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Online Travel Companies Choose Their Targets - eMarketer.
Suppliers seem to have won the
battle for online leisure and unmanaged business travel market share in
the US, according to December 2008 PhoCusWright data.
Fully 61% of online travel sales are now made directly at
supplier sites, compared with 39% for online travel agencies (OTAs) in
2008. This balance is projected to hold steady through 2010.
Making YouTube Work for Your Business - BusinessWeek.
It took John F. Kennedy less than 18 minutes at Rice University in September 1962 to inspire a generation to land a man on the moon. It took Barack Obama 17 minutes at the Democratic Convention in July 2004 to persuade millions of viewers that he had fresh ideas. It took San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom seven and a half hours to give his State of the City address in December 2008. Yes, you read that last sentence correctly—Newsom's presentation lasted more than seven hours. Newsom tried something different by delivering the entire 10-segment presentation on YouTube (GOOG). It was different all right. But it could have been more effective had he kept a few basic lessons in mind.
Hotel Blogs by Guillaume Thevenot: How to compete online in 2009.
No doubt people will remember a time when offering a quality product was enough to generate sales, now hotel sales is a primarily price-led market. In today’s competitive market, the slogan ‘sink or swim’ has never held as much meaning. To stay in business, it’s important for hoteliers to recognise online marketing as a prime selling channel. Online selling is a fast moving, dynamic market, with an abundance of suppliers and technologies. Whether objectives are to improve your online presence, boost revenue or to streamline administration, a grasp of the mechanics of each booking engine is a fundamental element of today’s sales and marketing activities.
Top Social Media Sites of 2008 (Facebook Still Rising).
What were the top social media sites of 2008? ComScore came out with its worldwide traffic stats for November a few days ago (so these don’t include December). They are a mix of social networks and blogging platforms. Blogger, the orange line in the chart above, still rules the roost with an estimated 222 million unique worldwide visitors in November (up 44 percent from November, 2007). Facebook, the blue line, is on pace to pass it soon with 200 million unique visitors (up 116 percent). (Note, though, that this is more than the 140 million active users Facebook itself reports—go figure). MySpace is pretty steady at 126 million uniques. Wordpress is a close fourth and gaining with 114 million (up 68 percent). And Windows Live Spaces is down 22 percent to 87 million uniques.
World travel trends report. ~ Wednesday, 31st December 2008 from 4Hoteliers.
According to this trend analysis, now published, from January to August 2008 in Europe, holiday trips by car and train increased by five per cent compared with the same period in 2007. At 50 per cent, air travel still retains a larger share than car travel, which stands at around 30 per cent.
