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Over the past decades, destinations in Europe, North America, and the Caribbean have been the stars in both destination branding and popularity among travelers. And while all the above certainly remain among the world´s most powerful performers in tourism, the World Travel Awards (dubbed “the Oscars of travel”) in 2023 have underscored strong showings outside these traditional areas, particularly in Asia and the Middle East. Here´s a quick rundown of this year´s winners:

At the

Costa Rica is known for its rainforests, beaches, nature and biodiversity. True, indeed.

But do you know that Costa Rica is the most innovative country in Latin America? Or that the Central American nation has celebrated well over a half-century of peace with no military forces? Or that it is home to a highly-educated society with thriving export and technology industries, and fast-growing foreign investment?

Costa Rica’s newly launched country brand, “Essential Costa Rica” (Esencial Costa Rica),

Tourism is to a great extent a world of marketing.  In reality there are three major parts to the tourism product 1) the product itself, 2) the way the product is presented by both the provider (marketing) and perceived by the customer (reputation), and 3) the product delivery or service that is given as part of the product experience.  Often tourism professionals become so enthralled with one part of this triangle that they forget one or two of the other sides of the triangle.  This triangle ho

Or, Are Facebook and Twitter a Waste of Time for the Travel Marketer?

How surprising is this: In the second half of last year, fewer that 1% of visitors arrived at a hotel or travel booking site, "via a social media link or a link shared by by a friend," reports Hotelmarketing.com.

Does this mean hotels are wasting their time chasing the Holy Grail of Twitter and Facebook? Could be.

We love our friends' photos and status updates, the report goes on to say, and it's very true that social media

People travel for many reasons. Some travel for business, others travel for a sense of adventure or for relaxation.  Leisure travel only succeeds if it provides two essential elements (1) the travel experience must offer something that the visitor cannot obtain at home and (2) the travel experience must provide memories. In fact, we can postulate that the travel and tourism business sells memories. Globalization has done many wonderful things not only for people in general but also for the trave

Travel is measurably one of Facebook’s fastest growing, strongest vertical, and this is the year Facebook will target travel as a major sales initiative.

As we reported in New Media Travel recently, impressively, 52% of the site’s users said that when they view Facebook, they already “started dreaming about a holiday even when they didn’t have one booked. And 95% use Facebook for ‘travel related activities’ prior to going on vacation.”

So what’s the bad news?

“Travel related activities,” may not me

Reviews do matter. A report by SAS noted that positive reviews (less so TripAdvisor-based rank and brand), followed by lower price were the most important influencers of choice.

And lower price or higher ratings don't overcome the impact of negative reviews.

But even in America, it's possible that more isn't better.

Writing reviews is almost a national pastime.  Writing reviews on everything and saying pretty much what we want and being rewarded by some sort of badge or other "atta boy" reco

Too much visual information and not enough solid, reliable , trustworthy facts?

Not enough education and awareness building by luxury travel marketers?

Misidentification of the luxury traveler?

You'd think that the "rich and famous" would naturally be drawn to top hotel brands, names synonymous with luxury like the Ritz-Carlton and Four Seasons.

But Luxury Daily in an article by Joe McCarthy, says it ain't necessarily so.

Apparently very few of the top 10% of the wealthy "have experience wi

If it's true that 1-minute of video is worth 1.8 million words, then hotels and travel destinations may have found the "holy grail" that converts the grazing online process of looking at hotels, to actually booking them.

And there isn't a hotel or destination in the world that isn't seeking the business alchemy that converts lookers into actual customers.

Generally, the hotel's website is held responsible for making this magic happen.

Of course service that exceeds the client's demands, locat

Tourism security professionals and managers often (and justly) complain that they are considered expendable due to the fact that the other parts of the tourism industry perceive them as adding nothing to the bottom line.  In fact often tourism officials believe that security is simply and added and required expense that must be accepted, be that expense a burden. This month's Tourism Tidbits focuses on the other side of the coin, and emphasizes that not only is tourism security not simply a nece

How Tourism Ireland Won Top Social Media Prize

Luck of the Irish?

Hardly.

It was no surprise to us when Tourism Ireland  was tapped as the winner in the “Best Use of Social Media” contest at the Travolution Awards in London.

Nor were they lucky.

We’ve worked under contract with Tourism Ireland producing short-form Travel Video PostCards, and they were always way ahead of most every other player in the travel industry in embracing social media opportunities.

They were innovative and experimental, very

Here's another key question that I have been hearing a lot (both in emails and the comments on this blog) and give you a couple more examples of social proof (video testimonials). The question is this:

“What about traffic to my web site?”

In other words, how do you get people to your website?

This is a great question, and I am really pleased that so many of you are asking it – it shows that we have some really sharp readers. 

You see, in the beginning of the Internet, we were in the “build it and