The Weekly Eye April 24 – April 30

Bid to book style distribution, Korea tourism strikes with stars, Brazilian opportunity, FlightCentre’s social strategy and more….our pick of the week’s news

New face in travel distribution

Barteo.com is a new site that allows users to negotiate on the price of the room directly with the hotel and in real time, before making an actual booking. In an exclusive interview with Barteo.com founders on EyeforTravel.com this week, we hear why they think there is scope for this kind of innovation. Barteo is they say “one of a kind”, sitting somewhere between the mass market, the big-name travel distributors such as Expedia and booking.com and flash sales websites. But the company is clear that it doesn’t want to compete on the direct channel as they know how sensitive this is, nor do they want to take market share from booking.com and the like. Read the full story on EyeforTravel.com.

Go Gangnam

It seems music and video-themed tourism is getting toes tapping in South Korea. The global appeal of PSY, the artist behind the most viewed YouTube video Gangnam style, has led to the Korean Tourism Organisation (KTO) to feature the singer in a series titled ‘PSY’s Wiki Korea’. The series will air next month across international media channels. The South Korean rap artist is used to highlight some of the country’s major attractions, from samgyeopsal, a Korean pork belly barbecue, and the Jeju Olle trail, a walking path on Jeju Island off the country’s southwest coast, to Myeongdong which is coined as the country’s ‘shopping Mecca’. KTO's new videos aim to “inspire a new generation of travellers” to visit South Korea and to attract worldwide attention. Given the 35-year-old’s global popularity, their efforts may just pay off. Last year, the Seoul Tourism Organisation released a promotional video aiming to reveal the ‘the real Gangnam’ and encourage tourism to the upmarket neighbourhood.

Brazil moves and shakes

Are you targeting South America? If not perhaps you should. The number of foreign arrivals to the region in 2003 was 54 million, but around 80 million visitors are expected this year. Brazil attracting the most holidaymakers it seems is the biggest attraction judging by figures released at the World Trade Market Latin America conference in Rio de Janeiro last week. Officials said they anticipated further growth in the coming years as Brazil will host FIFA World Cup in 2014 and the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Apparently having a royal visit helps; Prince Harry last year visited several destinations, from the favelas of Rio to the polo fields of Sao Paulo. Brazil is the second most popular Latin American destination for UK travellers after Mexico. Offering more multi-destination packages to Latin America and easing visa restrictions in Brazil has helped. However, prices of hotels in Rio de Janeiro have risen 50% in two years making them amount the most expensive in the world.

Thomas Cook look to social for brand boost

Troubled Thomas Cook has introduced a dedicated 24/7 social media monitoring facility and a team of social media experts has been enlisted to provide real-time global brand reputation management. It will be listening for what is being said about the brand in over 180 languages. Called the ‘Thomas Cook Listening Lab’ it will identify social ‘brand champions’ who the company should be interacting with. The aim of course is to boost sales. In the process of listening to what is being said about the brand, data will be gathered for future marketing campaigns. It will also manage crises, provide real-time comparison of competitor brands and listen to all customer feedback. Thomas Cook was first high street travel agency in the UK to offer online bookings and last year it had 310 million visits to its websites.

FlightCentre talks social choices

In yet another exclusive interview on EyeforTravel.com we hear the ins and outs of where FlightCentre is headed with social media. Gregg Tilston Global Social Media Leader at FlightCentre, who will be speakingin Miami at EyeforTravel.com's Online Marketing Strategies for Travel 2013: The America's & Caribbean (June 4-5) reveals how Facebook is a key part of their strategy but also how important it is to optimise what ever tools you are using. Among his top tips are to:

1.      Optimise to maximise on the Facebook EdgeRank Algorithm

2.      Don’t say you can’t KPI social

3.      Report on that – so that your showing the marketing people with budgets

4.      Put spend against Facebook

Read the full story on EyeforTravel.com. 

Chinese firm sees social opportunity  

Social media is a popular medium for Chinese tourists and now Mafengwo.cn, a Chinese tourism social media, website is raising money. It has recently raised $15million in finance from investors including Qiming Venture Partners and Capital Today.The firm will reportedly use the new investments in business model innovation and mobile Internet deployment.According to the company the tourism tips mobile application it published in 2011 has been installed by over 20 million users. It has also cooperated with overseas and Chinese tourism service providers like Booking.com, Agoda, Ctrip, and Elong to provide global hotel and tourism booking services to its users from 2012.Over 50,000 users reportedly complete tourism bookings via Mafengwo.cn each day. The company is confident, predicting that by 2014, over 50 million users will use the website and mobile services of the company.

Price hikes

In its latest annual study, TravelSupermarket, the price comparison website, shows how fees for ‘optional’ services, like checked luggage and allocated seating have risen. Thomson’s airline charge has gone up by 47% since 2012 while EasyJet’s equivalent fee has increased by a quarter since March 2012. Meanwhile Ryanair, Flybe and Jet2 have all hiked baggage fees by at least 10%. The cost to check in an overweight item of hand luggage has also increased on several airlines – Monarch (+67%), Flybe (+33%) British Airways (+14%) and Ryanair (+8%). However, pressure from the Office of Fair Trading over debit and credit card fees meant that most airlines actually cut their charges since last year. Jet2’s dropped from 3.6% to 2.5% and Monarch from 4% to 2.5%. Some airlines have instead increased their ‘booking fee’, including Ryanair (£6 to £7), Aer Lingus (£6 to £7) and easyJet (£9 to £10).

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