This was an open letter to someone in the Google Travel department/vertical that happens to be a friend. I will 100% not be posting response, and I likely will not relate much if it is confidential. I will only relate what is said to be okay. I am trying to move the needle for the…
Statement about independent hotels in the massive booking ecosystem of Google’s travel vertical & OTA space.
Our independent hotels are a really great outlier, as the majority of our hotels do not use OTA, and are 100% direct. What *are* & *should be* direct bookings get siphoned into different ecosystems, whether a legit bait and switch, or just being swallowed by the black hole of Google. Our metasearch has done wonders,…
The Anti-Marketing Marketing of a Fictional Hotel.
So this is just a conversational thought experiment, and I want to know what you think about this, how insane or inappropriate it is, and how it would be received (especially regionally or wherever your market is). In regards to hotel (and all) marketing, I get cynical about it as toxic clutter and spammy noise.…
October 2020, Your California Driver License may not be valid to board domestic airline flights.
I had an appointment to renew my ID at the DMV, but something happened and that appointment for 3 months into the future was lost to the ether. It meant I had to wait in line, or accept my current DMV photo, which has me looking like a deranged lunatic. The pic was so funny,…
The intersection of travel and virtual reality.
I am incredibly curious about Virtual Reality and how it will relate to, and impact, our industry of travel. Here’s where I am at, right now, and you can see why I am so interested! So up here at the top, the TL;DR is what real-world travel “games” or software have you seen in VR? Google Earth…