Win a Free Diamond Pass to EyeforTravel's Online Marketing & Social Media Summit, Amsterdam!

This is your chance to win a free Diamond pass worth €2395 to EyeforTravel's Online Marketing & Social Media in Travel Summit!  The pass includes full access to the 2 day conference along with a copy of EyeforTravel's newly released Social Media & Mobile in Travel 2011 report (worth €1140). 

The event will take place in Amsterdam, 10-11 October and sees leading travel brands convene for 2 days of learning, networking and brainstorming of ideas.  Speakers include KLM, Deutsche Bahn, IHG, Melia Hotels, Fairmont Raffles, Google, Starwood, Hilton, LivingSocial, Design Hotels and many more. 

How do you win this amazing prize?  Simply tweet what your favourite social media in travel*campaign has been and why.  For example, was it KLM's 'surprise gift' campaign?  Lufthansa's 'MySkyStatus'?  Or maybe The Roger Smith hotel's innovative use of social media to fill hotel rooms?

All tweets must include the event hashtag #smtravel11 in order to be entered into the competition.   Tweets must be no longer than 140 characters.  The competition closes Friday 5th August at midday GMT.   The winner will be selected at random and announced on this blog in the afternoon of Friday 5th August.

What should you do now?  Make sure you follow @eyefortravel to hear if you've won and then get tweeting!  (Don't forget to include the event hashtag)

Good luck! 

The EyeforTravel Team

* By travel we refer to airline, hotel, other accommodation provider, train, car hire, cruise, OTA, GDS, resort, theme park, destination organisation, tourist board, national park

Are We Seeing A Shift Away From PPC in Favour of Social Media?

(By Tim Gunstone)

Search has dominated travel marketing for years now.  In a recent EyeforTravel survey (Eyefortravel’s Travel Distribution & Marketing Barometer), 62% of respondents had seen an increase in organic search listings in the last 3 months (Q2, 2011). However the study went on to find that 50% of airlines, 33% of hotels and 39% of tour operators surveyed plan to decrease their spend on paid search engine listings in the next quarter.

Where will their spend being going instead?  65% of the travel marketers surveyed are planning to increase their spend social media. 

Groupon has had a hard time in the travel press but as one very educated travel marketer whispered to me whilst Groupon was taking at our Distribution Summit it’s the traffic not the amount you sell that makes social commerce campaigns work.  Apparently, a recent campaign drove so much traffic to his site that was far more targeted and profitable than through PPC ever did. Long ago lost faith in Google’s claim to be honest information broker and are fed up with being driven to spending more and more on PPC.

The Google attitude that only a monopoly can enjoy may soon change!

Practice What You Preach- Twitter Competition for #eftamerica- The Results!

We've had some outstanding entries into our "practice what you preach" Twitter competition. We asked our followers to tweet for a free silver pass to The Travel Distribution Summit North America using quotes and stories associated with the "only in vegas" theme....

With a TERRIBLY strict judging panel (uh-hum, namedly myself, Marco and various other members of the EyeforTravel squad) we have now made a list of our very favourite tweets. Thanks to all who entered, and please see below for the announcement of our WINNER! 

The finalists:

@CravenTravels Gambling was invented as a tax on people who are bad at mathematics. Only in Vegas #eftamerica

@MMcCreesh  Only in Vegas will you find a storm trooper and Darth hanging out on the street corner - http://t.co/ev6v6N5 - #eftamerica

@MMcCreesh Only in Vegas does the hotel #Bellagio have more rooms than the number of residents in a town that shares its name - #eftamerica #tourism

@HHotelConsult Only in #Vegas are there guests who literally believe they're in Paris, New York & Venice, all in 1 day. #eftamerica #Beauregard #Simulacram

@jgabbott "Las Vegas: all the amenities of modern society in a habitat unfit to grow a tomato" #eftamerica

@AreMorch #eftamerica Only in Vegas - What Happens In Vegas now gets viral on Twitter - wonder if I can multiply wins on slot machine with retweets?

Now for the first drumroll please....

Our runner up post has to go to @MmcCreesh for this one- it might be a re-tweet but purely for finding it, we thought it deserved some airplay:

@MMcCreesh Only in Vegas! - #eftamerica RT @jennmc: ive decided im going to vegas and getting married.. cyah y’all in a week kay bye

Second drumroll please....

So that means that our winner of the 2011 #eftamerica tweet competition is..... @CravenTravels, because this aptly sums up EVERYTHING about Vegas. We're looking forward to seeing you there, contact rosie@eyefortravel.com to firm up your free silver pass!!

The winning tweet: @CravenTravels Only in Vegas... does money really talk...it says, "Goodbye..." #eftamerica