Best Western and The Sunday Herald - train wreck waiting to happen

A press release from Best Western yesterday about a new online assistance tool did nothing to take the industry's attention away from an almighty row between it and the Sunday Herald, one of Scotland's national newspapers.

This tale has got legal action written all over it, so we'll just point to the relevant publicly available information - which may well get pulled at some stage.

* The Sunday Herald publishes a story about the "World's Biggest Cyber Heist" involving Best Western and the theft of eight million customer identities.

* Best Western slams the story with a strongly worded statement.

* Story on ITWire attempts to support the original article.

* Best Western places large message on its homepage, once again, disputing the story.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: best western sunday herald

Last word on the PR debate

...but probably not.

Following our recent foray into PR Week territory, such as Neil MacLean's guest post last week and Friday's classic example of badly thought out pitches, here is an interesting survey conducted by digital marketing agency BigMouthMedia into the enthusiasm - or lack of - by PR agencies for digital and social media services.

The main finding in the survey is that 79% of UK PR agencies have "yet to develop a set of online and social media services".

Some might argue that if agencies are not set up internally to deal with new media, there is a high likelihood that they will not be able or willing to do the same for their clients.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

The problem at the heart of travel PR

Fantastic guest post from Neil MacLean, author of the Travel PR Blog:

The marketing blogosphere is navel-gazing again, this time about the current state of PR.

No surprise there then. Every few months somebody declares PR dead and a bevy of PR’s write about how the world would go to hell in a hand basket without them.

Eventually the whole thing settles down until yet another A list blogger gets hit by a hundred irrelevant pitches.

It makes me wonder though about the state of the travel PR business, particularly in the UK where I personally lobbed press releases into waste bins for the best part of 20 years.

Is the UK travel PR business dead?

Not totally. It just smells like it.

The problem is the business still swivels on traditional media relations.

Scan the PR’s own pitches and you’ll find all the emphasis on cosy relations with journalists and the "ability to control press coverage on our clients' behalf".

It doesn’t take a PhD in fragmented media to know that model is about as up to the minute as Mr D’Arcy’s breeches.

Sure, some travel PR’s make noises about new media and getting down with Facebook, but many still gaze at email with the wonder of war-time kids setting sight on a banana.

They’ll protest - ok, I’ll protest for them - that they have had great success getting, I don’t know, three regional hacks out to Barbados to cover the Deck Chair festival.

But travel companies increasingly find those sums don’t add up anymore. It’s just not worth it.

I know a travel company which scored a four page spread in a Sunday broadsheet and only received one call about the trip next day.

Besides, traditional press coverage is like a sugar rush. The returns are short-lived and you have to keep on doing it over again.

PR needs to be more closely tied with results. It must be seen to generate measurable revenue for the client. It needs better strategies to generate long-term benefit.

For that it needs to speak directly to the public as well as hacks, build relationships with customers, treat Google as vital media, drive search traffic, communicate the benefits of the product to anyone with a broadcast voice, official or not. In short it needs to go where the market is and go online.

Here are some of the skills a modern PR agency needs - online copywriting, web monitoring, SEO, search marketing, basic web dev, multimedia content creation, web analytics.

The alternative? Marketing money will continue to shift to the people who already pitch this stuff and therefore can provide truly measurable results: the search marketing companies and digital agencies.

And then what will be left for the poor travel PR’s? A few quid for organising cocktail parties at WTM.

PR in this country needs a travolution (that’s not trademarked or anything is it?). [That's enough "'lutions" - Ed]

Neil MacLean, Travel PR Blog

[Neil MacLean writes the Travel PR Blog and provides online media services. A former journalist, he wrote travel features for the Sunday Times, edited the Daily Mail travel section and was launch producer of Expedia in the UK]

Read about Travolution's new press release policy.

Technorati tags: marketing PR future of PR

Don't let bad headlines put you off travelling

In the TimesOnline travel section:

Meanwhile, in the TimesOnline news section:

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

How headlines work - T5 still losing lots of bags

One could surmise from these two examples of creative headline writing (which stand out a mile in RSS feeds) that the Telegraph has a bigger axe to grind than the Guardian over the T5 situation.

From the Guardian's travel section today...


And the Telegraph...


The actual figure is 932.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

BBC travel portal - just fancy that

The Sunday Times reports how listings giant Time Out is joining a growing list of companies angry over the BBC's acquisition of Lonely Planet.

There are concerns that the licence fee funded broadcast giant will use its expertise to develop the global travel guide publisher Lonely Planet, a direction Time Out boss Tony Elliott is understood to have said is "beyond the resources of any privately funded organisation".

Lonely Planet, in turn, may well help the BBC develop a travel portal of its own to run similarly to its motoring and environmental channels on the website.

People really shouldn't be surprised at such a turn of events. The BBC didn't buy LP because of a deep-seated love of backpacking!

And it would take a messy intervention from the likes of the UK's Office of Fair Trading to put a stop to it.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Pointless question #94

...in a bid to find a new angle on the Lonely Planet debacle last week:

The Guardian came up with this one.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Look over your shoulder and you'll see TV ad revenues

This is nothing short of astonishing in some respects. Remember, the web as an advertising force is only really ten years old - maybe less.

Guardian has a bit on the predicted increase in UK online advertising revenues in 2009, overtaking TV for the first time.

Just a few years ago - in a previous guise - I remember writing about how online revenues were on the verge of eclipsing outdoor, and then radio advertising spend. Even then, many old school were sceptical.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Mainstream media tracking blogs for gossip

It's not every day we get mentioned in the Los Angeles Times.

Especially for a non-story...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: los angeles times LA times expedia google

Media companies as operators? The impact could be big

Our latest column in Travel Weekly:

Last week’s news regarding Teletext Holidays and its fundamental repositioning was inevitably overshadowed by the latest twist in the Corfu/Thomas Cook saga.

However, in any other week, Teletext’s decision to become a tour operator through its ThisIsTravel brand would probably be the biggest story of the week. The reason this development is so significant can be seen in two parts.

Firstly, this is a major travel company from the old school, which has seen too much of the perennial writing on the wall and decided to act.

Becoming the travel provider – the boundaries between operator and agent are increasingly blurred – means Teletext can attempt to offer consumers a more inclusive service.

Consumers will either be on a ThisIsTravel holiday, or have used the service to build their own trip. This is nothing new, of course. Indeed, Teletext is hardly a pioneer in this area, it is just reacting to change perhaps quicker than others.

The second reason for its significance concerns its ownership. Teletext is a division of the Daily Mail and General Trust, one of the biggest media groups in the UK and publisher of the newspaper of the same name.

We have been predicting this for a while. There is nothing to stop a media company moving into travel, and DMGT has just proved it. The media giants in the UK are in a reasonably strong position.

They have the eyeballs of consumers and strong brands, often excellent travel-related content, and the web allows them to create trips easily – but they need new revenue streams to shore up their falling print circulations.

This isn’t to say that the Guardian, the Telegraph et al will suddenly be running holidays around the world. But as media and travel converge further, it is something to consider.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Teletext setting a precedent of sorts

So what about Teletext Holidays and its move into new territory?

After years as a travel deals publisher, Daily Mail-owned Teletext will effectively become a tour operator cum travel agency cum media portal through ThisIsTravel.

All things to all people, perhaps.

What this actually shows is a distinct move towards a more consumer-led, all-round effort to reach – and, most importantly, fulfil – a wider marketplace.

Previous fulfilment partner OTC’s loss is Traveltek’s gain, in many respects, as the Glasgow-based travel technology firm will provide all back-end systems for the new ThisIsTravel platform.

We have said for quite a while that the traditional media houses in the UK are the sleeping giants of online travel.

This is not hyperbole. There is nothing to stop the media companies from attempting to provide a fuller service when it comes to travel deals.

Now this does not automatically mean that the Guardian, Times, Telegraph et al will suddenly start becoming OTAs or tour operators but a slow shift in how potentially they may start to think they can serve their customers better.

Travolution Holidays anyone??

[We jest]

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: newspaper teletext holiday

The Times likes us

Today is officially A Bad Day At The Office, for reasons we will not go into.

However, every cloud has a silver lining - or something like that.

The Times has namechecked Travolution as the provider of news about Google's Search within Search.

[Full story, part of its 10 Travel Websites to Watch]

Cheers!

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

PhoCusWright@ITB 08 - Quotoid #2

Ram Badrinathan of PhoCusWright, during a discussion on the relationship between travel PR and journalists:

PR is antithesis to life.

Ouch...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Grauniad takes a hit on user generated content - lessons for travel

This is not hot news as such but has raised a few issues.

The Guardian website has fallen foul of its readers this week following a blog post penned - apparently - by a 19-year-old heading off on his first jaunt to Asia.

Readers reacted with varying degrees of scorn, dismay, anger and vitriol to the drivel penned by Max Gogarty as he explained what travelling to Asia meant to him ("finding himself") amongst other things.

Guardian's "Comment is Free" editors have since closed the comments section of the blog post. Yes, we recognise the irony.

Was this a wise decision?

And what conclusions can be drawn about travel and UGC?

First of all the Guardian brand was taking quite a pasting in the comments, so in some respects it probably was a good idea to halt the discussion - regardless of the ramifications for its supposed CiF channel.

There are no direct comparisons to a travel brand being on the end of such carnage (as Travel Weekly put it) through user generated content.

It appears at this stage that consumers are - on the whole - far better behaved and balanced in their approach when it comes to commenting on what they would perceive to be poor products.

What travel companies, especially hotels, appear to be doing as a result of bad ratings on sites such as TripAdvisor is reflecting on the problem and rectifying it before the issue spirals out of control.

Consumers are unofficial watchdogs these days.

Unfortunately the Guardian seems reluctant - or doesn't know how to, some would argue - to admit it has made a mistake in commissioning something likely to disappoint its readers.

It will recover, of course. But many will remember this - at times, hilarious - faux pas.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: max gogarty guardian blog guardian travel skins

Where have all those dodgy online travel scams gone?

The Times Online loves its lists. But here's a good one.

Top 14 travel scams.

Some of the classics feature: timeshare, travel trade discount cards, unlicensed taxis, etc.

The only surprise in here is that hardly any web-related.

Surely online travel hasn't cleaned up its act?!?

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Travo weekly round-up #3

Here are the top stories by visits on the Travolution website for the week ending Friday 1 February 2008.

• Opodo profits to trigger investment in site.
• Sky picks Expedia-TripAdvisor for white label deal.
• Telegraph reviews travel search business.
• Cheapflights will not be rushed into float decision.
• WAYN approach over sale - but not by AOL.

Best of the blogs:

• Google Suggest, from Les Exploers.
• 10 questions for tour operators, from Musings.
• Microsoft-Yahoo dino deal, from Buzzmachine.
• Facebook apps on any site, from TechCrunch.
• SEO millionaire, from SearchEngineWatch.

Please post and further recommendations in the comments section.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Murdoch buys into travel meta search

Not content with investing in innovative products such as MySpace and The London Paper, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp has bought a stake in Asian meta search engine Bezurk.com.

The deal is being run out of News Corp's Australian division News Limited, owner of The Australian newspaper.

Whatever next...

Co-founder Craig Hewett told us the investment from News Corp is for a "significant minority stake", so anything between 5% and 30% by our reckoning, and a seat on the board.

Amazingly the Singapore-based Bezurk has just 20 employees - and 53,000 new friends in the Murdoch empire.

Offical release here.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: bezurk murdoch

Predictions from around the web

Ahead of our own crystal ball gazing post (currently being written), check out the predictions from the Travolution RSS reader.

Guardian's John Naughton - Internet's own 9/11.

Drama 2.0 - The lighter side of the tech world.

Mashable's Adam Ostrow - News Corp to sell MySpace. Mobile social networking. Blogs become acquisition targets. Facebook goes truly mainstream. Start-up consolidation. Microsoft buys Yahoo. Email lives.

Mashable's Mark Hopkins - Battle between apps. Intellectual property. Rise of Green Tech. No bubble bursts.

ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn & Paula Rooney - Battle for the network.

Computerworld's Stacy Collett - Google in 2008.

Struan & Associates Tourism Destination Crisis's David Beirman - Gulf states growth. Eco tourism. Eastern Europe. Stopover in Asia.

ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley - Microsoft in 2008.

Guardian Travel Section - Destinations aplenty.

We will add more as they come in during the next few days.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Expedia's Dara in the Financial Times

Dara Khosrowshahi talks to the FT today about Expedia's plans for Europe (and beating the likes of TUI Travel and Thomas Cook Group) and other territories.

In a nutshell:

• Expedia is more agile than its competitors because it is pureplay online and has few assets.
• "Aggressive" marketing campaign next year for Europe
  
• China will become like the US in terms of behaviour
• New internationally focussed strategy
• Online travel agencies will continue growth
  

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Times Online loves lists - again

It seems only a few months ago (oh yes, it was) since the Times Online produced its Top 100 Travel Websites, which proceeded the Sunday Times Top 10 Travel Sites (featuring, amazingly, the Times Online Travel section!).

Anyway, they are at it again this week with the 50 Best Travel Sites of 2007.

The usual suspects all appear, with the odd gem (Foundem.com and Vroomvroomvroom.co.uk), and there are also "five to watch" for 2008:

WorldReviewer.com
CruiseCritic.co.uk
Travelmag.co.uk
Travelintelligence.net
Gowander.com

But where there is repetition there is also joy:

In 40th place is..... The Travolution Blog! [mainly for the T-List]

Thanks Ginny McGrath and Steve Keenan.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: times