Articles tagged “advertising”

Brand loyalty in the travel industry has been an achilles heel with few being able to engender much of it. Miles and points are great, but it will be the experience, as well, that will make people keep coming back for more.

Should we view Spirit Airlines as the corporately responsible greenest U.S. airline or as the best gutter marketer in travel? Despite the mixed marketing messages, Spirit is following both tracks in becoming a highly successfu airline, and the envy of many of its peers.

Is Facebook's reputation as a marketing vehicle for travel brands in jeopardy? It looks like Facebook's advertising challenges go beyond monetizing mobile -- Google can capture a traveler in shopping mode, but that's harder for Facebook to do.

The launch of TripConnect is a really big deal. In much the same way that Booking.com led the way in bringing on board apartment hotels, condos and villas, TripAdvisor will now enable that vast long-tail of smaller properties to participate and vie for direct bookings.

It's a good season at the high-end of travel advertising.

TripAdvisor will talk about how its transition away from hotel search through pop-under windows to metasearch was driven by the need to improve the customer experience, and that indeed was part of the reason. But, the bottom line is it was mostly about the bottom line i.e. the economics.

Some travel companies took compare tools like Booking Buddy's and pre-checked several windows, driving up their own click revenue and exasperating consumers who unknowingly found their computer screens flush with pop-under windows when they started to search. CPC rates charged to advertisers became subject to a downward spiral, and although the model is still widely used, metasearch stole some of its thunder.

TripAdvisor is entering a very crowded field this year as online travel companies have saturated the airwaves. Still, with $40 million to $50 million devoted to its campaigns, TripAdvisor is going to get the word out. And kudos for brilliant use of its iconic green review icons.

If online travel agencies are heading toward becoming a hybrid of transactions and metasearch advertising, it is ironic that Kayak, Room 77 and Hipmunk have already become hybrids, having begun to take direct booking themselves in recent years.

Kayak's digital advertising spending in the U.S. just about disappeared around the time that the Priceline's acquisition went down. It will definitely be back.