Techcrunch reports that Nextstop, a Social Travel
Recommendation site, has been acquired by Facebook. Nextstop mixes
social recommendations with search and adds a reputation system and
gameplay elements.
How do you think Facebook will evolve for
the travel industry? Read more....
Earlier I wrote about the incorporation of Gowalla by InterContinental Hotels Group, today
Mashable reports about a real-time travel network - TripJournal,
and Where I've Been is booming.
The Community
landscape that focusses on the Travel industry is getting increasingly
fragmented. This will challenge players, there are six conditions that need to be met in order to have
a sustainable community that is able to survive autonomously (without
continuous intervention by the company):
1. The amount of interaction between people.
2. The
amount of quality content/interaction between people.
3. The amount of people.
Gowalla is a location-based travel game, it's an iPhone application that allows you to check in with your social network from where ever you are. Gowalla locates you through GPS, it allows you to check in at the location, share a message about where you are and why you’re there and pick up virtual items. With this in mind, the InterContinental Hotels Group has incorporated Gowalla in the try out phase of their Hit it Big's loyalty promotion - IHG's biggest of the year.
Hotelmarketing.com reports that the Online Social Travel company Where I've Been has recently launched new travel deal programs where hotels are now able to offer targeted offers based upon demographic and interests information.
“Where I’ve Been travel deals make it easy and effective for hotel marketers to create targeted, personalized campaigns,” said Michael Dalesandro, CEO of Where I’ve Been. “We develop an offer, market it to the targeted members and send a check to the hotel based on the number of purchases,” said Dalesandro. “We do all the heavy-lifting to make the promotion easy and successful for the property.”
There was hot news in the travel industry last week when it was the rumor on a potential Google & ITA deal, and this week it's Apple (increasing rivalry between Apple and Google) which comes with iTravel, Apple's way of revolutionizing the travel industry.
What iTravel basically does is converging the complete travel process for the iPhone. A complementary - thus competitive and unique - combination of iPhone hardware and software will enable travelers to search, plan and book flights, hotels, rentals and much more. At the airport you'll be able to handle luggage and boarding passes for instance.
“Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information,
and ITA does that for travel,” said Henry Harteveldt, an analyst at
Forrester Research Inc. in San Francisco.
With this mission comes their advertising model, adding ITA’s will
enhance the travel information they can provide users. Increased relevance for the users means higher earnings for Google due
to the higher costs which are paid by advertisers.
Last Sunday - only one day after the launch of the iPad - Lonely Planet has
released an iPad application named Lonely Planet’s 1000 Ultimate
Experiences. Proving they are truly on the cutting edge of travel industry technology, last year Lonely Planet L launched an Augmented Reality application called Lonely Planet
Compass Guides.
These are the three concepts/components how - in
essence - how future (online) travel business will be shaped and how new
opportunities, models and markets can be created. Seen from an abstract point of view, personalization is the front-end
of the process, customization is the back-end of the process and
collaboration is how these two interact and ultimately benefit from
co-creation or at least create a win-win situation.
De Scandinavische landen zijn voortrekkers in de sociale zekerheid en ze behoren tot de landen met het grootste aantal internetaansluitingen per hoofdvan de bevolking. 95% van de inwoners bschikt over internet. Dit wordt nu als een recht in de grondwet ingeschreven. Nog maar eens een bewijs dat het internet ons leven voor eeuwig en altijd aan het veranderen is.
by Gianluigi
Cuccureddu
by Gianluigi Cuccureddu
by Gianluigi Cuccureddu 
by Gianluigi Cuccureddu
by Gianluigi Cuccureddu
by Gianluigi Cuccureddu
by 
De Scandinavische landen zijn voortrekkers in de sociale zekerheid en ze behoren tot de landen met het grootste aantal internetaansluitingen per hoofdvan de bevolking. 95% van de inwoners bschikt over internet. Dit wordt nu als een recht in de grondwet ingeschreven. Nog maar eens een bewijs dat het internet ons leven voor eeuwig en altijd aan het veranderen is. 
