A week ago, I and many others were stopped in our tracks by the video released by Google to accompany their promotion – sadly, in North America only – for early adopters to try Google Glass.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Since its debut announcement a year ago, many people have been eagerly anticipating Glass. Back then, in its demo form, it was little more than a digital camera on a headset, but it was easy to see how it might develop, particularly in its Augmented Reality (AR) capabilities. Now, some of those capabilities are being fleshed out and they highlight the way Glass will integrate with Google’s other apps, services and products.

Consider for a moment Google+ Events.

Before this month’s trip to Poland with the British Guild of Travel Writers, I set up a G+ Event for BGTW members on G+, which went ‘live’ as we landed and switched my phone to ‘event mode’ so that every time I took a photo it automatically uploaded it straight to the event where all our photos, posts and video were being aggregated.

It’s not hard to see how Glass would do the same thing.

Consider Travmonkey.com. (This is the start of my #PleaseGoogleGivePaulDowAGlassToReview campaign.)

Paul Dow, Travmonkey’s founder, has been pioneering Live Blog Trips, where he or one of his team goes to a destination for a short break and live tweets his/her experiences with images posted on Instagram. It’s not unique. Four years ago Benji Lanyado used to base his ‘live’ TwiTrips for the Guardian newspaper on tweeted recommendations from his followers, and its a key element for most blog trips – ‘live’ tweeting while there, and then writing longer blog posts afterwards.

Imagine though, how much more seamless that trip might be if he “Glassed” it, running images, voice, video, synchronised with Google Maps into a public G+ Event. Interviews with guides. Q & A sessions in a live Google Hangout on Air.

It might seem that to juggle all that would require advanced ‘live’ broadcasting skills & technique, but watch out. Generation Z are already masters at using multiple platforms and devices simultaneously in a continuous online conversation. In a couple of years time they will take to this tech like ducks to water, making our current travel blogging generation look like plodding dinosaurs. The good ones will become rock stars… well, video stars… selling their ‘live’ content into mainstream media sites and web TV channels.

So, if you are a travel blogger and eager to develop your professional skills for the future, learn this phrase: “Ok Glass…”

(Except, if you are like me you won’t be able to get the image out of your mind of an early adopting American composer having conversations with himself! No matter. You’ll probably be able to personalise your Glass with its own name. So something along the lines of “Ok, DeMille, are you ready to take a close-up?”.)

At a slight tangent, here’s another prediction, drawn from some more loose strands…

• Google likes to be associated with active sports in its marketing.
• Glass’ biggest tech problem is size. Components, particularly batteries, have to be squeezed into a tiny ‘form factor’.
• Google is working with non-IT brands and manufacturers. (Eg. Warby Parker)

I think that the technology in Glass marks a step change in mobile tech. Not the seemless integration between geolocated apps and devices, but, as Mike Elgan puts it, the transition to mainstream wearable computing.

So it’s a safe bet that in the very near future we will see a range of Google branded physical products such as bicycle helmets, ski helmets and goggles, appearing. Maybe there will be combination products, paired up so that data from one is displayed on the other? Google Bikes & Trainers talking to Google Glass, Google Snowboards talking to Google Goggles. Google Cars… well, just talking… & throwing stuff up onto a windscreen HUD!

And maybe that would explain the launching of Google retail outlets, when at the moment they only have three models of Nexus and a Chromebook to sell!

Image: Google

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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Six Navigate Media Group (NMG) bloggers will be hosted; Ayngelina Brogan of www.BaconisMagic.ca, Pete and Dalene Heck of www.HeckticTravels.com, Michael Hodson of www.GoSeeWrite.com, Michael Tieso of www.ArtofBackpacking.com and Stephanie Yoder of www.Twenty-SomethingTravel.com. Each will undertake separate itineraries during the middle of February, featuring the diversity of Finland with such activities as trekking, rapids floating, photographing the Northern Lights, hanging out with reindeer farmers, exploring the native Sami culture, riding on an icebreaker ship, looking at an ice castle, and enjoying the variety of the cultural and food life of Helsinki.

“While most people are looking for sunny destinations in winter they may be overlooking Finland, one of the most iconic Arctic destinations in the world,” said Dalene Heck of Hecktic Travels.

Navigate Media Group will undertake a number of objectives for Visit Finland, including increasing interaction on the #VisitFinland hashtags on both Twitter and Instagram, creating a Pinterest presence for Visit Finland and also conducting a social media training seminar for various Finnish businesses in the travel sector. In recent years, workshops, seminars and media training events have become an established way to add practical value to projects like this.

The emphasis is on photography for Twitter, Instagram, and in particular, Pinterest. VisitFinland’s target audience are ‘modern humanists’.

“It is image marketing,” says VisitFinland’s Johanna Vierros. “The main target is to increase Finland’s ‘attractiveness’ as a travel destination, as well as spread knowledge of Finland as a country.”

She confirms that the project is very different to a traditional travel journalist press trip, but not exclusive.

We do a lot of co-operation with traditional travel journalists (press, radio, TV) throughout the year, so they do not block out one another, but blogger trips add new spice to our media visits.

Navigate Media Group contacted us last year and suggested this project. Since we had already hosted our first blogger trip (“Blog Around the Clock”) in June 2012 , we were ready to take it to the next level by adding more intensity and social media actions for the trip in 2013, and after some research on their blogs we decided that NMG is an eligible partner.

The project differs from traditional press trips in more fundamental ways too.

The new generation of professional travel bloggers are no longer pure ‘editorial’; they also have to be commercially-minded publishers (with a transparent editorial policy), and the formation of new marketing groups like Navigate Media reflects that new approach. A number of national and local tourism promotion organisations are already engaging commercially with bloggers in ‘host + cash’ deals.

In this case, what is interesting is the way NMG works. Navigate Media Group is a collaboration of nine full-time, professional travel blogs working together on campaigns involving travel blogging and social media concepts, and all the members of the group benefit financially. In addition to the five traveling blog members activity on site with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and traditionally blogging, the four additional members of Navigate Media not on the trip (Sherry Ott of www.OttsWorld.com, Kate McCulley of www.AdventurousKate.com, Cailin O’Neill of www.TravelYourself.ca, Lisa Lubin of www.LLWorldTour.com) will be providing social media amplification of the campaign in real-time.

In order to avoid the ‘same stories, same time’ problem with group blogger trips, each NMG blogger is heading to a different destination. Johanna says they were able to choose their own destination from a selection of five: Helsinki, Kainuu (eastern Finland), Luosto, Kemi and Saariselkä.

Each trip is designed to meet the Visit Finland’s marketing themes, which are Wild & Free, Cultural Beat and Silence Please. Each trip consists of specific activities representing the specialities of each region in Finland. In Kainuu the bloggers go wildlife watching, in Kemi they visit the snow castle and so on. The goal is to show the versatility of Finland as a winter destination, and we hope that we succeed in it. Each VisitFinland regional office will provide the bloggers with WiFi gadgets so they can work in real time.

Combined together, Navigate Media brings in just under 200,000 unique visitors who read close to 500,000 page views a month. They have over 100k Twitter followers, 45k Facebook fans, 12k RSS subscribers, 8k newsletter subscribers, and over 6k Instagram followers.

“Finland Blogsposure stands to be one of the most comprehensive and complete blogging and social media campaigns undertaken by any destination in the world,” said Michael Hodson. “We are thrilled to be on board to help take Visit Finland to the next level of social media interaction.”

Image: Suomenlinna sea fortress in Helsinki – Flickr/VisitFinland

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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The PTBA has been formed by a core group of around 50 travel bloggers who treat their blogs as a business and want to create an organisation of professionals to promote their interests within the travel & tourism industry, and develop their resources, skills, careers and business opportunities.

As a highly democratic organisation (there are elections on the way for a Board of Directors and Officers), with so many individually-minded founders, it has taken just over a year of careful collaboration to build a framework of goals, policies, bylaws & ethical guidelines, plus a website to draw it all together, but that point has finally been reached and attention now turns to recruitment.

To be a member, travel bloggers will need to have been blogging for over 9 months and have over 3,000 page views in the last 30 days. Membership costs US$75 per annum.

Setting this entry level has been one of the most contentious issues the founding team have had to settle – high enough to exclude short term amateur bloggers, eg. gap yearers writing for friends & family, while low enough to include the new niche bloggers that are becoming so sought after by the travel industry wanting to target specific markets.

Membership is also open to travel industry and PRs at $300 per annum for individuals, or $500 for a group/company/DMO/organisation. Industry membership gives access to the database of blogger members, which has two tiers of information:

• Basic Information supplied by the blogger such as Blog name/url, Contact info, Overview, Current location & Planned trips, Language and Niche (selectable), Newsletters & RSS subscriber numbers.
• Statistical information authorised by the blogger but collected remotely such as Unique visitors & pageviews (via Google Analytics), Twitter followers, Facebook fans, LinkIn connections, G+ circle connections, YouTube subscribers, Pinterest followers, Kred score, PeerIndex score, Klout score)

Michael Hodson, one of founding members who has been overseeing the development of the website thinks this powerful search capability (searches can combine any of those fields) will be very attractive to the 10,000+ exhibitors at ITB Berlin 2013 who will be offered free access for a two week period.

The tie up with ITB came about really rapidly in the last week so we are still tying up the technical loose ends right now, but it’s really exciting and we hope, once they see how vibrant the search engine is, some of them will sign up as Industry members.

Also as part of the partnership agreement, both Michael and fellow co-founder, Ayngelina Brogan, will be speaking at eTravel World in ITB on the topic of “Finding and Working with Travel Bloggers”, giving them the opportunity to showcase the new PTBA search engine.

ITB will also give the PTBA a chance to demonstrate its international credentials.

When we consulted with the industry on what they would want from the search engine, the feedback was unanimous. They want two key things: the ability to search for niche bloggers, and the ability to search for languages. The active DMOs (Destination Marketing Organisations) were saying ‘we want to find the bloggers who blog in Portuguese because we want to target the Brazilian market’. And, from the other direction, when I spoke at a conference down in Brazil earlier this year I met 50-60 South American bloggers who wanted to join PTBA because they wanted access to the international travel & tourism industry.

Michael says there is still work to be done to the website and the database, and structural work to the organisation; sorting out the elections and with them a mandated management team to run the PTBA, but there’s no doubt this is a significant milestone in the association’s history.

If you are a travel blogger will you sign up to a professional association? If you are in the travel & tourism industry, is this the kind of resource your are looking for?

Image: Bigstock/Ivonnewierink

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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Rather like Facebook Groups, the new Communities feature allows G+ users to create groups to share interests, organise, and communicate around those topics. Up till now, users with shared interests have had to congregate around hashtags and shared circles. Communities gives them a structured home where they can post under topic categories, start Hangouts, create events, and use the +1 button anywhere across the web to share content with community members.

New Communities can be Public or Private (only invited members can view) and if they are public their membership can be Open (anyone can join) or By Approval.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s likely the range of Communities created on G+ will be different from those on Facebook. Google+ snobs have always portrayed G+ users as ‘broadsheet newspaper’ types, and ‘tabloid’ Facebook to be the home of the masses. A little patronising perhaps, but many geeks, engineers and techy types have felt at home in the quieter environs of G+ and the make up of the G+ Communities is likely to reflect that.

So what’s in it for the travel & tourism industry and travel media?

And does anyone care? Google+ is “a wasteland” isn’t it?

Gizmodo famously called it “a wasteland for visitors” back in Aug 2011 when TNW had calculated 47% of G+ subscribers hadn’t actually posted anything. Unfortunately the description stuck and became common currency. However, that was 18 months ago – a lifetime in web technology – and as Google’s Senior Vice President of Engineering, Vic Gundotra, said yesterday, things have changed:

Today Google+ is the fastest-growing network thingy ever. More than 500 million people have upgraded (to G+), 235 million are active across Google (+1′ing apps in Google Play, hanging out in Gmail, connecting with friends in Search…), and 135 million are active in just the stream.

As a result there has been a lot of interest in the launch of Communities (I should know. I spent a large chunk of yesterday in a Hangout with high-powered Google-watchers on both sides of the Atlantic seizing on any snippets of news from the Googleplex or signs of it being switched on and rippling through the data centres!) and with it, the chance to play with yet another social media tool.

Already there have been early-adopters in the travel blogging sector. Within a few hours Michael Turtle (Travel Talk), Peter Daams (Travel) and Caz Makepiece (Family Travel) had set up communities. Melvin Boecher (Travel Experiences)joined them this morning. Already Michael Turtle’s Travel talk community has passed the threshold of interest (100+ members) set by TNW scouting for active new communities.

But, just because we can create a new travel community, should we?

And what should travel bloggers/writers or travel PRs & industry folk look for in a G+ travel community?

I think we are going to see a small explosion of travel communities over the next few days, many of which will launch and then slowly go dormant. As they decline their members will drift away to mega-communities which will grow through consolidation. I think the communities to watch for will be the small (150 member) public communities with membership by approval.

These are the Communities that will establish themselves as ‘centres of authority’ on niche topics and whose members will have the most influence. A Community that puts a ceiling on the numbers of members will enable its members to avoid the poor ‘signal-to-noise’ ratio in the mega-communities while leveraging the benefits of exclusivity. As Groucho Marx might have said of the mega-communities:

I don’t want to belong to any kind of club that will accept people like me as a member!

So, are you going to start/join a G+ travel community?

Image: G+

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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Forget Generation Y (aka “The Millennials”, born between 1980-2000). They are already here. Generation Z are the first generation born (1995 – 2010) into a world dominated by the Internet, Social Media, and Mobile – and they are about to arrive in the marketplace.

I should know. I have one. Born December 1995, the world of “…adding him to my car insurance is going to cost HOW MUCH?!” has finally arrived for me!

What does this mean for travel media?

Subjectively, not a lot. We write for the generation we are. Gary Arndt is not likely to start a niche blog on ‘Clubbing in Ibiza’ anytime soon and nor am I (I’m not ruling it out, Gary. Just saying ‘unlikely’!). So Gen-Z is not an audience we have to reach, but it is a generation we will have to compete with. If anyone thinks the travel blogosphere and social media networks are already too busy with Gen-X & Y bloggers, influencers & content creators, they’d better brace themselves because Gen-Z are going to be all over the online travel space like a swarm of bees.

This is the generation who aren’t just in constant communication with their friends. They are in constant communication simultaneously on multiple platforms! (I see it every evening. My son sits on the sofa with his iPhone and laptop, talking to overlapping groups of people on Skype, on his phone and through the Xbox that he is playing FIFA 12 matches on, with his team mates… while at the same time messaging & posting on Facebook.)

Gen-Y, and some X, writers may have been the first to occupy the online travel space, but over the next decade our presence there is going to be competitively diluted. Fortunately our voices will still be heard (thank goodness for search and the ‘long tail’!) but in a few years our resources will begin to diminish as the travel & tourism industry turns its attention to the new and growing customer base.

What does this mean for the travel industry?

A new concentration on seamless online technology says Grail Research. Companies wanting to target Gen-Z will need to…

• Adopt technology-based marketing and sales channels such as text messages (SMS), mobile Internet, social networking portals, etc.
• Aim to ‘catch them young’ (especially relevant for technology companies)
• Enhance their virtual world presence with online product information and purchase facility
• Develop high value-for-money products that are multifunctional with simple and interactive designs
• Provide ‘green’ products and services or take a proactive stance toward the environment

That last one is an interesting and encouraging trend. Grail point out that access to a large online information pool has made Gen-Z acutely aware of modern day challenges such as terrorism, climate change, etc. 74% of teenagers, globally, consider climate change and global warming to be a greater threat than drugs, violence or war. Grail have produced an excellent summary of who Generation Z are, and their defining characteristics.

Jon Keefe, CEO at KMP Digitata told delegates at last month’s Travolution Summit that it’s the Gen-Z girls who will have the most impact on the travel industry:

We’ve been researching these girls, known as “Disruptive Divas” and they are incredible. They are constantly connected across multiple channels both in groups and privately. They spend on average 2-9 hours a week video chatting and they send between 500 and 3,000 messages a week via platforms like BBM (Blackberry messaging) and Facebook.

What is particularly interesting is the group behaviour – group chat and group video chat. Multi-conversational across multiple devices.These girls will start a conversation in real life with friends at school. They’ll continue using BBM on the way home on the bus, and they’ll pick it up again on group Skype or Google Hangouts later on in the evening. They embrace the idea of shared experience and in three years time these girls are going to become your customers, bringing their ingrained digital behaviour to your front doors.

KMP Digitata’s interest in Gen-Z girls is in the development of their concept travel platform, Factor 15, which will enable group collaboration and purchasing, by creating a ‘trip board’ which will gather and curate the group’s conversations from multiple networks (Twitter, Facebook, BBM, G+ Hangouts), and insert product suggestions, content (video, photos, reviews) and prices. Very different to today’s travel websites, although Expedia have been making advances in collaborative purchasing.

Gen-Z are not patient browsers or searchers, says Jon Keefe, they want ideas fed to them organically as the site ‘listens in’ to their conversation. Nor is privacy an issue. They want stuff brought to them, now. They’ll hand over their personal details to get it, with no worries.

Privacy is for old farts – generation X people, like us!

The Factor 15 site will also enable the divas to get live feedback on their ideas. Jon describes a scenario where the girls get a live video review in a ‘hangout’ from another Gen-Z who is actually on holiday in the destination they are interested in, and for a 15% discount off his holiday, has agreed to make himself available for reviews on demand.

Now there’s an opportunity for travel writers/bloggers to exploit – ‘live’ reviews on demand!

Image: Bigstock/wrangler

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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Our friends at Expedia want to invite you to submit your idea of how you would explore a city using Expedia. The trip is open to any English language bloggers. You can submit and centre your itinerary around anything, choosing a particular theme such as art, fashion, food, or incorporating a bit of everything.

All itineraries need to be submitted before midnight on 2nd December. Once received, Expedia will upload them onto the Expedia UK Facebook page, for the Expedia community to look at and then choose the itinerary that speaks to them the most.

Voting by Expedia’s Facebook community will be open until around 17th December. Four itineraries will be chosen for the final trip to Berlin, which will take place around 21st January 2013. Expedia will also help to connect all winning itineraries with local experts in Berlin, providing you with relevant tips and advice for the type of activities and interests submitted as part of your itinerary.

The four chosen itineraries will receive the following:

• A sponsored trip to Berlin with Expedia providing a £750 voucher to cover the cost of return flights from major airports in the UK and hotel accommodation. (Participating bloggers can supplement this budget if they wish).
• Expedia will also cover the cost of relevant activities (chosen by you) from the Things to do section on Expedia.co.uk
• Expedia will also promote the trip through Expedia social media channels before, during and after the trip, linking to your blog and re-tweeting/ re-posting your social content about the trip
• After the trip Expedia will also promote your blog on Inside Expedia pages and if the content fits well, may also be able to integrate it into destination focused pages on the Expedia site.

If you are interested in submitting an itinerary and taking part please email your itinerary to bloggers@expedia.com before the closing date.

The entry guidelines are as follows:

• Entry to be written in English (Word count is capped at 200 and character length needs to be max 1000 incl. spaces)
• Entry to be made by midnight (CET) on Sunday 2nd December
• Entry to be sent to bloggers@expedia.com

Itinerary entry to include a destination description (detailing how you plan to explore the destination, your particular focus/interests and what you will do there), describing in 200 words or less…

• a hotel you wish to stay in
• at least 1 restaurant
• at least one Expedia activity and 1 top travel tip (this can be as general as you wish)
• One head-shot and 3-4 images of the location with owned copyright (these images can be any style, whatever suits you and your blog)

Contact and personal details:

• Full name
• Country of residence
• Blog name and URL
• Blog logo
• Twitter handle
• Pinterest profile
• Language of blog
• Email address
• Phone number
• Any relevant additional information

Well? Don’t just stand there! ;)

Image: Noud W

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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There have been several moments this month when I’ve been struck by a mis-match in the way that travel media and travel professionals talk and think about travel. It’s a bit like that old GB Shaw quote about how America and Britain are “two cultures separated by a common language”; the words are the same but their meaning is different.

In particular there is a lack of recognition on both sides. Travel blogger Neil Barnes highlighted it when he wrote about the mixed messages he picked up as a first-time visitor to World Travel Market (WTM):

Upstairs in the seminar rooms travel bloggers were hailed as being the future of travel. Our work was appreciated and travel companies were urged to reach out to bloggers and utilise our skills and audience.

Downstairs when approaching various stands the mention of being a travel blogger bought only blank stares, awkward looks and silence. Maybe the people on the stands weren’t the right people to be talking to about working with travel bloggers, I assume they’re at WTM to sell their product so that’s probably fair enough, but the mixed messages made my head spin.

Well, they are there to sell their product to each other, and the media – the ones with black badges – are supposedly there to listen in, observe and report. Strictly speaking, from a WTM point of view, if travel media want to ‘sell’ themselves – pitch for work or sponsorship – they should perhaps wear a yellow (trade visitor) badge, just as the non-editorial Sales & Marketing staff from newspapers, magazine publishers and TV companies do.

Of course the issue has always been blurred – not least by all those PRs who want to engage with influential travel media, and more recently with the evolution of travel bloggers who are by definition editors, marketing managers and publishers all at the same time. No wonder the sourcing of ‘press facilities’ and advertising/sponsorship, not stories, has become the primary focus of most black badge holders at WTM.

 I suspect most travel media, and travel bloggers in particular, don’t really think about travel industry professionals as people who have much to do with ‘travel’ at all.Indeed I suspect most travel media, and travel bloggers in particular, don’t really think about travel industry professionals as people who have much to do with ‘travel’ at all.

The only interest a travel writer/blogger is likely to have in a ferry company for example, is as a cheap or possibly free way to get across the water, or maybe as a source of advertising. They don’t see people with years of commitment and engagement with the communities of their destination ports and hinterlands.

How does the travel  industry view travel media?

To be fair, I’m not sure the travel industry thinks that travel media have much to do with travel either. They are struggling to understand the fast-changing blogosphere and for the most part, ignoring it and getting on with their own world. Last week there were two events involving the top people from the top UK travel brands that I thought demonstrated that point rather well.

The British Travel Press Awards featured 20 categories, judged by 60 senior figures (CEOs, Directors) in the travel industry. They were all about traditional media, except one for ‘Travel Blogger of the Year’.

The next day senior managers and directors from all the top UK travel brands gathered as delegates to learn about the developing digital marketplace and online trends at the Travolution Summit. Around mid-morning I noticed I had not yet heard the word “blogger” and began to keep my ears peeled (sic) for it. It never came. A whole day’s conference on the digital marketplace, on social media, on Mobile and ‘local’, and the word ‘blog’ appeared only once – on a slide, in parenthesis with other content types, as part of the legend for a graph!

So maybe travel writers/bloggers are getting the lack of recognition they deserve for speaking the same language – travel – but not listening and engaging with the industry, who clearly speak it in a different dialect.

Part of the problem could be arrogance.Part of the problem could be (reaches for tin hat) arrogance. Or, to put it more gently, ‘ownership’.

Most travel bloggers are experienced travellers, and passionate about it. That’s why they are good at travel writing (passion always comes across on the page) and that’s why they are so experienced – they travel. A lot.

So it’s a bit like being a fan, and we know how that works. There you are, let’s say… Justin Bieber’s biggest and most devoted fan (!) and somebody comes along and launches the “official” Justin Bieber fan website. How do you react? With a little indignation – “What the hell do they know about Justin!?” – and then studied shunning, probably.

It’s easy, when travel is ‘your territory’ to forget that it belongs to the people who work in travel too. Even worse, they have just as much ‘ownership’ and probably more expertise.

Give me some examples

Take tour operator, Max Lawrence, for example. His dad drove to Morocco from England in 1966 and then set up as a tour operator. Max and he built one of the best known and most successful UK tour operators to Morocco, which they sold on and then Max set up another. They’ve created tourism villages, several individual riads/hotels, and local businesses. I’ve listened to Max talking business and joking with his suppliers in the fluent arabic he has learned over years of living and working there. I know some really experienced and knowledgeable travel writers, but none who have that level of knowledge, love and passion for Morocco.

The nature of that role is different too, observes James Mundy from specialist tour operator, Inside Japan. Travel writers, like clients, are observers in a destination. Travel professionals are participants.

Seasoned travel writers may get ‘under the skin’ of a destination, perhaps over an extended period living there, but there’s a fundamental shift in the relationship with locals when you do business with them or they work for you. Then you begin to really understand how things work and what makes people tick.

When the tsunami devastated Japan last year it wasn’t travel writers or the mainstream media keeping the Japanese diaspora in the UK up to date with events on the ground on social media. It was James’ partner Simon King, Inside Japan.

Anyone blogged on a cultural event recently? Like the Bregenz festival or opera at Verona’s ancient Arena? Do you feel you got the emotional intensity across, or any of the historic & cultural significance? You could always ask a tour operator like Martin Randall. I’ve seen heavyweight lecturers and academics meekly defer to Martin’s knowledge of the arts. They don’t defer to any journalists I know in the same field.

How about Africa? Any specialist writers or bloggers with expert knowledge on safari in Botswana or the skeleton coast of Namibia. Wait. Don’t bother. I’ll ask the Managing Director of tour operator Expert Africa. After all Chris McIntyre wrote the definitive (Bradt) guide to both in 1990 and has been taking people there ever since.

I could go on all day, making the same point…

Hotels? The travel media community is stuffed full with experts on hotel accommodation. I doubt many have the sheer love of the industry and experience of somebody like David Morgan-Hewitt, Managing Director of The Goring hotel in London.

What about the ocean? I know dozens of very experienced specialist cruise writers/bloggers, but even they would acknowledge the amazing enthusiasm and depth of knowledge of some longstanding cruise travel agents like the late Bill Whalley of Tappers Travel, or Edwina Lonsdale at Paul Mundy Travel, or the industry knowledge and experience of longtime cruise line managers like David Dingle, who started out as a trainee at the P&O Steam Navigation Company in 1978 and is now CEO of Carnival UK, whose brands include P&O Cruises and Cunard.

You want passion? Take Michael Krafft who as a young boy rowed out to the derelict hull of the 5-masted tea clipper Preussen in a Swedish estuary and fell in love with her. Michael spent the rest of his life in the marine industry and founded the Star Clippers cruise line, who’s flagship, Royal Clipper, is his modern replica of Preussen.

I worry that unless the new generation of travel writers & bloggers acknowledge and engage with the travel industry instead of looking simply to exploit it, they won’t tap its richest seams – its passion and expertise.

Where to start? Well, almost every week I see a travel blog post with yet another interview with a ‘star’ in the travel firmament, IE. a blogger. I don’t see any with the kind of travel lovers/experts listed above.

Ok, they are particularly UK-centric, but those same travel industry characters with a knowledge and love of travel every bit as passionate as any travel writer, are to be found in large numbers in every country…

Take Canada for example, where a decade ago Andrée Boivert, the Commercial Director of inbound tour operator Misa Tours, was a little disturbed to find one of her guests sobbing as he watched the sun setting in Quebec.

“No, you don’t understand,” he told her when she asked what the matter was. “All my life behind the Iron Curtain I dreamed of this and it’s better than my dreams.”

“THAT is why I love working in travel!”, she says.

Image: Bigstock/urbanraven

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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3. Bloggers Face Fines Of Up To €12,000 If They Don’t Give ‘Right Of Reply’ Within 48hrs

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 17:01 UTC

Last session of the day. Is not really a session. It’s a pre-recorded video interview with Glenn Fogel, Head of worldwide strategy & planning for the Priceline.com group.

… so I think our Travelllll.com Twitter and onsite live blogging comes to an end here.

It’s been an excellent and informative day. Many thanks to Travolution, Sabre and the others sponsors for staging this event.

 

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 16:40 UTC

New session: Gerard Doyle, CEO of DiscountVouchers.co.uk delivers a keynote presentation wrapping up earlier themes from other sessions (particularly ‘big data’) titled Why you should ditch your affiliate programme.

 

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 16:21 UTC

New session. Patrick Lynch, Commercial Director of Criteo talking about Data in marketing – Moving towards a single customer view throughout the purchase funnel.

Patrick is talking through the history of banner advertising, and how ads can and are being targeted personally across websites using big data. Criteo is targeting travel website visitors with ads, or maybe not displaying ads, based on a sophisticated instant analysis of their browsing behaviour.

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 16:12 UTC

And the winner….

 

Iris :)

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 16:07 UTC

New session: The Innovators. Pitches from three startups…

• Jason Jefferys, CEO iRiS. A personal digital hotel app where guests can be welcomed on their phone before they arrive. They can book the in-room services, have their room pre-stocked with drinks they want, the room temp they want when they arrive, book a spa session, and other services. Even using their phone as the room key. Hotels can interact with their guests, get feedback and suggest services. The app is already being used by several well-known luxury brands.
• Jon Keefe, CEO KMP Digitata. Factor 15 is the name of their travel social network concept. It’s based on their research program looking at the online behaviour of generation Z – the most digitally savvy set of travel consumers that the industry has encountered.
• Omer Granot, CEO CancelOn. CancelOn addresses the issue of non-refundable reservations. It is an online marketplace where travellers can sell bookings that they can no longer use.They estimate that 250,000 paid-for hotel rooms are unused every day worldwide.

Soon the delegates at Travolution Summit will be voting on which startup they think shows the most potential. Watch this space!

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 15:09 UTC

Matt Mills describes future applications on the Aurasma platform using film extracts so that you can visit a film location and see the scene played out on your phone or tablet in situ.

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 14:59 UTC

Matt Mills, Global Head of Partnerships for Aurasma is presenting How augmented reality is shaping the future of mobile, demonstrating how he can point his phone at an advert and show a video, information or even take the user straight through to a sales form.

 

 

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 14:46 UTC

Mark Iremonger, iCrossing

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 14:43 UTC

New session: Discover the UK travel cluster and the connectedness index.

Mark Iremonger, Chief Strategy Officer for iCrossing is demonstrating the scale and connectedness of website on a kind of star map. The cluster of UK sites looks small compared to the rest of the Internet (the largest ‘stars’ in there are BBC, Ebay & Amazon).

 

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 14:19 UTC

Graham Cooke says that companies are missing out on creating big data resources from themselves because they don’t realise that the new asynchronous javascript applications on the front end of your site can run by themselves without slowing the back end server operations and you can use tag management systems to collect the data that drives your visitor’s personal experience online.

He backed this up by staging a race between someone eating a hotdog and someone creating a new ad placement trigger by a user’s data tags. The hotdog lost.

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 14:08 UTC

Graham Cooke, CEO Qubit

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 14:01 UTC

Graham says on average 60% of customers abandon at checkout in 2010 according to Paypal, and big data can help reduce that by personalising the experience.

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 13:59 UTC

Lunch over. The next session is Local – How the emergence of Big Data helps localise and personalise the customer experience. Graham Cooke, CEO Qubit is giving the presentation.

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 13:00 UTC

Matt Rooke – Kuoni and Anneli Ritari – LBi demonstrate their successful social media campaign

And now a break for lunch.

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 12:45 UTC

Case study on Kuoni’s SM campaign with LiB, using for example

• Blog content and engagement with TV traveller, Simon Reeve, following him on his travels
• Holiday health information based on taking Kuoni customers on holiday and measuring their health

..to double their organic search traffic over only a few months.

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 12:34 UTC

New session: Blending Social and Search. Double-headed by Matt Rooke, VP ebusiness & publishing at Kuoni and Anneli Ritari, Associate Client Partner at LBi.

To be really successful online, brands must inspire loyalty so their products, services and stories are shared.

 

 

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 12:24 UTC

Nishma Robb says 2013 will be the year of the mobile and will be the year of ‘me’. Consumers have high expectations of personalised experience.

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 12:17 UTC

New session: Nishma Robb, Chief Client Officer, iProspect is talking about the new world of digital travel. She says the hot present this Christmas will be tablets and 20% of travel search queries are already being made on tablets.

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 12:03 UTC

Simon Jones, COO Digital Visitor

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 11:52 UTC

New session: Social: Using social media to increase sales from Digital Visitor. Simon Jones, Director of Operations and Co-Founder is standing in for CEO Andrew Rawlins.

Organic traffic is driven by user generated content. Digital Visitor reckon one product review can result in one organic visitor. Capturing customer content – photos, reviews, etc is important. When they are asked to post their thoughts between 10-30% of customers respond.

 

 

 

 

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 11:33 UTC

The big boys in search.

Among tour operators, Thomson & First Choice  take 36% share of  organic search. On The Beach have 90% of click share in paid search.

On flights, agencies like Cheapflights rule the pack. The only successful mainstream (non-budget) airline in flight search is BA .   The same applies to the hotel sector – agencies dominate. Hotel chains less so,  and then it’s the budget end of the market that does best in search.

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 11:23 UTC

Coffee break over. New session at Travolution Summit.

This presentation is the Data Take out Session – Analysis of the top 50 brands within the travel sector, given by Glen Conybeare, CEO and Founder of Digital Visitor.

Speaking of coffee breaks… For those who missed it, I’ve had to cancel today’s ‘live’ Travel Coffee Break Hangout on Air for techy reasons. The next one will be Monday at noon GMT.

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 10:52 UTC

Brannon Winn says that Vayant open up their flights data to new startups and their experience now is that the developers don’t  design for multiple platforms these days. They are all focusing on just ‘mobile’. That’s where the future lies.

Mark Lenahan says it’s important that those startups don’t try and recreate the PC/desktop website experience.

I have big fingers. I can’t type well on a small device. My heart sinks when I see booking forms asking me to put in the date, the destination, and so on. I shouldn’t have to see that. I want apps to attach booking solutions – prices etc – on my Pinterest pages.

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 10:34 UTC

Hooray! Brannon Winn talks about the need to create booking websites that don’t start out asking the visitor to specify destination and dates.

We need to be inspired. We need to arrive on the home page an be told “hey, here are 50 places you could go for this price”

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 10:30 UTC

Travel Marketplace panel

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 10:22 UTC

Panel on Travel Marketplace: How big data, mobile, merchandising and social media is shaping travel gets underway.

The panel are Christoph Klenner, Secretary General ETTSA; Mark Lenahan, VP Product Strategy , Openjaw; Brannon Winn, CEO Vayant; and Harald Eisenaecher, Senior VP, Sabre.

Harald Eisenaecher says that one one the key startegies for Sabre right now is to become more mobile and social.

Brannon Winn, says that customers are now hungry for new ways to buy and it’s important to create innovative tools that use data to provide good service. For example tell a warn a consumer that he has already purchased a product online, to prevent him buying twice accidently.

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 10:18 UTC

Adam Shaw, BBC

 

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 09:52 UTC

Adam Shaw says that the global climate is not as gloomy as we think from a European perspective. There are areas of growth around the world and businesses should be seeking those out.  Even in an economic downturn, businesses should be looking for opportunities, he said.

This exactly the time to be re-thinking business models.

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 09:40 UTC

Adam Shaw, BBC Business & Financial reporter, is setting out the current economic environment for the travel industry.

He suggests that  the current economic trends indicate a widening of the gap between rich & poor and the latest statistics suggest that luxury travel products are benefiting from that. However there is a point 5 years down the road when there may be a sudden economic contraction as people’s expenditure drops from lack of confidence, and industry managers should watch out for that.

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 09:24 UTC

The summit gets underway with an introduction from Lee Hayhurst, Travolution Editor and Harald Eisenaecher, Senior VP EMEA for Sabre Travel Network.

There is a Twitter hashtag for the summit: #travosummit. Organisers are encouraging people to tweet questions. There is a twitterfall being screened in the hall.

Alastair McKenzie — Thursday, 08:39 UTC

The great and good are gathering for Travolution Summit. Coffee first, then the presentations get underway at 0900.

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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The destruction by shell-fire of the old Stari Most bridge across the Neretva River in the historic town of Mostar in Bosnia & Herzegovina, became a powerful symbol for the tearing apart of communities that had peacefully co-existed prior to the Balkan war in the early 1990s.

This video, which is one of Vimeo’s Staff Picks, focuses on the tradition of jumping (& diving) from the bridge, a practise which was re-established after the war when the bridge was determinedly and quickly rebuilt.

DGA Productions have done a great job with this subject, treating it as not simply as a spectacle in a dramatic setting but focusing on the people of the town.

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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Traditionally, MMORPGs (like World of Warcraft) have had nothing to do with the travel & tourism industry, or for that matter ‘real life’! Usually based on a digital fantasy world, the closest they ever came to having a practical real life purpose was in the brief moment when some major businesses & brands set up virtual shop in the digital landscape of Second Life.

But all that could be about to change because this is something different – Google’s Ingress is an MMORPG played out in the real world.

The location-based game, already available on Google Play (though only in a ‘by invitation’ beta version), is played using your phone (Android only for now) and matches in-game elements with real world locations. In that respect it has quite a pedigree. It has been developed by a team led by John Hanke, the guy behind Google Earth, Google Maps and StreetView.

The game plot is that a weird form of mind-controlling energy, which can be tracked using the app, has been discovered in locations all over the world – mostly, listen up tourism marketing guys, in and around well-known public places, creative institutions, landmarks and artworks.

Players join one of two warring sides, the Enlightened and the Resistance, and collaborate with their team mates to gather clues & game objects, unlock new features, and claim territories, in order to either embrace the mysterious energy, or resist it… and thus save mankind.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ingress is not the first location-based game. It’s birth was foretold, as a deep and portentous video game voiceover might say, with the launch of previous mobile app games like Shadow Cities and Please Stay Calm. But its signficance lies in one word – GOOGLE.

Gamification has become a buzzword recently, but this is ‘gamification on steroids’ and, through Google’s involvement, on a potentially huge scale.

What does it mean for tourism organisations and destination marketers?

It means you must look around your head office for a young ‘gamer’ and tell them to start playing Ingress as soon as they can (that’s a cool work project!). They they will then be able to tell you how to engage and interact with visiting Ingress players, how to promote your destination as ‘Ingress-friendly’ to both the Enlightened and the Resistance. You want to be ready because they will come, and since this is Google and Android – now the largest mobile platform in the world by sales (64%) – they will come in large numbers.

Also, if they don’t come straight-away because your destination is not yet covered by the game, you should be researching to find how you can make that happen quicker. Maybe fam trips for programmers and mappers at Niantic Lab, the game developer? It might be a good idea to be one of the first tourism organisations to get in touch with them, than join the queue later.

Will you be investigating what Ingress might mean for your destination?

If you are a traveller, will you be tempted to play it?

Image: Bigstock/Lilyana Vynogradova

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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This week Expedia are recruiting just for French and German bloggers. Next week they’ll be looking for for English, Spanish and Dutch. So stay tuned!

Expedia.fr vous invite à participer
à son jeu-concours spécial blogueurs pour voyager à votre idée

Parce que chacun a son idée du voyage, Expedia.fr vous propose de partager avec sa communauté de fans la façon idéale dont vous souhaiteriez visiter la capitale anglaise….

Si votre idée remporte l’adhésion parmi toutes celles proposées, Expedia vous donne la possibilité de concrétiser votre idée… Et plus encore !

En quoi consiste ce jeu-concours ?

Chaque jour, des milliers de personnes réservent leurs voyages grâce à Expedia. Chacun crée et imagine son voyage à son idée : en fonction de ses priorités, de ses attentes, de ses motivations… puis revient avec ses propres photos, ses anecdotes et ses souvenirs à partager avec ses proches.

Ces expériences, vécues par tous, nous ont donné envie de travailler en collaboration avec les blogueurs du monde entier pour donner vie à ces histoires, afin d’inspirer les autres, voyageurs d’un jour ou de toujours.

C’est pourquoi nous proposons aux blogueurs du monde entier de nous transmettre leurs idées pour la visite d’une ville du monde. Comment imaginent-ils la découvrir avec Expedia.fr ? Nous partageons ensuite ces idées sur notre page Facebook et demandons à nos fans d’élire leur idée favorite… Le blogueur élu pourra concrétiser son idée et découvrir la ville en question avec Expedia.

L’idée ? Permettre à notre communauté de mieux connaître les différentes possibilités permises par le site Expedia.fr et également découvrir de nouvelles choses sur le centre d’intérêt que nous avons en commun : le voyage.

C’est au tour des blogueurs français de visiter Londres sous un autre angle !

Le prochain voyage que nous organisons pour les blogueurs gagnants aura lieu à Londres, entre le 12 et le 20 décembre.

Les 15 premières propositions que nous recevrons seront partagées sur notre page Facebook puis diffusées à nos fans ainsi qu’à nos abonnés. Nous accepterons vos propositions de participation jusqu’au 11 novembre minuit.

Que comprend le voyage du gagnant ?

• Un voyage à Londres selon votre idée, sponsorisé par Expedia, avec une contribution en bons d’achats d’une valeur de 750€ pour couvrir les coûts inhérents aux vols (au départ des principaux aéroports de France), ainsi que celui de l’hébergement.
• Expedia couvrira également le coût des activités que vous choisissez au sein de la rubrique « A voir, à faire » d’Expedia.fr
• Nous pouvons vous offrir la possibilité de parler à un expert local dans un domaine qui vous intéresse et vous fournir un enregistrement de cette rencontre afin de vous permettre d’alimenter le contenu de votre blog

• Nous organiserons la promotion de votre voyage en partageant le contenu de votre blog en lien avec cette aventure sur nos comptes officiels Facebook & Twitter

• Suite au voyage, nous mettrons en avant votre blog sur l’Espace Expedia et si le contenu correspond, nous pourrons l’intégrer à nos pages spéciales « destination ».

Que souhaitons-nous recevoir du blogueur gagnant suite au voyage ?

Dans le but de mettre en avant votre voyage et votre blog sur les réseaux sociaux, nous aurions besoin :

-          D’au moins 7 photos afin de créer un album sur Facebook

-          D’une vidéo de votre voyage (idéalement nous aimerions y inclure les échanges que vous aurez eu avec les experts locaux rencontrés)

-          De bons conseils sur la destination et vos meilleures découvertes

-          Que vous tweetiez au moins une fois par jour durant le voyage, en utilisant les hashtags #London and #ByExpedia

Bien sûr, plus vous serez présent sur Twitter, Facebook, et les autres réseaux sociaux, plus vous serez visible par nos fans et followers.

Puisque le public a voté pour votre voyage parce que votre idée les a séduits, essayez au maximum de partager les détails qui sont en lien avec votre idée à son origine.

Comment soumettre vos idées de voyage ?

-          Les propositions doivent être écrites en français

-          Les propositions devront être envoyées à bloggers@expedia.com

-          Les propositions doivent être envoyées avant le dimanche 11 novembre à minuit
(à noter : nous ne partagerons que les 15 premières propositions reçues)

-          L’itinéraire devra comprendre :

• Votre propre description de la destination (200 mots maximum) : expliquez bien votre vision de la ville, la façon dont vous imaginez ce voyage, et comment vous pensez explorer la ville
• 1 nuit dans un hôtel au minimum
  • 1 restaurant au minimum
• Une ou des activités Expedia

-          Une astuce voyage (ceci peut être aussi général que vous le désirez)

-          Votre portrait et 3 ou 4 photos de la destination en spécifiant si vous en détenez le copyright ou le nom de la personne en détenant le copyright et son autorisation

-          Contact et informations personnelles:

• Nom et Prénom
• Pays de résidence
• Nom du blog et adresse URL
• Logo du blog
• Nom du compte Twitter associé
• Nom du profil Pinterest associé
• Langue du blog
• Adresse email personnelle
• Numéro de téléphone
• Toutes informations complémentaires jugées utiles

Worum geht es bei den Blog-Trips eigentlich?

Täglich werden auf Expedia Tausende von Reisen gebucht. Dabei hat jeder Reisende unterschiedliche Prioritäten, Erwartungen und Gründe für seine Reise. Jeder kehrt mit unterschiedlichen Bildern, Erfahrungen und Erinnerungen zurück. Wir möchten diese Geschichten gemeinsam mit Bloggern zum Leben erwecken und andere Reisefreunde und Weltenbummler inspirieren. Deshalb laden wir Reiseblogger dazu ein, uns zu erzählen, wie sie eine Stadt mithilfe von Expedia erkunden würden.

Die ersten 15 Einsendungen laden wir dann in unsere Facebook-App und stellen sie Fans und Newsletter-Abonnenten vor. Unsere Fans auf Facebook haben dann die Möglichkeit, darüber abzustimmen, welche der Ideen ihnen am besten gefällt. So könnt Ihr sehen, für welche Trips sich unsere Fangemeinde am meisten interessiert. Außerdem könnt Ihr auf diese Weise viele neue Leser für Euren Blog gewinnen. Und auch wenn Euer Blog dieses Mal nicht ausgewählt wird, werden sich zukünftig noch weitere Gelegenheiten bieten. Eure Blogs werden außerdem auf unserer Facebook-Seite vorgestellt.

Der nächste Trip für deutschsprachige Blogger geht nach London und findet Mitte Dezember statt. Das Abreisedatum liegt zwischen dem 12. und 20. Dezember und Einsendeschluss für die Reiseideen ist Sonntag der 11. November um Mitternacht.

Bei Interesse schickt bitte eine E-Mail an bloggers@expedia.com

Was ist für dich dabei?

• Ein gesponsorter Trip nach London. Expedia vergibt einen Gutschein über 750 Euro für die Unterkunft sowie den Hin- und Rückflug ab einem der großen Flughäfen in Deutschland.
• Expedia kommt auch für die Kosten bestimmter Aktivitäten auf, die Du dir unter Events & Tickets auf unserer Seite selber aussuchen kannst.
• Wir können Dir Kontakt zu Leuten verschaffen, die sich an den Orten, für die Du Dich am meisten interessierst, auskennen. Anschließend erhältst Du eine Aufnahme des Gesprächs, die Du dann in Deinem Blog veröffentlichen kannst.
• Über unsere Social-Media-Kanäle werben wir vor, während und nach dem Trip für Deinen Blog, indem wir ihn verlinken, über ihn tweeten und Inhalte Deines Blogs posten.
• Nach Deinem Trip veröffentlichen wir den Blog auf  http://inside.expedia.de/. Möglicherweise passen Deine Reiserlebnisse sogar so gut zu uns, dass wir sie in die Reisezielbeschreibungen auf unserer Website einbauen können.

Was wir uns von Deinem Trip versprechen

Um über unsere Social-Media-Kanäle für Deinen Trip und den Blog werben können, brauchen wir:

• Mindestens sieben Fotos, damit wir auf Facebook eine Bildergalerie erstellen können.
• Videoclips Deines Trips. Idealerweise interviewst Du darin Einheimische/Ortskenner oder Leute, die sich mit den Aktivitäten auskennen, die Du besuchst.
• Tipps für das Reiseziel und Deine tollsten Entdeckungen.

• Pro Aufenthaltstag am Reiseziel mindestens zwei Tweets mit den Hashtags #London and #ByExpedia.

Je häufiger Du tweetest und Kommentare auf Facebook, G+ usw. hinterlässt, desto stärker werden wir Deine Berichte bei unserer Fangemeinde promoten.

Da unsere Fans für Deine ursprüngliche Trip-Idee gestimmt haben, wäre es super, wenn sich Deine Berichte soweit wie möglich auf diese Idee beziehen.

Wie Du Deine Ideen einsenden kannst

-          Deine Ideen müssen auf Deutsch verfasst sein.

-          Einsendeschluss ist Sonntag der 11. November um Mitternacht. Beachte aber, dass sich nur die ersten 15 Einsendungen für die Teilnahme qualifizieren.

-          Schicke Deine Ideen an bloggers@expedia.com.

Der Text muss:

-          eine Reisezielbeschreibung, (Welche Bereiche interessieren Dich besonders und wie Du planst die Stadt zu entdecken?)

-          ein Hotel,

-          mindestens ein Restaurant,

-          mindestens eine Expedia-Aktivität

-          und einen Top-Reisetipp enthalte (Hier kannst Du so allgemein schreiben, wie Du möchtest).

(Die Wortzahl darf 200 Wörter nicht überschreiten.)

Bitte schicke uns weiterhin ein Portraitfoto von Dir sowie drei bis vier Fotos vom Reiseziel, für die Du die Bildrechte besitzt.

-          Außerdem benötigen für folgende Informationen (soweit vorhanden):

• Vor- und Nachname
• In welchem Land du wohnhaft bist
• Name deines Blogs und die Webadresse
• Logo des Blogs
• Twitter-Name
• Pinterest-Link
• Blogsprache
• E-Mail-Adresse
• Telefonnummer
• Weitere relevante Informationen

Image: Bigstock/alexskopje

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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Some of the Travelllll.com team will be there and we (mostly Alastair) will be ‘live’ blogging interesting snippets of news during the opening days of the show.

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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No sooner have we all mastered blogs, podcasting, video-blogging, e-zines, and the latest social media networks like Pinterest & Instagram, than along comes new stuff to get our heads around like mobile app creation, Hangouts on Air, data journalism and Augmented Reality.

Digital journalist, Benji Lanyado, knows this better than most and has been in the vanguard of many new technologies and techniques.

It was Benji who, three and a half years ago, pioneered the concept of the TwiTrip for the Guardian newspaper when he created live interactive travel features by turning up in a destination and asking his twitter followers for suggestions on what to do and where to stay.

It was Benji, again in 2009, who showed us the potential of augmented reality apps.

It was Benji who last year first highlighted Drone Journalism.

And yesterday he reminded us there are always new ways to tell stories, with the launch of his Interactive Story service.

The concept is not entirely new. Some digital publishers have produced similar content formats, but usually one-off projects or presentations outsourced to digital art houses or large web development agencies. What’s unusual about Benji’s service is that he can produce these interactive stories by himself in just a few days.

You do see these things every now and then in newspapers who have big interactive teams, but I wanted to create a model where you can create an interactive story quickly and cheaply and offer it to more or less anyone.

Benji, who describes himself as a ‘Journalist & Developer’, has created his new format, which is designed to run on mobiles as well as desktops and across all browsers, entirely from scratch.

I left the Guardian a few months ago (although I’m still working freelance with them) because I actually wanted to learn how to code properly. It’s not complicated coding but it’s robust and works on iPads and PCs, Android phones and all browsers. Even on old versions of the Internet Explorer browser, which is wonderful!

Is it a format that other travel writers, content producers and tourism organisations may be using in the future? Benji thinks so:

I think it’s an inevitability that we have got to move beyond plain articles and videos and podcasts and galleries. They’ve been around for a century in digital terms. 99% of articles and blogs are copy-image-copy-image, and if the blogger is a bit more techy, maybe a video. This format draws all that together and makes it more fun. The reader can play around with it, drill down into this part of the story or that part, and move forward & backward within it.

Essentially what it is doing is building a website… for a story, or just a picture.

Do you think we will see more interactive storytelling like this?

Feature Image: Bigstock/NexusPlexus
Interactive Image: “Iwo Jima Chronicles” by Stefano Corso/ some rights reserved

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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The effect was immediate and ridiculous.

Nobody should be denied an interview and certainly not by somebody who has nothing to do with US immigration, the whole concept is not fit for purpose. The I-visa is a serious thing and so the US officials take it seriously because it’s a bit like a mini Green Card. It gives you the right to live & work in the USA for a year, which you can then extend. Handy for a BBC political correspondent newly appointed to the Washington bureau, but for 99% of journalists visiting for a few days or weeks it’s complete overkill!

It’s absurd! It’s probably easier for me to enter the USA as an arms trader than as a travel journalist writing about the ski slopes of Aspen!

Alarmed by the numbers of foreign journalists being handcuffed and deported back in 2004 the American Society of Newspaper Editors described the retention of the old I-visa policy as “anathema”, and along with the Society of Professional Journalists and Reporters Without Borders, called for it to be ended.

Wait. Let me highlight part of that sentence again: Back in 2004.

In a few months it will be 2013. If the USA is serious about promoting itself and its tourism offering to the outside world, then the moment, not just to ease but to end this I-visa farce is long overdue. Don’t you think?’

Image by Katie@!

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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The annual Travel Photographer of the Year competition, affectionately known as TPOTY (pron: tea-potty), is holding a festival of photography with workshops, masterclasses & equipment clinics.

Travel Photography Live! takes place on October 5-7 at the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) in London.

The Festival kicks off at 6pm on the evening of Friday 5th October, with keynote lectures in the Ondaatjee Theatre at the RGS presented by Nick Danziger and Steve Bloom, and is followed by with two action-packed days of lectures, equipment and photography advice, lighting and digital imaging workshops and even individual image critique sessions.

Confirmed speakers include:

• Nick Danziger – travel photographer, film maker & one of the world’s most renowned photojournalists
• Steve Bloom – award-winning travel and wildlife photographer and famed documenter of the apartheid years in South Africa
• Eamonn McCabe – four times winner of Sports Photographer of the Year, winner of News Photographer of the year & Guardian Picture Editor
• Tom Mackie – one of the world’s leading landscape photographers
• Mark Edward Harris – leading stock & fine art travel photographer from the USA
• Chris Weston – renowned wildlife photographer, now also shooting HD video
• Craig Easton – travel photographer who shot many of the promotional images for the London Olympics
• Timothy Allen – photographer for BBC Human Planet, talking about photography & social media
• Jason Hawkes – award-winning aerial photographer (‘Britain from the Air’ etc.)
• Nick Meers – travel, landscape & panoramic photographer
• Martin Hartley – expedition photographer
• Jeremy Hoare – travel photographer & former TV cameraman
• Guy Caplin – formerly a senior producer and director at ITV
• Colin Finlay – stock photography expert
• Caroline Metcalfe – Director of Photography, Conde Nast Traveller
• Philip Lee Harvey – travel & advertising photographer
• Mary Robert – lecturer in photography
• Chris Coe – founder of the Travel Photographer of the Year awards

In addition, Fujifilm is running a photography equipment clinic, and people such as Caroline Metcalfe of Conde Nast Traveller will be performing image critiques for visitors.

Tickets cost £25 for the keynote lecture evening, with Saturday or Sunday tickets costing £65 each and a Festival Pass (covering all three days) £130. These prices are reduced to £20, £50 and £105 respectively for members of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), registered students, and Travel Photographer of the Year entrants.

Image: TPOTY/Craig Easton

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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With TBEX pre-conference events starting this Thursday – only three days away – there’s not much time left to register ($107 for travel bloggers, $517 for industry and PR representatives), and there are still rooms available.

As hosts, Costa Brava, illustrate in their excellent infographic, while the conference itself is held over just two days, there’s plenty going on both before and after the event.

If your decision to go is all a bit ‘last minute’ and you’d like to take some time to stay on and explore the Costa Brava region, amazingly there are still some FREE, post-conference accommodations.

If you are already signed up and on your way to Girona – many are – have you sorted out your speed dating schedule?

TBEX are using the Presdo Match system again to match bloggers with industry and sponsor attendees for some brief networking appointments, and if you are unsure how it works, TBEX Conference Director, Mary Jo Manzanares, has posted some tips on how to get the most from it.

The latest news from TBEX is that El Celler de Can Roca, the second best restaurant in the world, will be providing the food for the opening night party at St. Gregory’s Castle, and that on Friday night, after the first busy day of conferencing, there is a beach party (sponsored by Expedia) with tapas and drinks at the Hostal Empuries, the first hotel in Europe to receive LEED Gold certification.

So, last minute preparations are in place, the countdown is on, and with a stellar cast of speakers – including our own John O’Nolan – lined up and ready to go, there’s bound to be something for everyone to look forward to in Girona this week!

Image: Flickr/Stephen Downes

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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Well, you’d better hope it does if you want to win this year’s World Nomad Travel Film Scholarship for a chance to spend a fortnight on assignment with Film-maker and Producer Trent O’Donnell in Rio de Janeiro filming during Carnival! in February and have your work shown on Nat Geo Adventure!.

Each year since 2007 WorldNomads.com has offered Travel Scholarships – a chance to spend time in an amazing destination with an expert tutor to help hone your skills – for photographers, writers, podcasters and film-makers/videographers. The process is competitive; you submit examples of your work to match their brief and they pick a winner.

This year’s Travel Film Scholarship (listed on the Travelllll.com jobs board) is breaking with tradition because instead of asking for traditional documentary-style travel videos with you behind the lens, they are looking for ‘presented’ videos with you out in front of the lens. For that reason you can enter as a solo film-maker or as a two person team with one of you in front of the camera and one behind, but either way your video entry will need to demonstrate not just technical film-making skills, but some showbiz personality too!.

Entrants need to be non-professional film-makers over 18 and will need to submit a 3-minute (max) video, with notes, by 15th October on one of three themes:

• Seek Adventure – Show your personal brand of adventure.
• Connect Locally – Get under the skin of a place and show it through local eyes.
• Learn New Skills – Show yourself learning something new.

The winner(s) will be flown to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from their country of residence and stay in an Airbnb apartment for 10 days (February 6-17, 2013). Under the daily mentorship of Trent O’Donnell they will shoot 3-5 three-minute travel videos about the experience, blogging daily about it on the WorldNomads.com travel journal, and then submit them to WorldNomads.com who will promote & publish them.

Are you up for some film work in Rio?

Image: Giannsil

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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10½ Mobile Travel Health Resources to keep you safe abroad

You probably do now because recently two of six people who recently visited California’s Yosemite National Park were infected with the virus, and died.

That’s normal, apparently. The alarming statistic for this rather nasty rodent-borne virus is that a third of those infected, die. On Tuesday CBS were reporting that as many as 10,000 visitors who stayed in Yosemite may have been exposed to the virus.

Fortunately Hantavirus is not communicable by person-to-person contact and investigators from the California Dept of Health, the National Park Service and, importantly, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, are working to isolate the source and contain the outbreak.

So if you are travelling in that part of the USA (or live there) you are probably:

1. Aware of it
2. Not alarmed
3. Know that anyone who stayed in the tented camp that is the suspected source of the outbreak and who is experiencing symptoms such as fever or fatigue, should to seek immediate medical attention.

Of course it helps if you speak the language, so you can learn the details from the local press, radio or TV.

Say for a moment you are in Myanmar and there was an outbreak of bird flu in your region, or in Bolivia and there are cases of Dengue fever being reported in the next valley. It would be handy to know about that sort of thing in good time. I’ll come back to that later.

Travel Health Management and Preparation

If you take travel and your health seriously, there are a number practical, preparatory and precautionary steps to take, starting with travel insurance – make sure you have it, don’t skimp on it (you don’t know how much full medical repatriation might be worth to you… till you need it!), and double-check it is up-to-date.

Then start thinking about what health risks you should guard against in the places you are going, and the vaccinations/drugs you might need.

There are several excellent resource websites for this…

WHO – The World Health Organisation has detailed health reports & status for countries around the world.

MASTA – Operates vaccination clinics around the world. They took over the old British Airways travel health clinics when BA closed its network of BA shops.

ISTM – The International Society of Travel Medicine has a tons of useful information, up-to-date alerts and a directory of member clinics.

CDC – USA’s Center for Disease Control & Prevention has a large database of medical information and news.

TravelTurtle – has a query form that feels like it is going to sell you insurance at any moment, but it leads to quite a detailed report on destination health risks and recommended vaccination courses.

NaTHNaC – The UK’s National Travel Health Network and Centre is rather better at providing detailed travel health information than it is at choosing a name/acronym for itself. Thankfully.

The governmental travel advisory services for the USA, Britain, Canada and Australia also give health information on destinations worldwide.

Ok, that’s the preparation done. Now we want to think about what resources to take with us, and not in printed book form!

Travel Health Tools ‘in the field’

Here we get down to some of the useful mobile apps… and surprisingly there aren’t as many as you might think.

WebMD (IOS, free) – Is a handy symptom-checker, but the focus is U.S. domestic rather than international. IE it might not pick up on malaria.

European Health Insurance Card (Android, IOS, Win, free) – not the card itself (Europeans get that from your national health service and it gives them access to health facilities in other EU countries), but a comprehensive guide on how to use it.

Healix Travel Vaccination (IOS) – suggests which jabs you need for which countries and gives country specific health info, like this…

Vaccine Record for Travellers (Android, free) – There is currently a paper-based International Vaccine Record that is carried by travellers world-wide. This app is the digital version. Records details of your vaccines so you have details to hand or can be emailed. Sets a reminder alert for renewals and lets you store a photograph of your vaccine records and especially your yellow fever certificate on your device.

Glucool Diabetes(Android, pay) – Manage your diabetes on your mobile by tracking blood glucose, medication, exercise etc.

Contraceptive Pill (Android, free) – Pill management. Set a daily alarm and have it remind you when you need to buy the next pill box.

iHeadache (IOS, free) – Keep track of your migraine so you can establish any patterns that might trigger it, and have a log for a doctor when you get to one.

ICE: In Case of Emergencies (Android, pay) – Your medical data & contacts for first responders in case of emergency when they find you lying face down in an alley. Accessible even if you phone is password locked it’ll provide a list of people to call, insurance info, allergy info, medications, your doctor’s details, etc. For IOS equivilant try Medical Alert.

Red Cross First Aid (IOS, Android, free) – The British Red Cross ‘what to do in an emergency’ app. Handy for you and those around you.

Anti-Mosquito Sonic Repeller – In-audible hi-frequency tones have long been touted as mosquito un-friendly (I think I still have an anti-mosquito sonic device in a box somewhere that you plug into the mains). The mains will come in handy for charging your iPhone if you plan to use this app all night!

Medical Alerts While Travelling

This is the “½” app. It might exist, but I’ve not seen it yet.

Given the rapid growth in app development, particularly apps using geo-location, it is astonishing that there don’t appear to be any apps designed to alert travellers to local dangers. (If you are aware of one, let us know below.)

So, a moment for independent app developers to step up: we need a mobile app that checks the RSS feeds from the World Health Organisation every 12 hours looking for health alerts for the country where the device is located, and then posts them on the device if/when found. Simple enough. It could also post government travel alerts (Tsunami, riot, political unrest, etc)

It would be better still if the WHO themselves or the CDC developed this app themselves. Also if governments want to pay more than lip service to the concept of supporting their citizens abroad perhaps they might like to start developing their own Alert apps.

The important thing to remember about your health is that it is something to enjoy, not to worry about. There are plenty of online tools that can help you be organised in your health management, but relax. Don’t get obsessive or anxious about it. You’ll know you’ve crossed the line into ‘obsessive’ when you start installing apps like this.

Do you have any suggestions for useful travel health apps?

Image: Bigstock/Poznyakov

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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Maybe that’s a little dramatic, but it is clear that bloggers need to co-operate either informally or in a structured way, not only, as they are already doing, to speak with a louder community voice for promotional reasons, but also for self-protection.

Travel bloggers co-operate naturally

Yes, they certainly do, but it’s not entirely friction-free as anyone who read Toni White’s post Why are travel bloggers so nasty towards each other? earlier this month, can tell. The following 180+ comments confirm this is not just her isolated view.

The trouble with travel writers – and this has been true since before blogging was invented – is that they are independently minded, gobby (settle down Aussies, in the UK it means ‘talkative’!) and opinionated. It comes from making their own way in the world and having a lot of worldly experience to draw on. They are also happy (ask anyone who has experience of working in both travel and other industry/commerce sectors, to compare where the happiest people are) and well-balanced, because their experience of different cultures enables them to recognise that there’s always a different perspective. They see the world in colour, or at least shades of grey. Never in black & white.

Unfortunately happy & well-balanced travel writers may view the world in colour, but they communicate in black and white, and that is where the danger lies because unless text is written clearly it is open to mis-interpretation.

I did it myself just 48 hrs ago. I thought I was being attacked in a comment out of the blue from a well-known blogger (I won’t ‘out’ him. He can do that himself if he wants!) He was being ironic and had added a smiley face to denote it. Unfortunately I use winky faces to confirm when I’m not being serious. Luckily he sensed I wasn’t happy and it was all patched up quickly, but it demonstrates how quickly and easily mix-ups occur. When that process is multiplied over hundreds of conversations on social media networks with thousands of bloggers expressing themselves in black & white (Facebook Travel Bloggers group: 1,641 members. Facebook Global Bloggers Network: 1,223 members), it’s hardly surprising that bloggers fall out from time to time.

Independently minded travel writers in the British Guild of Travel Writers (BGTW) have been doing the same for years on their private forum and there’s only 270 of them! What’s more, it is so natural, it’s seasonal! A local in Verona once told me how the citizens there get increasingly scratchy and irritable as the heat builds in the summer, till August when the thunderstorms break and the whole mood lightens up. Well the BGTW forum is like that! Each year in the autumn the threads get more and more tense & heated, then in Jan when when everyone gets together for the AGM, it’s all ‘kisses & hugs’ and everyone is happy again.

One of the under-recognised roles of large blogger events like Travel Bloggers Unite and TBEX, is that same face-to-face periodic re-balancing of inter-blogger relationships.

Collaboration should be easier for bloggers

Yes it should. Bloggers have social media.

Self-employed freelance writers have been organising themselves into collaborative groups and societies for years to promote themselves, share information, learn from each other, and protect themselves – functions they simply didn’t need if they were on staff contracts with a publisher or media outlet. In the UK, the National Union of Journalists Freelancers’ division used to be extremely popular with self-employed journalists & writers who needed legal protection, training in new technologies and guidance or how much they should be charging for their work (they kept/keep a current-rate-for-the-job database). The BGTW (51 yrs old) has the same role; regular panel/discussion evening events, career promotion, legal support, rate-for-the-job. In Australia and the USA the ASTW and SATW have similar roles.

Bloggers too, have been organising themselves into formal promotional and support groups. Most significantly, the Professional Travel Bloggers Association which is being launched in Sept by a core group of around 50 travel bloggers including Michael Hodson, Mariellen Ward, Kate McCulley, Brett Love, etc

But, as with the old style freelance societies, the role that new blogger organisations don’t need to recreate is the ‘water-cooler’ discussion, because we all have social media. There’s no need, as there was in the past, to create a dedicated network simply for keeping in touch & chatting with other freelancers. We have that already on Facebook, G+, Pinterest & Twitter… even LinkedIn.

And this month we saw a classic example of how the informal blogger networks, in this case Global Bloggers Network (GBN) on Facebook, can and should work.

On Aug 16 Kate McCulley’s website hosting company told her they had received a copyright complaint about a post on her blog and under the USA’s Digital millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) she was required to un-publish the post within 24 hours or have her site taken down. The fact that everything in her post – text & photo – was entirely her original material had no bearing.

She turned to the 1,227 members of GBN for advice, and got it…. especially some very specific and legal advice from the para-legal members of the community. Within a week Kate’s advice thread had run to 139 comments and the complainant, had retired apologising and admitting their frivolous copyright claim had been a “mistake” .

This is where the informal networks come into play. If you want group advertising sales, legal services, promotional services, dedicated insurance, tech training or industry lobbying, create or join a formal blogger organisation. But if you just need a bit of love and support when something goes wrong, you should be able turn to the community on Facebook, Twitter or G+ and get it.

Being on the wrong end of a scam, complaint or legal challenge is no fun if you are on your own. Ask Darren Cronian how he felt back in 2009 when he was being sued for libel over a comment (not his) he published in his Travel Rants blog. It’s a scary experience.

Kate didn’t need it and didn’t use it, but she should also have been able to mobilise that community. She took on the company making the complaint by herself, but if they had received a few hundred emails from a concerned community of travel bloggers it might certainly have helped to focus their attention.

I think bloggers should always be prepared to – carefully and judiciously – chuck their collective weight around in support of fellow bloggers.

When my innocent 16-yr-old son heads out onto the potentially dangerous streets of London with his mates, my regular advice to him and them is: “Look out for each other and look after each other”.

I think it’s the same for the blogging community.

Bloggers may not always get on but they can and should look out for each other and support each other, and they don’t need to join formal groups to do that.

Image: Bigstock/mikdam

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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Tell me about your job. What does it cover?

Well, I’m responsible for all things ‘Marketing & Branding’, so that means the advertising, the digital marketing, the website itself, and the social marketing & content creation that supports it. Also I oversee the PR and Communications team, any promotions initiatives, our industry-relations initiatives with our in-state travel businesses, our domestic and international sales meetings and events, research… pretty much everything except our Welcome Centres out on the highways, and the finances – I don’t count the money, I just spend it! And this year it’ll be around $140m.

Social Media plays a big role in your marketing. Is that something you brought with you to the job, or something you discovered along the way, during the Gulf oil spill for example?

I’m a big believer in the power of social media and a big user. I believe it is the logical extension of what has always been the single most powerful influencer in destination marketing: the advice of friends and relatives.

And I’ve been a believer for a long time. I remember the ‘lightbulb’ going off for me personally about eight years ago when I saw how Howard Dean, who at that time was running for the Democratic nomination for President, was using blogs to raise awareness and funding for the campaign, and I realized how it tapped into the power of the individual over the power of traditional media.

So even before I got here I knew that, while TV ads and a few print articles can be thought-starters, ultimately the key tool of destination marketing is enabling and inspiring people to share their own stories. And in Florida we have 86 million visitors a year plus another 19 million Floridians who travel around the state every year – that’s a lot of stories to tell!

Is your budget shifting from traditional media year on year? Are you spending more on social media?

Well I don’t think that social media is growing at the expense of the other things. Magazine advertising is still a workhorse, TV advertising still works. What’s changed is that social media is now integrated into everything we do. That said, the media budget for the last campaign we ran, in May/June using Twitter, Facebook, & Youtube, was 100% social.

So, you are using traditional media to target some audiences and social media for others?

Yes. Niche audiences are more defined now. For example Mom bloggers are great for talking about family travel. So you can use specialist bloggers to reach specific audiences, just not geographically targeted audiences.

We can,by the way, also use social media to advertise to some very niche audiences. If you do a Facebook campaign you can target people who have ‘been to Florida before’, or who have ‘mentioned Florida’, or who ‘have friends in Florida’, or based on the interests and affinities they have. So I think social media targeting is evolving and becoming increasingly powerful and will be the big thing in the next generation of ‘social’.

But coming back to the niche subjects: we have our 12 Florida Insiders, and they all have their own niche which they blog about and answer direct questions from visitors. We have one who writes about fishing, we’re big on fishing in Florida. We have one that writes about golf and so on. That has been one of the most powerful features on our site over the past year and I think what has been interesting is the way it has evolved from them just blogging, to becoming our ‘voice’. When we recently did a round of satellite tv interviews it wasn’t me representing VisitFlorida, it was our Insiders.

Most of your Insiders are in Florida, but you have a German Insider and now one in the UK. Do you plan to expand your international Insiders?

Yes, it was something thrown up in the recent Brand USA (national) research and features in their campaign. We need to get people to talk about their experiences in their own setting and language. So having a German blogger writing in German on Facebook is very important and we’ll be doing more of the same, particularly next year when we celebrate Viva Florida 500 – the 500th anniversary of the first Europeans landing in Florida in 1513 – and reach out to visitors from Spain and Latin America. So I want to have a Brazilian blogger writing in Portuguese and sharing their perspective on Florida, and Spanish too. We’ve already been working hard over the last couple of years to increase our Spanish content.

What other social media and blogging initiatives do you have in the pipeline?

We’re beefing up our blogger outreach and welcome programs. Five years ago media handling was all about vetting, targeting specific journalists, checking journalist credentials and assignment letters and bringing them to Florida. Now we’re opening the whole thing up to ensure we’re making it real easy for bloggers to get the resources they need to be able to talk about their experiences here. We’ll be launching a new consumer website at the beginning of the anniversary year and that will have an enhanced digital media center with loads of images, videos and information for bloggers.

You are also going to see VisitFlorida become more involved with blogger conferences, partly to engage with more bloggers and tell them what we have to offer, and also, as we continue to build and develop our own content we need more writers. We’re in year two of a major content initiative. I brought in a senior editor with 27 years’ experience at the St Pete’s Times and we’re now generating more travel content than publications like Condé Nast and syndicating to others like Huffington Post and Philly.com, so we need to draw some of the new bloggers into that professional mix.

And we’re looking at other blogger projects. We’re working on a blog trip with just bloggers through Gosh PR from the UK, and we expect to do more of that kind of thing.

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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I‘ve been interviewing people for years, mostly for radio, and although every interview, its purpose and its format (print/audio/video), is different, there are a number of key techniques common to all…

Setting up an Interview

Interviews don’t have to be pre-planned. You never know when you’ll find yourself talking to somebody and realise they have something interesting to say. Always be ready to ask “can we do a quick interview?”.

The whole point about an interview is that it is essentially ‘one on one’. You can interview more than one interviewee but there is only one interviewer. So you need to make sure you have their full, un-divided attention. Take them away from other people and distractions.

Explain what you want to talk about, who is going to read/listen/watch it, how long the interview will take, how you are going to publish it (article, print interview, edited video or ‘as live’), and when you are going to publish it. That will help to put them at ease and set the framework for the interview. If they know the interview will be published next week they (hopefully) will say “we’re opening on 18th” and not “we’re opening tomorrow”. If they know your blog is about family travel they won’t blather on about their honeymoon suites.

If the interview is pre-planned, never give them your questions in advance. Two reasons: they’ll be confused and maybe even hostile if you wander ‘off-script’ but even more important, you don’t know what your questions will be in advance. Interviewing is about listening and discovery.

That said, if the interview is organised in advance, do some basic research on the subject. It’ll give you a clearer idea of where the interview might lead you, key elements you want to talk about, and it’ll make your interviewee much more responsive if they see you have some knowledge of the subject.

Before you start, double check you have got their name right, its spelling and its pronunciation, and their job title. Handy if you are going to use it during the interview and it’ll save you the embarrassment of having to phone them for it later.

Establish a connection. Use the moments before you start to relax your interviewee by chatting about their personal interests or what’s been happening today. Crack a joke, maybe at your own expense. While you’re fiddling with your recorder, tell them you almost left it at home, or that you and technology don’t get on easily, or something. Build a rapport so that the interview feels more like an extension of this ‘comfy chat with a mate’.

Interview Questions

Open questions are better than closed. If you ask the question: “The festival is in May isn’t it?” The answer you’ll probably get (and deserve) is “Yes”. Instead ask an ‘open’ question: “When is the festival held?” You might still just get “May”, but you are more likely to get “Well it’s normally held in the third week of May, but this year it is being held in the first week because…”

Leave space for them to answer. People don’t like awkward silences and will rush to fill them. If your interviewee gives you a short answer and you want more detail, don’t ask another question straight away. Pause. Usually they’ll start talking again and often this is the moment when they give you something valuable.

“Why?” is an excellent question. As my old mentor taught me, “why?” is like leaving a pause. It makes people re-evaluate the answer they’ve just given and can often produce an un-expected nugget. It is also a good emergency button. If your mind goes blank and you can’t think of your next question, ask “why?” and buy yourself some time!

Don’t lead them. Sometimes it’s tempting to set up a question by prefacing it with some detail that indicates what you are after or expecting. EG. “Your town has a rich Roman history. What do most visitors want to see when they come here?” It may satisfy your expectation when he answers “the Roman Baths”, but if you had simply asked “What do most visitors want to see when they come here?” you would have learned that despite the rich Roman legacy, most visitors come for the Museum of Modern Art.

Post-Interview

If you are recording, check the recording before letting your interviewee go. Every journalist has one lost or failed recording horror story.

Tell them to anticipate an email or call from you soon, because there is bound to be something you have forgotten. (Makes it easier when there is!)

Core Techniques

Control and listen. What is an interview? It is a formalised conversation directed by one party. You need to be firmly in control in a gentle way.

At the same time you also have to really ‘listen’, and this is the hardest thing to learn. You’ll only find out afterwards if you have been ‘listening’ when you play the interview back to yourself. If you realise on playback that your interviewee didn’t mean what you thought he meant – maybe he was carrying on a thought from his previous answer and you assumed this was a new idea – then you’ll know you weren’t ‘listening’.

‘Listening’ is not a technique you can be taught. You can only learn it by listening to your own interviews. It’s an experience thing… and I still get it wrong sometimes.

Formats

Those are some of the techniques common to all interviews, but clearly, different formats have different approaches.

Print Interviews

How’s your shorthand? These days I can only think of two journalists I know who can write in shorthand. So for the rest of us mortals, that means recording it. You never know when a good interview might come along but we all have smartphones now, so at least you no longer have to take a recorder with you on the ‘off chance’.

Print interviews are the easiest to process. The interview can be more chatty and then you can make up the questions to fit.

Its ease & flexibility means that, if you are so inclined (I’m not), you could give your interviewee the option to preview before publication, knowing that any corrections can be accommodated easily.

Broadcast Interviews – ‘Live’ is best

… Never give your interviewee the option to preview broadcast interviews before publication! They will never be satisfied and you’ll never finish editing!

That is assuming you are going to edit at all. If you are recording an audio or video interview to embed in your blog. The big question is: ‘as live’ or ‘edited’?

Edited has obvious advantages; you can cut out the mistakes and boring bits, but doing it ‘live’ means you don’t have to edit.

My personal preference is to do it ‘live’ whenever possible.

Online podcasts and video are a lot less formal than traditional broadcasting. Nobody expects you to be Larry King or Jeremy Paxman and they don’t expect broadcast quality from your iPhone or Flip, so recording ‘as live’ isn’t as daunting as you might think.

Audio is rarely used online these days but if you want to podcast or use a social media site like Audioboo where you can easily upload short ‘as live’ audio interviews from your mobile, then you really want to avoid editing.

That goes doubly for video. Audio editing is pretty straightforward but as the videobloggers will testify, editing a video interview is in another league (and requires good soft/hardware). Synching edited audio with the video means inserting cutaway clips of yourself, your surroundings or some relevent bit of footage to cover the gap. Very fiddly!

So if you can, avoid editing videos interviews. Instead record them ‘live’ and…

Final point

…keep them short. “Less is more” as the saying goes and both print and broadcast interviews should be short and sweet. Try to keep audio and video interviews inside 4 mins. Try to keep print interviews inside 800 words.

Do you have any interview tips & techniques?

Image: Bots High

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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To answer the last question, first, and slightly re-word it…

Press/News Releases are Relevant to Travel Bloggers

Journalists have always had a love-hate relationship with news releases. They’ll read them and maybe use them, but they hate being bombarded with them and they hate themselves for using them. It offends their Reithian self-image of balanced independence and they are all aware of Lord Northcliffe‘s maxim: “News is what somebody doesn’t want you to print. Everything else is advertising”. By definition then, a news release is advertising.

However journalists have varying levels of dependency on news releases. For example, even the most well-connected Science/Technology journalists have little access to details, facts and figures in their field and rely on news releases to supply them. The same goes for trade publication journalists covering sectors like FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) ,  Banking & Finance, Shipping, or Textiles.

Travel journalists, by contrast, have always had a low dependency on news releases and, as travel PRs will testify, often treat news releases with disdain, complaining loudly about being on the mailing list. After all, travel is something we can all experience and write about. We don’t need a news release to tell us that Pamplona has a festival featuring bulls!

On the face of it travel bloggers are even less dependent, since their content is all self-created. However, travel bloggers don’t just blog. As the social media revolution has developed, bloggers have become brands with their influence spread over multiple networks and platforms.

If you are a blogger, think about it. Besides writing a post (or not) today, what else have you done online? A bit of Twittering? Facebook? Pinterest? G+? What did you post or share? Not just your own material. How much of it was ‘news’? Where did you pick it up? Another blogger? Where did they pick it? It must have got dropped in the ‘pond’ somewhere in order to ripple out. The chances are it started with a news release.

If you, as a travel blogger, welcome news releases, you may well find yourself starting those conversations  and increasing your influence by being the source for those ripples.

I would argue that far from being irrelevant to travel bloggers, news releases have an increasing role to play in generating ideas and fueling content in the travel social-mediasphere.

So…

The News Release Makeover

Are old style “press” releases due for an update?

Well, interestingly the news release format has already had a makeover.

Six years ago I saw Todd Defren at Shift Communications publish a rough wireframe sketch of what a modern news release for “Web 2.0″ might look like. His Social Media News Release – SMNR had all the standard components of a news release, plus spaces for audio, video, tags and comments. His idea was that the news release would become a live document online which could be cannibalised for parts or added to and shared.

Despite its obvious advantages (and my best efforts to spread the word) hardly anyone picked up on it. In the UK a small but far-sighted PR company called Webit PR (later renamed Realwire) saw its potential and created their own version (example above), but its take-up on both sides of the Atlantic has been pretty slow and lacklustre.

The Elements of a Social Media News Release

Despite the slow take-up, there have been one or two well-placed supporters of the SMNR concept at the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), who a few years ago, started issuing their own news releases in SMNR format. One of them, Stuart Bruce (@stuartbruce), has handily listed the elements of a SMNR in the CIPR’s ‘Social Media Handbook for PR Professionals’ published last week… saving me from having to start completely from scratch! Thanks Bruce.

Logo – Sets the visual identity of the (web) page.

Headline – Written for computers and humans and short enough (90-120 chars) that it can easily fit in a tweet or email subject line.

Introductory Paragraph – Traditional news release rules apply here. It should tell the whole story in one here, answering the Who, Why, What, Where, When questions.

Supporting Paragraphs or Bullet Points – The body, the detail… with links.

Quotes – Traditional news releases weave usually one or two quotes into the body. SMNRs list a selection of several quotes. It’s a more transparent way of doing it and makes them appear less false (They stand out in traditional news releases because we all know nobody talks like that!).

Supporting Facts – Links to sources, research, etc.

Multimedia – A selection of audio and/or video clips, plus images and infographics. There has to be at least one photo. Nobody publishes anything without a photo these days.

Boilerplate – Traditional name for the ‘About us’ paragraph.

Social Media Sharing and Bookmarking Buttons – So travel influencers can easily post it to Facebook, Twitter & G+ for their followers and to Delicious for themselves (or Digg, Stumbleupon for others).

Email Sharing Button – Many people still use email to share stuff.

Other Relevant Links – Links to related media coverage or even competitor info. Bruce puts it rather well: “If a journalist or blogger is going to research the topic anyway, it is better from them to use your news release as their central hub or resource as they are going to be able to search for and find the information anyway”.

Creative Commons License – Makes bloggers feel comfy. Social Media is about freely sharing. If you stick ‘media use only’ warnings all over your release and its assets (images, video) you are shooting yourself in the foot.

Contact Information – As with traditional news releases, this is vital. It should include up-to-date communications tools like Twitter and Skype usernames. It should make it clear who the contact is – do they work for the company or are they a representative from a PR company? And, most important  (my longstanding Golden Rule No. 5 )  it must be somebody who is actually available and not “out of the office”.

If this is not a one-off SMNR, it might also have: Links to past & previous releases and/or an RSS button, a search form, and a tag cloud.

So just like a blog, really…

Bingo!

The point is, news source information may be disseminated formally in traditional news releases, or more usefully in SMNRs, or more organically in company blogs or Facebook and G+ pages. Marketers and PRs need to be more flexible about providing source information in a suitable form for social media influencers. While bloggers and SM influencers should recognise how news source information can be useful to them however it is disseminated.

If you are a blogger, do you welcome news releases in your intray, or do you subscribe to newswire or news release distribution services (eg PRNewswire, Travmedia)?

If you are a PR do you use SMNRs or disseminate social-media-ready news through Facebook, G+ or a blog?

Photo by 85mm.ch

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

Related posts:

1. Whatever Happened To The Social Media News Release?
2. Do Travel Bloggers Need to Start Getting More Creative to Stay Relevant?
3. How To Organize Your Own Press Trip

Everyone recognises that there has been a digital revolution in travel media and that consumers have turned in their droves to the Internet to do their travel research.

Running parallel with that process over the last few years, has been the astonishing growth of the travel blogging industry/community.

BUT, and here’s the gap, it doesn’t follow that the demand from consumers is being met by the product of most travel bloggers.

Why? Well, because bloggers are not producing the same kind of sticky content that traditional travel journalists produced. So when, for example, a major long-established publisher like the AA (Automobile Association in the UK) pulls out of the guidebook business, it is because consumers are now looking for ‘useful’ information online, and turning to Google or review sites like Tripadvisor for their pre-trip research, and to geo-located guidebook content when they are ‘in the field’. They are not turning to Amazon to find either AA guidebooks or inspirational artworks in the style of Chatwin, Thubron or Theroux.

As things stand, most travel bloggers are writing as travel authors or diarists, not as travel journalists (despite the etymology!) or guidebook writers.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, there’s no such thing as ‘too much art’, but that is where the gap lies.

And I’m not the only one to spot it. Shortly after I began this post, ex-national newspaper travel journalist, turned online editor and SEO consultant, Mark Hodson (@101holidays), made the same point, describing how the style of traditional travel journalism transitioned to fill the same gap:

Quality travel writing was associated with long, introspective and reflective travelogues. Anything else – like Top 10 Mid-priced Hotels in Paris – was just hack writing.

But it was during the second half of the 1990s that the first-person travelogues in the weekend supplements were gradually eased out in favour of the Top 10s – what my editor at The Sunday Times called “service pieces”. Purists gagged at this populist approach. Old school travel writers stomped their feet in fury at the “decline in quality”. The editors were unmoved. They argued – rightly, in my view – that “service pieces” were what people wanted. Few people had time at the weekend to wade through 3,000 words about horse riding with nomads in Mongolia. It was the era of the no-frills city break and they wanted to know about 10 Mid-priced Hotels in Paris.

The big difference between then and now is that, if bloggers want to address ‘the gap’ they have to do it themselves. There are no editors to force them.

Do you mind the gap?

The reaction of many travel bloggers will be the same as the traditional travel writers – “I don’t want to write service pieces. That’s not my blog’s style!”

That’s fine. But unless your prose is so good that it brings your blog out at the very top of the rankings (is your Alexa.com global rank less than 50,000?) you are really only likely to be writing for family, friends and fellow bloggers… not for consumers.

That’s fine too. But of limited interest to the travel industry & PRs who are already turning towards ‘influencers’ rather than just bloggers, and specialist bloggers from other sectors (eg. mom bloggers, food bloggers, fashion/shopping bloggers, pet bloggers), who are reaching consumers.

There are two easy ways to start making travel posts both inspirational and useful… and thus more attractive to consumers.

Be More Practical and More Detailed

Apply the five ‘W’s (Who?, Why?, What?, Where?, When?). You may have written evocatively about the smells, sights and sounds of that rail journey in Malaysia, but have you been clear about where exactly it went, how long it took, why you took that journey in the first place, or what alternative options there were? Did you mention how often that train runs, or that it doesn’t operate between Jan-March?

And do what travel journalists do; make comparisons. That’s what distinguishes travel journalists from consumers in the first place; travel journalists can make comparisons. A consumer can only write a review of his/her hotel room, or their safari experience. A travel journalist can make comparisons, not only from their experience of safaris in other countries or of rooms in many other hotels, but he also knows the differences between rooms in that hotel because, as a travel professional, he has been shown around it (Aha! That’s what those “bedrooms & bathrooms” hotel tours are for!).

Consider Using The Old-Fashioned Factbox

It is an especially neat and not too disruptive solution for those who want to continue writing Hemmingway-esque works of literary art.

If you want to remind yourself what they look like, take a look* at what Nellie Huang (@wildjunket) and her husband Alberto are doing in their ezine – there’s a full page detailed factbox after every article. (*You can download the latest edition free for a limited period. After that, the preview version doesn’t show the factbox pages. )

Factboxes are great. Consumers love them.

Travel providers and PRs like them too, but have mixed feelings. They like to see them because they know ‘consumers love them’ and they like to be in them, especially because it is a format that allows them to get their marketing details across un-molested; in a style that wouldn’t be acceptable in the body of the post. But, they would rather their competitors weren’t in there too!

What should go in a factbox?

Factboxes are simple in concept – they only have to do two things; give details and alternatives – but there are a number of issues to consider…

Your sponsor’s competitors: What is your policy on this? Only last week I was sent a press trip invitation in which the PR made it clear that the airline involved expected exclusive inclusion in the copy or factbox. If you use a factbox, you have to recognise that it moves your independence rating up a notch. Travel suppliers may be less willing to “facilitate” your trip (a reluctance you may be able to offset by giving them pole position in the factbox).

Prices and times: This does mean you have to do the groundwork. Get out your notebook, find out and write down what things cost and when they open – not only for the product you are experiencing, but also the alternatives. It also raises the issue of shelf-life. Out-of-date prices are ok as long as the reader knows they are out of date. Then they can at least extrapolate to get a ballpark idea of what the price might be now.

Contact details: How much detail? Phone number? Full address? Or just a link to their website? Up to you.

Is it a Travel Resource?

In the end, whether you simply tweak your writing style to be more detailed, or you add a factbox, or you do both… how do you judge the impact of your changes?

Ask yourself, not “would I Tweet or FB this for others?”, but “would I bookmark this for me?”.

Image: Alexandros80

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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Sorry. It’s none of the above. If you are serious about growing your blog, then your first choice should always be the weedy little short-form guy, Twitter.

Why You Should Use Twitter

As well-known online marketing commentator, Neville Hobson (@jangles), noted “You know Twitter’s totally mainstream when you see a Reuters report that Twitter’s down.”

His observation is borne out by the latest Pew Internet survey into Twitter use in the USA. Not only do Twitter users continue to grow, they are using twitter more frequently. 15% of online adults in the USA use Twitter now, and 8% of them use Twitter ‘on a typical day’. A year ago that was 13% signed up and 4% usage on a typical day. In 2010, Pew reports usage was 2%. In other words Twitter users have been doubling their activity each year. That growth looks assured because the stats indicate there has been a leap in the numbers of young adults (18-24) using Twitter, from a steady 16-18% take up rate in the two previous years to 31% this year. Twitter is becoming ‘cool’.

Twitter’s biggest strength is its ‘short form’, making it the most adaptable cross platform social network. 140 text characters can be easily configured and displayed in any app, on any device. All the other social networks have to make compromises for Iphone, Android and Windows 8 apps.

What difference can Twitter make to my blog and my bottom line?

“Wait a minute! You’re @SaltySeaDog!!!”  Within minutes we were on board one of his yachts and being invited on a trip to the Caribbean!Well, if you use Twitter wisely and engage with others interested in your specialist/niche subjects to build yourself (your ‘brand’) as a centre of authority, it can make a huge difference.

Michael Howorth and his wife, Frances, (TheHoworths.com) are a specialist husband and wife team writing about the world of superyachts. A couple of years a go they attended a talk I gave about starting out in social media. Nine months later, Michael told me what it difference it had made.

We were well established in the maritime technical & trade press and yachting magazines, but despite regularly pitching story ideas to editors, we’d never been able to break into the mainstream press. Then we did what you told us – started our own blog and started following, listening and then engaging with influencers in our niche on Twitter – and as our ‘authority’ grew, the doors opened. Now we get emails every week from national newspaper editors wanting background material on yachts being built for wealthy businessmen, or being hired by celebs.

And Twitter hasn’t only generated work, it has increased their access to the superyacht community. Last year at the Monaco Yacht Show, Michael found himself talking a very wealthy owner (of not one, but three superyachts!) who is notorious for never speaking to journalists.

I sensed that he was just beginning to get suspicious that I might be ‘press’ and was backing away when suddenly he stopped and said: “Wait a minute! You’re @SaltySeaDog!!!” All change. It turned out he was an avid follower. Within minutes we were on board one of his yachts and being invited on a trip to the Caribbean!

Numerous marketers highlight Twitter’s ability to open normally inaccessible doors. Everyone from CEO’s to celebs uses Twitter and occasionally responds to tweets or conversation threads they see on Twitter… as Mike Sowden (Fevered Mutterings) noted recently on Facebook (ironically):

Reasons I love Twitter no. #625681: being able to bounce daft tweets back & forth with Jane Espenson of ‘Battlestar Galactica’, ‘Firefly’ and ‘Buffy’ fame, and Cheeks of ‘Husbands’. Really, this isn’t humble-bragging, this is just awe, that Twitter lets you (briefly) goof around with people you only ever expect to see on TV, either on a red carpet or in the credits of your favorite TV shows. It’s *that* easy. And if I get accustomed to the power of that, please give me a damn good kick. Thx.

So if Twitter can give you access to such rarefied circles, it can easily get you noticed by highly placed potential work providers.

Travel writer, David Whitley (aka Grumpy Traveller) is more specific about Twitter’s influence on his bottom line. Most professional bloggers earn revenue from multiple streams/activities, not just their blog. David earns his living mainly from commissioned work rather than directly through his own site, which he sees as primarily a brand-awareness builder. His income breaks down thus…

• Percentage of income from print: 33%.
• From commissioned online articles: 50%.
• From advertising/ affiliates on own sites: 17%.

And social media, Twitter in particular, is playing an increasing large role in that. Last year he reviewed his earnings and reckoned…

• “The Income that I’d have not got without social media (ie. all of the work either came from direct commission by people who only know me online, or passed on by people who know me online and suggested me as the right person to write it): £16,000
• Income that is largely due to having social media presence (ie. sorted out otherwise, but I was commissioned mainly because I’ve got a strongish online presence): £1,000
• Major publications newly writing for through online/ social media presence: 3
• Income from articles written about using Twitter to travel: £750″

Now he says:

If anything, the percentage of income derived from having a strong online presence has increased since I did those sums. I’ve started getting regular work with three national newspapers that I don’t think I’d have if the travel editors didn’t follow me in Twitter, and I was approached to do a regular column in National Geographic Traveller largely on the back of my blog and Twitter feed.

And the work is not just coming directly from editors/publishers.

There’s also a serious benefit in other writers recommending you for work they hear about that suits you better than them.

How about some Twitter Tips then?

Ok. Here are ten. I’m going to set some quite low. It might be 2012 and of course everyone is fully conversant with Twitter… but actually, they’re not.

Only yesterday a friend (travel writer and book author) turned up on Twitter and was clearly struggling to understand who her tweets were targeting, and only a fortnight ago an extremely influential editor in the social mediasphere asked me something basic about the way Twitter handles replies, admitting that he didn’t know.

So, quickly, The Basics (Most of these functions are automated with buttons eg. Reply, Retweet)…

1. When you tweet everyone who follows you will see it, assuming they are online and looking. (And that you haven’t set your posts to ‘private’!) Also some non-followers may find your tweet through a search.
2. When you reply to a tweet, your reply starts with the @username of the person you are replying to, and it will been seen only by people who follow both of you. Again, your reply could be stumbled upon by somebody searching for a keyword.
3. When you Retweet somebody’s tweet, your tweet starts with the chars ‘RT’ and all your followers can read it.
4. When you Direct Message somebody, your tweet starts with the char ‘d’ followed by a space and the @username, and it is private to the recipient. Nor can any searcher stumble on it.

The Subtleties…

5. #hashtags provide clickable keywords for searching. They are a useful way to consolidate a conversation. The more unique they are, the less ‘corrupted’ the resulting stream will be. The shorter they are, the more characters you have to play with. Some people use ironic #hashtags to convey a message rather than be useful as a searchable keyword.
6. Some people start a tweet with a dot (it could be any char) to turn a Reply into a Public Reply.

The Little Known…

7. Shorter tweets tend to get Retweeted more, and tweets with a link in the middle are more likely to get retweeted than if the link is at the end.
8. Daytime tweets (0800-1900) receive 30%* higher engagement than Tweets published at night. This includes Tweets published on Saturday and Sunday.
9. It is possible to tweet too much. BuddyMedia* says 5 or more tweets a day is too much. I say that’s rubbish. In the travel twittersphere it is more like 20. (There are some well-known travel bloggers who have the Twitter equivalent of ‘verbal diarrhea’ who I have un-followed just to un-clog my Twitterstream!)
10. If you want to keep tabs on a particular hashtag and you don’t use a Twitter client like Tweetdeck where you can just open up a column for it, it’s easy to create a dedicated RSS feed. Just paste this URL into your reader (eg. Google Reader) replacing EXAMPLE with the hashtag word of your choice: http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=%23EXAMPLE

The most important thing to remember is to use Twitter to engage not to simply broadcast.

Where does Twitter sit in your social media team? How do you use it to promote your work?

Image: iHyd

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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Perhaps because of its name, the British holiday airline, Monarch, felt the need to mark the occasion and has produced a fun “Jubilee Infographic” covering the key moments and aspects of the aviation industry and its own, in the last 60 years.

There have been some obvious changes over the six decades, like the introduction of jet airliners and airport security… and some less obvious changes – it’s easy to forget we all used to smoke like chimneys and stewardesses wore high heels!

Some changes have been backward steps. Airliner speed has become slower with the demise of Concorde and flight times overall have increased as “block to block” times have been padded out on the airline schedules, though not for fuel-saving reasons as the infographic suggests (it’s more to do with congested airways).

So what have been your most significant changes in aviation?

The introduction of movies, changes in-flight catering, or the introduction of individual seat-back entertainment? The growth of low-cost airlines? Online check-in? Non-stop longhaul flights? What has made flying noticeably better or worse for you?

Image: Bigstockphoto/blue67sign

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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The website itself – which has versions in Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Japanese and Chinese – is a comprehensive tourism portal with dynamic information on Abu Dhabi’s attractions and experiences, culture, heritage and events and recreation activities. It also has a new hotel search option which aggregates live deals and room availability from over 50 booking engines, allowing visitors to find real-time information prior to their decision to book.

The site also acts a hub to explore Abu Dhabi’s social media channels on: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google +, Flickr and Pinterest.

It is clear that the emirate has invested time, money and effort in its marketing imagery because much of it shows up here on the social media channels in an attempt to engage with travellers and invite them to become active contributors to the destination, posting, commenting and sharing their experiences.

There is a promotion designed to kickstart the audience for the new website. During June, visitors to the site can enter an Abu Dhabi 360° competition when they subscribe to the website’s planned e-newsletter. The prize is a luxury 6-night holiday to Abu Dhabi visiting Abu Dhabi city, the wilderness of Rub Al Khali – the world’s largest unbroken expanse of sand – and a chance to relax on Sir Bani Yas Island, home to more than 10,000 free roaming animals, including Arabian Oryx, gazelles and giraffes. The prize package includes return business class tickets to Abu Dhabi with Etihad Airways.

The destination website and social media channels are meant to accompany visitors in all stages of their trip from dreaming and planning to the actual booking, throughout their stay in Abu Dhabi, and upon their return to home. A second stage of development scheduled for completion before the end of the year, will include iPhone and iPad apps, interactive maps, flight booking, car rental, and additional social media channels.

Have you been to Abu Dhabi or plan to visit? Will you engage with the new social media channels?

Image: TCA Abu Dhabi

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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Lonely Planet are running a competition to find the photo that best captures the essence of a city, ideally one that could be featured on the cover of an upcoming Lonely Planet City guide or Pocket City guide.

The winner will receive a USD$500 travel voucher and a poster-sized print of their work. Also, up to 10 of the best photo submissions will be considered for display in a Foyles gallery exhibition in London this September alongside works from top photographer Adrian Brannan.

To enter, visit the Capture the City Facebook Page. The submission period is open from now until June 13th.

The cities available to you are…

So, is this simply a slick way for Lonely Planet to gain a stock of free cover images?

No, says LP spokeswoman, Laura Lindsay…

Just to clarify, out of all the entries, only one will be chosen as the winner of the travel voucher and poster print, and only that winner will have the chance to be the cover of a city or pocket city guidebook.

Once a winner is chosen, if we then decide the image is suitable for publication on a cover, we will contract separately with the winner for use of their image for that purpose (so the promotion conditions of entry do not automatically give us the right to use any entry as a book cover, or in any other way). No other use will be made of unsuccessful entries, by virtue of the conditions of entry. If there are images we particularly like, we may contact the entrants and ask for additional rights to use their images (and this will be covered in a separate contract between Lonely Planet and each entrant).

What makes a good guidebook cover photo?

Lonely Planet say they are looking for a number of things in the first place:

When we choose cover images for a city travel guidebook, the first question we ask is also the source of the name of this contest: does the image capture the city? Does it transport a reader there and reflect the heart of the place? If the answer is yes, we then proceed to other important questions.

• Is it simple in composition with something iconic to the destination, showing passion for travel?
• Does the image have a twist, everyday people, personality, sense of place, a moment in time?
• Is it bold, striking and uncluttered leaving the title text to be easily legible from a distance?
• Is the image of sufficient quality and recency?

And the technical requirements?

Well, on “recency”, it has to be no older than 2 years so the view or building is still likely to exist! It has to be a colour photo, un-manipulated (which rules out HDR photos, although some have been submitted and have collected high votes on the Facebook page), a minimum 300dpi & ~700 x ~900 pts, and it really needs to be orientated in ‘portrait’.

There are more tips on what they are looking for and the full ‘Terms & Conditions’ on the Lonely Planet blog.

Do you have a suitable photo? Will you enter it?

Image: Bigstockphoto/LorettaW

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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The bloggers will be joining MSC Splendida for a weekend cruise in the Mediterranean from Civitavecchia (Rome) via Genoa to Barcelona on 6-8 July.

MSC Cruises, the fourth largest cruise operator in the world, turned to Lynsey Devon at Heaven Publicity in the UK to assemble a team of travel bloggers who would reach their markets in France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal and the UK. The team comprises…

• Spain: Ana Pilar Fañanás Biescas (@anapiccola) for Tripwolf.es
• Italy: Michele Aggiato‏(@MicheleAggiato) for various
• France: Romaine Carroz (@romainworldtour) for romain-world-tour.com‏
• Germany: Cheryl Gibbs ‏(@GobbyGibbs)‏ for Traveldudes.com
• Portugal: Ana Silva O’Reilly‏(@mrsoaroundworld) for mrsoaroundtheworld.com
• UK: Liz Jarvis (@LizJarvisUK) for The Mum Blog

The UK blogger position will be taken by the winner of an exclusive Mumsnet competition launched today. The Mumsnet blogger competition winner will be announced on 7 June.

Lynsey Devon explains the blog trip, hashtagged: #mscsplendida, is a new departure for MSC Cruises, who haven’t worked with bloggers before:

They are quite a traditional company, so it’s really amazing that they are taking what is a big step for them. The idea is that the bloggers can make their videos about any aspect they want, so it might be ‘behind the scenes’ stuff like making pasta with the head chef or steering the ship with the captain.

MSC Cruises’ latest ship, the 3,502-guest MSC Divina, sister-ship to Splendida, was christened by film star, Sophia Loren, in Marseilles last weekend and is currently on her maiden voyage in the Mediterranean. As in the past, MSC is hosting a number of traditional cruise journalists on board, who will review the latest addition to the fleet.

The #mscsplendida bloggers will enjoy a similar, if not better, experience because they will be staying in MSC’s exclusive first-class area, called The Yacht Club, which is common to all three ships in the Fantasia class (Fantasia, Splendida & Divina). The Yacht Club has just a few dozen 5-star suites with butler service, a dedicated restaurant and the exclusive Top Sail Lounge, with forward views available only to Yacht Club passengers.

While the scale and make-up of the blog trip has changed through its planning process (originally there were going to be 3 bloggers from 5 countries), the inclusion of a pro film crew on the trip has been there right from the start. The idea is that each blogger will make three videos which they can use on their own blogs and which will also be available on the MSC Cruises website. The bloggers love the idea says Lynsey:

All of them, except one who wants to stay behind the lens, are really keen to appear in their own videos and are already working on their ideas!

Lynsey hopes that if this first blog trip goes well, there will be future blogger-only trips in the pipeline.

Image: MSC Cruises

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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There have been a number of high profile organisations such as VisitBritain or G Adventures taking on high profile travel bloggers as ‘resident writers’ in the last couple of years, but now the concept is beginning to spread to smaller niche companies and specialist organisations who want to reach online audiences.

A recent example is the small but stylish hostel & campsite mini chain, PLUShostels, which launched eight years ago in Italy and has now spread to Prague and Berlin. Earlier this month (May) Runaway Jane was contracted to be their resident blogger starting with a commitment to write one post a week plus a monthly newsletter, with the potential for taking on more work as the experiment progresses. The venture also has a Twitter hashtag, #PLUSjane.

The deal works at two levels for Jane…

I’m getting paid for the venture, and they’re also putting a decent sized marketing budget into the project & promoting me, ‘Runaway Jane’.

For PLUShostels, as Head of Marketing, Jordi Sinclair, explains, the venture enables them to personify their brand…

We want to create a bigger brand identity by engaging people with honest, fun writing about various topics on independent travel. In terms of Jane in particular, after speaking to a number of travel bloggers regarding the role – Jane showed the most passion about the project which speaks volumes.

So what exactly, worked in Jane’s favour?

She says there were three general factors – being pro-active, timing and luck.

I approached PLUS in early 2012 and was told that it was actually something they were thinking about already, that is – setting up a blog for their website. However, they were already considering other bloggers for the position. They said that they would consider me in the process now that I had approached them.

I followed up again in April, remembering that this was when they said they would be making a decision. I was told when I met Jordi (Head of Marketing at PLUS) that the main reason I was picked over other bloggers was because I was keen. The fact that I had approached them, and then followed up about it was very deciding in him choosing me over someone else. For that reason I would urge all other travel bloggers seeking opportunities like this to go out and try create their own opportunities, rather than waiting for the offer.

Integral to me attaining this position was also my work as ‘Runaway Jane’, including the relationships I had set up with other travel companies through my work on my own site. PLUS mentioned that before deciding to work with me they had spoken to other travel companies I had worked with in the past. They never mentioned who specifically, and I never asked, but I can only assume my good working relationship with these companies allowed for some positive feedback to happen. The fact that I had already worked with similar sized companies within the travel industry on my own site, and had produced successful working relationships with them, was a real help in my selection.

Then there is also the fact that because I had been blogging for over 2 years already from RunawayJane.com, PLUS were able to go on immediately and see the quality of articles, what type of audience I was reaching, and see that I was able to write content that engaged with people. This audience also happened to fit exactly with their target demographic of young backpackers.

Jordi Sinclair agrees that the ability to engage with PLUShostels’ target audience is crucial, and the role includes reaching not just potential new customers, but also past and current customers…

We want people to see that we have a real person writing on behalf of us. Someone who is experienced and has the readers’ best interests at heart. We’re obviously hoping to reach a lot more people, but most importantly engage the people who, after staying with PLUS, move on and never have any reason to stay attached to the brand. I like to think there’ll be people Jane engages with that will continue reading her blog long after they’ve stayed with us.

How will PLUShostels measure the success of their Resident Blogger?

Jordi says the signs already look good…

We have certain goals in terms of readership/statistics, judging by the stats after the first post it will be very successful once we gather some momentum over the peak season. Apart from that my goal is to really lay the foundations for how we work with bloggers in the future. I think key to that success is giving Jane free reign over what she wants to write about to tie in with PLUS as opposed to dictating everything. I’m looking forward to this season, I think it’s going to be lots of fun working with Jane and we’ll be able to look back on it as being very successful for both of us.

What are the key tips for other bloggers looking for ‘residential positions’?

Jane says her experience demonstrates that the bloggers out there who work hard and try to create opportunities for themselves rather than waiting for things to happen, will usually be the one’s with the offers at the end of the day.

As a member of the travel blogging community I would also love to see more of these ‘Resident Blogger’ positions opening up, and I think if travel bloggers want to see more of these positions opening they also have to take some responsibility in trying to create them.

I have no doubt that if I wasn’t already blogging from RunawayJane.com, working with other travel companies as part of it, and showing an engaged presence on social media websites, I would not have attained this position as ‘Resident Blogger’ at PLUS. I am also certain I wouldn’t have been successful had I not approached PLUS, because to be honest, I probably wasn’t on their radar until I did.

There are more and more travel blogs emerging every day, and these days if you want to stand out you really have to do something that makes you different… even if in my case that was just my passion for the job and what I do.

Have you applied for a ‘blogger residency’ or suggested one to a travel company? What was your experience?

Image: Bigstockphoto/Gelpi

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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The Pen Pal Kids Club is encouraging young kids to go on exciting global adventures from the safety of their own home computers.

Pen Pal Kids Club (PPKC) says it is “the safe social network for kids around the world” where kids aged four to 14 can ‘Explore, Play & Share’ with global pen pals in a completely secure environment. The key features are…

Members write and receive digital postcards from children around the world, learning about their new friends’ cultures and daily lives. To ensure security, kids communicate via an avatar, while adults can approve their children’s Pen Pals and monitor communications.

Postcards automatically translate into seven different languages – English, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, French, Italian and German – so children across the globe can participate.

Six interactive games are based on culture, world history and geography… ‘edu-tainment’… learning and fun. Designed for a range of ages and skills, they include:

• Trivial Travails! Compete IN REAL TIME against three other players, answering fast-paced questions about history, geography, and related subjects.
• Fare Fair! Help customers choose a meal that is native to their country while learning to recognize foreign words, foods and currencies.

Through an exclusive partnership with Encyclopaedia Britannica for Kids, subscribers enjoy direct online access to this vast library of information, filtered to be appropriate for children.

The secure online environment offers built-in parental controls, is fully compliant with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), and earned the TRUSTe seal of safety.

The website is the online realisation of a children’s book, My Pen Pal Scrapbook, An Educational Journey Through World Cultures that PPKC co-founder, Shelley A. Aliotti wrote, illustrated and published in 1995. The original book had a form in the back for a ‘hands-on’ Pen Pal Club that Shelley maintained manually for several years.

So, when did your passion for travel begin? Was it as a kid dreaming and learning about foreign places through a pen pal, or with your first “OE” as the kiwis call it?

Image: Wesley Fryer

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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The lucky couple will get to spend three weeks together visiting top beach hotels across Europe, UAE and Egypt and reviewing them as official ebookers.com Beach Reporters.

The review criteria for the hotels will include, amongst other things, the service, facilities, beach location and, of course, the all-important ‘romance’ factor. The couple will be sharing their reviews and insights, as well as giving tips for making the most of holidays with your loved-one, on the ebookers.com blog and Facebook page.

There’s not much time. Couples with a passion for travel can enter the competition via www.facebook.com/ebookers by Friday 1st June.

The search launches as new research from ebookers.com shows when it comes to romancing their loved one, Brits favour a beach break (74%) over any other – with a view of the sunset on a secluded beach hitting the top spot in the romance stakes (42%).

Image: Bigstock/JokerPro

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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The new travel site, which appeared last year and is slated to move out of beta this month, will enable visitors to see a feed of “all the important travel blogs” in one central location and choose the most interesting articles to read. Travel bloggers will benefit from additional exposure and traffic to their blogs as Touristlink members click through to the popular stories.

The Touristlink.com team believes that travel bloggers are in integral part of the travel community and represent an important element that should be included. The site aims to be the first social network for travel that encompasses the entire travel community by bringing travel bloggers, travel professionals (tour guides, hotel owners and travel agencies) and travelers on the same platform. The addition of the travel blogger specific profiles is a continuation of this outreach to a key segment of the travel ecosystem.

Founder, David Urmann, thinks a centralised feed of the highest quality travel blogs will be a great discovery tool for visitors to the site:

It’s a great way for visitors to find out about quality travel blogs they may not be aware of. When we first started looking for bloggers to invite we were surprised by the number of quality blogs that often go under the radar. We hope these new features on Touristlink will give these blogs more exposure and that they can benefit from direct traffic from the our feed page.

Travel bloggers can’t just sign up and promote themselves. The ability to set up a travel blog profile will be via an invite only system. Touristlink.com is currently sending invites to interested bloggers and is planning to go live with the system in early July once the initial invite period is over.

If it grows as hoped, Touristlink.com could provide a useful contact point between travellers and local travel providers, who often find it difficult to reach foreign travellers without using agents and marketers. Will it be useful to bloggers too?

Image: Paeonia

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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The 2012 Flip Flop Report is an analysis of behavior and preferences among beachgoers in North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia, and Expedia intends to repeat it annually so they can track trends.

The report, showcased at simultaneous events on both sides of the Atlantic, revealed that the beach is by far the favorite destination for the majority of the world’s travellers. More than half (52%) of respondents plan to holiday at the beach in the next 12 months, compared to 45% who said they took a beach vacation the year prior. And while the average stay for a beach vacation is 7.7 days, this is less true of Koreans, Japanese and Singaporeans, who seem more likely to prefer beach weekends to extended stays.

Top beach lovers are the Germans (49%) followed by Mexicans (48%) and Argentinians who are the most sun-soaked, spending an average of 11 days at a time, while Koreans spent a mere 3.2 days per trip. Americans are creatures of habit: one of the least important criteria for Americans when selecting a beach location is the desire to find a new location. For Indians, new locations were among the highest priority.

For Most Beachgoers, the Most Popular Activity is No Activity At All

Relaxing and sunbathing were among the top two activities for beachgoers across all five continents. The Irish, at 75%, were the most likely to relax, while Mexicans (79%) seem to be happiest with lying in the sun. Brazilians (40%) were likeliest to exercise on the beach; when doing so, they may well stumble over the Japanese, who were 14 times likelier to relax (28%) than exercise (2%).

Additionally:

• Koreans, at 49%, were likeliest to “eat raw food” on the beach. Koreans are unlikely to draw envious stares from Norwegians, who at 1% showed the most aversion to the practice.
• New Zealanders (36%) and Australians (35%) were most likely to fish at the beach.
• Canadians were likeliest to strap on a snorkel (34%).
• 82% of Germans spend beach time swimming. Only 28% of the Japanese do the same

Germans are Likeliest to Sunbathe Nude

Germans displayed the most permissive attitudes towards nude sunbathing. A full 15% of German respondents indicated that they sunbathed naked. Indians and Spaniards (8%) were the second-likeliest to shed their clothing, while the French (5% clothing-free) were more aligned with Americans (2%), the British (2%) and the Japanese (1%). Perhaps unsurprisingly, Germans seem to be the most popular beachgoers: when asked if they’d spent beach days with strangers, the Germans (23%) and Brazilians (19%) were likeliest to say they had.

Additionally:

• Indians (22%), Canadians (20%), Mexicans (19%), Italians (18%) and the Irish (18%) were likeliest to have participated in “beach bar games.”
• 31% of Singaporeans had spent beach time at the spa, versus 3% of the Japanese and 5% of the Dutch.
• Indian (39%), Mexican (34%), Brazilian (30%) and Argentinean (27%) beachgoers were most likely to dance on the beach.

Beachgoers Have Never Gotten Over “Jaws”

Expedia’s Flip Flop Report revealed that beachgoers remain wary of sharks. Well under 100 shark bite incidents are reported worldwide each year, making shark encounters extraordinarily rare. Yet the menace prevails: 50% of travelers consider the presence of sharks when deciding where to holiday, and a full 68% of beach vacationers admit to having been afraid to swim because of sharks.

Additionally:

• Residents of Brazil (70%) and Singapore (67%) were the most attuned to sharks when planning their beach vacation.
• Only 3% of Italians always think sharks before entering the water.

The Atlantic Divide

The report – curiously called the “Flip Flop” report in North America and the “Beach Report” in Europe – also extracted statistics specific to the USA and UK.

In the US, the most important factor for 78% of beachgoers is the total trip price. Combined with results from Expedia’s Vacation Deprivation® study, Expedia’s data shows that Americans spend a full 40% of their allotted vacation days at the beach. In fact, when Americans were asked to choose between spending time at the beach and spending time with family, the beach won handily.

Joe Megibow, vice president and general manager, Expedia.com said:

Beach vacations are such an important part of how Americans travel. Not surprisingly, what they like when they’re planning a trip is saving money, so we’re launching the biggest Summer Sale in Expedia’s history. The report also shows that, once people are actually on vacation, they find a wide variety of ways to have their own kind of fun, whether that’s sports in the sand, surfing in the waves or whatever kind of sunbathing they prefer.

As part of that summer break promotion Expedia in the USA (Expedia.com) has created a Beachgoer Facebook App and Blogger Recommendation Tool in collaboration with “some of the world’s most influential travel bloggers”, as a way to help travellers book the perfect summer trip. To participate, consumers use the Expedia Beachgoer Facebook app which prompts consumers to take a fun quiz to determine their Beach Travel profile. The profiles, like Zen Beach Mama and Rockin’ Surfer Dude correspond to fifteen influential travel bloggers who have provided recommended destinations to match each profile.

In the UK (Expedia.co.uk) there is no such promotion or app, however executives used the data to highlight the most popular beach location in the UK (Jersey) and Britons’ favourite beach destination overall (Spain).

A fifth of Brits travel no further that the UK coast for their summer holidays, a statistic that shows up in the top 20 list of best beach destinations for UK traveller. However Spain dominates, occupying five places and the Iberian Peninsula accounting for the top 3.

Top 20 Beach Destinations for UK Travellers:

1. Balearic Islands, Spain
2. Algarve, Portugal
3. Malaga & Costa del Sol, Spain
4. Sorrento (Penisola Sorrentina), Italy
5. French Riviera, France
6. Malta
7. Canary Islands, Spain
8. Morocco
9. Lake Garda, Italy
10. Channel Islands, UK
11. Cyclades Islands, Greece
12. Miami, Florida
13. Croatian Coast
14. Cyprus
15. Alicante & Costa Blanca, Spain
16. Devon and Cornwall, UK
17. Valencia & Costa Azahar, Spain
18. Monterey, California
19. Costiera Amalfitana, Italy
20. Bournemouth, UK

Presenting the report in London, Andy Washington, Managing Director, UK and Ireland said:

It’s interesting to see that short haul travel and ‘staycations’ continue to be a trend for UK travellers this summer, as we see cost being of great importance when making a decision on beach holidays. We often see travel patterns changing in line with currency fluctuations, and we expect many Brits to take advantage of the relative strength of the pound against the Euro, with European destinations growing in popularity as a result.

The research shows that Brits favour a combination of shorter breaks throughout the year, and a beach break in Summer, but we tend to spend slightly less time at the beach than some of our nearest neighbours – almost 20% less time than the Germans and around 15% less than the French.

We see that Brits tend to take a more flexible approach to holiday and unlike the many of our European counterparts we are not so rigidly committed to taking the bulk of our holiday in summer. Brits start planning our main holiday a long time in advance, but we’re also keen to have the flexibility to add a weekend in the beach if the sun comes out, but getting a good deal is always on our minds.” added Washington.

Were there any surprises for you in this survey?

Feature image: Indabelle

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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Most of this footage was shot originally in colour, but it’s really evocative in monochrome.

You know the drill. If you like it, go to Vimeo and give Marty some ‘hearts’.

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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The MonmouthpediA project, which will be officially launched today, was first envisioned by a Monmouth local and occasional Wikipedia editor, John Cummings, who gathered together a group of supporters and engaged the help of the local council. Council involvement was crucial at all levels, but in particular to support the installation of a free, town-wide wi-fi network – the first of its kind in Wales.

As the Director of Wikipedia UK, Roger Bamkin, explains:

The town is likely the only place where a visitor can tour in Hungarian, Hindi, Indonesian, Welsh, or numerous other Wikipedia languages using QR codes.

The QR codes (similar to barcodes) in question are called “QRpedia” codes. When a user scans them with a smartphone, they are shown the relevent Wikipedia article on that place or subject. Unlike traditional information signage, Wikipedia articles can be updated so many of the QRpedia codes are printed on ceramic plaques that should last for decades.

The entire town has been behind the project; not just the team of volunteers and the council. Partners also include 200 businesses, several universities and nearly every school and community group in the area.The result is a town with over 1,000 QR codes on every school, every important building, and hundreds of shops.

Is there a role for travel bloggers to play in helping to spread QRpedia codes around the world?

Image: By John Cummings (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Video: By Andrew Sykes [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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For the next three weeks, Andrew Evans, National Geographic Traveler magazine’s “Digital Nomad,” will tweet, blog, vlog and “Instagram” his travels on NationalGeographic.com’s Digital Nomad blog, his Twitter feed @WheresAndrew and his Where’s Andrew Facebook page.

Norway has been high on his ‘to do’ list:

I have never been to Norway, and I just can’t wait to experience it. I’m looking forward to charting my own course through the land of the midnight sun and finding undiscovered gems in its charming cities and along its stunning coast.

Other highlights will include a meeting with the Norwegian royal familyEvans will travel through Norway’s biggest cities: Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim. He will also explore Norway’s famous fjords, two of which are listed as UNESCO World Heritage sites. These striking mountain-walled inlets formed by glaciers are consistently ranked as one of the world’s best travel destinations by National Geographic Traveler. Other highlights will include a meeting with the Norwegian royal family, a trip to the longest road tunnel in the world and a smattering of music and theater festivals.

Evans is a veteran travel writer for National Geographic Traveler magazine and National Geographic’s Intelligent Travel blog. His most recent assignment, last month, was a two-city tour of South Africa. This came on the heels of a trip through Malawi, where he was one of the first people to report the death of Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika. In February, Evans visited Maya sites in Mexico.

Last year’s adventures included exploring the best of Ontario, Canada, in June; tweeting and blogging his way around Japan in September; wining and dining through Louisiana in October; and finishing the year skiing, snow-shoeing and trekking through western Canada’s ski country with renowned mountaineers, ski instructors and naturalists.

In 2010, Evans journeyed from Washington, D.C., to Antarctica — a 10,000-mile trip through 14 countries — using public transportation as far as he could go. He rode buses to Ushuaia in Argentina, the southernmost city in the world, and then boarded the MV National Geographic Explorer to Antarctica.

“Andrew Evans is a true National Geographic explorer in the digital age,” said Keith Bellows, National Geographic Traveler magazine editor in chief. “As he winds his way through Norway, his digital community will get to experience the secret places he discovers with him in real time.

Feature image: Frithjof Fure/www.visitnorway.com

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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Triptrotting was founded in 2010 by avid travellers and University of Southern California graduates Aigerim Shorman and Shana Zheng. Their shared belief that travelling is about the experience and the people you meet, was the inspiration for Triptrotting which enhances the travel experience by connecting travellers with locals. Both parties are matched using a proprietary algorithm developed by the former chief scientist at eHarmony. Members are able to establish an immediate connection with like-minded travellers and locals based on interests, personality, profession, and more. Travellers can pick their own level of activity, choosing to meet people face-to-face, get travel advice and participate in activities with locals.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Since its launch the Triptrotting community has expanded to over 2,000 cities worldwide. This is largely due to the group of local ambassadors who host events in cities with thousands of attendees, driving more users to the site and attracting local partners.

Aigerim Shorman explains the development has been organically driven:

Triptrotting keeps evolving as our travellers continue to evolve. We saw how much our Triptrotters wanted autonomy in deciding which activities to take part in and how they wanted to be able to notify friends and other travellers about exciting things to do. That is why we are continuously trying to provide new opportunities to some of the most extraordinary travellers in the world — the ones who love to think outside of the box.

New enhancements on the site include:

The Social Activities feature allows Triptrotters to find activities by location, date, time and price. The most popular activities come up first and Triptrotters can view participants who have already signed up so they can connect ahead of the activity. Activities are chosen based on interests and allow for meeting with other like-minded travellers. Activities include meals, parties, walking tours, concerts, speakers, and trips to historic sites, museums, beaches, local destinations, and much more. Additionally, users can alert friends and other Triptrotters about activities by sharing on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest.

Triptrotters can now sign up to attend TRIPups, events hosted by an elite group of Triptrotting local advisors or curated activities all over the world for locals and travellers to meet and have fun. Past TRIPups have taken place in China, Brazil, Italy, U.S., Russia, Cambodia, Hungary, and more.

The People tab allows members to more easily read profiles and connect with or “follow” new Triptrotters without having to go in and out of profiles that may not be a match. The new Search People feature allows Triptrotters to find existing members by typing in a name or email address so that a connection can be built.

Have you tried Triptrotting? What do you think?

Image: Kulo

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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The partnership will give Meet, Plan, Go!’s members a dedicated customer service program with licensed insurance representatives trained in long-term travel insurance, who can focus on helping career breakers navigate their way through the insurance planning process and make informed decisions based on their particular coverage needs.

Travel Insurance just got interesting.

Normally travel insurance is….. well, travel insurance… but well-known, career-breaking travel blogger, Sherry Ott, co-founder of Meet Plan Go!, explains the significance of this partnership:

Career break travelers have special needs that the typical backpacker or gap year traveler doesn’t have – mainly we are older and therefore our ongoing health is more if a concern. Knowing what options there are for continuing your preventative medical needs while traveling on a career break is important. In addition career breakers may have older relatives at home that they need to be able to go back and visit in case there is an emergency. It’s these types of situations that InsureMyTrip can assist with – asking the right types of questions that, in the excitement off your trip planning, you may not consider. They offer a variety if plans that can fit the unique needs of a career breaker and even help you make sure you are covered when you return and are still in employment limbo.

For me this was the hardest and most stressful part of my career break to plan so having someone to call who knows what questions to ask to help you sort out your needs is a luxury. It’s takes a very difficult task and makes it an easy part of your career break planning!

This is groundbreaking stuff! Never before has the career break traveler been catered to in such a way and we are thrilled to bring it to this growing travel demographic!

Co-founder, Michaela Potter, adds:

To my knowledge they are the first and only travel insurance company to focus on helping the North American career breaker. InsureMyTrip understands the challenges involved with planning a career break and they know how to help.

In addition to the dedicated service program, InsureMyTrip will also provide expert assistance to MPG members on the MPG website and their travel protection experts will also be guiding MPG members with live presentations at Meet, Plan, Go! premier events.

Image: Bigstockphoto/Thufir

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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In March, VisitEngland launched a nationwide search to find England’s biggest fan for an all-expenses paid 70-day self-drive trip around the country in a VW campervan. They have now announced the identity of their new road trip blogger: Rachel Kershaw from Lancashire.

Rachel, 30, “wowed the judges with her passion for England and her zest for life”. She says:

This is the challenge and opportunity I’ve been waiting for! I can’t think of anything better than travelling around England in a vintage camper van and discovering new places. I’m very excited about the trip and am looking forward to setting off next week from somewhere I have always dreamt of visiting, Cornwall.

Rachel will be driving the length and breadth of the country in her newly painted camper van which has been supplied by vintage VW campervan specialist, O’Connors Campers, and staying in The Camping and Caravanning Club’s sites. VisitEngland hope that her regular updates on Facebook and Twitter, blog posts, photographs and video footage, will help inspire the rest of the country to take a holiday at home this year. Her posts will be on the EnjoyEngland blog, on their Facebook page, and the Twitter hashtag for this blogtrip is #faninavan using a dedicated @faninavan account.

VisitEngland’s Chairman and Fan in a Van Judge, Lady Cobham said:

We chose Rachel Kershaw to be our Fan in a Van because her enthusiasm and passion for her home country is truly infectious! During this amazing 10-week trip discovering every corner of England, she will, I’m sure, inspire the Great British Public to take a holiday at home this year and enjoy what we have on offer during this very special year.

Image: VisitEngland

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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The American Express Spending & Saving Tracker survey shows that when it comes to travel plans for the summer, almost 140 million Americans (59%) are planning a summer vacation and they expect to spend an average of $1,180 per person, on par with 2011. This year’s travelers are more likely to go abroad, and 43% (up from 36% last year) will take advantage of holiday weekend getaways, particularly the Fourth of July and Memorial Day weekends, with a quarter of travelers planning three or more weekend trips throughout the summer.

While domestic travel will make up the majority of vacations this summer, a larger number of Americans plan to broaden their horizons and head overseas, with 16% opting to travel internationally. The Cayman Islands (7%), Italy (7%), and the UK (6%) ranked as the top international destinations for summer travelers, while Italy (10%) and the UK (11%) resonated most with the affluent market (Households with an income over $100,000).

The most popular destinations for domestic travel this year include Florida (19%), California (15%, up from 8% last year), New York (10%) and North Carolina (9%).

Immersion Conversion

The survey also shows that of those planning a vacation, 48% seek more meaningful experiences and say they will immerse themselves in the culture and heritage of their destination.

David Patron, Vice President of American Express Travel, says:

Consumers want deeper, richer experiences when they travel. When a traveler visits a destination they want to understand the local traditions and feel like they are getting a true insider experience.

More travelers (22% vs. 19% in 2011) are looking to incorporate their personal hobbies and interests into the travel experience, whether it’s a culinary retreat, a hiking expedition, or a spa escape. This is especially true for those planning weekend getaways, where 36% (up from 22% in 2011) noted an interest in embedding cultural activities into their itineraries, including museum visits, historical sites, and national monuments.

The Web Factor

Over half (56% – up from 52% in 2011)of summer travelers utilize online tools such as travel websites to book their vacations, following recommendations from friends/family (36% – up from 31% in 2011), but 29% admit they feel overwhelmed by the vast amount of information the internet provides. More ‘affluents’ than ‘general population’ with summer plans book their travel with online tools (62% vs 56%) and directly from an airline/hotel/auto rental site (39% vs 25%).

Once at their destination, 83% plan to stay connected and nearly two thirds (64%) of those expect to check their work email daily over their vacations. When it comes to the cost of staying connected, fewer consumers (65% vs 72% in 2011) are unwilling to pay for internet service. Nearly 40% use their Smartphone for navigation, local deals, and planning experiences during their trips, while 50% are referencing the internet to do the same.

“Ve Vant to be Alone, Darlink”

One small but interesting trend appeared in the survey results this year. Adults want to be alone.

While family travel, ‘mancations,’ and girlfriend getaways remain popular this summer, the data suggests a trend towards tranquil travel, whether that means a vacation alone or without the kids. More will pack for one this year, with 16% of travelers planning to hit the road and skies alone, up from 12% in 2011.

Parents are also taking advantage of their children’s time at camp to travel. Nineteen percent (vs 16% in 2010) plan to send their children to overnight camp for the summer, and 66% say they will take advantage of this time to travel without them.

Are you surprised by any of those figures?

Image: Bigstockphoto/olly2

This post was authored exclusively for Travelllll.com by Alastair McKenzie.

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