Travel companies are realizing they must incorporate rich media and other tools in order to enrich the customer experience, with the advent of Web 2.0. 

Just as many people wouldn't think of buying a new toy - like a plasma TV or a laptop, without first checking online customer reviews and comments, it seems that many people wouldn't dream of booking a vacation to a new location without first reading online reviews from travelers who have been there.

Viewing rich media such as virtual video tours, and reaching out to other travelers online to ask questions.

This is not news to the travel industry. A recent survey on the adoption of social media found that the travel industry is well ahead of other sectors. 

According to the survey, 73 percent of travel companies plan to invest in social media over the coming year. The pre-event survey for Online Marketing 2007, which was held London's Business Design Centre on June 26-27, also found that 66 percent of travel companies name social media as the biggest growth area for marketing in the coming year.

This should come as no surprise, considering that recent research by Compete, Inc. found that consumer-generated content already influences $10 billion a year in online travel bookings.

In fact, more than 66 percent of travelers surveyed said they consider this content more credible than reviews from professionals or information from the brands themselves, and that it impacts their purchase decisions. 

And most experts are in agreement as to where this is taking the travel and hospitality industry: 

Chris Holdren, vice president of global web services for Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide said, "Price is still very important to all guests -- it's still a critical element -- but the evolution has been to be able to show what kind of experience you get for the price."

Jasper Malcolmson, director of Yahoo! Travel, said, "People want experiences, recommendations and connectivity."
"Ad speak and market speak are dead," said Dale Brill, CMO at Visit Florida, the Sunshine State's official tourism unit.

"Consumers don't want to hear ad copy. They want to hear first-person from people who are out there."
This is what the travel 2.0 revolution is all about, and consumers are leading the way. Vendors, including airlines, hotels, destination spots, etc., that integrate social media into their marketing efforts not only reach out to new travelers but also create stronger relationships with their existing customers.

So, who can we learn from for some ideas? There are already quite a few travel and tourism companies that have interesting implementations of web 2.0 services.  Here are a few to note…

UGC at Starwood Hotels
Starwood's Sheraton Hotels' recent transformation of its website into a social platform has been touted as one of the first hotels to embrace social media and feature user-generated content. Sheraton.com's global neighborhood invites visitors to share stories, photos and advice about a destination.

"It's our foray into the social networking world," Nadeen Ayala, a Starwood spokeswoman, said. "The most important thing for travelers is word of mouth…other people's experiences."

To enhance the loyalty of their "Preferred Guests," Starwood Hotels launched TheLobby.com, a content-rich daily travel blog designed to achieve two primary goals: 

(1) To create an emotional connection and foster a sense of belonging among the frequent travelers who participate in Starwood Preferred Guest.

(2) To attract all travelers in search of exclusive, insider information on travel, destinations, etc. 

"It's all about fostering a sense of community for our members where we can showcase and celebrate their experiences and passion for travel and provide access to great 'insider' editorial content," said Robin Korman, VP of loyalty marketing for Starwood.

TripAdvisor takes peer reviews to the next level

Anyone who doubts the power of word-of-mouth, peer reviews and community should take note of the recent announcement from TripAdvisor that its site now features 10 million user reviews (double the amount it had a year ago), 20 million monthly visitors and six million members. 

Riding this success, TripAdvisor has taken the idea of peer reviews a step further by enabling members to get travel advice from trusted peers rather than from unknown users.

TripAdvisor's "traveler network" tools let members access their own email address books through the TripAdvisor site and identify any contacts who are fellow TripAdvisor members. Members can then invite contacts to join their personal network to share itineraries, advice and recommendations.  Says TripAdvisor's Christine Petersen,

"You're more likely to have confidence you're making the right decision if you know the source," TripAdvisor's Christine Petersen said.

Best Western goes to the desktop

Southwest Airlines has DING! Expedia.com has fare alerts. Recently, Best Western International launched its own desktop application with KnockKnock.

KnockKnock enables consumers to reserve hotel rooms, retrieve information on the brand's loyalty program, receive special offers, even check the weather, directly from their desktops, without having to navigate to their website.


"From our perspective, the web is our No. 1 distribution channel, so we're always looking to innovate," said Dorothy Dowling, senior vice president of marketing and sales. "With KnockKnock, we want customers to have more engagement with our brand. It provides the opportunity for us to communicate specials, and it will be very rich with promotions."
Carnival Cruise Lines' interactive experience.

How do you describe a Carnival Cruise to someone who has never been on one? An interactive online experience is a great place to start. This is precisely what FunshipIsland.com is all about.

Launched in July, FunShipIsland.com is a virtual world where visitors can experience a Carnival cruise first hand. According to Christine Arnholt, VP of marketing services with Carnival Cruise Lines, in the first day it launched, FunshipIsland.com attracted more than 200,000 unique visitors, with many of them spending more than an hour on the site.

''I do think the whole video experience piece is going to be more and more of a requirement online because people are willing to buy more and more online, but they want to understand, get a better feel of exactly what it is that they're buying,'' said Susan Kidwell, vice president at Avenue A | Razorfish, which works with Carnival Cruise Lines. 

Carnival is not resting on its FunShip laurels. According to a Miami Herald article, John Heald, Carnival Freedom's cruise director, began a blog in March and it has become so popular that there is a ''blogger's cruise'' scheduled for Jan. 19, 2008, for fans of his blog, which recently attracted more than a million visitors.

In February, CarnivalConnections.com, a social network space for people who want to plan Carnival vacations and write reviews, was started. Later this year, the site is planning to grow into more of a social networking tool where cruisers can upload photos of their trips.

When CarnivalConnections.com first launched, Carnival was concerned about the cruise reviews.

"Just like every brand, everybody is so worried that someone might say something negative out there, right?" Kidwell said. "Well there are plenty of places to say something negative about your brand. So thinking that you're going to stop that is kind of goofy, quite honestly."

When one cruise reviewer posted an angry comment at CarnivalConnections.com because the ship went to an unscheduled port to avoid a storm, other cruise reviewers defended Carnival, Kidwell said:

"As a brand, it is so much more powerful to have people say, 'Wow, it was a great experience. And, yes, they took me to another port, but I loved that port just as well,' versus corporate marketing coming out and saying it," she said.

Yahoo! TripPlanner goes social

Yahoo! Trip Planner offers travelers the ability to create and share a comprehensive, interactive archive of personal travel experiences. Users can create travel journals complete with photos, plan and log their trips on an interactive map, and they can add notes, reviews and ratings of places, hotels and sight-seeing destinations they have visited.

"At Yahoo, we believe that social search tools and algorithmic search tools will start to coalesce," Jasper Malcolmson of Yahoo! Travel said. "Machines alone can't help individuals find information as well as other individuals together with machines." 

Expectations from consumers in online travel have changed in unprecedented ways, and it has changed the playing field for vendors. 

While customers used to rely on the web primarily to compare prices, Web 2.0 is offering travelers more credible, informative and engaging tools to help them create the perfect trip. And travel companies are realizing they must incorporate a variety of rich media, social media and other relevant tools in order to provide the experience their customers are coming to expect.

Joe Lichtenberg is the Vice President of Marketing and Business Development with Eluma, the provider of only desktop application that drives customer loyalty and incremental revenue through the power of communities.