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Top 3 reasons why US online travellers hesitate to book online

Travelers booking online continue to resist the Web as their main resource for making reservations, threatening future fast growth, according to Forrester Research.

The research firm polled about 5,330 North American consumers in the last quarter of 2006 to determine what prevents them from putting their faith in online travel sites. The top three reasons for those who do research and hesitate to continue with an online booking:

- Concern over credit-card security.
- Web-site performance issues and limits on the actions that can be taken online.
- Frustration with Web site performance.

"(Those) three reasons have shown noticeable growth in one year," said the report.

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A majority of consumers support a brand responding to consumer generated reviews, according to a study, Consumer Generated Content (CGC) in Travel, by Compete, Inc.

Travelers are increasingly turning to their peers as a valued research source and encourage travel marketers to join them in this dialogue, according to the company.

Compete examined consumer generated initiatives from Sheraton Hotels, TripAdvisor and Southwest Airlines to help travel marketers understand how to balance creating exposure with maintaining control of the conversation.

Compete estimates that CGC influences over $10 billion a year in online travel. With consumers finding CGC more credible than they do professional reviews or information from travel companies, CGC has emerged as a critical source of travel information.

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German Online Travel Gains on UK

Old travel brands shine online.

Germans booked 35.1 million vacations online last year, according to BITKOM.

That's nearly one vacation booked online for every two Germans. The country's total population was 82.4 million in July 2006, according to the US Census Bureau. Germans average 35 vacation days per year, compared with 13 in the US, according to the World Tourism Organization.

The number of leisure trips that Germans reserve online has been rising steadily since 2003.

eMarketer Senior Analyst Jeffrey Grau said, "German leisure travelers are booking vacations online at strong rates that are allowing this market to close in on second place, behind the UK, in European online travel sales."

Germany's share of Europe's online travel sales has been increasing since 2003, according to PhoCusWright.

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Building an eCRM Strategy in Hospitality: How to Establish Mutually Beneficial Interactive Relationships with Your Customers

Background

Evolving from a simple face-to-face handshake, eCRM has become a science, often requiring large expenditures in manpower and technology. In our people-oriented service industry eCRM has become a must have for any hotel company.  More often than not, the results of eCRM program implementations have been disappointing, according to a published study by IBM Business Consulting Services, called “Doing eCRM right: What it takes to be successful with CRM”. The study finds that just 15% of the companies it surveyed—both small and large—felt fully successful with their CRM programs.  Only 15%!

In reality, eCRM means different things to different people especially in the hospitality and travel verticals. From a working definition, CRM and its online application, eCRM is a business strategy aiming to engage the customer in a mutually beneficial relationship. Within this context here is the best description that describes eCRM that is universal for any travel supplier or intermediary:

Electronic customer relationship management (eCRM), in the context of Internet distribution and marketing in the hospitality and travel verticals, is a business strategy supported by Web technologies, allowing travel services suppliers to engage customers in strong, personalized and mutually beneficial interactive relationships, increase conversions and sell more efficiently.

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Niche Sites Invigorate Online Travel

Friends and family tired of your vacation videos? Just go online.

New online travel sites are chipping away at some of the expertise that drives people to online travel agencies (OTAs), which are themselves already pressured by travel supplier sites run by airlines and hotels.

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Videoagency, a new European venture, has launched the first online hotel video portal called Trivop.com

For the first time ever, Trivop.com allows consumers to start their hotel search by watching hotel videos -a vital tool that allows them to make an educated choice when deciding which hotel to stay in.

Have you ever been disappointed when walking into a hotel or a hotel room, realising that the product you see before isn't exactly like the description or pictures presented on the website?

With this new online video media, you can prevent this sort of disappointment. Videos give a more accurate overview of what the hotel looks like and what the customer can expect. It's a more effective option than just pictures.

Through the Trivop.com website, you will be able to discover the hotels' surroundings, their public facilities (the lobby, restaurant etc...) and last but not least, all bedroom categories. With Trivop.com, your hotel experience has already started!

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US Teens Scream for Streams

Three-fourths of US Internet users ages 12-24 have streamed digital content online, according to a new study by Ipsos Insight.

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