In a few weeks, I’ll be heading to Chicago to attend the Travel Distribution Summit North America 2009. A little info from the organizers:

This is North America’s key learning event for senior travel executives. SVPs and VPs of ecommerce, marketing and distribution from top travel brands will provide attendees with a wealth of practical advice and recession-busting ideas. Find out how to cut distribution costs, seize opportunities, steal market share and create innovative campaigns in the changing world of online travel. Topics on the agenda include crucial distribution trends, supplier and OTA relations, social media and trip planning, growth in the vacation rental market, ancillary revenue and the GDSs and search engine marketing.

As always, I’ll be working hard to uncover and share the latest industry insights and best practices with you. I plan to liveblog key sessions, and perhaps interview a few influential people during my time there.  (Make sure you’re following me on Twitter to get updates as they happen.)

If any of you are attending this, let me know. It would be fun to meet up in person there.

Today at ad:tech Paris 2009 Chris Dobson of the BBC gave a keynote speech on how established companies can adapt to new media. Though this conference targets the broader advertising industry, many of the ideas have relevance in hospitality marketing. Here are a few notes from the speech:

• You don’t have to be new to be in new media. BBC is one of the oldest media companies, but is one of the world’s most advanced media companies. The brave new world favors the brave old one.
• There have been many new media changes over the years, so you must be adaptable. BBC started television broadcasting before World War 2, but the format only started gaining popularity after Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953. Get your technology ready now, and you’ll be prepared with the growth surge comes.
• The multiple screen theory is no longer a theory. People are now using media on multiple devices more than ever.
• The brave new world requires great content. Content is needed to populate all media devices. User-generated content will always be important, but so will professionally produced content. Bigger companies have the resources to fund and produce top-quality information. Users need and appreciate that.
• New media still has less reach than old media, but is more personalized. As we move ahead, ‘high touch’ media will also become high reach. We’ll be in a world of high reach and a high degree of personalization.
• The future of new media adoption in western Europe, unless it changes significantly, is under pressure. Brazil, Russia, India, and China have many more young people as a percentage of their populations, so technology adoption is higher. The greatest new media opportunities lie there.

#10 – The best business leaders don’t look at overall market averages, but rather how they can break the trends and grow market share. Number of customers lost by recession is less than the number of potential new customers out there. Global travel will grow 3% in the year ahead.

#9 – Companies that only seek to cut costs now will emerge from this recession with an uncompetitive, outdated organization.

#8 – This economy is accelerating the rate people are moving from offline to online for travel bookings. There is a perception of better value from booking online.

#7 – Everyone in your hotel must be involved in your new media strategy – not just one person. Think holistically, and avoid thinking: “That staff person does internet stuff.”

#6 – Context – not just content – is king. Offer the right information to the right people at the right time.

#5 – Twitter is either the latest time wasting fad or an important tool for research and communicating with your guests. Make sure to determine its use for your hotel before jumping on the bandwagon.

#4 – Maps combined with location-specific photos and videos is the new interface of choice for travel research.

#3 – There will be major growth in video: both guest-created and professionally produced. It gives the viewer a richer perspective into the real hotel experience – more than standard hotel photos. For hoteliers, video is an opportunity to differentiate their properties and move away from price wars.

#2 – Mobile services will become strategically important in 2009. Smart mobile devices are now in the hands of many, and data connections are faster and cheaper. To benefit from this trend, hotels need to create platform-specific content that is simple and fast to use in any country.

#1 – The future will belong to companies that innovate boldy now, before the economy fully recovers. When recovery comes, it’s going to happen fast.

It’s difficult to profile guest preferences, because the same people travel for different reasons. Not “who” is your customer, but “when” is your customer.

UK is most mature market for TripAdvisor, other markets (France, Italy, Germany, Spain) are earlier in the process. However, there are no major cultural differences between countries. France has higher online conversation rate than Germany.

In India, booking hotels online is still a new concept for many. Visitor reviews are quickly growing in popularity there.

Advises hoteliers to place reviews on your site using TripAdvisor’s embedding tools.

Highlights from panel discussion:

• Frequent travelers are usually the earlier adapters in mobile technology.
• Don’t just take your existing web content and adapt it to mobile. Create mobile-specific content.
• Notifications of travel changes is what makes the mobile platform unique.
• Many hotel booking systems are too complex to use on a mobile. Will the future bring saved payment/profile information that eases this process?
• In the US, 30% of iPhone users say it replaces their laptop usage
• In Japan, more people access internet on their mobile than with a traditional computer
• For many people in India and China, the mobile internet is their only access to the internet
• Web-based content could eliminate the need to for traditional smartphone apps. However, there are cases when it’s good to have an application that does not rely on internet access.
• The user doesn’t care of your service is an app or online, they only care about ease and speed of use
• Advantage of apps: you can use device-specific features (like iPhone location services)
• Travel suppliers are taking the lead in mobile innovation, not travel intermediaries
• International data roaming is a big barrier and issue to work around

(Based on a keynote by Mr. & Mrs. Smith)

1) You must create trust with your potential guests. Have consistent pricing. Be transparent in your blog and communications.

2) Focus on building deep and meaningful relationships with your guests. Develop unique and personalized incentives to develop these.

3) Offer a human touch. Be careful about outsourcing functions such as phone sales. The closer your representatives are to your hotel, the better service and sales they can deliver.

4) Look for joint ventures outside the hospitality industry. Think about what your customer likes, and build lifestyle amenities around that. Select JV partners carefully for maximum impact. Don’t dilute your brand with too many alliances.

I ended up liveblogging today’s PhoCusWright sessions to Twitter instead of here.

View the updates @hmarketinghelp. More will come tomorrow.

I’ll also be posting lengthier summary posts shortly…

Photo by 96dpi

Hello from Berlin, where I’m getting ready for the ITB trade show this week. Tomorrow, I’ll be at the PhoCusWright Bloggers Summit – meeting other bloggers and discussing the latest industry trends.

I’ll be covering the event live, so look for a lot of posts here the next few days sharing what’s new in hospitality marketing. You can also watch our twitter feed, @hmarketinghelp, for as-it-happens updates.

See you tomorrow!

Photo by Rene Ehrhardt

Thanks to Phil Caines, I’ll be attending The PhoCusWright Bloggers Summit at ITB Berlin March 11-12. From looking at the program, you’ll see this is a great opportunity to interact and learn with other like-minded travel professionals.

If you’re a blogger, click the button below to submit your application.

Later, I’ll be representing Gradigio at the main conference. Let me know if you’ll be attending, and we can meet up.  See you there!