HSMAI Travel Internet Marekting Strategy Conference

“Consumers have changed from just searching for the lowest price to finding the best experience,” said Wolf in his keynote address. He stated the Travel 2.0 five tenants are:

• Complete transparency – code for truth;
• Peer collaboration – a way to personalize experience for customers;
• Basic, time-honored things have become much easier – nothing new about getting recommendations from friends, keeping scrapbooks, etc.;
• Factor predictive information into info queries and responses – most subtle, elusive;
• Speed – gather and assimilate information fast.

He explained that Travel 1.0 was a movement driven by price, and price alone, which drove online adoption. “Travel 2.0 has put price on par with other significant factors.”

Wolf stated that users are taking charge. In this real-time world, social sharing sites are on the rise, not just something you do trivially. “It is absolutely the most exciting time in travel since the rise of the Internet, and if you don’t understand why MySpace went from last to first in Internet traffic, you couldn’t be a good enough strategist for your company.”

In the new “long tail scenario,” Wolf advised attendees:

• Embrace the sum of your niches;
• The size of your reputation matters more than the size of your marketing budget;
• A good product can cut through the fog;
• Customer experience and message should be in sync.

In the realm of 2.0 technology, Wolf recommended, “Empower customers and get to one individual one at a time…you can’t do this without 2.0, where virtual becomes reality.”

To further the discussion, Wolf participated in a one-on-one interview with Dr. Daniel Connolly, assistant professor, with a joint appointment in the School of Hotel, Restaurant, and Tourism Management and the Department of Information Technology and Electronic Commerce, in the Daniels College of Business, at the University of Denver. The Q&A session revealed:

• Who is making money using Web 2.0? You can’t use ROI to make decisions on utilizing 2.0, but need to do testing, slowly and constantly change.
• Do today’s 2.0 consumers have the discretionary income to spend? They will have the income one day, and it’s too expensive to put things off.
• With limited resources, where do you start to prove success? Look at skill sets of employees verses what your needs are to make sure you can do what you need. Do a “critical needs” assessment of human resources and use a small group to experiment.
• Should companies put consumer generated content on their home pages? You need to know what’s going on outside your world. Embracing user-generated content should be part of your strategy.