Travelers turn to seller sites for info

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Where do you go to get information on destinations and travel? Well, you obviously come here – at least you did this time. And, we appreciate it. Despite the value of independent sources of travel news and deals, it’s the seller sites that are attracting all the action. Social media is moving the travel market, according to the latest research from industry research firm PhoCusWright, with user-generated content on online travel agencies (OTAs) leading the charge.

In 2008, hotel reviews on OTA sites accounted for only 52 percent of traveler-written reviews, with traveler review sites (not associated with an OTA), such as TripAdvisor, accounting for 46 percent of reviews written. Last year, the OTA sites were good for 74 percent of the hotel reviews that showed up on the web.

“Traveler review sites – led by TripAdvisor – created and drove the growth of the traveler hotel review category, demonstrating the potential role of user-generated reviews in the trip-planning process,” said Douglas Quinby, senior director, research at PhoCusWright. “The travel industry obviously took notice, and the major OTAs have remarkably stepped up their game in capturing reviews from their customers and incorporating the content into their hotel shopping path. Travel companies must keep a close eye not only on review sites such as TripAdvisor, but the growing volume of review content on OTAs as well.”

Corporate travel databases: give morale a shot in the arm

by Tom Johansmeyer on

“Corporate,” “database” and “morale” usually don’t show up in the same sentence – at least not without some sort of negative word nestled in there. Images of tedious data entry are conjured, which does nothing for your state of mind while on the road. Yet, these words can be joined, and the resulting concept can be a gold mine for any company with legions of road warriors. Every employee accumulates knowledge while traveling. They learn which restaurants are best (and worst) in a particular city, and they develop coping strategies that their colleagues may find useful.

The curse of a travel-heavy company, of course, is that the employees don’t see each other often enough. When they do, talk turns to business first, and many of these tips remain hidden. A single place where the collective wisdom can be stored and shared can make business travel much more enjoyable tolerable while fostering communication where it might not exist otherwise.

I’m still stunned by the fact that I only saw the corporate travel database in action once during close to a decade of frequent business travel (frequent = around 40 weeks a year). It was pure genius, worked well and was used regularly. With the social media tools now available, it’s even easier than it was back then to implement the concept. Rather than a “database” in the traditional sense, a company could use a Facebook page, LinkedIn account or even a simple message board to share ideas, experiences and advice with coworkers.

So, how do you get a corporate travel database off the ground?

1. Someone needs to own it

No project gets off the ground in Corporate America without a “champion.” Clear it with whoever has the rubber stamp before pulling the trigger, and become the first contributor. Post regularly, and tell people about it – especially those who are going where you’ve already been.

2. Identify likely helpers

Find the eager beavers who will join the cause – every company has a few. Everybody wants to be heard, and this is a save and easy way to gain a voice.

3. Publicize your successes

As people take advantage of these shared tips, let everyone know, especially if there was a business impact. For example, “John Smith’s client loved dinner at Pomodoro Rosso … we was so tired of restaurants in midtown.”

4. Get granular

Simply being redundant with TripAdvisor and other user-generated content sites won’t help you out. Think local, unusual and relevant to the travelers in your company. You’re looking to solve a problem. So, find and contribute real on-the-ground intelligence. Late-night bars that will be open after a day of marathon meetings, for example, are both valuable and had to find when you’re new in town. The names of restaurant managers who are sympathetic to a little palm-greasing can be gold when you need a table on short notice. Every detail counts.

5. Respect boundaries

Know your company’s policies, and abide by them. If you use Facebook for your travel-sharing tool, be sure access is tightly controlled. Also, management needs to be on board, and the “right” people (different in every company) have to be kept in the loop. If your tool is developed properly, you’ll have one hell of an intelligence file. Just think of what would happen if it got into the wrong hands!

So many companies fail to tap the collective knowledge of their employees in so many ways. While a corporate travel database may not boost sales or share business information, it can help with morale and client entertainment (and, ultimately, relationships). Knowledgeable people become more productive, especially when they don’t have to cope with the quirks of a strange place while figuring out the intricacies of a new project. And, it’s always good to have at your fingertips the info you need to blow off a little steam. In the end, performance goes up, and people feel better about their jobs.

We have the tools at our disposal, and there’s no shortage of information. The only thing missing is the effort that pulls the two together.

Picking the best hotel room – when cheap delivers more than upscale and expensive

by Scott Carmichael on

We are already halfway through our hotel month here on Gadling. In the past week weeks, we’ve written hotel reviews, shown some wacky minibar finds, and described the best way to pick a hotel brand.

Today’s article is going to try and explain some of the logic that goes into picking the best hotel room, and getting the best value for your money. The examples in this article will be based on real hotels, real rates and real stays.

If you are not interested in amenities, and just want to get the cheapest possible room, then this article really isn’t going to help you much. Instead, the target audience for this article is the hotel guest who doesn’t mind paying some extra for their room. After all, paying more gets better service and amenities, right? Wrong!Here is a real world example of the tale of two rooms – you need a room in Chicago, so you start your search. Your requirements are simple; you want a spacious room with a view, a king bed and free Internet access.

Lets pick 2 of the more popular hotels in downtown Chicago (within 5 minutes of each other):

One of these rooms is a 2 room suite on a high floor (with a view of the Hancock building), a kitchen, free breakfast, flat panel HDTV’s in both rooms, recently renovated and access to free wired and wireless Internet.

The other is a smaller room with outdated furnishings, and comes without a “view”. The room does come with butler service and a DVD player. As an added bonus, the hotel does offer wireless Internet, but the signal is too weak to pick up in your room.

Of course, the larger room is the cheapest here. The concession of picking the cheaper hotel is that you don’t get that “luxury hotel” feeling when you step into the lobby. That said, the service in the cheaper hotel did feel much more relaxed and the free breakfast was a great deal.

Of course, I’m not trying to tell you that you should never stay in an expensive hotel – sometimes the occasion calls for some added luxury, but on a “normal” stay, upscale hotels can’t always provide the best value for money. The more expensive hotel often offers better amenities (spa services, valet parking etc…). However, when you are saving $147 a night, you’ll actually have money left to pay for those spa services.

So, next time you head to the hotel booking site, try and think smarter. This will require some homework, as not all cheaper hotels are going to be a good deal. Many of those hotels may not have been renovated in years.

Hotel review sites can be a great tool for this. Try to stay away from the room photos provided by the hotel and do searches for user submitted reviews photos through sites like Tripadvisor or Hotels.com. These photos often paint a much more honest picture of the hotel. When reading reviews, skip the ones with rants and complaints with hyperbole as too many people post totally useless reviews. A good article on how to use Tripadvisor can be found here.

If you do your homework, and read through all the real reviews and photos, you may be able to find that one gem that is able to save you $150 a night. Sure, you may not be in the luxurious location you had expected, but you’ll be able to sleep better at night knowing you’ve got more money to spend on worthless souvenirs.

Piss in the ocean, not in the pool and other TripAdvisor reader thoughts

by Tom Johansmeyer on

So much of life is governed by “unwritten rules,” but beaches and pools are surprisingly short of convention to cite. Public opinion is all over the map on what matters most – and what can lead to a heated conversation. But, there are still a few hot buttons that irritate the world. According to a recent survey of 3,800 people by TripAdvisor, 69 percent encounter some breach of etiquette, with 13 percent taking the cynical view that everyone breaks these undocumented standards.

The most common violations at the beach and pool are hogging beach chairs, pissing in the water and littering, while the most annoying are loud music, smoking and, yet again, draining into the water … though you can get away with doing this in the ocean if you aren’t too close to anybody. And, in praise of double standards, more respondents believe that women can get away with skimpy beach gear than feel men should wear speedos.

So, what enrages?

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Hogging beach chairs: if you’re “saving” a chair for someone for to use later, 84 percent of TripAdvisor readers think you’re an asshole. According to a TripAdvisor Destination Expert, “My bugbear is when people throw a towel over one of the highly sought-after sun lounges/cabanas, and then go AWOL.”

“Bugbear”? Eh …

Unleashing the stream: 16 percent of survey respondents called this the most annoying breach of pool and beach etiquette, but 53 percent will piss in the ocean if nobody’s around.

Smokers blow: 82 percent want to ban poolside smoking, and 62 percent don’t want you puffing at the beach. Says one of these Destination Experts, “I can’t stand when on a crowded beach day people smoke one foot away from you, and then discard their butts in the sand…I don’t care at all if people choose to smoke as long as it doesn’t affect me or the beauty of the beach!”

Washing off not a big deal: 14 percent of travelers don’t bother to shower before they go into a pool (hell, it has all that chlorine anyway, right?), and 37 percent do so rarely. A substantial 69 percent find it acceptable not to bother cleaning up before swimming.

Stay away: if the beach isn’t crowded, 38 percent of respondents believe you should set up camp at least 20 feet away, and 22 percent think seven feet to 10 feet is acceptable. When the beach is crowded, you should stay at least six feet away. According to one of these TripAdvisor Destination Experts, “I find the perfect spot on the beach, far away from the intrusion of kids, pets, and game players. Then a family of 12 with undisciplined kids sits right next to me! When the beach is empty move over!”

Watch what you wear: 76 percent of respondents don’t think it’s a big deal for women to wear revealing bikinis (no word on whether hotness matters), but only 65 percent say the same for men and speedos. Only 14 percent think speedos are only appropriate in the United States. One of the Destination Experts is irritated by people who “either go topless or wear tiny little dental-floss bikinis on the beach or by the pool.” Again, I say don’t judge until you see the body that’s barely covered.

Want to learn more? Click here.

Top 10 national parks, thanks to TripAdvisor

by Tom Johansmeyer on

More than 3,000 TripAdvisor readers in the United States have selected the top 10 national parks. Big shock: nine out of 10 are out west. Only Maine made it onto the list. But, let’s face it – if you want big, impressive national parks, you have leave the East Coast.

These readers are definitely interested in the national park scene. More than 70 percent plan to visit one this year, up from 62 percent in 2008. And, searches on TripAdvisor for “national park” and “national parks” are up 21 percent for the first five months of 2009 (relative to the same period last year).

So, what are the top spots?

  1. Zion National Park, Utah
  2. Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona
  3. White Sands National Monument, New Mexico
  4. Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Hawaii
  5. Redwood National and State Parks, California
  6. Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, Nevada
  7. Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
  8. Mount Rainier National Park, Washington
  9. Yosemite National Park, California
  10. Acadia National Park, Maine

“As Americans look for inexpensive travel ideas this summer, many are seeking out the amazing natural beauty that lies in our country’s own back yard,” said Michele Perry, vice president of global communications for TripAdvisor. “National Parks can offer travelers an active, affordable and often awe-inspiring escape outdoors.”