Trexy News Headlines US News Page 1 of 4 | Next PageShow Entire Article New Website RoomKey.com Competes With Online Travel Agencies USA Today | May 30, 2012 | 12:35 PM EDT If you like the comfort of booking your stay on a hotel-owned website and dealing directly with the property when something goes awry, then a new collaborative venture, RoomKey.com , should be on your radar. Founded in January by Choice Hotels , Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt , InterContinental Hotels Group, Wyndham and Marriott , Room Key is designed to give the benefits of booking your room directly with the hotel and enough choice from these hotel chains and their partners that you won't be tempted to plunk your money down on an online travel agency site instead. Here's how RoomKey works: You enter your desired destination and dates, and Room Key's default hotel results show properties based on their proximity to the city center.
Carrot2 Carrot2 Search Results Clustering Engine Carrot2 organizes your search results into topics. With an instant overview of what's available, you will quickly find what you're looking for. Choose where to search: Type your query: More options More advanced options Hide advanced options Example queries: data mining | london | clustering About Carrot2: Carrot2 is an Open Source Search Results Clustering Engine. Hotel Blogs - When Hotel Marketing gets Social: When hotel groups rewrite a story: RoomKey We started the new year with a lot of news regarding the online travel world. Just by reading Tnooz, I can't keep up with the new stuff coming out of new ventures and also all these changes happening with OTAs. One of the recent news was the announcement of a new collaborative online distribution channel called RoomKey. This new venture has been launched last week in beta with major hotel groups (Choice Hotels International, Hilton Worlwide, Hyatt, IHG, Wyndham Hotel Group and Marriott). When I heard the news, I had to pinch myself because this reminded me of 2 past failed projects in the last decade: AndBook in 2000 and TravelWeb (owned by Priceline now) in 2002. With RoomKey,these hotels groups aim to create a direct distribution channel that competes directly with traditional online travel agents (OTAs) such as Booking.com or Expedia. Now, RoomKey might play the innovation route and think ahead of Google. Really? And don't even get me started with the introduction on their website.
Carrot2 - Open Source Search Results Clustering Engine IPK World Travel Monitor: Results of 2011 and some forecasts for 2012 | ETFI Tourism Research Blog | Academic research and trend analysis of developments influencing the future of tourism and leisure Rolf Freitag, CEO of IPK International with 40 years of tourism consultancy experience highlighted the IPK world travel monitor (90% outbound market coverage) at the ITB Future Day 2012. Freitag states that in 2011 tourism faced an all- time high with an increase of 5% in outbound trips (235 millions extra travels). Domestic tourism and international outbound tourism is slightly declining however, domestic tourism is declining more than outbound tourism international touism is less affected by the crisis. 2011 counts a total of 980 millions trips (UNWTO) and 750 millions overnight stays (ipk). Outbound tourism increased in South America (+7%), Africa (+9%), Asia (+6%) and Europe (+3.5%). The average length of outbound trips is 8.3 nights, only the average length of Asian outbound trips are about 7 days. According to the IPK travel monitor outbound tourism increased in Germany by +1%, the Netherlands by +2% however outbound travel from Russia increased by 13%.
A beginner’s guide to Serbia Picture everything you want from a classic European country, then add a level of quirk that you won’t find anywhere but the Balkans. Serbia is one of Europe’s more sizeable countries, and yet it remains largely overlooked by travellers who tend westward rather than venturing east. Sure, there’s the infamous, ambiguous history that hasn’t quite let go its grip. But headlines on Serbia are deservedly moving from the news pages to the travel section. This black hole in the Euro traveller’s mindset and headspace is a sitting duck for those who hunt memorable experiences. If you’re keen for a week-long detour from the rest of the continent, take a train ride from a neighbouring country (Serbia is bordered by Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and more). Belgrade offers a laid-back welcome to visitors. Not far from the capital there are rolling plains dotted with quiet villages. Leaving Belgrade, the quieter direction to go is south.
Kayak acknowledges privacy breach, says problem resolved Kayak acknowledges that a third party — it turns out to be one of its hotel customers — was able to match a last name on the site with the last four digits of people’s credit cards, and that others could have done so, too. In a blog post, entitled Update on Booking Feature, Kayak CTO Paul English says the “flaw” enabled “a third party to see some hotel transaction information by matching a last name with the last four digits of a stored credit card.” “This flaw left the potential for someone to view other people’s customer contact info and dates of travel,” English says. “We were able to fix this problem within a few hours of it being first reported.” The snafu was discovered, according to published reports, by Kayak customer Kevin Hunt, who retrieved hotel transaction details, home addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, credit card expiration dates and, according to English, the last four digits of credit cards belonging to Kayak customers with the same last name.
Which travel sites are most visible in organic search? The online travel sector is highly competitive, and as a result its use of digital marketing has become highly sophisticated. Consumers tend to do a lot of research into deals and destinations before making a booking, so an effective SEO strategy is vital for travel sites. Epiphany has published a report that looks into the visibility of travel sites across Google’s paid and organic search results. Visibility is defined and ranked by Searchmetrics' ‘paid visibility’ and ‘SEO visibility’ scores, and is based on: The number of times a domain appears in SERPS across a keyword set.How well it ranks in those SERPS.The competitiveness of the keyword. It is an extremely comprehensive report, so here we just look at the organic search visibility, including keyword rankings, domain authority and link acquisition. Organic search visibility The report says that the vast nature of the travel sector lends itself to the long-tail of search. Organic keyword ranking opportunities Domain authority
Google Rumored To Launch ITA-Powered Travel Search Product Soon We’re hearing that Google is planning to launch an ITA integrated-flight search product as soon as a few weeks from now, according to a well-placed industry source. In April, the DOJ finally approved Google’s $700 million acquisition of airfare software company ITA, and Google officially closed the acquisition days later. The deal was being investigated as potentially being anti-competitive to the online travel search industry, as ITA’s software is used by many of Google’s rivals in travel search including Microsoft, Kayak, and Expedia. Even at the initial announcement of the acquisition last year, Google has made it clear that it will use ITA’s data to create new flight search tools (while also promising to honor its existing agreements with partners). One feature that we’ve heard is in development is a map-based search tool that will show flight prices from destinations. Basically Google has to tread very carefully in the travel search space.
More Travelers Take Their Tech With Them [STUDY] World travelers are changing their technology-totting ways, an Intel survey says. Today, more travelers are carrying their laptops, smartphones and devices with them to the airport despite hefty security and baggage fees. About 44% of the Intel-commissioned survey's 2,500 participants said they feel anxious traveling without their devices. Can social media and Internet access improve a vacation? Around 87% of the young adults surveyed said "yes" — they were "happier" on tech-connected trips. "The primary thing we saw was that there's a very stark contrast between the way people used to travel and the way that they travel today," Mike Fard, Intel Ambassador, tells Mashable. SEE ALSO: 6 Ways To Disconnect From Social Media Survey participants were 18 to 66 years old. Though many individuals expressed trips are generally better with technology, participants also said they suffered anger and anxiety when traveling with technology. Intel also made this fun graphic about new tech travel norms:
How design students think the travel guide of the future might look As part of an ongoing collaboration between DK and the London College of Communication, the guidebook specialist challenged design students to come up with the travel guide of the future. Part of the brief was to consider the potential for interactivity as well as the difficulties of competing with free online content. Interesting then that one of the winning ideas – Best Concept – was Berlin Notes, a quirky paper-based journal of a traveller’s notes and sketches based on their experiences. Winner of Image Making and Technology combines a both print and digital feel with the Cool/Hot weather-based guide using real-time weather information to suggest specific activities while the Response to Brief category was won by 24 Hour guides which takes advantage of modern technology as well as the need to monetise content.
European Train Travel The first class car in Italy I lean my head back on the seat and gaze out the window as I gently rock back and forth. The landscape accelerates by me in a blur and I allow my brain to explore it’s dark depths. It has always been a goal of mine to take the train around Europe and now finally when I’m well past the age of backpacking Europe, I find myself riding around Europe for 2 months on a Eurail pass. You'll fall in love with train stations in Europe I’m a train lover – in fact I’ve had a fascinating history with trains as I worked for a railroad in my first job out of college. Big sigh…hippy dream dies…but still excited. My first order of business was to understand what exactly the pass got me. My Route I had planned to go from Rome to Venice to Vienna, to Berlin, to Paris, to Barcelona, with a few local jaunts mixed in. Things you should know about the Eurail Global Pass Reservations Yes – you still have to make reservations in most circumstances. Handwritten Ticket First Class travel
travelers wifi, travelers and internet, tablets and travel, Technology Digital Just when you thought you’d covered the last apartment rental transaction and paid the final rental car fee, you’re suddenly hit with an outstanding roaming charge. Yeah, so much for embracing the mobile trend. It’s even worse when you’ve to travel and can’t go without your mobile devices as the associated fees seem to be higher than ever — or maybe it’s because you’re using more data than ever before. Our Journeys seem incomplete without the Internet. Even if you’re on a bus for a shorter distance, you want to see what’s happening in the world you’re or not part of through the web. And you are even ready to pay for the hidden and open costs that come with this internet addiction. Communications app textPlus surveyed 500 respondents who use their mobile devices when traveling both domestically and internationally and created an infographic based on what solutions these travelers have found out to avoid the dreaded roaming charge, or at least, reduce it as much as possible. Take a look,