#mrktchat Today at 3:00pm - Join us later today, via Twitter, for another edition of #mrktchat...an online conversation about travel, tourism and hospitality marketing. We (Troy), are guest hosting / moderating the session today and have some great topics on the schedule. But, knowing this group, any topic is open for discussion. How to Follow the Chat: Use one of these fine services. http://www.hashtagchat.com/ http://wthashtag.com/ http://tweetchat.com/ #mrktchat,... 

Mobile Travel Stats - Our friends at Destination Analysts sent the new State of the American Traveler Report (for July) our way with a note to review the recent stats on travel planning and mobile.  The full report is linked below, but we wanted to pull out some highlights: Technologies Used to Plan Leisure Travel Listened to Friends, Family - 39.9% DMO Website - 31.2% Used a Mobile Device - 28.0% One,... 

While social media marketing gets all of the hype and attention, for most marketers, email still remains the preferred communication channel for direct consumer campaigns. Unfortunately, very few of us feel that our email marketing campaigns are a success.  While speaking with colleagues, we often here stories of poor open-rates, weak KPI conversion and shrinking database numbers. The adoption of... 

In today's edition of our How To series on Travel 2.0, we take a quick look at Google Places and how the Google Maps-based section can help improve, as well as provide insight into, your local search strategy. For a quick recap on Google Places, take a look at our post from last fall: Google Rolls Out Place Pages In Google Maps Let's jump right in and recap a couple of steps from our first post and... 

NYCGo or the Google Visitor Center - Hat tip to Maria for reminding us about the fantastic NYC Visitor Center.  See the video link below.  While the NYC example certainly takes the Interaction idea to new levels, it still feels a bit off in other places.  Perhaps a bit too hip and cool for the average consumer.  And, for the resort, attraction or DMO, certainly too expensive to replicate...and... 

On a recent trip to the mall…my daughter prefers to take several a week…we walked past the Apple Store and I causally mentioned that we should go in. Uh, no thanks. Really? What teenager does not want to go into the Apple Store and play around with all of that hype? It is always too crowded she responded. True, it certainly is. In fact, it is the only store in the mall that is ever crowded. ... 

The stories keeping us up (far too late) at night.  Google loves ITA, Google, Canada, the iPhone is dead!, geeks and airlines. Giant Step Into Travel for Google - NY Times I, for one, welcome our new booking engine overlords. Three quarters of consumers use Google Suggest to begin their travel search - Tnooz Not to mention it is just plain fun to see what others are using Google for. Interactive... 

Foursquare Goes Deeper with Location Layers - As reported by the team at ReadWriteWeb, this year's social darling has launched an additional set of features that will allow users to see the world as recommended by their favorite organization, brand or group.  Imagine the service like this, if you friend, say, the San Francisco CVB, you would receive alerts with unique tips from the CVB, based upon... 

A common question among peers is which posts / articles do you find to be the most difficult to write? The answer is always the same, and quite easy, posts centered around myself. So to begin this blatant self-promoting post, I will skip directly to the point and then explain myself. I have decided to work for myself, consult, freelance, etc as a Marketing / Interactive Consultant. Whichever description... 

The state of Louisiana and the City of New Orleans have certainly experienced a rough few years on the tourism front...to say the least. First, Katrina, you know that story, and now the Gulf / BP Oil Spill.  As a result of the ladder, the NOLA CVB finds itself with a few extra million dollars to help promote and sustain tourism to the Big Easy. $5 million dollars to be exact. And while the CVB started...