Should Travel Writers Ask for Free Trips or Get Paid by a Destination? This started out with a question: Should travel writers ask for free trips. It’s a vexing and contentious issue for travel professionals. The ethical issues are pretty clear: If a travel writer is given an all-expense trip to a country, ...
Getting High in Jamaica I was pretty terrified. Weak knees, breath-holding terrified. I was standing on the edge of small tree platform high above the Jamaican rain forest, looking down at all the treetops. About eye level with the birds. With the forest canopy beneath me, the guides from Chukka Tours expertly snapped all ...
How Tourism Ireland Took Top Social Media Prize, And Deserved it. 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. Luck of the Irish? Hardly . We’ve worked under contract with Tourism Ireland producing ...
When Did Travelers Become Transumers? Get comfortable with the term "Transumer,” because you’ll be hearing it often. Correspondent Charlene Rook uses it in her informative articles in Sparksheet to refer to the flow of goods and services by savvy hospitality and travel marketers that follow a traveler wherever he or she may ...
The Lure of Dark Tourism: Murder and Mayhem Places like Cambodia’s Killing Fields, Auschwitz, New York’s Ground Zero, or the Wolf’s Lair where Hitler barely survived an assassination attempt in 1944, exert a powerful pull on travelers. But what’s the fascination? Professor John Lennon of Glasgow University wrote a book exploring exactly the ...
TripAdvisor Plot Thickens: Second Charges Filed The review giant seems reeling these days with legal and PR woes from all directions. In the latest plot development, Hotelmarketing.com reports that a more serious complaint against TripAdvisor has been lodged with the Advertising Standards Authority, the UK organization charged with regulating advertising across all ...
Iceland: Life on the Brink Icelanders live on the edge. In 1783 the Laki Volcano in this glacier-covered country erupted in a violent and prolonged paroxysm, killing a fifth of the country's population. For 10 months 30 billion tons of lava and sulfuric acid belched forth, creating a noxious haze that killed crops ...
Why Is Hotel Web Content so Boring? There was an interesting round table discussion recently sponsored by visual content management powerhouse, VFM Leonardo . The basic question the panel was asked to consider was this: Why is hotel web site content so boring, and how can it be made more engaging for ...
When Do We Share Travel Information? We recently did an article on why social media mavens don’t use their social media accounts to complain about bad service or disappointing travel experiences. Now, according to the marketing company, Milestone, there’s a twist to this thinking. While travelers may prefer to lodge their travel ...
Images of Fall The magic and mystery of Fall can be found in so many places...late Fall is haunting in the Isle of Skye Breath stealing, in Sedona We almost take Fall for granted here in New England, but I found her playing beautifully with the morning frost in Cedar Falls, Ohio. then dancing ...
