Tourism INTERNET Marketing Blog 1.0

The first ever "E-Tourism Climate Change Awards", sponsored by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and Microsoft, and hosted by the Canadian e-Tourism Council, has received numerous very strong nominations.  The Awards that is planned to become global competiton is being pilot-tested at the first Canadian e-Tourism Awards on November 8th, 2007 in Vancouver, BC.

The expert panel of the UNWTO has determined the finalists, which have been voted by the Canadian e-Tourism Council to determine the first Canadian e-Tourism Climate Change Award winner.

The criteria is as follows:

• Addressing Climate Change and having sustainable tourism environmentally friendly programs and initiatives
• Promoting these initiatives on the websites, preferably on the homepage, in order for users to become more conscious and aware
• Marketing Canada as a unique tourism destination

Congratulations to the companies below that have made it into the finals.  The winner will be announced at the Canadian e-Tourism Awards Ceremony in the OmniMax Theater at Telus World of Science during the Canada-e-Connect e-Tourism Strategy Conference.

The finalists of the UNWTO e-Tourism Climate Change Award are:

• Rocky Mountaineer – Canadian Train Travel
• Fairmont Hotels & Resorts
• Flight Centre
• Knight Inlet Grizzly Adventure Tours
• Mont Tremblant Resort
• Canadian Mountain Holidays

The Canadian e-Tourism Council went through the numerous entries for the first Canadian e-Tourism Awards, and after closing the consumer voting for the finalists of the Tourism Industry categories (powered by Yahoo! Canada), we have just announced the finalists of the Traveler categories (Best Photo / Best Video / Best Story).

While the Best of Show Award of the Tourism Industry categories is sponsored by Yahoo! Canada - and will receive the "Yahoo Big Ideas Chair Award" - the Best of Show of the Traveler categories will receive the new "Canada Keep Exploring Award".

Our unique Canada Experience filter is what differentiates the Canadian e-Tourism Awards from others in the industry. The filter will rank entries based on their ability to position products, attractions, destinations and/or locations as experiences that distinguish Canada as a premiere, four-season tourism destination.  We’ll evaluate both how entries position Canada and how they leverage the internet or web technologies to market their destination or product. Winning entries will engage users in a dynamic and interactive way that motivates them to commit to travel to Canada NOW!  Have a look at one of the finalists of the Traveler categories (Video):

The winners of both the Tourism Industry categories and the Traveler categories, as well as the first UN World Tourism Organization e-Tourism Climate Change Award will be announced at the Awards Celebration in the OmniMax Theater at Telus World of Science and presented by the current Miss Canada 2008. The celebrations continue at the Yahoo After-Awards Party at Coast Restaurant in trendy Yaletown, Vancouver. The Awards Celebration also features the exclusive pre-screening of the first Canadian Destination IMAX film, Rocky Mountain Express (please see press release), which will be relased in 2009 just before the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games.  Tickets to the Awards Celebration and the Yahoo After-Awards are included in the Canada-e-Connect Delegate Conference Package, or can be purchased separately based on availability.

Creating buzz, giving back, being the first, and leveraging the Internet were the recipes for Innovation for Singapore Airlines. So many companies talk about innovation, but this has been a flawless execution with taking a bit of risk.

Due to the demand from aviation enthusiasts to be first to fly on the revolutionary plane Singapore Airplines have come up with a novel way to distribute the tickets fairly - auction them on eBay to be paid with PayPal! All the proceeds from the sale of tickets on the first flight will be donated to charity. eBay and PayPal will subsidise the fees and ExxonMobil Aviation are donating the fuel for the flight to ensure the charities get the maximum benefit possible. The money will be split equally between, Singapore’s Community Chest, The Children’s Hospital (Randwick and Westmead), and Médecins Sans Frontières.

The auction on eBay ran for two weeks from August 27th to September 10th, attracted over 26 million hits from over 160 countries, and generated over US$ 1.9 million for charity.
The auction was one of the largest charity auctions, and among the most complex, ever held on eBay, and the largest it has operated across the Asia-Pacific. Some 366 auction items have been listed over the last 2 weeks, including seats in all three classes, in singles, pairs and blocks.
The eBay pages hosting details of the Singapore Airlines A380 First Flight Charity Auction recorded over 26 million hits during the auction, with Australia, Germany, the US then Canada making up the most visitors to the sites. Data suggests internet users from over 160 countries visited the auction pages at some point during the auction.
Throughout the two weeks of the auction – conducted on eBay, the world’s largest online marketplace – around 2,000 bidders pre-qualified by paying a security deposit, while several thousand others registered, so far buying 638 seats on both legs of the flight. A record was achieved for the sale of the first Singapore Airlines Suites package on the Singapore-Sydney flight, which sold for US$100,380 (S$153,000). The bargain of the auction was a single Economy seat from Sydney to Singapore, which sold for US$560 (S$853). The Suite Packages include a 1:100 (2 by 2 meter) model of the A380, a flights paid trip to Singapore Airlines headquarters in Toulouse, France to witness the delivery of the first Airbus A380, VIP transport to and from your flight on the A380 including first class tickets from anywhere in the world to Singapore and limousine transfers between flights.
One Singaporean purchased three Singapore Airlines Suites, two Business Class seats and an Economy Class seat on the Singapore-Sydney sector, paying US$56,000 (S$85,280) for the six seats.
Australians made up the largest nationality of successful bidders (15%), followed by Singaporeans (11%), Britons (6%), Americans (4%) and Germans (3%). The other 60% come from all over the world. Successful bidders ranged in age, from a San Francisco man who will turn 22 on the day of the flight, to a 76 year old from Vancouver, Canada.

Here I am with my friend Michael Stellwag, eCommerce Director for Singapore Airlines (North America) at the iMedia Summit (toggether with Andrew Brooks from Value Click) discussing this online auction.

Have a look at this video where Singapore Airlines CEO Chew Choon Seng takes the CEOs of Airbus and Rolls Royce on a tour of its first Airbus A380.

And new start-ups in the travel category are continuing to roll-out, which is great, and keeps it interesting.  I was especially intrigued when my friend Yen Lee (originally from Vancouver - my current hometown), former head of Yahoo! Travel and former EVP at Worldres introduced me to his new venture a few months ago...and now he is ready for beta launch very soon. So we got on the phone, and I asked Yen a few questions about his new venture, Kango.

Tourism Internet Marketing Blog (TIM): Yen, what is Kango and what is the value proposition to the consumer?

We started Kango to help you make better decisions about your personal travel. Kango complements today’s travel booking sites (e.g. Expedia, aircanada.ca, deltahotels.com) by enabling you to find travel choices based on your desired experience and lifestyle (e.g. where to go for a warm weather beach vacation or what to do on a family trip to Calgary), then move directly to your preferred travel booking site. 

A personalized travel search engine, Kango collects travel options and traveler opinions from all over the web and returns the most relevant recommendations on where to go, what to do and where to stay based on your preferences.  For example, we return one set of hotel and activity recommendations when you are traveling to Vancouver on a romantic getaway and a different set when you are going to Vancouver with the family.  Like web search engines (e.g. Google), Kango’s recommendations to you are not influenced by advertising.

Please continue reading the interview and pre-view some screenshots by clicking here.

In honor of "Blog Action Day", where bloggers are asked to write something about the environment, Alex Rayner (E-Tourism Advisor for the UN World Tourism Organization) and I decided to extend the deadline for the UNWTO E-Tourism Climate Change Award (launched at the Canadian E-Tourism Awards on November 8th in Vancouver) from October 14th to October 21st.

Good luck to all the great nominations!