As I’ve done the past two years, I attended EyeForTravel’s Travel Distribution Summit North America event last week – held this year in Las Vegas. It was encouraging to see the best practices we identified earlier holding up with time: a focus on service, creativity, and guest-created content. Corporate executives may always remain hesitant to reveal everything in their public presentations , but one-on-one conversations are often very insightful.

A good example of this was the ecommerce manager who shared an anecdote with me over lunch: A guest had seen photos of chocolate-covered strawberries on the resort’s restaurant website – but was told they were out of stock when she arrived. The guest sent out a tweet expressing her disappointment. This manager quickly caught this message, and immediately called the hotel’s GM – asking him to send up a plate of chocolate strawberries to the guests’ room along with a note of apology. This gesture immediately won back the loyalty of the customer, and they ended up purchasing one of the timeshare units on property. Anecdotes like this demonstrate the value of monitoring the social web and responding quickly with memorable service.

I like to see hoteliers opening up and talking about what’s working and what’s not working through stories like that.

On to the top 10 list of ideas I gathered from presentations….

Top 10 Insights I Heard at EyeforTravel North America 2011

1. Location based services with time-sensitive offers will play a big role in revenue management in the future. Technology is increasingly allowing us to deliver content in context, and this additional relevancy increases sales.
2. The battle for attention is becoming more intense than ever. In the case of mobile, you battle for space on the deck of apps. (The average program gets deleted in 30 days.)
3. Location based service Gowalla is becoming a “social atlas” and travel guidebook that is written by your friends. (Andy Ellwood)
4. “Stay focused. Find 2-3 good ideas and implement them well.” – Rohit Dhawan, Facebook
5. Use Facebook’s API to plug into their social graph. TripAdvisor found users connected with Facebook were twice as engaged with their website.
6. Travelers today use social media to get the real, authentic, unvarnished, unedited preview of what to expect. (Barbara Messing, TripAdvisor)
7. In this Review Economy, the credibility and authority of the reviewer is becoming increasingly important. For example, TripAdvisor is placing more weight on the profile and record of the reviewer.
8. Personalize content on your site to increase conversion rates. Attributes to use include the referring site, keyword search phrase, date, geo-location, and visit recency.
9. People are far more trusting online than in real life, said Leonard Brody. This means they will likely share much more content online. Are you listening?
10. Interesting case study from John Peters on the power of partnerships. Rand McNally created substantial amounts of online buzz for their Best of the Road campaign created through joint ventures with Saab, Country Inn & Suites and USA Today. What partners could you be working with?

What were your favorite ideas from EyeForTravel’s Travel Distribution Summit?

Note: You can see more top tweets from this event on the ReviewPro blog….

I want to keep the majority of articles we publish here focused on case studies, but today I’ll make an exception. This morning, I participated in a webinar with Tnooz and TripAdvisor about the future of reputation management.

Adele Gutman of HK Hotels told the story of how she obtained what other marketing executives only dream about – putting all four of her properties in the top four positions of TripAdvisor’s New York hotel ranking. By obsessively focusing on creating a remarkable experience for guests – and viewing service as marketing – she now earns more than 50% of revenue through direct website bookings. A few good quotes:

• “Reputation creates demand.”
• “Everything you do is reputation management: from hiring and training staff to the type of linens you order for the guest rooms.”
• “Imagine the reviews you want, and then become the hotel that inspires them.”

Brian Payea of TripAdvisor shared some fascinating data related to how consumers view management responses to reviews. According to Forrester research commissioned by TripAdvisor:

• When considering two properties, travelers say the presence of management responses would sway 68% in their favor
• 79% say a management response to a bad review reassures them
• 78% say a management response to a good review makes them think highly of the hotel

And then I presented some ideas on how to generate more direct bookings with reviews and user-generated content:

For a more complete summary of the event, keep your eyes on the Tnooz and ReviewPro blogs….

If you were unable to make it to Austin this year for SXSW, you can still learn from the presentations there. Here’s a few you may enjoy:

The Game Layer On Top Of The World

Writing Workshop with @BettyDraper

The Accidental Writer: Great Web Copy for Everyone

Most Memorable Quotes from SXSW 2011

TripAdvisor pioneered (and continues to innovate) the category of consumer-written travel reviews. Now, sites like Room77 and Seat Guru are emerging around the thought that most reviews are too generic. Instead, they provide very specific recommendations about rooms within a hotel or seats on an airplane.

The web continues to push the boundaries of transparency. If you’re going to thrive, you must provide a consistently good experience. Travelers are using technology to gain more and more inside knowledge.

Will sites like Room77 eventually lead to hotels selling room numbers?

The last few days have been full of good conversations and presentations about using social media in the travel industry. Gina from EyeForTravel was able to assemble an interesting group of people to discuss what’s changing in this area.

If you were following me on Twitter, you probably saw a new tweet every few minutes, but here are some of the concepts shared:

1. Biggest opportunity in social media is bringing the story back into travel – Doug Miller
2. When scarcity is removed, the value of (social) filtering increases – Leonard Brody
3. Impulse buy trend will be short lived – Cree Lawson (not everyone can hop on a plane and fly halfway around the world)
4. “I don’t use Quora. I have work to do.” – Yen Lee
5. If you have 50,000 Facebook fans, so what? – Yen Lee
6. We pass up opportunities to ask about customer intent all the time. Do you know what your guests want from your experience?
7. CRM is something software does. Engaging is something people do. – Leonard Brody
8. If relevance is the engine of the search era, then relationship is the engine of the social era. (via Andy Ellwood)
9. “Why do hotels charge me for WiFi? MacDonald’s gives it to me for free!” – Shashank Nigam
10. Is it okay to use your blackberry now? Is it okay to whip out your crossword puzzle now? – Del Ross
11. People under 30 only use email to talk to people over 30 – Del Ross
12. My personal social media profiles work better for my business than my business social media profiles. – Sylvie Laitre
13. What is Gowalla? A social network that inspires people to share the places they go and discover the extraordinary in the world. (A good definition for location-based services in general)
14. People checking in via location-based services are giving their endorsement on the place. It becomes part of their story. – Andy Ellwood
15. If you want to act on social media insights, you must invest in infrastructure now. – Geoff Lewis
16. People are willing to share personal data if you show the value for them when you ask for it – Geoff Lewis
17. Consumers are going to use whatever social network they want. Your job isn’t to promote a platform, but go where they are.
18. Location based services are a near-perfect convergence of customer intent and marketing opportunity – Susan Black
19. If [Groupon buyers] can’t afford rack rate experience-post discount they won’t return. As dealseekers, they seek new deals. – Michael Hraba
20. Stop marketing to people. Start loving them.
21. “Our goal is to create fans – not just guests, but also turning employees and communities into fans.” – JDV Hotels
22. Allow your community to show off and show their personality in social media. – Lonely Planet
23. Paid search and sponsored social content can be helpful in gaining traction when launching campaigns – Tim Burger
24. Build social media marketing toolkits for local teams to use. This ensures brand consistency, eliminates need for agencies.
25. Use dedicated phone numbers to track social media promotions.
26. Cool, interesting social media is done by cool, interesting people. – Dwight Sholes
27. Treat every customer like a VIP – KLM Airlines

I enjoyed connecting with many of you there – both new and old friends – and look forward to continuing the conversation.

This week is one of the travel industry’s most important events: EyeForTravel’s Social Media Strategies for Travel 2011.

Via ReviewPro are some good discussion questions we can begin brainstorming with:

• 1 – How do consumers want to interact with hotel and travel brands in social media?
• 2 – How does the social customer of today make buying decisions?
• 3 – How do we avoid chaos and data overwhelm?
• 4 – How can we leverage technology to gain insights from customer feedback?
• 5 – How do we get buy-in and participation from the whole team?
• 6 – How do we manage all this with limited time?
• 7 – Which activities will yield the highest results?
• 8 – How can we start thinking on a global scale, and capitalize on new opportunities internationally?
• 9 – What is going to give me the competitive edge?

You can get the full schedule for the event here.

And some nice places to do a meeting or get drinks nearby:

• Samovar Tea Lounge
• Dottie’s True Blue Cafe (great breakfast diner)
• Burger Bar
• District (wine bar)

I look forward to seeing some of you at the event!

Thanks to Marco I had the pleasure of participating in EyeForTravel’s Customer Centric Strategies for Travel held in Atlanta. As I wrote about before, the goal of the event was to think through how we could use technology to increase the loyalty of our increasingly social and connected customers.

You can see all of my tweets for the event here, but here were some key concepts I took away:

Email is as strong as ever

We heard from several presenters how sophisticated email systems are still very effective. Carnival Cruises saw a 50% lift in booking conversions after implementing an email lead nurturing system.They collect email preferences and interests on signup, and then deliver a followup sequence over 26 days that is tailored to the subscriber’s interests. (They find after that period if someone doesn’t buy, additional followup won’t help.)

Delta worked to transform their email campaign from “Here’s what we offer” to “What’s interesting to you?” And again, they stressed the importance of knowing when to stop messaging. If you haven’t opened an email from us in months, it’s time for us to stop sending, said Kristen Manion Taylor.

Are traditional loyalty programs useless?

Edward Nevraumont shared his belief that giving away discounts and benefits to top customers – people who would already spend money – is a waste. I can’t say I agree 100% with that.

He suggested we instead target consumers who spend a lot, but not with us.

You can’t argue with that.

Reinventing loyalty

Geoff Lewis of TopGuest confirmed Edward’s statements by saying the problem with traditional loyalty programs is those who would pay now get stuff for free. He suggested the next generation of engagement is made of physical location plus digital communities plus social networks.

He encouraged us to look at the online experience created by disruptive travel companies such as Jetsetter and AirBnB, which are engaging the social customer much faster. We can also learn from online gaming companies that use an engage (play) now, pay later approach.

Listen to guests with reports you can act on

My presentation talked about the need to cut through all the noise in social media today, and generate very specific reports for each department and management position in your company. They need information that’s easy to understand and can be put into use immediately.

The rise of social CRM

“Social CRM” is a concept correctly identified by event organizer extraordinaire Marco Saio as a huge area of innovation opportunity.

Based on the conversations I had, it seems we just need technology to evolve to a point where we can selectively gather social intelligence about a consumer, and use it to deliver better experiences.

You can get more resources we’ve assembled for you on this topic here:

www.SocialTravelBusiness.com

When I shared 16 ways we could improve travel conferences, I received a lot of requests for specific event recommendations. At the top of my list heading into 2011 is EyeforTravel’s Customer Centric Strategies in Travel conference, to be held in Atlanta, Georgia, USA January 26-27.

At the event, I’ll be sharing how travel companies can use technology to listen to and serve their guests and customers. Joining me will be other thought leaders on this topic from Hilton, Facebook, Delta, Carnival Cruise Lines, Expedia, Amadeus, British Airways, Choice Hotels, Marriott, Cognizant, Travelport, SAS, Topguest, IHG, and Google. You can see the full event agenda speaker line-up here.

EyeforTravel’s Global Events Director Marco Saio shared his purpose for the event with me on the phone this week:

My argument – and really the whole point of the show – is that all departments should be concerned with this, to really put the customer at the heart of all of their commercial operations.

It’s very much looking at how social media can be weaved in with other organizational disciplines to enhance their effectiveness, the bottom line, etc. So we’ll be looking at exactly those areas; how do we collate the vast amounts of data that social media can generate? How do we make meaning out of chaos? There’s no use hitting every single Facebook fan of ours – or every single Twitter follower – with just generic messages. It’s trying to establish that dialog and higher customer engagement.

If you’d like to join us in Atlanta next month to explore this topic, you should register now.

As promised, here’s the full video of my keynote at BTO 2010:

And if you missed the live event, you can download the bonus materials here.

Want me to speak at your event? Contact me for details here

Yesterday I had the opportunity to present at this year’s edition of Buy Tourism Online in Florence, Italy. You can download the slides from my presentation here, and below are some thoughts I took away from the event:

* Be hospitable! Add little things that make your guests feel special, and help separate you from the competition.

* By differentiating your product like this, you become less of a commodity and make your guests less price sensitive.

* Focus on sales through service. Service is the new selling.

* The top travel sites are discussion oriented.

* People are using OTAs for research, but prefer to book direct.

* Become a tougher negotiator with OTAs. Don’t sign agreements that let them restrict your marketing options.

* Do you know the true cost of sale for each of your promotional channels?

* Design to WOW your guests.

[Photo credit: Steve]