Internet Marketing

The future of travel and destination marketing is online. Discussion boards, customer review sites, blogs, and social network sites dominate the internet today. They also play an integral part in the planning of travel.

"This year, 40% of all leisure and 35% of business travel bookings will be done online. By 2010 over 50% of leisure bookings are expected to be online. The percentage of meeting planners researching and booking online is also growing at a rapid pace. An estimated 89% of planners are researching event locations on the web, and by 2008, 41% of all groups and meetings travel revenues will come from the Internet." (HotelMarketing.com)

Facebook, a social media site originally for students attending Ivy League schools, has quickly evolved over the years and taken over the internet. Today, Facebook is used by all ages to get in touch with old friends and even make some new ones. From a marketing perspective, Facebook offers a way for businesses to reach more customers through groups, fan pages, notes, applications, and more. Facebook business pages are a form of social media marketing that allows a business to "create more targeted messages to individual niche groups and to leverage personal recommendations from your customers in order to create word of mouth marketing." (Creative Fusion Media)

Building a Facebook business page will attract customers of all ages and demographics. A Facebook business page offers a number of features to bring customers to your business. You can even build multiple pages to appeal to different groups of people, such as teens.

With a Facebook business page you can:

• Supply basic business information such as a website, company overview and physical address. You are also able to place a logo of your business on the page.
  
• Easily upload photos and videos. Your clients and fans can add photos as well.
  
• Engage clients in conversation using the discussion board or the "wall"
  
• Add notes (similar to a blog post) and post upcoming events or promotions that you may be hosting
  
• Have users become a fan of your company

For an example of a Facebook business page, visit .travel: The Source for All Things Travel page on Facebook.

Happy Fat Tuesday! This past weekend I visited one of my favorite U.S. cities, New Orleans, for the start of the Mardi Gras celebrations. If you want to celebrate and are unable to make the trip to the Big Easy, the internet has some great ways to make it feel like you are there.

Throw on some party beads and watch the parades!
Click here for a live webcam of various shots of New Orleans, as well as the parades broadcasted live. There is also a live blog that will update you on the happenings of the day.

Bon Apetite! Mardi Gras is not complete without the delicious cuisine that New Orleans has to offer. My top favorites:

Café Du Monde's café Au Lait and beignets.

You can buy beignet mix and a can of coffee on their website.

Central Grocery muffaletta.

A typical muffuletta consists of one muffuletta loaf, split horizontally. The loaf is then covered with a marinated olive salad, then layers of capicola, salami, mortadella, emmentaler, and provolone. Click here for a fellow bloggers recipe.

Tropical Isle Hand Grenades. Known as "New Orleans' Most Powerful Drink," the cocktail has a sweet melon taste, is colored light-green, and comes in a plastic half-yard glass shaped like a hand grenade at the bottom, with small plastic grenades inside the container. The home mix can be purchased from their website.

And of course, no Mardi Gras is complete without king cake. A Lousiana-style king cake is a cinnamon-roll like cake inside with sugary icing with traditional Mardi Gras colored (green, yellow, purple) sprinkles on the outside. The cakes have a small plastic baby trinket inside, and the person who gets the piece of cake with it is King or Queen for the day. The top 15 places to order king cakes can be found here, although Party Palace is my personal favorite.

For more information on visiting New Orleans, visit www.NewOrleans.travel

In the current economic downturn, the travel industry has taken a hard hit. The challenge of getting people to spend their hard-earned money on leisure travel is rising by the day. Convincing people to travel has now come down the strategic marketing plans set forth by industry leaders. To me, airline marketing has always been interesting to observe. Each company takes their own individual approach to grab the consumer and convince them that they need to fly a specific airline. Two airlines have launched marketing campaigns geared toward the recession.








JetBlue has recently launched a program that refunds plane tickets to those who are laid off from their jobs before the flight. “JetBlue launched the program not because customers were asking for refunds, but because the airline has noticed that passengers are waiting to the last minute to buy tickets, a sign of nervousness about their finances.” (Wall Street Journal)

Under its new Promise Program, customers who book flights between Feb. 1 and June 1, 2009, and lose their job on or after Feb. 17 may be eligible for the refund. JetBlue’s fares are usually nonrefundable, but with the Promise Program the traveler listed on the itinerary can request a refund for up to nine customers traveling on one reservation.

"JetBlue is committed to helping customer’s book stress-free travel plans, and based on their feedback we made adjustments to our refund policy to allow them to book with confidence," Robin Hayes, executive vice president and chief commercial officer for JetBlue said in a statement. "This price promise allows them to book early and take advantage of our low fares without worrying they will lose their money if they need to cancel their trip due to job loss."

JetBlue’s latest marketing effort is also a great idea for businesses that are cutting back on business travel. With the Promise Program, customers will be able to feel comfortable about making travel arrangements even with rumors flying around the office about layoffs.



On the other hand, Allegiant Air is taking an opposite tactic from JetBlue by expanding their service and targeting a niche market of smaller cities throughout the country. The airline was the most profitable domestic carrier in 2008, and wants to continue to grow. Allegiant believes that small-town Americans will continue to buy getaways to escape from the daily grind.

So in the end, which marketing plan will win? The one that promises financial security or the one that offers a chance to leave all worries behind for a few days? Only time will tell.

Yesterday, while listening to my favorite online radio station (usually commercial-free), I was bombarded with an ad that played after every single song for ProFlowers, an online plant, flower and gift store. It was then that I realized that Valentine’s Day has quickly shifted from a greeting card holiday, to the largest e-commerce holiday out of the year.

Looking to use the internet to celebrate Valentine’s Day? Here are some ideas:

· Buy your flowers, gifts and chocolate online. The top websites are 1800flowers.com, ftd.com, and ProFlowers.com.

· Send an e-card. Hallmark.com offers free cards you can send to your sweetie online.

· For a unique gift idea, give a romantic website name such as WorldsBestValentine.com, ILoveYou.net, or ValentinesDay.travel. You can even populate the website with some surprise content.

Businesses can use the holiday to promote themselves. An entertaining Valentine’s themed YouTube video or a Facebook fan page offering valentine promotions are great ways of getting the word out to potential and current customers about the holiday.

Using E-mail, Cross-Marketing and Special Promotions are more great internet marketing tools. According to retailemailblog.com, two-thirds of Valentine’s Day-related emails were sent during February. The biggest days were Thursday, Feb. 8, followed by Tuesday, Feb. 6, and then Monday, Feb. 12.

Happy (e)Valentines Day!