Media and PR

This will be the first Olympics of the Twitter era. Fingers crossed that participants will tweet their accomplishments rather than create a trail of regretful boasts or sore winning.

Blogging has real benefits for destination marketing, but the iAmbassador program (and others like it) create a false sense of value based upon a wave of chatter without any corresponding mainstream interest.

Oh the pageantry of the games, the patriotism, the thrill of competition, and the almost infinite possibilities of hooking up, thanks to a location-aware dating app.

You want logos and mottos to have staying power for more than a year or two; you want "I Love New York," not "Canada: Keep Exploring." At least Czech Republic hitched its wagon to Facebook rather than MySpace.

The magazine has always been run separately from the rest of the travel publisher's operations, yet it's managed to capture the LP promise quite well within its pages for its UK-based readers.

Zach Anner's previous travel show was kicked off Oprah's network and now he's turning to crowd-sourced recommendations to inspire shooting locales for videos he self-describes as a spin on Bourdain's "crotchety indifference."

From Chicago's exercise in mock confidence to Kazan, Russia's attempt to explain to listeners where it may be, slogans like these spoke for destinations before social media did it for them.

After getting slapped on the wrist by UK regulatory authorities regarding the trustworthiness of its reviews, and being subjected to adverse press reports, TripAdvisor is anxious to portray its tourism status as a solid citizen. Of course 25% of TripAdvisor users stay longer at hotels than other travelers -- it takes time to pack and write all those reviews before heading out to the next destination.

Travelzoo -- like almost everyone else -- is facing competitive pressures in the deals arena so it is looking for new revenue streams from hotels, and is seeking to manufacture some momentum through increased marketing spend.

New Orleans has yet to come up with a compelling, post-Katrina story to tell potential visitors. It's up to Dentsu to come up with one that doesn't use pity or Mardi Gras to bring in the crowds.