It’s a bit startling to learn that our passion for travel is second only to our passion for our families.

I learned this from  travel trade sites which often have more interesting things to say than consumer travel publications or sites.

Travel trade sites and magazines often have more interesting stuff  than consumer travel publications.

The content on Travel Weekly and, say, Hotelmarketing.com is often more readable, more useful than some of the travel consumer sites or glitzy travel magazines that stretch for hyperbole when describing blue Caribbean waters or some village in Spain.

So when Hotelmarketing ran its list of top stories for 2011, they were interesting because they were gritty choices: Why hotels shouldn’t sell a $200 room for fifty bucks, or Dysfunctional hotel websites.

But when  Ypartners, a key analyst of travel trends, posted  their snapshot of traveling Americans,  I learned ur passion for travel is second only to our passion for our families.

The survey of 2,500 adults looked at the travel habits, preferences and intentions of American leisure travelers and found that we Americans  have a deep commitment to travel.

It was  Ypartners that reported that Americans treasure their leisure and vacation time – citing travel as their number two passion behind family.

It’s also true that incentive programs find travel to be more “incentivizing” than money because, as one CEO said, money goes to pay the  bills. Travel builds memories and thus loyalty to the company handing out the incentive reward.

According to Y’s  Portrait of the American Traveler  our key travel traits are:

• We are smarter consumers. More than three-quarters of U.S. consumers (77 percent) say they have become  smarter shoppers thanks to today’s economic situation

• Among leisure travelers who have used the Internet to obtain travel information or to make a reservation, more than eight in ten say the most desirable features in a travel-service supplier website are the ability to check the lowest fares/rates (84 percent) and the lowest price/rate guarantee (82 percent)

• Experience-based travel involving family and friends rules: the leading types of leisure trips remain visiting friends and relatives (50 percent) and family vacations (42 percent)

• The Caribbean (34 percent), Europe (33 percent) and Mexico (26 percent) remain the top international destinations visited by American travelers during the past two years

• Social media are gaining credibility as a trusted information source. Three out of five leisure travelers (61 percent) visited TripAdvisor prior to booking a hotel reservation, while one in five (18 percent) visited YouTube in the past 12 months.

Surprisingly, perhaps,  two in ten active leisure travelers (18 percent) utilized the services of a traditional travel agent in the past 12 months, and younger travelers are slightly more likely to book through a travel agent than their older counterparts;

The full summary is on Hotelmarketing.com, but one conclusion really stands out: While value is extremely important to the traveler, it’s not the same thing as “low cost” or cheaper.

-

Jennifer and Craig Ruckert, a very attractive 30 something couple were sitting in front of a terrific fire, enjoying some great cheeses and local wines, a regular pre-dinner ritual  at the Tidewater Inn, in the laid back, classy Connecticut shore town of Madison.

Except Jennifer wasn’t drinking wine. She was nursing a sparkling-something drink because she’s pregnant with the couple’s first child.

“This is a special weekend for us,” she said. “This is the weekend we pick a name for our baby, and probably the last time Craig and I will have alone together for a long time. Just the two of us, no stress and no intrusions.”

The special weekend, called a Babymoon is the brainchild of innkeeper and Tidewater owner, Victoria Kolyvas.  ” Look,” she said, stoking the fire in the comfortable common room, ” pregnancy can be very stressful! The questions from friends and family, the exams, the preparation. I just wanted to do something special for expecting parents.”

And she did.

Her Babymoon package offers two or more nights at the inn, complimentary  non-alcoholic bubbly, hand-crafted chocolates, a gift certificate for dinner and special gifts for the mother-to-be.
In Jennifer’s case, the special gift was a pair of hand-crocheted baby booties which  Victoria made ( while having her car serviced), and Jennifer loved.

This Babymoon package also came with a maternity gown with lip gloss, mirror….”It was wonderful,” Jennifer said, “It made me feel so special.”

Kolyvas is known in inn keeping circles for her low-key but imaginative approach to the business of satisfying and surprising guests.

On Christmas morning, guests find stockings filled with fun things outside their rooms, and a breakfast festooned in red and green foods, like a cranberry coffee cake and a red pudding flecked with green parsley.

For Craig Ruckert, Kolyvas’ efforts to set up a couple’s massage at one of the holistic spas was just great. ” We haven’t had a couple’s massage,” he laughed, “since we were married. It meant so much to us.”

Jennifer first read about Babymoons in the newspaper and searched the Internet until she found the package at Tidewater. The phone chat with Kolyvas clinched the deal. “She was so understanding, so sweet….”

The trends to unique, specialized packages is the lifeblood of small inns and B and B’s. They’re flexible enough to tack with the times and address travelers’ needs, says Marti Mayne, marketing professional for the industry.
“More and more people are seeking that last escape before the baby comes.  Innkeepers have put their creativity to work offering Babymoons filled with opportunities for R&R and amenities for parents to be.  This is just the kind of niche packaging that sets innkeepers apart from hotel and motel owners, offering an opportunity for travelers to discover B&Bs are the better way to stay.”
For the couple, the best thing about the Babymoon seems to be the uninterrupted time together. “So many good things will come from this weekend,” they said. ” It’s helping us prepare for parenthood.”

There’s no doubt marketers and brand managers are spending lots of human and real capital to leverage the power of Social Sites, especially Facebook and Twitter. But does it do them any good? Meaning, do consumers promote brands via Social Media regardless of how hard those brands try to get in front of consumers?

eMarketer says very clearly that 57.8 % of US Facebook users had not mentioned a brand in their status updates as of October 2011.

Hotelmarketing.com reports the same figures in its summary.

This has to be disappointing to all those companies and corporations counting on the powerful social network sites to power their brand to more recognition.

Conversely, if no bad news is good news, companies may be heartened by the report that just 0.5% of Facebook users posted negative mentions about a brand.

Typically, when mentioned at all, brand mentions were positive ( 25.3%) or with a mix of positive and negative, 16.4%.

Furthermore, marketing company ATYM noted that offline channels like TV, radio and print were the ways “consumers discovered new brands, products and services. Word-of-mouth and physical stores also played a role.”

What about Twitter’s impact on brand recognition?

Interestingly, Twitter users mirror those of Facebook relative to brand mentions.

Could be they’re the same users, but 61.3% of Twitter users say they have not mentioned a brand in their Tweets; 25.4% said they mentioned brands in a positive way, if at all, while a scant 0.4% said they Tweeted negative comments.

So, how are consumers learning about brands?

Same old, same old: TV, radio print and other offline sources (16%); word-of-mouth (14%); online media like blogs, web sites (9%) and trailing on down to shopping sites, social media sites (Facebook and Twitter), online advertising.

What’s the takeaway?

Consumers and brands are definitely interacting on social networks, and brand managers are getting more involved. But for now the challenge is not just to participate in social media, but to get the consumers to actually recognize these brands and start talking about them. That’s the tough part.

Patrick Smith’s column, Ask the Pilot is almost always an acerbic look at the airline industry with its many foibles and Alice in Wonderland rules and regulations.

But the regular contributor to Salon, the award-winning online news site, also provides helpful insights into basic questions such as: Are Pilots Ever Afraid of Crashing or what do all those bells mean during a flight. Human stuff that’s reassuring and informative.

Recently he took the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to task for confiscating a cupcake because, he reported,  “the frosting was a potential security risk.”

And he reported that the TSA in its wisdom, also confiscated:  a teen’s handbag because it had an embroidered handgun design; a liquid-filled baby rattle belonging to a pilot’s infant child and in what Smith calls the most ridiculous example of all,  the TSA took away a toddler’s plastic “Star Wars” lightsaber.

The good news, Smith reports, is that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has released its new rules on pilot fatigue and mandatory rest periods.

At the present, pilots’ rest periods are eight hours. But the clock begins ticking when his/her flight shuts down at the gate. Then the pilot has paperwork to complete, get a shuttle or cab to the hotel, check in, eat and grab some sleep, all of which seriously cuts into the mandatory rest period.

Mindful perhaps of the horrific Colgan ( Continental) air disaster in Buffalo, NY, in 2009 where crew and pilot fatigue may well have contributed to the tragedy, the FAA now requires pilots to have a 10-hour rest period, which makes it easier to get a solid eight hours sleep.

But lest anyone think the government gets it, Smith reports that the new rules don’t take effect for two years. The airline industry says it needs to adjust to the new regulations.  Two years?

And the rule doesn’t apply to cargo planes, which would seem a very obvious case of illogic.

But we’re talking government here.

Guests at the Denver Marriott Tech Center would have loved a set of hard keys to their rooms on New Year’s Eve because, as if by magic, a computer malfunction locked every guest out of their hotel rooms. And locked the elevators shut.

Bad enough, but this was just before the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve.

TNooz, the tech-talking travel web site, reported that moods of the guests quickly went from happy and celebratory, to downright mean as arguments broke out and the cops were called.

With every keycard frozen, guests had no place to go except crowded guest areas, and in the four embarrassing hours it took to fix the problem, many revelers had to sleep in the corridors.

The local TV station, Colorado’s Channel 9 ran a video of the catastrophe showing very upset guests, several of whom were sick, making their feelings felt on air.

Hotel manager, Rob Neilus, was in the painful position of explaining to the TV audience and his guests what went wrong.
He said the company was working with the lock manufacturer to figure out what the problem was, and didn’t charge the locked-out guests for the night’s lodging, or non-lodging.

The least he and Marriott could do.

Fortunately, other Marriott hotels were not affected, only the 628-room Denver property. But for those guests, the event was not an auspicious beginning to 2012!

It’s not easy or always reassuring.
You’re on the road for a family vacation. You’ve done lots of family-friendly things and now you and your significant other want a night out.

Or at least a dinner in the hotel’s much touted dinning room.
But who’ll watch the kids?

Hotels will often provide staff sitters or the names of agencies that they do business with, who’ll sit for children while the parents are out.
But the question nags: How safe are your kids in the hands of a stranger …and how do parents choose a sitter they can trust when they’re on the road?

Many good hotels and resorts offer kids’ clubs and baby-sitting services for vacationing families, giving mom and dad a badly needed night out. But not all.
And the majority of child care providers are reliable and trustworthy.
Still, some precautions are necessary.

In some cases hotels offer their staffs as babysitters. Most now recommend two or three outside agencies.
But how good are they?

A New York Times article quoted hotel officials as saying how surprised they were at how trusting parents were about the sitters they recommend.

One San Francisco mother admitted she didn’t do her homework.
“I never really checked with the hotel to find out how they came up with their referral,” she said.
She used baby-sitting services recommended by several high-end hotels, and assumed that if they recommended someone, then they had to be good.

Many parents go directly to the hotel’s concierge for an agency referral, not a recommendation, since recommendations are too subjective.

The National Association of Child Care and Resource Referral Agencies, recommends that travelers take advantage of the service Child Care Aware  which connects parents to agencies that make referrals to child-care providers.
Some experts say ideally don’t leave your child in the care of just one adult.

But since sitters don’t come in pairs, what to do?

• Be sure the potential sitter has worked at the hotel before and sat for staff members
• Check to see that the agency screens and fingerprints sitters
• And always ask for references

Of course you’ll leave instructions, cell phone numbers and check back frequently.
You’ll also want to check prices because the costs vary with the number of children, their ages and the length of time.
Giving one of your kids one of your cell phones (if they don’t have their own) can be reassuring, and try to be back in time to put them to bed.

Then, relax. It’s your night out.

Listen to this sound-rich, 5-minute, Ottawa Audio PostCard. Let the sounds transport you to Ottawa!

At some point or other someone is always gazing into a crystal ball predicting the future of the travel industry

It’s understandable given the tremendous impact, say, mobile has had in the travel space, or the daily emergence of new sites that offer interesting new search processes.

There are sophisticated strategies designed to reach the consumer directly with ideas, deals, discounts, bargains and filtered reviews and content.

We’ve come a long way from just algorithmic, transactional search engine sites .

What most travelers don’t know, is that travel experts neatly divide the travel buying experience into discrete phases :

• Dreaming, Planning, Booking, Experiencing and Sharing.

The new Facebook “Open Graph” and the concept of “seamless sharing” may well impact the travel industry at least in the planning stages of travel

As Tnooz says, the new Facebook tools will allow friends to participate in their friends’ travel plans almost step-by-step, as in where they booked a flight; what guide book or site they referred to; what apps they used to help them navigate Paris, etc.

But the early stage of “Dreaming” has been neglected in the development of booking and sharing- oriented sites, so it’s interesting to see Hotelmarketing.com note that the potential for innovation, particularly in the early stages of dreaming and researching is “astounding.”

Rob Torres, head of travel at Google, says that in 2012 watch for new sites that play into a traveler’s need to dream, to be “turned on,” as a major factor in taking the next steps in considering where, when and how to travel.

So, while Google claims it has no intention of entering the booking stage of the travel space, according to Nigel Huddleston, head of Google Travel UK and Ireland, it plans to play an increasing role in the sharing and experiencing stages of travel.

How?

We think video will play a huge role in this and believe one of our own companies, Travel Video PostCard is already playing a role in shaping how travelers begin to conceive of and get excited by their travels.

And of course mobile’s relationship to travel continues to grow and grow:

• The number of mobile users researching travel is expected to grow 51% in 2012
• 34% of all US smartphone users research from their mobile device
• 23% of all international travelers use mobile check-in for flights
• By 2012 18% of mobile users will also book from their smart device

While mobile probably has the single biggest impact, it seems like reviews (good, bad and indifferent) will continue wield great influence and are embraced by just about all providers of travel content and information.

But with more and more claims of corrupted or fake reviews, one wonders how the impact of reviews on travelers will be affected.

In travel, the future is today.

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, hotel, resort  or whatever –  and this usually includes airfare, meals, accommodations and passes to attractions in the region – can that writer be balanced in his or her article?

In the meantime, the question took on anther dimension when we learned from Travelllll that the Jordanian Tourism office is actually paying 12 bloggers to write and post about the Kingdom of Jordan.

This changes the game considerably.

If the question is, can a travel writer see clearly enough to include the negative or the not-so-great in content paid for by a destination, it becomes a more compelling question if the destination is not just providing a free trip, but is paying the writer to write.

Is this the new content model?

In principle, I’m not opposed to destination paying a writer. It eliminates one more barrier to the content providers success: the need to get notoriously stingy publishers and editors to cough up a few bucks for work done.

But can the content be trusted?

Can even TripAdvisor’s content be trusted?

Regarding free trips, The New York Times prohibits them, as do some few other publications, and the Society of American Travel Writers, has no real position on the issue.

In a recent Linkedin discussion group, there were about 80 comments on the question posted by a hotel owner who had writers asking for three (and more) days complimentary stays at her place.

She was asking for help in figuring out if the requests were over the top, and in general how to handle the many requests she gets from writers for free stays.

My opinion?

• On the fence about destinations paying content providers.

• I would never ask for a free trip or stay. If you’re invited, that’s OK. Why?

Because the invitee has decided, no strings attached, that they want you. They know you and believe you’re a good fit for their property. You matter to them.

• If a destination has appeal and the writer thinks the approach he/she has in mind is unique and will benefit his audience, let the property and their PR rep know that you’d be interested in a Media Trip…. if and when they put one together.

• Just because a destination is appealing to the writer and wants to go there, doesn’t mean someone should pay for the trip, in exchange for an article.

Importantly, the writer should be able to articulate a compelling newsworthy angle that justifies the trip.

Is their family travel program compelling, and thus a natural fit for the family travel web site you provide content for?

When we did a couple Travel Video PostCards on the Taj Hotel in Boston, we were invited.

And we thought the hotel’s transition from the blue-blood Ritz Carlton to the Indian-owned Taj would, visually and conceptually, make a terrific series.

So, we think it’s time to dump the idea, “Become a travel writer and see the world for free.”

If a writer wants to see the world, go see it on his own dollar.

In the unfolding drama of  TripAdvisor vs. Fake Reviews that has played out in various travel publications, HolidayCheck has upped the stakes by trumpeting its differences with TripAdvisor relative to the integrity of hotel reviews.

In fact, the Swiss-based online travel portal, Europe’s largest, wasted no time in setting out its marketing strategy. Its press release opens with: “ ‘No more reviews you can trust’ at TripAdvisor. Customers are angry, the ASA is investigating claims, and hotels are losing business. HolidayCheck is working to build up that trust again.”

HolidayCheck claims to have 20 million visitors a month, and since it’s available in 10 languages, it’s the self-proclaimed market leader in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Poland.

Like TripAdvisor, it offers a steady collection of hotel reviews, images and tips for vacations.

But as Ayesha Keller, HolidayCheck.com’s spokesperson, emphasized, “each traveler should have the opportunity to gather up-to-date, and authentic (our emphasis) information about hotels before booking.”

So where do HolidayCheck and TripAdvisor part company relative to authenticating reviews?

• Both companies have automatic filtering systems, proprietary software, to detect fraudulent reviews. But, HolidayCheck says 15% of the company’s staff are “employed for manual quality control.”

Why is this important?

Automated systems can alert to fakes, but can’t determine if a review is actually a fake. Keller says their “fraud detection” department cuts down on fake reviews significantly.

• And it seems that when a hotel complains about fake reviews, TripAdvisor sends an automated email and the review is rarely if ever removed. I know this for a fact in at least one case.

• HolidayCheck gives hoteliers real people to talk to about suspect reviews. Those complaints are then passed on to the “Fraud Detection” team. The review is checked again, and if it’s found to be fraudulent, it’s taken down, and only reposted after it’s proven genuine.

HolidayCheck has some 16 criteria it uses to measure a review’s authenticity. These include, according to Hotelmarketing.com, tourist language, bad language and the IP address used.

If a review is suspected of being a fake then a confirmation of booking is requested. Genuine reviews which were written using the hotel’s IP address are not, therefore, flagged unfairly.

The issue of a hotel’s being blackmailed by guests seeking special treatment or else, is taken very seriously by HolidayCheck. Belatedly, it seems, by TripAdvisor.

If, as Hotelmarkteting points out, a hotel tells HolidayCheck’s Hotel Communication team that they have been or may be blackmailed, those reviews undergo extra scrutiny before being released.

How important are reviews to the success of a travel enterprise, especially hotels?

A 2010 PhoCusWright report on what influences travel decisions relative to hotels, places online travel reviews ahead of photos, expert reviews, video and even known social network contacts,

The site’s reviews are chatty and informal, like this one:

“Had a great week at this Hotel, thanks to beautiful weather, lovely pool area and friendly staff.
The entertainment staff were very friendly and chatty, speaking good English and encouraging everyone to make the most of their holiday.
A special thanks to Katie and Memo, who arranged two nights out for us and other hotel guests, one of these nights arranged around a friend’s birthday.”

Some reviews, though, are written by people for whom English is not a first language, and they are sometimes a bit stilted. But their valuations and opinions are quite clear.

HolidayCheck’s Managing Director International, Friedrich von Scanzoni says, “We take fakes very seriously, and take all measures possible to provide our users with authentic, trustworthy reviews.”

But, the real message to hotels from Holidaycheck is simply, that the best way to improve ratings is to improve services and communicate effectively with your customers.
Not a novel idea.