an opportunity to interact with someone who knows the local community.

Go to Hotelmarketing.com to read more.

Consensus at the 41st Annual International Advertising Association’s World Congress was that more focus will be placed on using digital-creative to engage users rather than to just advertise to them. 

It is clear that technology plays a huge role in attracting potential customers or clients to buy products or services or experiences that we want to sell online. Is South Africa and the rest of Africa aware of their clients and customers online needs?

Read more on “What’s Coming Next” at Advertising Age, (must be logged in).

It seems like the international market is moving towards simplicity and focus on service delivery. Read what top brains in the Hotel Industry predict for the future of Hotels at Times Online.

In today’s online marketing world the big tourism brands cannot afford to hide from new marketing channels that have evolved as consumers spend more time online.  Bill Marriott, Chairman and CEO of Marriott International took the chance and entered the Bloggosphere world in January 2007, creating quite a stir from within the blogging community and the media. The blog, Marriott On The Move, has been a great success, creating brand awareness, a channel for customers to communicate with him as well as generating revenue for the business.Bill Marriott has proved that blogging can be a successful marketing tool for business. Are African travel business using this tool effectively enough?

Read more at IdeaHatching

Expedia is offering exclusive deals to qualified tax payers, following a recent survey that revealed more than 51% of Americans are likely to spend their upcoming tax rebate on travel or vacation. This is according to Expedia, their way of adding a bit of stimuli to the US economy, which starting in May will return up to $600 to individual taxpayers or $1,200 to those filing joint returns.

A very clever marketing ploy by Expedia - it would be interesting to see how many people actually use their tax rebates for travel or vacation.  Hopefully some of that will be spent on long haul African destinations.

To read more on Expedia’s Tax Rebate Packages go to HotelMarketing

The boom in social networking websites such as Facebook, MySpace, bebo, WAYN continues unabated. The increase in traffic and time spent on these social networking websites is competing for the time and attention of web visitors. This is affecting the online travel industry as it has affected many online players, including the all powerful Google. There are over 250 travel applications on Facebook alone and they generate huge usage.

Africa has yet to present a truly compelling travel social network and yet it is filled with young, mobile Internet-savvy backpackers and gap year students. Is there an opportunity?

Read more on the impact of Social networking on search at Search Engine Watch

The latest Wikipedia tool reveals that an enormous number of people are searching for information on travel companies. This is a sign that consumers want as much information as possible on a product or company before buying, whether it is out of uncertainty or pure curiosity, we don’t know. What we do know though is that hundreds of thousands of people used Wikipedia to search various travel related companies in February 2008 alone…

Travel companies must ensure that their brand is being well represented online and that information on their products and services is up to date wherever it is being published online. How many travel companies are actively managing their online brand or have even checked if their is a Wiki entry for them?

Travolution have some interesting stats on the topic.