External Articles

November 14, 2014

Google Drops Local Carousel For Hotels, Restaurants & Other Local Listings | searchengineland.com

Google is dropping its horizontal Carousel display of local search results in several categories: restaurants, nightlife, entertainment and hotels. It’s being replaced by a 3-pack of organic listings and some new secondary pages. The Local Carousel rolled out in June, 2013 for the PC in the US and gradually expanded to a number of categories beyond local results (e.g., US Presidents). It’s not clear whether it will remain for these non-local search results.

searchengineland.com

September 17, 2014

Google’s 2014 travel study: App mania has ebbed, yet booking by smartphone is still hot | tnooz.com

Each year, Google publishes a travel study that shares key insights about US traveler shopping behavior. This year’s report, the 2014 Traveler’s Road to Decision, has yet to be published on its market research website Think with Google. A spokesperson says the study will appear there soon. In the meantime, Tnooz has obtained a copy. The report has some eye-opening findings that could help digital marketers plan their campaigns and help travel companies allocate their spending more optimally. The poll spotlights a declining use of mobile apps as a starting point for travel planning and booking. It also notes that nearly half of US travelers now use multiple devices to research and book a single trip.

tnooz.com

September 8, 2014

How to fight against TripAdvisor blackmail | hotelnewsnow.com

While TripAdvisor and other travel review websites can be powerful marketing tools for hotels, they can also pose threats. Operators said some disgruntled or unscrupulous guests have threatened to post negative reviews of hotels unless they receive compensation—a room upgrade, a free room or even cash. While there is little data to indicate how widespread the problem is, TripAdvisor and many hotel operators and companies are prepared to combat this kind of blackmail.

HotelNewsNow

September 8, 2014

Travel agents are making a comeback | latimes.com

Although online travel websites like Priceline and Expedia are now responsible about 70% of travel booking in the U.S., the folks who work out of brick-and-mortar travel agencies are reporting booming sales. Travel agents say revenues, bookings and the total number of clients are up in the first half of 2014 compared with the same period last year, according to a survey by the American Society of Travel Agents, which represents nearly 6,000 travel agents across the country.

latimes.com

September 2, 2014

Upgrades, and Higher Prices, for Airport Hotels | nytimes.com

The airport hotel, that bastion of utility and convenience for marooned travelers, is having a banner year. In the first four months of 2014, hotels in the United States situated near airports sold a collective 27.2 million rooms, a record, according to the hotel research company STR. For travelers and meeting planners, this means airport rooms are more expensive and can be harder to find. It also means that owners of airport hotel brands popular with business travelers are on a renovation binge, sprucing up rooms, restaurants, lobbies and meeting spaces.

nytimes.com

August 20, 2014

You Like a Hotel, It Likes You Back | nytimes.com

These days it seems easier to get travel perks from Twitter and Instagram than from hotel and airline loyalty programs. Travelers active on social networks have scored airport lounge passes, deals on hotel rooms, free drinks and late checkouts. And a new hotel-booking site is aiming to go even further: Hotelied.com promises customized deals for travelers who join the site and link their various social media accounts.

nytimes.com

The next-gen metrics that move hotel P&L

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Mews

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Why Hospitality Net Leads B2B in Hospitality

Learn what makes us the industry-leader in what we do.

Hospitality Net

August 6, 2014

New York hotel fines guests $500 for bad reviews on Yelp | venturebeat.com

A Hudson, New York hotel has an interesting policy for wedding guests: For every negative review left on Yelp, the company fines the bride and groom a hefty $500. The policy was first reported by Page Six. The hotel in question, the Union Street Guest House, described the official policy on its website as a solution to unappreciative guests. Later, the hotel removed the warning and said it was just a joke.

venturebeat.com

August 6, 2014

Hotel marketers share success stories | hotelnewsnow.com

Challenges might abound in the world of hotel marketing, but so do success stories. For participants of Hotel News Now’s’s marketing virtual roundtable, successes came in a variety of forms and fashions. If there was a common thread, it was simplicity. Whether making a splash with a simple menu change or establishing direct lines of communication to guests via email, marketers tallied wins through tried and true techniques.

HotelNewsNow

August 4, 2014

San Francisco starts on path to regulate Airbnb | sfgate.com

New battle lines were drawn on Thursday over a proposed San Francisco law to let people rent their homes or rooms to travelers. The City Planning Department made recommendations to toughen Supervisor David Chiu's proposal, a week before it will hold a public hearing on it. Meanwhile a group representing Airbnb hosts organized to campaign about the law and made suggestions to ease the rules.

sfgate.com

San Francisco, California, United States

June 16, 2014

Apps that can ease a hotel stay | usatoday.com

For many corporate trekkers, a hotel room is akin to a second home. But unlike the real thing, it's hard to know where to find the familiar — such as the doctor's office, or a dry cleaner. Now, at a time when it feels like there is an app for just about everything, several make the conveniences of home just a click away.

USA TODAY

June 2, 2014

The Professionalization of Airbnb Hosts | skift.com

When Airbnb talks about its legal troubles in New York, Berlin, Amsterdam, and elsewhere, it claims that existing laws were never designed for its new brand of disruptive peer-to-peer business. Case 1: CEO Brian Chesky told The Wall Street Journal in January that: There were laws created for businesses, and there were laws for people. What the sharing economy did was create a third category: people as businesses… They don’t know whether to bucket our activity as person or a business.

skift

June 2, 2014

Airbnb testing in-app concierge feature that connects you with real people at your destination | thenextweb.com

Over the last few weeks, Airbnb has been testing a new feature called “Local Companion” that connects you with real people that live at your holiday destination and allows you to ask questions like ‘where’s the best sushi?’ The feature, which only appears for people who are invited to a private beta, appears in the Airbnb inbox for iOS and allows you to ask any questions, like a concierge service but instead connects you to normal people at your destination.

NextWeb, Inc.

May 7, 2014

Hotel industry publicly butts heads with Airbnb | prdaily.com

For centuries, the hotel industry stood essentially unchanged. After all, “no room at the inn” is a central plot point to the most famous story ever told. But the industry is seeing a major disruption in the form of short-term rental websites like Airbnb. The proverbial middle man is being ripped from the equation now that you can book “some dude’s couch” as your home-away-from home base. The hotel industry doesn’t like Airbnb—or its $10 million valuation—one bit.

prdaily.com

Why Hospitality Net Leads B2B in Hospitality

Ad Be seen. Be trusted.

Learn what makes us the industry-leader in what we do.

Hospitality Net

May 7, 2014

AH&LA seeks more regulation of short-term rentals | travelweekly.com

The largest U.S. hotel trade group is stepping up its lobbying efforts for stronger regulations governing short-term housing rentals listed on sites such as Airbnb, as local governments ponder stricter laws for apartment and room rentals. The American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA) is working with governments and local hotel associations to address subjects such as occupancy tax payment and American with Disabilities Act (ADA) provisions. The association wants to ensure that short-term rental hosts are held to the same standards as hoteliers, said Vanessa Sinders, AH&LA’s senior vice president of governmental affairs.

travelweekly.com

April 25, 2014

New York: Airbnb makes more than half its money by running illegal hotels |

he popular home-sharing website Airbnb makes more than half its revenue in New York through running illegal hotels, State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said Thursday. Speaking at the Crain's New York Business breakfast, Schneiderman said he is investigating the online site in order to protect the city's hotel industry, apartment dwellers and the tourists who book rooms through Airbnb. Schneiderman's office has subpoenaed a wide range of records on Airbnb's New York City hosts to probe whether some are potentially running illegal hotels rather than renting out a room in their living quarters.

nydailynews.com

April 25, 2014

Airbnb versus hotels - Room for all, for now | economist.com

EVEN as they lobby regulators to crack down on residential sharing services, hoteliers play down the threat such companies pose to their industry. The top brass at the Marriott, Four Seasons and Hilton chains have all said that these firms do not compete for their core market of accommodating high-end and business travellers; a vice-president of The Ritz-Carlton group recently claimed she had not even heard of Airbnb. And Airbnb itself agrees, arguing that it does not displace existing lodging but is creating new demand. “I’m optimistic that there isn’t going to be a war” with hotels, Brian Chesky, its boss, said in January.

economist.com

April 22, 2014

Q&A: Omni Hotels’ CMO views mobile content as catalyst for bookings | mobilemarketer.com

Omni Hotels & Resorts is unveiling new mobile and Web sites this summer that will take a decidedly different approach than other hotel brands by packing in lifestyle-driven content to squeeze out conversions. Omni Hotels is in the process of building up its mobile initiatives for its consumer and business-facing efforts, most recently with the launch of an application that lets business professionals better control on-property meetings. The brand is also launching new mobile and Web properties in the coming months with features meant to keep consumers on pieces of content for longer periods of time.

mobilemarketer.com

April 22, 2014

More Legal Hot Water for Airbnb | inc.com

It's been a roller coaster of a week for Airbnb. The startup closed a deal for $450 million in funding, attaining a valuation it'd reportedly been chasing: $10 billion. It's now, after this funding round led by private-equity firm TPG, one of the most valuable startups on the planet. Before the bubbly had time to settle in San Francisco, bad news came from out east: New York State attorney general Eric Schneiderman Monday filed an affidavit with the state Supreme Court in Albany claiming that the majority of Airbnb listings in New York are illegal. Arguments are expected to begin tomorrow.

inc.com

April 18, 2014

Learn How 3 Innovative Travel Brands Found Success on Twitter | sproutsocial.com

From research and mid-travel engagement to post-trip reviews and feedback, social media has become an integral part of the travel experience. Travelers have become increasingly social, forcing brands to get creative with their marketing strategies. We’ve already seen some of the unique ways travel brands have leveraged Facebook to connect with customers; and now we turn our attention to Twitter. In November 2013, Loews Hotel & Resorts launched Social Reservations, a service that allows guests to book their hotel stays directly through Twitter.

Sprout Social, Inc.