The First International PhoCusWright Bloggers Summit at ITB

After the success of the Bloggers Summit at PhoCusWright 2007 Orlando, PhoCusWright has decided to grow the event to a truly international collaboration. The first International Bloggers Summit will happen at ITB Berlin in March. There have been whispers of this event for some time (Jens, Vicky, Stephen) and it is now official! The summit has several components that will ensure a great time for bloggers:

Travel Industry Bloggers welcome and idea sharing
Wednesday March: 10:30am – 12:30pm
Includes exclusive access to travel industry leaders, the Bloggers Briefing session will give bloggers a chance to generate the latest news.

Tips From The T-List presents Blogging with the Long Tail of Tourism
Workshop to be presented and open to all ITB Berlin attendees
Wednesday March 5 in Hall 7.1b, Auditorium London 3: 2:00pm – 4:00pm

This workshop will show how an active, content-producing network of bloggers can have a growing influence on customers’ online spending habits.

Travel Industry Bloggers meeting
Wednesday March 5, 4:30 – 5:30pm
Gather and share techniques, strategies, contacts and more

PhoCusWright@ITB Conference
Thursday March 6, Hall 7.1b, London 3: 10:15am – 6:00pm
Hall 7.1b, Auditorium London 3
Take advantage of PhoCusWright@ITB, one of the premier events of ITB’s Convention.

Bloggers Summit Final Gathering
Regroup after PhoCusWright@ITB and discuss highlights, lowlights and everything in between
Cocktails and chatter - this event will NOT be hosted, and it will be an informal gathering
Thursday March 6: 8:30pm - late

This wifi enabled trendy bar will be a great back drop to unwind and recap all of the great finds from ITB. Anhalter Bar Mövenpick Hotel in Berlin. A private area of the bar will be reserved, wifi will be available, and there will be drink specials. Hope to see you there!

This summit is included with your PhoCusWright admission, and travel industry bloggers can apply for a bloggers entry pass. For more information join the Facebook group:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6574840815

Email me if you are interested in attending: phil.caines [at] rezgo.com

Are you Connected? Toursim Industry Bloggers Unite

How connected is the Tourism Industry blogging community? There are numerous communities out there that are helping bloggers stay in touch. This post was inspired by Jens, who recently re-launched his popular marketing blog. If you are looking for ways to connect with fellow bloggers, here are some great links to help you connect:

Social Networking:

T-List Facebook Community
The WIWIH Bloggers Group
Turismo 2.0 (Amazing Spanish Travel Industry Blogging Network)

Indexing Sites:

Tips From The T-List
The Ranked T-List
The Recommended (Travolution's Tourism Industry Bloggers)

Blogger Meet Up:

CES Bloghaus 2008 (not for travel but still one of the largest and most financed meetups)
ITB Berlin March (More information to come)
PhoCusWright 2008 (More information to come)


Staying connected is the best way to grow our community, and new technology is making it easier to stay in touch. Let me know if I have missed anything or if you have any recommendations.

Activity Pre-booking? Who Does It?

Have you found that booking an activity or tour is the last step in a tourists' travel plan? Quite often, independent tourists will wait till they arrive at a destination before they consider what activities and tours they want to take.

Is this changing? Are people now pre-booking their tours and activities before they depart to a destination?

There are large online travel agencies (OTA) sites like Expedia.com and Travelocity.com now gives tour suppliers the opportunity to add their tours and activities to the websites. While this will definitely help the tour company with distribution, it will also lower their margins. I posted some research in August that really put this in perspective.

While it may be difficult for companies to sell directly to consumers, there is a growing trend towards direct booking with a co branded online reservation engine. (Predicted to be 62% of all bookings by 2008) Small tour companies have to realize that the money payed in commissions to online travel agencies could go to driving traffic to their own websites, this would lower margins and give the tour provider greater control of their inventory and advertising message.

What distribution channels have you found to be the most useful? Are you selling your tours through Expedia or Travelocity?

Travel Technology Review Podcast

The Travel Technology Weekly Review is, as you can imagine, a weekly review of the latest happenings in the Tourism Technology industry. We examine the latest trends, research, sites and happenings in the the Tourism Tech world.






Stephen first talks about Travelbookmarking.com, it gives travelers the ability to bookmark their own sites to make a travel guide.

He then talks about Travbuddy.com and how hotelscombined.com have partnered to allow site users to book hotels while browsing user generated content

Stephen finishes his commentary with a study conducted by the Kelsy group and how user generated reviews effect customers spending habits. Thanks to Joe Buhler for brining this to our attention.

In my segment of the Podcast I talk about research my friend Claude Benard found from Fabernovel regarding Facebook applications.

I then discuss a new Beta travel guide site, Nile Guide. This site has the potential to revolutionize the travel guide industry, you should check it out.

Lastly I cover some observations from the ever wise Vicky Brock regarding the influence of social media on online reservations.

Interviews from PhoCusWright

Last month PhoCusWright (PCW) hosted their annual conference in Florida. These conferences bring the biggest names in the travel technology industry together in one place to talk shop, talk trends, and make great contacts within the industry. This year PCW held the first Travel Industry Bloggers Summit at their conference. This included a blogging workshop, several bloggers meet ups, a release of our book, The Tips From the T-List, and extensive press coverage for a select group of travel industry bloggers.

Rezgo.com had the privilege of attending this conference as hosts of the workshop and the blogger meet up, and as blogging press. We were able to gain great content from the conference and here are some video Interviews that we conducted at the workshop:

Tom Botts from Hudson Crossing, LLC

Kevin May, Editor at Travolution.co.uk

Eric Bjorndahl, CEO TravBuddy.com


We were able to conduct more interviews, and they will be featured in future blogs.

If you attended, what were your take aways from the conference? Did you find that most presenters stuck with the "Braving the Long Tail" theme?