Stayful CEO Cheryl Rosner has a background working at both Hotels.com and Expedia. Stayful is now almost one year old and so far the company is in 19 markets with listings of a few thousand boutique hotels. 

The site is skewed to Millennials and seeks to make hotels stays more affordable with its bidding and booking system by enabling one-to-one negotiation on rates. It also hopes to give greater exposure to boutique hotels that have traditionally paid higher distributions costs.

In the video, she discusses the boom in the boutique hotel business with Pimm Fox on "Taking Stock." (Source: Bloomberg)

It would seem that Facebook likes and TripAdvisor reviews are still KING in the Luxury travel market! Here is a great article by  Karthick Prabu- Wilna 

TripAdvisor contributes about 61% of all reviews on luxury hotels in the US and 53% of all reviews on luxury hotels globally, reveals a survey by Brand Karma and International Luxury Travel Market.

The study was conducted among luxury travellers and their opinions on about 2,000+ hotels around the world.

Luxury is now defined as “Instagram-able”

For millennials, the ability to share a travel experience instantly via photos and videos has become an important requirement when selecting an experience. As Millennials become older and more affluent, they will seek luxury experiences that are so unique and visual that it is guaranteed to generate buzz amongst their social network.

Future of luxury hotspot

Luxury hotspots are shifting to the southern and eastern part of the world, particularly the Middle East, APAC and Latin America regions.

In the social media world, luxury travel hotspots are cities or destinations with an above-average quantity of luxury hotel reviews. While the well-known luxury hotspots like Paris or Las Vegas are still attracting travellers, newer and trendier destinations such as Abu Dhabi, Da nang, and Lima are attracting more attention, as indicated by sharp increases in luxury social postings.

Secret formula for a luxury hotel in social media

The study says that almost all luxury hotels at the top of its rankings had a common social presence pattern among them:

• Luxury hotels to have at least 5,000 Facebook Likes, a TripAdvisor average rating of at least 4.5, and a strong presence on one of the major photo or video sites like Instagram, YouTube, or Pinterest.

The study says above parameters are minimum essentials for luxury hotels to have an effective social media presence.

Opportunities in Latin America

In 2013, there will be 278 million internet users in Latin America, exceeding the number of internet users in both north America and Europe.

In June 2012, about 33% of internet users in some of the largest Latin American countries used online travel sites.

World’s top five socially engaged users are from Latin America: Argentina leads with 10.7 hours per month per visitor, followed by Chile (9.5 hours), Peru (8.7 hours), Colombia (7.6 hours) and Mexico (7.1 hours).

Latin American hotels have not leveraged media websites like YouTube and Pinterest. But, LATAM luxury hotels are starting to focus on photo and video-oriented apps like Vine and Instagram video, which have high engagement rates with consumers.

Difference between a North American and Latin American luxury traveller

• North American travellers seek experiential travel; whereas, Latin American travellers prioritise the functional product, namely a stunning room product and top-notch restaurants.
  
• North Americans are more verbose – their hotel reviews were nearly double the length of their Latin American counterparts.
  
• North Americans posted most often on Mondays, while Latin Americans posted most often on Tuesdays. Apart from below differences, Facebook and TripAdvisor are still the top social travel sites in both markets.
  
• Between January 2011 and June 2013, social postings by north American luxury travellers increased 130%, while social postings by Latin American luxury travellers increased 304%.
  
• However, the satisfaction levels among these travellers also steadily increased. Brand Karma’s Social Satisfaction metric saw an increase of 43% among travellers posting in Portuguese, an increase of 14% among travellers posting in Spanish, and an increase of 4% among travellers posting in English.
  

TripAdvisor leads in luxury hotel review segment, but Chinese travel sites catchup

TripAdvisor produces about 61% of all reviews on luxury hotels in the US and 53% of all reviews on luxury hotels globally. The site also continues to be the largest review site for luxury hotels. For hotels within the US, 
Hotels. com, Expedia and Orbitz remain as the key channels for online reviews.

However, several major Chinese booking and review web sites like Ctrip, Qunar and Dian Ping now encompass over 15% of all reviews on luxury hotels globally.

Though the Chinese sites share of hotel reviews in the US is small, it is expected that this will increase in the next 18 months given the fact that China is now the largest outbound tourism market globally.

Online reviews and social media engagement

According to the study, the social media health of a luxury travel brand is best indicated by the positivity and share- of-voice it attracts from two major sources: online review sites like TripAdvisor and social networking sites like Facebook.

And, when it comes to social networking sites, the average number of Facebook Likes for a luxury hotel is highest in the Middle East with 12,062 Likes. Higher review contribution in the US and Europe doesn’t really mean higher engagement in social channels.

Study methodology

• The study is based on Brand Karma’s research on comments, photos, and videos posted by luxury travellers both in the Americas and globally on social media and travel review sites between January 2010 and June 2013.
• Data in this report has been analysed from about 550K reviews written for more than 2,000 luxury hotels worldwide

Read the full article on Tnooz. See more ...

I was fortunate to spend a few days with Damian Cook - learning about maximizing online tools for the travel industry. Insightful and inspiring! - Wilna 

This article was taken from Tourism Update, 16 Sept: 

Tour operators globally have been hit hard by a combination of the recession of the past few years and soaring online travel sales that are expected to double this year, exceeding US$350bn (R3.4 trillion), says Damian Cook, CEO of E-Tourism Frontiers.

 Speaking at the recent E-Tourism Africa Summit in Cape Town, he said the traditional tour operator model was diminishing. “KPMG lists 49% of tour operators as in decline and 24 major tour operators bankrupted in 20011-12, including Thomas Cook. Online is regarded as the motivating factor, as well a lack of customised and dynamic travel bookings.”

 However, SA Tourism (SAT) Chief Marketing Officer, Jan Hutton, believes the rapid growth of e-tourism and online travel agents will not damage or replace the role of traditional tour operators, many of whom are getting involved in the digital environment. 

“It certainly is not a case of TripAdvisor and Expedia eating our lunch,” she said. “We can see a strong trend of most tour operators becoming quite digital in the way they market themselves, engage and communicate with their consumers. It is rather a case of the fast versus the slow. There are some leading tour operators that are taking the market by storm digitally and they are making a bigger dent and are getting a bigger piece of the market share because they are being proactive. The rest are in an adoption process.”

Cook agrees: “We live in an environment of constant change, which means the industry needs to adapt.” It faces the following challenges: 

- 59% of all travel is now researched, booked, bought and sold online. 
- 98% of people start their travel research online. 
- More than 200 000 people booked trips to South Africa through online booking engines last year.
- The number of flights booked to South Africa on Expedia grew by 32% to more than 109 000 in the six months ending June 2013.
- Reviews and referrals are the number-one driver behind people’s choice of destination.

 “For tourism businesses,” says Cook, “this means they need real-time bookability and e-commerce; have a strong social media presence on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube; must manage online relationships; manage and optimise conversion points; and know what they are selling and who they are selling to,” said Cook.” The online market is too crowded and too loud to be making bland generic statements. Your message needs to be unique and stand out. Sell an experience. Sell a story.”

He said customers and social media networks were driving travel, which is shaking up the industry. According to Google, only 18% of consumers use travel agents before they travel, whereas 66% consult family and friends, mostly on social media networks. Over 50% of all time online is spent on social networks; YouTube viewers consume over 3bn hours of video monthly; and Twitter gets 308 000 tweets per minute.

He said 70% of travellers posted photos while travelling, communicating to an average 200 people who know them, creating a great opportunity for the trade to reach an active audience that is constantly engaging, commenting and recommending. “Travel suppliers now need to be part of this constant engagement. The single most stupid thing you can do in the travel trade is to charge your customers for using the Internet! If it’s too expensive, put up your rates to include it!”

 With 4.8bn mobile users worldwide, he said future trends focused on mobile and location-based tools, apps and sites that find information and contacts around you, post, report and relate to your content.  In addition, the first wearable watch phone, Samsung’s Galaxy Gear, was launched recently, while Google is developing the first wearable spectacles with usable content.

The digital age is upon us and we have to learn to embrace all the tools that are on offer - before, during and after  our guest' trip. Wilna 

Travelport released the findings of an international survey providing insight into how digital leisure travellers plan and book their trips: from the frequency of their holidays to how they go about researching and planning their journey.

The study also explored their use of technology and social media and how travel agents can rise to the challenge of their evolving needs throughout their trips. Travelport estimates that the market for global intermediary leisure travel is expected to be worth $672bn by 2015.

Investigating the varying opinions and preferences of the ‘digital natives,’ (those under 35) and the ‘digital immigrants,’ (those 36-45), key findings from the survey include:

- The need to stay connected and a heavy dependence on smartphones: 87% of those aged 35 and under, and 80% of those 36-45, owned or planned to purchase a smartphone in the next six months. This increased access to the internet anytime, anywhere, is changing the expectations, demands and behaviours of leisure travellers.

- Higher levels of interest in accessing travel and destination information before a trip: treating the smartphone as a “personal assistant.” 60% of the ‘digital natives’, for example, consider a smartphone to be their ‘personal travel assistant or companion’ enabling interaction to take place at any time. Both groups prefer to access pre-travel information via mobile technology, rather than through traditional devices. This indicates the importance of travel itineraries that can be integrated with other apps, and formats that are easily read on mobile devices.

- Despite using their technology-savvy to research and book trips themselves, both groups of leisure travellers reported they are becoming increasingly confused with the amount of information on the web and were more likely to engage with a travel agent for complex trips. 

The research also takes a look at how leisure travel agencies are servicing their travellers in terms of contact before and after the trip and the services they sell and concludes that opportunities to better service their ‘digital native’ and ‘digital immigrant’ customers exist. While travel agents are often actively involved in the run up to a leisure traveller’s journey, only one in two, continue involvement after a traveller boards their flight. Yet the survey revealed growing interest from mobile users in receiving more promotional offers on hotels, dining offers, airport information and recommendations while they were away. In fact, 41% of travellers indicated they wanted to receive more relevant offers.

Travelport conducted parallel studies with over 2,500 leisure travellers and 1,000 travel agencies in eight countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, UAE, UK and US. The research was conducted in mid 2012 through an online survey email invitation to leisure agencies, and by the use of a third party panel company to consumers.

As I explore the design and uses of Mobile apps, I found this article to be rather good at highlighting some of the dangers to look out for... worth a read if you are exploring this too... Wilna 


Mobile travel apps: enjoy the opportunities but beware of the legal risks


NB: This is a guest article by John Pavolotsky, a practicing legal professional who focuses on technology transactions and other intellectual property matters at Greenberg Traurig.

Mobile apps are pervasive and, in many cases, mobile is becoming the preferred interface to access software applications, especially in the travel sector where the fit is natural between provider and the traveler on-the-go.

But while some time may still pass until vacations are booked primarily via an app, we are certainly much closer today than only a few years ago.

Pitfalls

With opportunity, of course, comes some risk. The process of developing an app is still relatively new. That said, in many cases, the issues presented in connection with developing an app are similar to ones associated with developing custom software.

For example, apps may be, and in fact, tend to be, developed by third parties, and without a contractual provision presently assigning the developer’s intellectual property rights in the app to the client, unless the app is a work-made-for-hire, under federal (US) copyright law, the app will be owned by the developer.

To that end, care should be taken to prepare a consulting agreement addressing, among other things, ownership of the app and any related intellectual property.

Likewise, the agreement should have the developer indemnify the client from any claims made by any third party that the app (including any data accessed or presented by it) infringes on any intellectual property or other rights of that third party.

An indemnity is simply a promise to compensate another entity for a loss.

Things to remember

Mobile travel apps, in particular, require access to and presentation of data from a multitude of sources, such as GDSs (Global Distribution Systems), map platforms, and social networking sites, if there is a social component.

As such, it should be understood by both the developer and the client which sources need to be accessed, whether any licenses (API (application programmer interface) or other) are required, and the scope and cost of these licenses.

If, for example, the API license is for internal use only, and the API will be accessed by the app to present data to consumers, a distribution license will need to be procured, even though it is debatable whether APIs are copyrightable, and thus require a license.

Many apps still do not have privacy policies.

Here is an example concerning recent developments in California, US. Apps that collect personal data from California consumers must have a conspicuously posted privacy policy, in the view of California’s Attorney General, Kamala Harris, as stated in the “Joint Statement of Principles” issued on February 22, 2012 and signed by seven leading technology companies (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, RIM).

In practice, this requirement is universal, because a developer may not be able to prevent California consumers from purchasing the app, or will likely not want to.

The Joint Statement provides, among other things, that in the application submission process there will be included:

• either an optional data field for a hyperlink to the app’s privacy policy or to a statement describing the app’s privacy practices
• an optional data field for the text of the app’s privacy policy or a statement describing the app’s privacy practices

These elements make it easier for developers to comply with the requirement to have a conspicuously posted privacy policy.

Privacy policies generally describe how personal data is collected, used, and shared. Contuining the example outlined arlier, the California Online Privacy Protection Act (2004), which is cited by California Attorney General Harris in the Joint Statement, provides additional details about the contents of such policies.

Of course, the California Department of Justice, and in particular the newly-formed Privacy Enforcement and Protection Unit, may prosecute violations of other data privacy and security laws. For example, if app developers do not abide by the posted policies, there is liability under California’s Unfair Competition Law and/or False Advertising Law.

Further, others, including the (US) Federal Trade Commission, have taken an acute interest in privacy policies and security practices.

Failure to post or abide by a privacy policy, or to comply with any other applicable laws, will give rise to a breach of the distribution or license agreement between the developer and the relevant app store and in turn to an indemnity, requiring the developer to pay for all of the liabilities and costs incurred by the app store due to the breach.

Data – lots of it

Apps generate a sea of data, and it is thus critical for the developer to address use and ownership of the data, whether in a privacy policy, data policy or mobile EULA (end user license agreement) discussed below.

Data may have tremendous commercial value, especially in the case of free apps, for which the primary revenue source is in-app advertising, which is wholly dependent on the data collected by app.

Many apps, and especially those that are travel-related, feature LBS (Location-Based Services). Some may know that CTIA (Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association) has published a Best Practices and Guidelines (March 23, 2010) (“Guidelines”), “intended to promote and protect user privacy as . . . ‘LBS’ are developed and deployed”.

By way of example, the Guidelines would apply to a developer that makes available through a digital app store an app that requires the user to be located in order to provide roadside assistance or directions to a local travel hot spot.

The Guidelines are premised on notice (of how the location information will be “used, disclosed and protected”) and consent (which may be implied if a user requests a service, such as roadside assistance, which cannot be provided without a user’s location). The Guidelines address a number of other topics, including the security and retention of the location information.

The Guidelines, however, do not address, except by reference to illustrative “Location Based Privacy Policies” available via a link in the Guidelines, international LBS issues, such as transfer and processing of data to and in a country other than where the services are being used.

Regardless, the LBS provider should, whether in a privacy policy, EULA, or otherwise, obtain consent to such transfer and processing and, more broadly, and as discussed, address issues like use and disclosure of the data collected by the provider.

As practical matter, in vetting apps, digital app stores will ask whether or nor the app has LBS capabilities and will want to be assured that, at the very least, the Guidelines are being met.

End-user issues

Lastly, as part of the application submission process, the developer will have the option to include its own mobile EULA to accompany the app, to state the rights and remedies of the consumer and developer with respect to the app.

The distribution or license agreements for each app store are, as one might expect, rather different. One digital app store might require the developer to incorporate certain terms into the mobile EULA. Another might not have any such requirement, but simply provide that if there is conflict between the mobile EULA and the distribution agreement, the latter will govern.

At any rate, each distribution or license agreement with the particular app store should be carefully reviewed.

As for the EULA itself, it should reference the app’s privacy policy and address, among other things, ownership, use restrictions, warranty disclaimers, and limitation of liability, and more generally, just like the privacy policy, be specifically tailored to the capabilities of the app and be consistent with the company’s business practices.

Good luck!

NB: This is a guest article by John Pavolotsky, a practicing legal professional who focuses on technology transactions and other intellectual property matters at Greenberg Traurig.

When research analysts at Facebook studied the Facebook posts of 200 large-brand clients, certain patterns and trends emerged. The results show simple strategy tactics that brands can try to increase fan engagement with posts.

Among the findings:

- Posts containing 80 or fewer characters had 27 percent higher engagement rates than posts longer than 80 characters.

- Yet, only 19 percent of all posts analyzed were this short in length.

- Brands that posted (or scheduled posts) outside of business hours showed engagement rates 20 percent higher than those that posted only during business hours.

- Yet, about 60 percent of posts went live between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. ET.

- In general, across all industries, engagement rates were 18 percent higher on Thursdays and Fridays compared with other days of the week.

- in general, engagement rates fell 3.5 percent below average for posts Monday through Wednesday and 18 percent below average on Saturdays.

- Fans are more likely to engage with “events” and “winning” than with “contests” and “promotions.”

- Posts that end with a question result in a 15 percent higher engagement rate than posts that do not end in a question.

- Avoid the question why and instead go with where, when, and would and should, which were shown to result in higher engagement.

Get the full story at AllFacebook 

By Courtney Boyd Myers  

Travel is a multi-trillion dollar industry, so naturally companies as small as Trippy to as giant as Google all want a piece of the pie. In recent years, travel companies have tried to harness the power of data aggregation along with the social graph to produce powerful travel planning tools. For many, sites like TripAdvisor were the first stop in the travel process, but they’ve just been bumped from first class by Gogobot.

Gogobot is a San Francisco based startup founded by MySpace’s former International GM Travis Katz and Ori Zaltzman, the former Chief Architect of Yahoo Search BOSS. The startup opened up its public beta in early December 2010 and its growth has been astonishing, with a new member joining the site every 15 seconds, on average. After just 18 months since launch, Gogobot is today announcing its 1 millionth registered user along with some pretty competitive stats.

Since launch, more than 5 million places have been shared on the service, with Gogobot’s mobile app and a partnership with Foursquare cited as a major driver of this growth. Since launching the iPhone app in October, the number of reviews submitted by users has doubled each day, the number of trip plans created has doubled each day and the number of photos uploaded by users each day has increased by a magnitude of 5x.

To sign up for Gogobot, use your Facebook, Twitter or email and then start searching for travel recommendations from your friends and browse the top recommendations (e.g. London restaurants) from the entire Gogobot community. You can also post questions within the Gogobot community and out to friends on your social networks like “Where should I go in Thailand?”.

Katz had the idea for Gogobot while he was living in London and taking frequent weekend trips around Europe with his wife. “We’d say, ‘Let’s go someplace we’ve never been before,’ and we’d look on the map at the South of France and spend all day researching. And every single time we’d find ourselves 8 hours later with no idea of where we were going,” says Katz. “I realized that something is badly broken if it’s impossible to plan travel on the Internet.” After a 3 month hiatus in Hawaii, Katz quit MySpace and moved back to Silicon Valley to get started building a solution to his troubles. The company’s headquarters remain there today with an office in London.

Unlike TripAdvisor (which has come under fire recently for its fraudulent reviews), Gogobot was born in the post-Facebook era and baked social in right from the start. It’s part of an entirely new generation of social companies — like Zygna, Spotify and Highlight — that’s been able to beat out the dinosaurs by leveraging the social graph.

Early on, Gogobot scored major partnerships with the top travel booking sites including Expedia, Kayak, Orbitz, Priceline and Hotels.com positioning Gogobot to be the number one social platform for travel and wanderlust exploration. According to the Katz, in addition to driving 30 times more traffic than all of its rivals (likeWanderfly, Trippy and Gtrot) put together, Gogobot has secured 4 times more funding over the last 18 months — $19M — than all of its rivals combined.

“The million registered user milestone makes us the first site in the social travel space to get to critical mass, which is really important for a social product. Lots of people launch social companies but unless they have a massive user base, it will never be social enough. You need to have people posting, responding, commenting and caring. And we were the first company to get to there in our space,” says Katz.

With a clean design, intuitive user experience and $19 million in funding from Battery Ventures, Redpoint Ventures and Innovation Endeavors, Gogobot’s 1 million strong traveller community is worth perusing before you plan your next vacation.
Courtney Boyd Myers is the Features Editor of The Next Web, based in New York City and London.