David Farley's Irreverent Curiosity - Interview and Giveaway

Head over to My Melange to read an interview with travel writer David Farley about his hilarious book An Irreverent Curiosity.

Leave a comment while at My Melange and you have a chance to win your own copy of An Irreverent Curiosity.

Write to Travel interviewed David Farley back in 2007 as part of it's 'Interview with a Travel Writer' series

Transitions Abroad Narrative Travel Writing Contest...

Entries to the Transitions Abroad annual Narrative Travel Writing Contest are open until January 5, 2011.

All wrters - professionals, freelancers, and aspiring travel writers - are invited to write articles which describe how traveling in a slower manner and adapting to the space and time of natives has deepened your experience of both the people and the destination.

How to Enter:

To enter, submit an original and previously unpublished essay from 1,000 to 5,000 words.

The Contest begins July 31, 2010, and all entries must be received by January 5, 2011.

The official guidelines are on the Transitions Abroad site.

Travel Writer Guidelines: Matador Network...

David Miller, senior editor of Matador Network, posted last month about The Writing and Photography We're [Matador Network]Looking for in 2011.

Nonlinear narratives, ground level photo essays and interviews, and pieces that introduce linguistic and cultural concepts to English are high on their list.

For more detailed and specific information on submitting articles to Matador Network, check out the Matador Network Contributors page. Here you will find details on publishing rights and payment, as well as information on how to avoid covering topics already published on Matador Network.

Why You Should Keep Your Goals to Yourself...

It's always the same. Come the new year, not only is everyone is making goals but they are also, thanks to the internet, telling the world what they are.

But making goals and then sharing them with everyone might not be the best move according to Derek Siver. In this interesting TED Talk, Derek explains why you should 'Keep Your Goals to Yourself'...

Travel Bloggers Unite Conference to be Held in England in March 2011...

Everyone knows about TBEX, the North American based Travel Blog Exchange that provides community, networking, and conferences for travel bloggers around the world.

But have you heard of TBU,the English based Travel Bloggers Unite?

It's a new (2010) travel blogger community that also provides networking and conference opportunites.

The Travel Bloggers Unite annual conference will take place in Manchester, England on the 26th and 27th of March 2011.

You can find out more about TBU and it's conference at the Travel Bloggers Unite site.

Travel Writing Miscellanea...

Interesting post from Nancy Brown from What a Trip on How to Work with Travel Bloggers

The Longest Way Home discusses Why Travel Photography is becoming endangered: Ethics of Travel Photography

This post at Nerd's Eye View has generated a lot of discussion about Who Owns the Internet Noise?. The post came about due to the fact that the fact that the folks behind the #TNI (Traveler's Night In, a weekly twitter chat, have compiled their favorite tweets from the chats into a book which they are selling on their site. But who, Pam Mandel, asks actually owns the tweets? Check out the post, the comments, and add your thoughts...

Have a look at this fabulous flow chart that asks and answers the question 'Should I work for free?'. It's a must read for any freelancer writer...

And over at Matador Network, Julie Schwietert breaksdown the steps on How to Become a Travel Writer (Seriously)

New Trazzler Travel Writing Contest...

Trazzler's latest travel writing contest is all about juxtapositions, which, according to the Trazzler newsletter, is

"just a fancy way of getting folks to write about places with interesting contrasts and thought-provoking diversity."

To enter this writing contest, you need to create a short (65 -120 word) post about...

any place where you discovered a surprising cultural or natural contrast--we're leaving it wide open to your interpretation.

Entries will be accepted until February 15, 2011

Prizes:
One Editors' Choice Grand Prize - 10 free hotel nights + $2,000 freelance contract to write 25 trips about Chicago neighborhoods.

Two Editors' Choice Runners Up - Prize: 5 free hotel nights + $1000 freelance contract to write 15 trips about Chicago neighborhoods

For more information, read the FAQ's, Trazzler's writing guide, and official rules.

Two Free E-Books for Writers....

Freelance writer Thursday Bram is working on a series of free e-books for writers.

The first two in the series are now available to read online (or save to your iPad for future reading).

The first one, New Ideas on Old Topics (16 pages)offers plenty of advice on how to keep up with ideas, even when you feel burnt out on a topic.

One tip that I've picked up and am running with is using technology to help track and manage ideas. In particular, Thursday discusses using Evernote, a web-based application that lets you create notebooks in which to add your ideas - thoughs, audio, video, webshoots, etc. What's really great about Evernote is that you can access it on various devices, including iPhone and iPad, and as long was you have an internet connection, everything is easily synchronized.

The second e-book, Time Management for Writers (15 pages) addresses various time management strategies aimed to ensuring that you become a more productive, and therefore, more financial secure writer.

January's Travel Writing Contest at Grantourismo...

Over the past year, Grantourismo has been running a series of monthly travel writing contests.

With this, the 11th GranTourismo contest, they are looking for short (250 word) entries with a single photograph that focuses on the theme of slowing down and settling in for a while.

First Prize is a $750 HomeAway rental voucher, a ViaTour voucher worth $150 and a Trourist Moleskin notebook.

There is also prizes for 2nd and 3rd place.

Complete contest information and entry details can be found at Grantourismo.

Contest deadline: 31 January 2011

Elizabeth Lesser's TEDtalk on taking 'the other' to lunch?

Given the events in Tucson and the immedicate reaction of many, especially media, as to who to blame, this TED talk by Elizabeth Lesser is very timely and should be taken to heart and acted on by everyone. It's such a simple concept that could make a world of difference, both on an individual and on a community basis.

Have a watch and give it some thought...

Want to Write for Gadling?

Popular travel site Gadling is holding a "Become a Travel Writer" contest with the prize being a paid blogging gig.

Entry into this contest involves writing a short (under 400 words) travel piece that will be judged on it's relevance, style, tone and formatting.

For further information on what they are looking for in the next Gadling blogger and how to enter, read Announcing Gadling's 2011 writer contest!

Deadline is Monday January 31st 12 PM EST

Innovation in Online Travel

I am working with Bob Offutt this year screening applicants for the PhoCusWright Innovation Summit in November. This effort has triggered some thoughts about how innovation comes to the market as well as the danger to companies that lack innovation.

From 1989-1995 I worked at Sun Microsystems. Part of management training at Sun was reading the book The Paradigm-Shift-Promise-Information-Technology . While I was at Sun I was able to secure funds to implement an early corporate booking tool from a now defunct company called TravelNet. Why not look internally to develop this application? Even though at that time Sun was far ahead of other companies in talking about "the Network is the Computer" foretelling the current hype around Cloud Computing, I could not get any internal IT support for this self-booking effort. I even had a Senior VP of Purchasing tell me that "we do not like to be early adopters of new technology". Yes this was a Sun VP acting as a Luddite about emerging technology. Despite the paradigm shift training, Sun's demise can be traced to its slow reaction to open source software. Hopefully, IBM will purchase Sun and put it our of its misery.

Another interesting paradox regarding innovation concerns online travel. Conventional wisdom may make you believe the current online travel heavyweights came from venture funding. Though each of the major OTAs has received venture funding over the years, Microsoft birthed Expedia, Sabre created Travelocity, the major airlines created Orbitz. Only Priceline has true venture capital roots, but was literally reborn under Jeffrey Boyd's leadership after the company went bust trying to promote "the name your own price" strategy to other non travel segments. Jeffrey successfully transformed Priceline from a opaque distribution channel to a full blown OTA and expanded the company's global reach with acquisition of Booking.com. The point here is that Venture Capital is often not the source of new innovation.

So where is tomorrow's innovation in the travel space? We need not look any farther than the emerging mobile platform. Our sponsors for the PhoCusWright Mobile Special Report represented some of the travel industry's largest companies (Starwood, Hilton, Carlson Hotels, Travelport, Amadeus and Abacus, IBM and Teradata to name just a few), but few showed true mobile innovation. Many sponsors are simply taking their Web content and reformatting for the mobile browser. This strategy misses the value of the new mobile platform and cannot access location a key component of succesful mobile applicaitons.

True innovation in the mobile space is likely to come from small companies such as Intelligent Spacial Technologies who have a unique point and click application that takes advantage of location, context and broadband wireless communication. Last year's winner of the Innovation Award was another small mobile advertising comany called Interactive Mobile @dvertising,

Can innovation continue in a down economy? Absolutely, though funding is tight, true innovation is a game changer and will continue to emerge from small companies. Even though hugely successful, the four major OTAs may miss the next "paradigm shift"(which I believe is mobile) and a new small entity may emerge with disruptive technology for travel applications on the mobile platform. No company of any size can simply ignore emerging technology trends such as mobile or risk becoming victims of shifts in market dynamics caused by innovation.

Top Apple Travel Downloads

With Apple approaching 1 billion in downloaded apps, I thought it would be good time to take a look at the top 5 most popular free and paid travel apps on iTunes

PAID.
1. Flight Track - this application from Mobiata is similar to Web based applications such as Flight Stats, but produced by a small mobile app vendor. - Question why doesn't Flight Track have the top position here?


2. Tipulator - Allows you to calculate the appropriate tip for service. Question: Isn't that essentially a calculator?


3. Where The Locals Eat - was created by the dining guide company of the same name. The popularity of this paid app reinforces the demand for local dining advise


4. iFare Finder - is a Kayak like meta-search application. The interesting aspect of iFare Finder is that it is only a mobile app. I could not even find a Website for RIV Creations the creator of iFare Finder, only a blog. Having helped a client last year create a mega-search engine, simple screen scraping will not work as a long term solution. Time will tell the quality of the engine behind iFare Finder.

5. Zagat to Go - At last a familiar brand name!



FREE
1. Google Earth - shows how Google is already dominating the mobile space


2. Urbanspoon - a slot machine that allows the user to chose a type of restaurant randomly


3. YELP - the UGC local restaurant and services



4. WiFi Finder - locate free and paid Wi-Fi networks



5. Choice Hotels Locator - At last a familiar travel brand!


So what does this all mean? Though brands such as Kayak, Hotels.com and Disney do appear in the top 20, a vast number of travel brands are missing. Now multiply this by 1000 and you can start to see how the explosion of app stores from Google, RIM Blackberry, T-Mobile and Nokia will further lead to missed branding opportunities unless the travel industry major players recognize that mobile downloads are here to stay and that they need to be part of every travel company's strategy.

American Airlines Arpey Interview

On a conference call discussing 1st quarter results with analysts, Gerard Arpey, CEO of American Airlines was asked" What kind of distribution cost savings might there be out there?" His response was very unnerving for travel agents and the GDS:" We're still paying much higher levels of commission and booking fees, and a lot that hinges on the use of technology and the competitive environment, because of lot of those commissions or overrides or booking fees are paid in order to stimulate traffic. If we can as an industry do a better job keeping the supply of seats in line with the demand, then that will help us on those fronts." The line that triggered a strong reaction from travel agents was this " I can see a day, and maybe I'm dreaming here, where those folks who are the intermediary between us and our customer have to pay for access to our product rather than us paying them to distribute our product." This brings to mind a number of points.

First, for the airlines to truly manage their capacity and fares based on demand they need to move away from a focus on an individual flight's profitability and better understand who is truly their customers and how to better forecast their demand. Overrides emerged in the 1980s during an era when the airlines still owned the GDS and used display bias to allow a travel agencies to earn override commissions if they switched GDS systems. This was an age before direct airline corporate discounts and the major airlines continued to rely on travel agents for corporate account management. In 1992, Robert Crandell, Mr. Arpey's predecessor, introduced"Value Pricing" The plan was designed to make fares simple, sensible and fair. It offered customers travel flexibility, and was a major revision to American's fare structure. The aspect of Value Pricing that the general media missed was that it essentially canceled all existing corporate agreements. At that time, corporations did not receive a direct discount based on overall volume, but creatively used available meeting fare discounts to provide broad discounts for their company's travelers. About a year later with the failure of Value Pricing, the major airlines began negotiating corporate direct discounts. Since this has been the norm since the mid 1990s, one might believe AA and the other major carriers have amassed a vast knowledge of corporate travel patterns and thus could project demand more accurately. Sounds good, but this true demand analysis seems not to be in airlines' DNA as most still look at the profitability of a given flight not overall customer performance when calculating overall demand. I don't believe that things today are quite as bad as when I was in sales at UA back in the late 1980s and I was told that the company had created their forecast for the next year, but forgot to include the sales force estimates. That's right UA as a major carrier would forecast demand without incorporating the forecasts from their sales force. I am not sure if we could find another industry where this type of absurdity could exist. No doubt in today's world, carriers such as AA do take into account corporate account volumes and measure closely their performance against contracts, but I doubt that this analysis is used to forecast demand as the airlines continue to be ruled by yield management goals for a given flight.

The second point concerns ineffective incentives to distributors. Overrides are paid to large corporate TMCs and large online players. The absurdity of the distribution discussion is that time and time again the airlines have missed platform shifts, such as the emergence of the Web in the mid-1990s. This has in turn allowed new entities to emerge such as the Expedia and Travelocity as major online distributors. The airline's effort which formed Orbitz was a strategy to limit the OTAs' power, but as everyone knows ended up being sold to what became Travelport and thus reinforced the hand of the online distributor. I agree that ineffective incentives should not be in place, but the reality is that the market strength of the leading TMCs and OTAs forces the airline to play the override game and if not, could result a negative selling campaign against non-preferred carriers; a situation which has happened many times over the years.

My third point comes back to my favorite subject, mobile technology. It is my strong belief that mobile technology represents a new platform for travel distribution. Most carriers have simply extracted their current Web booking platform and transferred it to the mobile Web. This misses the broad opportunity to create location-based, contextualy relevant and personalized information delivered to the airline's best customers through a network enabled, downloadable app. Will the mobile platform create new powerful intermediaries who will demand higher compensation? This is possible considering the overall travel industry's view of mobile as a customer touch point rather than a new distribution platform. The major airlines' aspirations to lower distribution costs and reverse the flow of money back to the airlines is a legitimate goal, but unlikely in the near term, though Lufthansa continues to pursue this effort in Europe. What is more significant is how the airlines again may miss a major technological shift, and thus allow new intermediaries to emerge who will continue to demand compensation.

Illegal iPhone Clones are Here

This image is an iPhone, right? Look again. This is an illegal iPhone copy made in China that I found was being sold in Dubai. A client of mine bought this from a vendor in Dubai about a week ago while I was there. Apart from the obvious legal ramifications of this device (I'll leave that to Apple), the impact on the market will be significant. My client bought this iPhone copy for 300 Dirhams (about $82 USD).
In our report for PhoCusWright, we predicted a flood of smartphone copies in 2009. This clear ripoff of the iPhone is characteristic of what will be common phenomenon throughout Asia. As long as the wireless carriers go along, illegal copies like these will flourish and significantly increase the penetration of smartphones in the market. It is unclear if this phone would access an app store. BTW if you didn't notice, the key difference between a real iPhone and this illegal copy is that it only has four rows versus five on the main screen.

Sabre's new Tripcase a TripIt Competitor

Sabre has introduced a downloadable iPhone app that competes with TripIt.
It has some similar features but unlike the email parsing capability of TripIt, TripCase automatically imports the PNR information provided it was booked in Sabre. It is currently only available on the iPhone, but additional platforms will be introduced later this year. So is this a TripIt killer? Maybe at some point, but certainly not immediately.
What I find fascinating is the fact that Sabre participated as one of the investors in TripIt's 5.1 million in Series B financing. It looks like Sabre is hedging its bets!

What is a bit ironic is Sabre's market behavior which reminds me a lot of Microsoft back in the 1990s. Back then, Sabre joined other tech companies in challenging Microsoft's ability to control the development of applications because of its ownership of the OS and browser. In those days Microsoft had a solid reputation of partnering with smaller software entities and then coming out with a competitive product. It is unlikely that Sabre Studios who developed TripCase had any connection with the Sabre group that invested in TripIt, but the fact that TripCase is a clear TripIt competitor at least gives one the impression of a one time partner who is now a competitor.

From my perspective I am happy to see a major travel brand embracing the downloadable app store approach to distribution as these types of apps can take advantage of the location awareness of the smartphone delivering new services not available on the Web.

Update

I just completed an exhausting two week trip to the Middle East (Kuwait and Saudi Arabia), Dublin, Ireland and Washington DC. I thought I would create some short blog entries about each of these trips.


First up, my first visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). My client Al-Tayyar is one of the largest travel companies in the KSA, the GCC and througout Africa. I was hired by Al-Tayyar to evaluate their internally developed ERP system and to comment on their soon to be launched IBE. Obviously, there is a level of confidentiality that prevents me from talking about their systems in any great detail, but in general I found the systems to be very impressive. The main point here is that Al-Tayyar has embraced the concept of dynamic pricing based on customer value. This is approach maximizes agency profitablity while recognizing the value of different customer types and forms of payment they use. This relates directly to the agency's bottom line and is a type of customer management which is ahead of much of the global travel industry. The IBE system they have built has a multi-source structure and allows customization of packages dynamically. I was very impressed with both these systems, but I did realize they were built around requirements that were very specific to the KSA market. The sytems were built in partnership with Interglobe Technologies a very experieinced Indian travel software company.

Datalex Users Conference

Last week I was in Dublin Ireland to participate in the Datalex Users Conference. Datalex is a long time client of Travel Tech Consulting. The conference has a small number of attendees (50-60) consisting of Datalex customers and prospects, but the quality of the attendees and depth of the sessions was very impressive. I had the pleasure of siting next to Jim Young who opened the conference with some provocative observations about industry trends. Jim, most recently of Frontier Airlines can truly be called an industry pioneer. At Frontier he was instrumental in implementing fare families, at IHG he was the executive that pulled inventory from Expedia and then renegotiated a new agreement which included a mix of content and advertising benefits and while at Continental he pioneered the direct distribution model during the turbulent 2005 period. Also in attendance was Mark Rosenberg who recently left Air Canada, where he redefined the distribution landscape with the idea of a fare family and pushed the GDS to accommodate this new model.
Day 1 was all about ancillary revenue. Jay Sorensen, President of IdeaWorks presented the results from a new Ancillary Revenue Guide that he just published. The discussion was lively with different airline executives from American, Continental and Frontier debating the various approaches to ancillary revenue. As an observer, I had to comment that all these ancillary revenue strategies often result in a single customer reaction, paying for services formally free (baggage, meals and in the case of Ryan Air on board toilets!). There is no question in my mind that this current focus on ancillary revenue represents a permanent change in the way all airlines market their product. Fare families (also known as branded fares) breaks the long held practice of yield management by associating services with different fare categories regardless of seat class availability. This will likely impact all sectors from distribution (how GDS and intermediaries display these fare groupings) to corporate travelers (will corporate travel negotiations now center around services as much as discounts?) and even meta-search as the Kayak and Fly.coms of the world struggle with showing airfare comparisons when branded fares associate price with service characteristics.
On Day 2 I gave a talk on mobile. By the response of the audience I realized that the airline executives still do not get the impact of mobile. The main response was about how difficult it would be to sell a mobile project to airline senior management. This was an odd discussion from my vantage point as the prior day's focus on ancillary revenue ties directly in to the opportunity with mobile. It looks like the major carriers will have to catch up on the mobile revolution and risk the possibility that a new intermediary will emerge on the mobile platform adding additional distribution costs and separating the end traveler from the supplier once again.

Travdex

I am pleased to be helping my colleagues at PhoCusWright with the launch of the brand new technology tradeshow Travdex, May 5-7 2010 in Atlanta . Some may simply say, why does the travel industry need yet another tradeshow? Each of the segments- airlines, hospitality, corporate, cruise, traditional travel agencies, online travel companies, all have conferences and tradeshows. The question, in these tough times, are these traditional conferences worth the investment for the buyer and the seller? What makes Travdex different is the fact that it is solely an appointment driven buyer/seller marketplace for every aspect of technology covering all sectors of the travel industry. No matter the economic climate, businesses still need to sell their products and buyers need to source and select systems.

As part of my consulting practice over the last 14 years, I have led many procurement efforts for new reservation, customer management and infrastructure systems. These efforts have been for many different sectors including: resorts, travel management companies, wholesalers, online travel companies and the US Federal Government. The first step in procuring anything is to source suppliers. Sourcing is now a global exercise as the right solution may be from a company outside your geographic area. Tradeshows can be an important element in the sourcing process, but from a buyer viewpoint trying to get some time at a crowded tradeshow with the right vendor can be a frustrating experience. From a technology supplier perspective a recurrent problem at most tradeshows is sorting through the foot traffic to uncover the real buyer. Technology companies can spend days at tradeshows giving demos, but often have trouble equating the traffic with concrete sales. The goal of Travdex is to change the tradeshow experience. How do I know it will be successful? Travdex is being put on by PhoCusWright, a company that has reinvented the concept of a travel conference. If you ask anyone in the travel industry they will tell you that the PhoCusWright Conference in November, is a must do event bringing together the innovators and leaders in the travel industry. This is why I know Travdex will be like no other tradeshow before it, bringing technology buyers and sellers together for an intense two days where deals will be made. I encourage all travel suppliers to sign up now to take advantage of early bid discounts.

The Demise of Clear

As a frequent traveler I am quite frustrated with the demise of Clear, the registered traveler program. I just signed up for Clear a few months ago and I only got to use it a few times. I believe the concept was good, but the execution was very inconsistent. For example, in San Francisco, the Clear lane merged into the normal security line rather than the FC priority line. So though you were a priority traveler, you had to wait while families and their strollers navigated through the security process. In addition, rather than being a self-service, the Clear personnel basically took my card and put it into the machine. I am sure this was designed to assist first time users, but definitely added to the cost of their service. The best experience I had with Clear was at Dulles Airport in Northern VA. In fact with all my work with the DTMO and GSA, I intentionally signed up for Clear knowing that it would be of value at Dulles. The Clear check-in line was downstairs and saved me at least 30 minutes fighting the mobs on the normal security lines. The way Clear simply shut down without notice will make me very reluctant to every sign up for a registered travel program again. In addition, as a Global Service member of UA, I am able to bypass the security line and allowed to cut into the FC line (though I always feel guilty when I do so!).
As mobile boarding passes become the norm over the next few years, the airport security process should set up dedicated lines for mobile boarding passes as the TSA staff at the various airports will need to be trained to accept the mobile bar code. Considering the fact the TSA process is not standardized across all US airports (for example some require you hold your boarding pass in your hand, others don't and some look at boarding pass while others don't), the implementation of the mobile bar code boarding pass is bound to have some problems.

Is the Finger Print Reader on the IPhone the Solution for M-commerce and Security?

Apple has filled patents for fingerprint recognition system for the iPhone. This may have major implications for m-commerce and security as well as mobile user interfaces. Fingerprint reader technology has long been used for computer security. The interesting thing about Apple's research is that involves the use of fingerprint patterns to actually identify distinct fingers. The idea is to match specific functions to specific fingers. This table shoes how an index finger press might perform on action (PLAY/STOP) while a middle finger press could fast forward.
Clearly fingerprint reading is coming to mobile phones. When implemented consumers could become comfortable with storing personal information on their mobile phone provided no one can access it due to the fingerprint lock. There has been a great deal of discussion on the concept of a portable profile that could be used across sites to provide more personalized interaction. Given the personal nature of the mobile device, fingerprint controls may provide the needed security to make a portable profile a reality. Travel apps could use specific fingers for targeted tasks such as purchase or rebook. Clearly fingerprintf identification and interaction is something to watch over the next few years.

Augmented Reality to Enhance the Travel Experience

One of the future trends identified in the PhoCusWright mobile research was the use of mobile devices to augment reality. Layar a browser available on the Google Android platform has announced the opening of its API to a select group of developers. As mentioned in the TechCrunch article other AR browser players include:" Tonchidot's Sekai Camera and Mobilizy's Wiki Tude. Even IBM is playing around with mobile AR apps." The Layar video uses a real estate example, but the value to the traveler should be very obvious.
In recent speeches to airline and hotel executives I have been emphasizing how mobile is a new platform for developing appplications that never existed before. Developing AR browser based applications for travel is a great example of this opportunity. The ability for the traveler to view a real world structure and augment that with various types of data such as historical information, services (e.g. restaurant reviews) and special interest subjects (e.g. architectural design) are just a few examples on how AR browsing can enhance the travel experience.
The mobile platform is much more than a phone as it is truly a sensor of the physical world. Already it is common place for travelers to tweet, blog or upload pictures about their current destination. AR browsing takes this one step further by enhancing your surroundings with data that you find relevant.

The Dark Side of UGC - The Cleveland Video

We've all read about the value of user generated content (UGC) and viral marketing. Unfortunately the best intentions do not always produce the desired results. Positively Cleveland, a DMO that promotes the region created a "Hastily-Made Tourism Video Contest". The goal was simple, use UGC to promote the city. This video was "created" for the contest, but obviously was never selected. None the less the first version of this funny but disturbing video has attracted 1,206,632 views. The second version to the left has attracted 994,291 views. When searching Cleveland on YouTube this video comes up 1st!
The lesson here is an important one. Travel companies can try to use UGC to enhance their online offering, but beware as the Internet user population may take this opportunity to do exactly the opposite from your intended goal. The sad part of this video is that though it is obviously a farce, it does show our country's declining "rust belt" and the toll the Recession has taken on the area.

How a Single Vacation Experience Can Impact Loyalty

I generally do not blog about my own personal travel experiences, but I felt compelled to do so after my family's recent trip to Hawaii. To validate that I am indeed a frequent traveler, I am currently a UA Global Services member, a SPG Platinum and a Marriott Silver Elite. I have made 11 trips to the Middle East in the last 12 months and traveled to Amsterdam, Berlin and Dublin on the way back from some of these business trips.

In order to use free tickets on UA for my family, we extended our stay a few days before and one day after. We exchanged our Marriott timeshare in Lake Tahoe for a timeshare on Kauai. We stayed at the Sheraton Kauai for three nights and the Kauai Marriott for one night.

When I checked-in at a separate line for SPG members at the Sheraton Kauai, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that we had been upgraded to a corner suite which were three connecting rooms and three balconies. This is a picture from one of the balconies. This was a great start to our vacation and reinforced the Starwood brand.

Our Marriott Lake Tahoe timeshare is one of the most desirable timeshares on the market at the foot of Heavenly Ski resort overlooking Lake Tahoe. We were sold on the timeshare a few years back based on the superior level of the property and its value in exchange through Interval International. When we arrived at the Pono Kai we received no recognition (the property is managed by Blue Green) and though I had requested an ocean view, called two weeks prior to the property (on the advice of the property) to request it again, we were given a garden view. Overall the property was fine and we enjoyed our stay, but the lack of recognition and the lower quality of the property has made me question the value of our Lake Tahoe Marriott timeshare investment.

At the end of our trip we stayed at the Kauai Marriott. There was no special line for Elite member check-in. In addition, I had requested an upgrade and I was not aware that having done so, we would have to pay an additional $150 per room for the ocean view. An email came to me the day before checking in stating the $150 charge. I was disconnected during entire trip so I never saw this email. We were using points for the two rooms for a one night stay. When I asked to downgrade, I was told that no garden view rooms were available. We had to wait approximately 3 1/2 hours to check in and the room though newly renovated was only a partial ocean view and did not have any furniture on the patio to allow us to enjoy the expensive upgrade. The property is beautiful and the renovated room was very nice, but the lack of recognition and overall treatment has influenced my future travel booking behavior.

As a frequent unmanaged business traveler, I generally have complete choice on where I stay. I am currently working on two projects for the US Government which will involve lots of trips to the DC area over the next 2-3 years and I have consciously chosen to stay at Starwood properties as a direct result of my Kauai experiences. As a Global Services member, UA treats me great. The three nights in the luxury suite at the Sheraton Kauai has increased my loyalty to Starwood. Given the money we've invested in the timeshare and the number of nights I've stayed at Marriott this year, the lack of recognition and surprise charges dilutes any positive feeling I've had towards the brand. Overall it was a great vacation, but proved first hand how loyalty can be impacted by a single trip.