Researchers say that the internet is the very encapsulation of ‘one-to-one’ marketing and, as such, gives a hotel the ability to establish enduring relationships with individual customers. But others think that internet will encourage disloyalty with the comparability with the competitions’ offering is ‘just a click away’.

Would really be ‘virtual contacts’ build a good business relationship between hotels and customers?

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Hotel eMarketing and Internet ‘e’volution – Creating an Online Culture at Hotels: Are you a hotel eMarketer looking for ways to better communicate, educate and develop the role at your property/ies? This article explores some of the issues surrounding these efforts, complemented by a dose of perspective and a generous helping of best practices, all garnished, hopefully, by your own ideas and experiences. By Jitendra Jain

Finding Meaning: Wikipedia attributes the word ‘evolution’ to the Latin term ‘evolutio’ meaning “unfolding”. While the tech and Internet revolution have anything but “unfolded” upon us (“exploded” would be more appropriate, given the short span of time over which most Internet-related developments have occurred), there is something to be learnt from the nature of these changes.

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Web Page Optimization at Sheraton Doha: As it is a known fact that while eCommunications evolve, internet has become a mainstream media outlet used frequently throughout the day. Studies show that the web is the leading medium at work and second leading medium at home behind the television. The ease of communicating being provided by the internet is embraced by different sectors particularly the hospitality industry.

In the Middle East, as the number of hotels grows, the competitions are becoming so aggressive in marketing specially the hotel’s presence in the virtual world. Ergo, the eCommerce initiatives of hotels top with the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) which plays a vital role in hotel’s eExposure.

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An amazing video creation by Michael Wesch, called “The Machine is Us/ing Us” that tracks (visually) the development of content on the Internet, specifically the World Wide Web from HTML to the seperation of content and form…to the social media phenomenon of today, where the ‘machine’ is using us learn…and is essentially…US!

This video takes users through a basic understanding of the Web 2.0 phenomenon - not great but a decent start to understanding the concepts behind the idea.

The first tv advert by WAYN (Where Are You Now) giving us a glimpse at the true commercial potential of social networking sites, which have grown into various niches and are often big hits or bad misses. About WAYN: WAYN (an acronym for Where Are You Now?) is a social networking website with a goal to unite travellers from around the world. WAYN has top 2000 in Alexa Internet traffic ranking and was launched in May 2003 after two of its founders came up with the idea to connect people based on their location whilst having a few beers in their local pub. It grew from 45,000 to 4.1 million members in one year (to April 2006) and now has over10 million members. WAYN was initially launched as a paid service (register for free, pay for interaction). In April 2007, it opened interaction to all members, though some functions remain available only to VIP members (e.g. turning off advertising).

Cognizant of the fact that we are now in an era of revolution and phenomenal changes, it is true, one may say, that the world has continually changing even the fundamental movement of transmitting thought, i.e., communication. An instance on this movement is the electronic commerce (eCommerce) which has evolved technically from telephone, fax, and other electronic form of media. Now, this business communication or eCommerce has changed with the breakthroughs of technology, thus, electronic then is considered to be the Internet.

While in many parts of the world, eCommerce is just starting, it has already reached sizeable proportions in developed countries like the United States. The internet has changed many ways of conducting business, as well as the buying of goods, and promises to further change the way of life for consumers and producers in the future.
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I loved a recent post on TechCrunch, which explores the Web 2.0 phenomenon and human laziness… and what should logically happen when these two are thrown into the same e-pot… I’ve been experimenting and trying to build good communities for the past 4-5 years and almost always it is waning use and interest that dictates the demise of communities, no matter how well-meaning and how “cool”.

Right now, the bubble that the Web exists in is not so much a financial bubble as it is a time bubble. There is still a novelty for a lot of people associated with finding friends on social networking sites, Digging their favorite stories, updating articles about the history of pinball, and leaving comments on their favorite blogs. But that will wear off. People will revert back to the things they used to do: like Minesweeper and work. And without millions of generous mouse-clickers, most of Web 2.0 is weakened, if not entirely useless (TechCrunch).

So, given the fact that “Web 2.0″ is mostly user-driven, just how useful and how lively will this phenomenon remain? Will it be the greatest thing known to the human information age (till someone thinks Web 3.0 deserves better PR) or will it become a collection of mostly meaningless and outdated garbage… this remains to be seen.

Social Networking and Social Media sites are part of the whole Travel 2.0 euphoria…and marketers are scrambling for pole position when it comes to reaching a maximum number of eyeballs. However, the social media and networking sphere is not without its problems and criticisms. The first problem, of course is the low ROI on such sites… after all, advertisers are putting out banner and rich-media ads to an audience that doesn’t really want to view them in most cases, unlike in Search advertising where you have a captive audience driven by purpose. Another issue to emerge…

While sites like Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and Habbo Hotel have a powerful allure, the companies that run them are finding themselves on the front lines of criticism about fast-evolving standards. Some of the criticism in Britain involves advertising for junk food that is migrating to the sites from children’s television programming, where such ads are now banned, and corporate concern about employees distracted by time-sapping virtual networking.

Online advertising is a vital part of development for social networks, which have grown dramatically in the past two years with MySpace attracting more than 114 million visitors internationally in June, followed by Facebook with 52.2 million and Bebo at 18.2 million, according to comScore, an Internet tracking service. And all of those sites are feeling some growing pains.

“Ultimately there are going to be mistakes and unfortunate incidents,” said Debra Aho Williamson, a senior analyst with the research firm, eMarketer, and the author of a report predicting that global advertising spending on social networks would grow to $3.6 billion by 2011 from $445 million this year.

Read the original article at the International Herald Tribune

The Travel 2.0 revolution is having an impact on booking behaviour… studies now state that online user reviews of travel and hotel products have considerable pull on the consumer and may even be more important than pure pricing based decisions as observed in the past.

In a survey this year, Yahoo Travel found that 61 percent of people now go online for vacation recommendations, says Fiona Lake Waslander, the company’s director of product management. “Travel 1.0, when travel planning moved online, was really all about prices,” Waslander says. “No longer are you looking for a hotel just based on a price, but you’re looking at user reviews and user ratings and photos.”

Read the full article here