Over 100 Training Sessions in 2007. Invite Milestone Experts to Your Next GM/Sales Meeting. Learn More….

Does Web 2.0 and Internet Marketing continue to baffle your team? Do you have a GM or Sales meeting scheduled? Consider having a local expert from Milestone educate your team about the internet, trends, Web 2.0 and positioning your hotel to drive more online reservations. In 2007, Milestone held over 100 Hotels to HTML’s seminars for brands, large management groups, and state and tourism associations. Consider kicking off your 2008 GM/Sales Meetings with an educational session about the fastest growing channel for hotel reservations—The Internet!

Why do we need to make our video searchable? Yes, the same old videos that we have been using for ages! Having a video is no longer useful unless it is created with search engine optimization in mind. According to emarketer, Online Videos are considered the third most effective online advertising media by US advertising executives today.

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It is evident that Web 2.0 initiatives are changing the way all industries operate today. The chart below shows the overall spending by US marketing executives on the next generation of internet marketing technologies. As far as early adoption goes, the travel industry is lagging other major industries in investing in and taking advantage of these Web 2.0 tools. Eventually, most of these technologies will find their way into the travel industry, given that travel is in the top 3 market segments on the internet.

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In a study completed by Compete, Inc. it was found that over $10 billion per year in online travel is influenced by consumer generated content.[1] The interactive nature of sites such as Trip Advisor, IGoUGo.com and TripPost.com have demonstrated successfully that consumers want more than just ad copy to help influence their purchasing decision. Not only that, search engines also recognize and reward the candid nature of consumer generated content.

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By creating a blog for your hotel, you will be able to attract visitors looking for things to do in your destination. Milestone blogs are “destination centric,” meaning that they are pages discussing dining, local attractions, transportation, local events, etc. We use your hotel as the Featured Property situated within the destination. With pages of the blog discussing all of the local draws to your surrounding area, you will be positioned to capture demand which you’ve never drawn in before.

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Check out Travelocity’s Roaming Gnome interactive MySpace page! Gnome MySpace page engages consumers by offering funny videos, downloads, etc. This page also has two very important action features that customers can use to search for flights and hotel deals directly on MySpace, and can visit the Travelocity store to purchase fun Gnome artifacts. By creating a community within MySpace, Gnome interacts with friends, offers them discounts, deals etc. You can only view Gnome if you add him in your MySpace friend’s network.Read more about this Travelocity story at: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/14730.asp.

Blogging for Lodging

Blogs are the hottest growing medium of communication for businesses and individuals. Based on Technorati research (blog search engine), there are almost 3 million blogs created every month, and bloggers create over 1.6 million posts per day, or over 18 updates a second!

What are Blogs?

Blogs are websites with content management systems that allow visitors to the site to add content. They are forums for organizations and individuals to exchange ideas and communicate with their partners, customers, employees, etc. You can create pages relevant for your business, post articles on different subjects, and offer a platform for others to write their comments or opinions on that post.

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