Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Advice to Tourism in the age of Traveller generated Content: "Be Good or Else"

Dean Harris, Chief Marketing officer of travel search engine Kayak.com on the proliferation of user generated content online.

"Consumers with more control will make things better--more efficient," Harris said. "Online is more transparent and more accountable. It will lead to better choices, and brands that work for the consumer will survive."

Todd Lucier - TourismClicks.com

posted by Toddles @ 10:11 AM   0 comments

Atlantic Canadians Learn about Clustering

I'm here once again in beautiful Gros Morne National Park, at the Fisherman's Landing Inn teaching Edge of the Wedge with the Gros Morne Institute of Sustainable Tourism. We have enjoyed some wonderful tourism experiences including fine dining, interactive Bonne Bay Marine activities and social reparte.
Today we are learning a bit about how to market such activities online.

Clustering and working with others is perhaps the easiest and most valuable entry into Online marketing. By stitching together undiscovered stars in your community, you can create truly meaningful, memorable tourism experiences and bring them to market in no time.


Todd Lucier - TourismClicks.com

posted by Toddles @ 5:32 AM   0 comments

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

New Travel Video Web site hits the Web

Seeking a bigger audience than just family and friends for videos of travelers' summer trip has a new place to go on the Web. Formally launched today, Travelistic.com aims to be the YouTube of online travel, where people can post videos and share travel experiences and tips using social networking features like tagging and user profile pages.

Under the tagline "Watch Where You're Going," Travelistic will also encompass professionally produced programs including "The Thirsty Traveler," which visits wine and spirit-producing regions; "Get Out! Girls," following three friends touring exotic locales; and "Focus On," which explores lesser-known destinations.

Travelistic has also amassed videos from 120 boards of tourism, and is adding more than 100 videos a week for a total of about 1,000 so far. Travelistic looks to be a hybrid of user-generated and licensed material to offer "multiple points of view."

Travelistic is also planning to develop original content in the form of a weekly video podcast about travel, for which it is now soliciting video auditions on the site.

The site already allows bloggers to incorporate Travelistic videos into their sites.

Other travel video sites are TurnHere and 43 Places.

Travelistic is relying on an ad-supported business model that includes video pre-roll ads from marketers through

Videos are reviewed by Travelistic to meet basic standards for quality and content before being ranked according to the number of views and user ratings. The site's welcome page also features a list of popular video tags ranging from "architecture" to "islands."

Niche comes to Video!

posted by Toddles @ 6:20 PM   1 comments

Monday, October 16, 2006

Tourism Email Newsletter - Getting to your Ideal Guest's Inbox

I'm always coaxing Tourism businesses to generate new leads and make sales with their e-newsletter. Although this is without a doubt a most successful strategy, making sure that your email reaches the inbox of your email list requires knowledge about how email is filtered, and how spammers are identified. In short, you don't ever want to be considered a spammer!

You can see a list of factors to beware of, but it likely won't mean much to you. For practicality, go to Lyris' site, where you can enter your tourism newsletter content and calculate your spam score.

SUPER ARTICLE HERE: Spend 10 minutes with this excellent article on ensuring your email newsletters are delivered! I guarantee it will open your eyes.

An excellent PDF article on Issues affecting Email Deliverability.

You'll require adobe acrobat / free reader to view this document.

posted by Toddles @ 10:24 AM   0 comments

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Social Media at Yahoo Travel

We told you that traveller created content was the hot button issue for tourism businesses this year. For example, combines social networking, photo sharing, blogging, and reviews - by travelers. A Yahoo spokesperson has indicated that some of the highest quality trip plans can be copied as many as fifty times as starting points for others planning their trips, and with other users copying copies of the plans, that first plan can generate as many as 1,400 others. What is Yahoo's role in all of this? It merely facilitates the community, makes it as easy as possible to use, and then steps back.

What role can regional tourism associations be playing? Come on people, let's get collaborating and typing!

posted by Toddles @ 12:20 PM   0 comments

Collaboration Online- It's here

Last year attendess at our Tourism Keys workshops learned that Collaboration, and Online Word processing tools would soon change the way people create documents.

- Google's new spreadsheet utility and word processing tools function in your browser window. If you have a Google Account, you can do a lot of different things and save your documents online so they are accessed by you with your password protected access, from anywhere.

What's more, you can give access to these documents to others so that you can collaborate and share document creation.

Google has also rolled out tools for Web domains that allow users to share calendars, chat, and even create Web pages with online software that is absolutely free and as easy to use as a Web browser.

This week, we've been creating shared online documents for an upcoming retreat with participants in London Ontario, Algonquin Park, and Temagami Ontario.

At the end of the month, I'll be helping tourism businesses create their own Web pages . . . people with absolutely no previous experience!

The world of Web marketing is changing.... are you?


Todd Lucier - TourismClicks.com

posted by Toddles @ 12:06 PM   0 comments

Monday, October 09, 2006

Building Credibility - a very fine article

A fine article on Building Credibility

posted by Toddles @ 10:54 AM   0 comments

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Two important Questions for your Tourism Business

User Generated Content and Social Networking are the new "Online World" that tourism businesses must be aware of.
How can user (visitor) generated content produced by your guests influence the buying decisions of others? How can you create a space to encourage social networking among your ideal guests? These may be the two most important guestions to ask in order to take your tourism business web site to the next level.
Todd Lucier - TourismClicks.com

posted by Toddles @ 1:27 PM   0 comments

Microsoft Live Search Engine

http://search.live.com/

Microsoft New Live site is ready for the big time. The new search engine promises more relevant search results and advanced search settings. See how your tourism business ranks for keywords your ideal guest might use.

posted by Toddles @ 1:21 PM   0 comments

Monday, October 02, 2006

Yahoo enters video editing field

Bring your tourism video online with Yahoo's free Video editing site. Upload your video, edit and post...

http://www.jumpcut.com

posted by Toddles @ 3:56 PM   0 comments