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About this site

My name is Neil MacLean. I am a new media strategist in the UK and this blog covers social media technologies and the travel business.

I study the impact of consumer generated content and analyse how your customers can help you be found and trusted in a crowded marketplace.

This blog is a playground and in a constant state of experimentation. Sorry about that.

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The new Journey to Atlantis site is hugely impressive, not least because it is built on WordPress. Kami Huyse and Josh Hallett have all the details.
I would like to find a WordPress savvy designer close at hand who could produce that sort of work. If I don’t, I shall look further afield. And just to roll two posts into one, next time I find myself working remotely with a design team, I will be very tempted to try out ConceptShare to hold it all together.

Technorati Tags: travelpr

I am very confused. Hotel Marketing covers a new study of the travel space by Compete, which summarises lessons to be learned from the way three travel brands respond to or integrate consumer generated content. There’s good stuff here such as:

Sheraton Hotels - Integration into eCommerce Platform: In late 2006, Sheraton transformed its website into a social platform, a “Global Neighborhood” for travelers. Compete’s analysis revealed:

* Value to Consumers: 50% of Sheraton shoppers who remember seeing the social functionality reported it as being valuable to their experience
* Increased Conversion: Integration of CGC tools is tied to eCommerce performance, with 57% reporting it having a positive influence on likelihood to book

Southwest Airlines - Mini sites, Events & Promotions: The Southwest “Wanna Get Away Sweepstakes” micro-site used consumer generated videos to create a viral buzz and engage consumers in its marketing campaign. Compete found:

* Strong Awareness: 20% of Southwest.com visitors claimed recall/awareness of the “Wanna Get Away” promotion
* Enhanced Image: Southwest shoppers give the company high marks for an innovative marketing approach and encourage these types of marketing efforts

TripAdvisor - Brand management on third party sites: As the leading destination for consumer-generated travel reviews, TripAdvisor illustrates the opportunity for brands to respond directly to consumers. The study showed:

* Importance of Peers in Research: Peer opinions are highly valued, 82% prefer consumer reviews over a hotel’s description of itself
* Acceptance of Brand Involvement: 58% say a supplier responding on TripAdvisor would put them in a favorable light

“Consumers want brands to have a role in their conversation,” said Gregory Saks, director of Compete’s Travel Practice. “If brands remain genuine and transparent in their CGC strategies, travel marketers can become a powerful voice in the conversation and engage with consumers in an entirely new way.”

All that comes from a press releases dated yesterday. We are invited to learn more by attending a free web conference. Trouble is, according to my calculations, that took place two weeks ago. Can anyone at Compete shed light on this?

Technorati Tags: travelpr

I am sorry I missed the Travolution Summit last week (slight case of being in the wrong country at the time). By way of compensation, I can now watch a video featuring a long line of industry personalities talking about the major challenges faced by the travel industry over the next twelve months. It’s good stuff, though so long that, now I have watched it, it feels as if two of those months are already behind us.
If anybody had asked me - and isn’t that the joy of a blog? I am going to tell you anyway - I would have waffled on about the increasing impact of online video, particularly consumer generated video shuffled into search results so that when potential customers research destinations and tour operators it will be increasingly easy for them to find videos shot by people who were there last week or who thought the hotel buffet was a poisonous liability.

Technorati Tags: onlinevideo, travelpr

Occasionally I brainstorm different ways to use Google Earth with travel companies, from mapping safari routes to pinpointing hotels to marking the start of a walking trail. Although the technical side is not particularly tough, it is time consuming and anything which lightens the load has to be celebrated. That’s why I was glad to see this bit of Mac software on my radar.
Earth Addresser takes addresses from your Mac’s address book and writes them to a clickable KML file which Google Earth can then open to display on its map. Better yet, if you add a photo to an entry, it pops up instead of the usual drawing pin.
Really good, particularly as it’s free.

Technorati Tags: travelpr

I was about to give the web 2.0 talk to some national tourist office people the other day, when one stood up and asked if he could take a photo - of me, my slides, the room, everybody there. No problem, but why? Turns out his bosses in a certain land (quite far east of here), insists he posts photographic proof that he attends all the events in his diary, presumably to make sure has hasn’t been slackening in his effort to promote their lovely country. Extraordinary.
Stranger still, to my mind, is that he has put up with this nonsense for almost ten years. I would last 10 minutes before I told them where to stick their Pentax.

Confession time. I have been playing away. Unfaithful to my blog. Dillying and dallying with Twitter. For anybody who doesn’t know Twitter is the bastard love child of IM and blogging, a web service which encourages you to post what you are doing right then and there, for broadcast to the world or just to your closest friends.
It’s addictive and fun and, though you probably think I am just trying to get down with the cool kids, I can see a lot of use for this sort of thing in the travel world.
If I was a tour operator running safaris, for example, I would get my top tour guide to Twitter and I would carry the updates live on the web site.
Can you imagine?
“We have just seen two impala by the water hole”
“We are stopping down wind of the elephant herd; we’ve heard there’s a rogue male in the vicinity”
“Oops, three of our guests have just been trampled”
Fantastic. A great way to convey an immediate and compelling impression of what you do for prospective customers.

Technorati Tags: travelpr

How about this: a mass hoe-down to breathe life back into your tourism business?
Thousands dance in Bali tourism drive:

About 5,000 people danced in a trance outside a Balinese temple on Friday in a colossal show aimed at reviving the Indonesian island’s tourism industry, still feeling the pinch of last year’s deadly bombings.
The Kecak dancers, dressed in checkered black-and-white sarongs, raised their arms and chanted “Cak Cak Cak” in a frenzied chorus at the foot of the grand Hindu Pura Tanah Lot temple overlooking the sea, just as the sun went down.

I think I might have shouted something less aurally ambiguous for my English-speaking audience.

Technorati Tags: destinationpr, travelpr

Good piece on the Singapore foodie experience by Anthony Bourdain in the NYT. In fact, once you get past the initial generic gushing, ten times better than anything else from the travel section in weeks.
Food is really Singapore’s saving grace; there are few other reasons I would rush back.
I attended the opening ceremony of the inaugural Singapore food festival in 1993′ish, a thoroughly PR’d event, most notable for the selection of giant vegetables on legs which welcomed us at the beginning. I haven’t shaken hands with a carrot since.

Technorati Tags: publicrelations, singapore, travelpr

The Kazakhstan government is so steamed up about Sacha Baron Cohen’s new film it has hired a couple of PR firms to try and limit the damage to their country’s reputation.
Cohen plays Borat, a bumbling Kazakh TV presenter and acccording to the Daily Mail, President Nursultan Nazarbayev is so peeved at the portrayal of the Kazakhstan character he will tackle the subject when he meets George W  at the White House .

It seems foreign ministry spokesman Yerzhan Ashykbayev is one of those charged with leading the anti-Cohen, anti-Barat backlash. The response, predictably, came in the form of a video on the Official Borat website.

In the video, Borat said, “In response to Mr. Ashykbayev’s comments, I’d like to state I have no connection with Mr. Cohen and fully support my Government’s decision to sue this Jew.

“Since the 2003 Tuleyakiv reforms, Kazakhstan is as civilized as any other country in the world.

“Women can now travel on inside of bus, homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hats, and age of consent has been raised to eight years old.”

His blatant outpouring then prompted the Kazakh government to hire two public relations firms to counter the claims, and ran a four-page advertisement in The New York Times.

Via pidgeonblog2