6 Totally Brilliant Travel Marketing Posts: Hospitality Marketing Link Digest

Had a good week, Big Thinkers? Getting ready for the week ahead? To make sure you’ve got everything you need, why not take a few minutes to review these 6 totally brilliant travel marketing posts? Enjoy:

1. Tnooz discovers that airline and hotel apps less popular than OTA apps with millennials. Well, that’s a drag. Finding the best price remains a key feature for many millennial travelers (understandable given the current employment/wage situation for this rising segment). Still, hotels would do well to target offerings towards millennials that highlight value as well as reasonable rates.
2. While we’re on the topic of millennials, OTA’s and mobile apps, eMarketer finds that mobile LGBT millennial travelers prefer OTA’s, a potential missed opportunity for hotel marketers, though one you ought to be able to recapture.
3. One approach to successfully competing with OTA’s: data. I’ve recommended that hotels expand their database marketing capabilities to compete with OTA’s. As it happens, Mobile Marketer says the travel industry shows rest of pack how to leverage mobile data. Seems like a good time to double-down on your strengths.
4. Leonardo offers more tips in its “Big, Bold, Visual: What You Need to Know About Hotel Marketing in 2015” webinar. I was one of the panelists, and thought the whole program was terrific.
5. Though not specifically travel-focused, the most recent episode of Thinks Out Loud—our weekly e-commerce and digital marketing podcast—explores “The State of E-commerce 2015” and provides some excellent guidelines for how you can make your digital marketing/e-commerce efforts work more efficiently and more effectively.
6. And, since we started this week’s list of links with a mobile post, it seems appropriate to end there to, with this look at 3 mobile milestones for travel marketing. Excellent overview of the current state of mobile in travel and well-worth your time.

You might also want to check out these 4 key posts about 2015 travel marketing trends from last week, and these 7 remarkable posts about mobile marketing in travel. And be sure to take a look at The Top 14 Hotel Marketing Posts of 2014, too.

Interested in learning even more about the future of hospitality e-commerce and marketing via the social, local, mobile web? You should register to receive a special report I’ve produced in conjunction with hotel marketing firm Vizergy, “Digital Hotel Marketing in a Multiscreen World.” Developed specifically for hotel and resort marketers, the lessons can help your business adapt to the changing guest environment. You can get your free copy of the report here.

And take a moment to review the slides from my recent webinar, “Digital Marketing Directions 2015: Three Key Trends Driving Your Hotel Marketing Next Year” here:

Finally, you might also enjoy some of our past coverage of the social, local, mobile web and what it means for your business, including:

• Holy Crap! Mobile’s Even Bigger Than You Thought
• How to Use Emotion and Storytelling in Digital Marketing
• 4 Lessons You Need to Know from Google’s Affluent Traveler Report
• What’s the State of Hotel Reputation Management?
• 10 Essential Lessons Learned From HSMAI’s Digital Marketing Strategy Conference
• What in the World are Priceline and TripAdvisor Up To?
• It’s Time You Take Mobile Seriously. Here’s Why
• What Expedia’s Leaders Can Teach You About Digital Strategy
• The 4 Rules of Social Marketing for Hotel Marketers