Awards season is fast approaching … and now you too can make like a Hollywood A-lister, thanks to Spa Montage at Montage Beverly Hills. Book the “Ultimate Pre-Red Carpet Spa Experience” to take care of every beauty need.
Begin with an anti-aging facial, designed to hydrate, firm, and offer immediate, photo-ready results. A connective tissue massage will help firm and contour, and you’ll also enjoy a penetrating Oxygen serum. Next, enjoy Body Sculpting therapy to assist in removing cellular waste and retained fluids. Customize the treatment for focus on your own personal “trouble spots” like the abdomen or thighs. If you dare to bare, follow with a back facial, where your therapist uses steam therapy to lift out impurities plus exfoliation and gentle extractions to ensure your back is as camera-ready as you are. The facial ends with a muscle-melting back and foot massage. Complete your day with an detoxifying body wrap and hypnotic scalp massage.
You’ll also get the oxygen serum, anti fluid gel, dry body brush and hydrating lotion to take home and continue your red carpet-ready glow for weeks to come.
The full day package starts at $1,050 (and can be spread over several days if desired) and includes four coordinating treatments designed to prep the body from head-to-toe. Naturally, the package also includes access to the Spa Montage facilities and rooftop pool, plus a welcome glass of bubbly or blueberry tea upon arrival. The treatment package is available through March 2011.
Want more? Get your daily dose of pampering right here.
The recent announcement of a four-day cruise with a rock star musician and reality TV star Bret Michaels is a good example of what to expect when you cruise like a rock star.
Themed cruise vacations have been around for a long time but are gaining new popularity. Gathering like-minded passengers from around the world, promoters feature sailings with a focus on a common interest. Ranging from writers workshops to cruising with a favorite celebrity, guests pay a premium price to be included.
Sailing from Miami on November 10, 2011, the Carnival Destiny will be home to fans of Michaels paying up to $3500 per person for a luxurious Grand Suite package that includes a private party with the rock star.
Those accommodations have already sold out leaving standard staterooms starting at $939 per person. Those feature admission to a performance by Michaels and a farewell cocktail party.
Regular non-themed 4-night sailings of Carnival Destiny start at $239 per person with luxury suites starting at $1029.
Did you catch the math on that?
It looks to be about $700 and $2400 more than a normally priced sailing at that time of the year to be part of the action. $700 more for a ticket to the show and a cocktail party, $2400 more for groupie status and a private party with the rock star.
Most theme cruises are sponsored by travel agencies chartering part or all of a ship on a given sailing. Others are sponsored by cruise lines themselves and feature more mainstream interests.
He, we’re all prone to a bit of profanity every now and then – some of us more than others. I’ve had my ass butt handed to me by the Gadling editors over my (finally) occasional use of some foul language, though I’ve taken steps to (as they say) improve myself. Well, I was happy to see when flipping through my RSS feed that I’m not the only person who likes to drop an f-bomb every now and then. In fact, there are entire cities engaging in such behavior, according to a recent article on Business Insider.
So, how am I going to pick my next home? Well, I’ll start by looking at the 10 most obscene cities it the United States. Strangely, New York isn’t on the list, probably because we have a small vocal minority that engages in the sorts of foul phrasing, while the rest of the city tends to be squeaky clean.
So, who’s on the list? These are the 10 cities and towns where you’re most likely to find mouths washed out with soap.1. Ashburn, Virginia
There are only 90,000 people here, but they know how to cuss! The Washington, DC suburb made its first time on the list a big one, coming in at the top spot.
2. Tampa, Florida
Tampa found a way to climb from #8 in 2009 to #2 in 2010, something of an accomplishment, according to a handful of people.
3. Herndon, Virginia
What is it about Virginia? Is there something in the water? A problem with the schools’ vocabulary lessons?
4. Rochester, New York
Who cares?
5. Irvine, California
The fourth-best place to live in the United States has achieved this distinction because you can say whatever the fuck you want.
6. Newark, New Jersey
Duh.
7. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Someone must have brought Miss Manners to the largest city in Pennsylvania – it ranked third the past two years, according to Business Insider.
8. Louisville, Kentucky
It ranked #10 last year and #1 the year before. So, there’s a bit of a backslide here, but it hasn’t been too bad.
To find the most obscene cities in America, we plugged the “seven dirty words you can never say on television” — made popular by George Carlin — into Google Trends. We gave each city a score for each of the seven words, assigning more points to cities ranking higher up on each list.
If there’s a better use for the internet, I have yet to see it!
Touted as a “front-row seat” to the royal wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton, cruise lines are jumping on board a growing world-wide obsession with the event.
To be shown live fleet-wide on Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Cruises, other lines will show the event on select ships.
P&O Cruises’ managing director Carol Marlow said: “As Britain’s favourite cruise line it is only fitting that our passengers should have a front row seat from unique locations around the globe. It will certainly be a grand celebration with almost 14,000 passengers sailing with us at this time.”
Cunard Line’s will show the entire event from start to finish the ships main showroom on their three ships. Says Cunard president Peter Shanks: “If demand for seats exceeds supply we are able to use our Planetarium and lecture room, Illuminations, which seats a further 450 passengers.”
Cruise lines have been in the wedding business for quite some time, with most devoting considerable resources to on-board wedding ceremonies. The all-inclusive nature of a cruise vacation makes weddings at sea a viable alternate choice and cruise line involvement with the royal wedding a natural fit.
Online travel agencies have had a solid run over the past two years. They picked up some market share as would-be travelers were willing to poke around a little more to score cheap tickets. High rates of unemployment and under-employment and general economic uncertainty, of course, were enough to make consumers value every dollar a little more. This opened an opportunity for online travel agencies to advance in the marketplace, and chip away at the dominance of their suppliers (i.e., the airlines) on the web.
Yet, the market is turning. Next year is expected to be a strong one for the air travel industry relative to 2010, and 2010 was a vast improvement over 2009. For online travel agencies, this provides some benefit as a rising tide, but it’s likely to favor their suppliers, as customers are more likely to go with what they know over putting in some effort to find the largest discounts.
Online travel agencies will have to overcome this tendency by investing smartly and substantially in their own brands. This is what we’re seeing in the latest move by CheapOair, the one of the 10 largest online travel agencies in the sector, in its recent announcement of a marketing mix change, which teases a broader strategic shift given changing market conditions.
A Changing Travel Market
From 2008 to 2010, online travel agencies were able to chip away at the online market share of their suppliers, reducing the suppliers from owning 62 percent of the online business in 2008 to 59 percent in 2010, according to travel industry research firm PhoCusWright. Bargain hunters drove the market, which eroded the importance of brand loyalty.
From 2009 to 2010, PhoCusWright notes a “strong countercyclical performance for the OTA category.” In 2009, sales fell only 1 percent for the sector, compared to 5 percent for the total online leisure/unmanaged business travel market. And, online travel agencies have posted double-digit gains in 2010.
Stronger industry conditions, however, are better for the suppliers, and PhoCusWright observes, “With the rebound continuing, supplier websites will likely regain momentum as the OTA fight to hold on to their share gains.”
In regards to the actual travel experience, ostensibly, the airline’s brand matters most. When a passenger books through an online travel agency, the brand associated with the transaction lasts for a few minutes – or a few hours, depending on the diligence of the buyer’s search. Meanwhile, interaction with the airline’s brand starts during the search for a ticket, persists through the flight and ends sometime after the passenger hops into a town car to get to his ultimate destination. To register in the customer consciousness, online travel agencies need to develop the sort of presences that will keep them top of mind.
This runs counter to the traditional online customer acquisition models associated with the online travel agency business, which involve a combination of search engine optimization, online ads, affiliate programs and social media. These are transaction-oriented tactics, which speak directly to the brand-barrenness of big discounting.
More Than the Transaction
The largest online travel agencies have already moved past transaction myopia: everybody knows the Travelocity gnome, Priceline‘s William Shatner and the likes of “Cooper” from Expedia. For all but the top players, however, investments in mass media brand development (such as television) have generally been eschewed in favor of what’s been known to work. Speaking at Business Insider’s IGNITION conference last week, Buddy Media CEO Michael Lazerow noted that Travelocity grew to $4 billion in revenue through online means before it moved to television to get to the next level.
Yet, for the online travel agency sector to hold its ground – and even grow – in 2011, brand has to matter more, and this means casting a wider media net. This, plus the size of CheapOair relative to its competitors, is what caught my attention about its recent media diversification. The company is launching its first television ad campaign, “Get More for Less,” in an aggressive move to get out in front of the imminent online travel market shift.
The move to television is an aggressive one, and it comes a bit ahead of “schedule” for CheapOair, if you use the Travelocity number as a reference point. Expedia pulled in close to $3 billion in revenue last year, for example, and Priceline at $2.3 billion. Travelong/CheapOair generated $825 million in revenue in 2009 and has grown at a year-over-year rate of 45 percent this year, resulting in forecasted 2010 revenues of $1.2 billion.
The company’s CEO, Sam Jain, says, “TV is a new strategy for CheapOair and as we head into our 6th year we believe this is the right time to expand our marketing efforts. TV is a natural evolution from our current digital marketing and will help build awareness among a larger audience and introduce more people to the brand.” The countercyclical tendencies of the online travel agency market relative to travel as a whole reinforce this point.
Pointing to the potential for a virtuous cycle, CheapOair’s Sr. Vice President of Strategic Partnerships, Bill Miller, adds, “This new TV campaign should draw in more customers for us which in turn will bring more value to our supplier partners. Our suppliers — airlines, hotels, car rentals —- want valuable and efficient distribution partners. I believe we are all that and more and this TV campaign is just another example of how we can extend our marketing reach on the behalf of our supplier partners.”
Fashion versus Reality
It’s been fashionable among the digerati to claim the death of other forms of media, and I’m as guilty as the rest. But, the reality is that SEO and online ads (a la Google’s pay-per-click model) are becoming increasingly crowded and competitive. Since they are focused on the transaction rather than the brand, they don’t provide for a relationship with the customer that results in a gradual reduction in cost per revenue over time. It’s strictly “pay by the drink,” and that can get pricey.
With the travel market starting to tip in favor of the travel suppliers over the online travel agencies, the costs associated with traditional online marketing will become even higher, as brand brings customers back to the suppliers and online travel agencies chase a shrinking share of bargain hunters. For online travel agencies to compete effectively, they have to make their own investments in branding – a commitment that lacks the predictability of other forms of marketing.
Strangely, television may become the key to winning on the web in the travel industry in 2011. A better market translates to the amplification of the importance of brand, and commercials are still a critical aspect of this in the consumer world.
A battle of the brands is about to break out. The good news is that it’s for your benefit … and you’ll get to watch it on TV!