eTravel Project

If you are responsible for a country or destination brand, read on.

As cheap air travel and the package tour (as well as the devaluation of the Spanish Peseta and the abolition of currency controls in the UK) helped jump start international travel in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, the world was still a fairly predictable place and countries were, on the whole inhabited mainly by citizens of that country and not by the multicultural citizens living in most cities today.

Moreover, due to the social and economic structure of Western countries, consumers were only just beginning to have disposable income that allowed them to experience the concept of leisure time.

At the same time, mass media was becoming increasingly influential as consumers purchased more and more TVs and radios.

So, with more disposable income, more leisure time and the establishment of commercial television, it was now possible to reach large swathes of a population reasonably quickly and relatively inexpensively.

In this environment countries put their faith in creativity to build brands, hoping that an exotic image, tagline or promotion would resonate with prospects and increase visitor arrivals.

And generally, because of the cultural and social predictability of countries, the same message could be used to communicate with everyone.

Moreover, with few conduits to increasingly wealthy consumers who had more disposable income than ever before and with limited competition in the market place, this type of creative driven branding often raised the profile of countries enough to attract visitors.

Countries and destinations such as Spain, the UK, Kenya, Florida, Greece, The Algarve, Singapore and Italy as well as many other destinations used this approach. And in this mass market economy, mass media – TV, Print, Outdoor, with its huge reach, was the logical vehicle to enhance the impact of creative-driven branding with reach and repetition.

Read more at brandconsultantasia.com

When freedom of speech trumps politically correctness, common sense rests in peace. There is no translation for cheese-steak in Italian, does it translate differently in any other language? Nobody would think to order a cheese-steak sandwich calling it in any other way. Why does Geno’s Steaks in Philadelphia feel the need to state this? R.I.P. Joey Vento (he aimed the sign at the Mexicans in the neighborhood).

PRESS 1 FOR ENGLISH
PRESS 2 FOR DEPORTATION

THIS IS AMERICA

WHEN ORDERING, PLEASE SPEAK ENGLISH

Down below

I AM MAD AS HELL
I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK

From what, whom? Is your country only yours?

Sorry, I was not aware that the controversy already happened in 2006. To have the sign still there is freedom of speech – I guess…

Probably yes. Look at this graph from eMarketer below.

Apps aren’t always the answer to engaging with consumers on mobile devices—especially when it comes to m-commerce. According to research from rich media company Zmags, very few Americans prefer to use mobile apps for shopping activities. Instead, consumers strongly prefer purchasing through web and mobile browsers.

For more information, please visit www.emarketer.com

Four Seasons is giving us a lesson in luxury travel and branding. It is not the time to sit and wait to see what the new trends are. If you are in the luxury field, you have to be  on top of everything. You cannot afford to be a follower anymore, you need to have the courage to take risks and be a leader and a trendsetter. Your clients expect that you exceed expectations ALWAYS and social media is not an inconvenience. If embraced, it can truly help your team and product.

Download the report below.

Everybody is talking so highly about KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and their marketing initiatives that I wanted to test them in my last flight to Europe. I was at the Amsterdam Airport Schiphol very early in the morning and checked in from my Android and mentioned @KLM. Both the airport and KLM were prompt to welcome me to Holland. On my way back to New York JFK, I pretty much did the same thing when I was in Amsterdam. By the way, I forgot to mentioned that I used the awesome service of 1-hour free Wi-Fi at the Amsterdam Airport Schiphol from my Android and my iPad, which kept quite some good company in my 5-hour layover.

Photo credits - KLM

The next day I checked my frequent miles on my Alitalia MilleMiglia account and the flight New York JFK – Amsterdam did not collect any mile. About 3,600 miles were missing: weird! I contacted Alitalia by phone and they gave me an email address to send my request to, no reply. I contacted Alitalia via Twitter, no reply.

I bought the ticket at www.klm.com, but the flight from New York to Amsterdam was operated by Delta. I am pretty sure that Delta messed up at the check-in. I had to tell them that the code of their Sky Team partner airline is AZ several times.

So I decided to tweet @KLM and they replied almost right away with courtesy and professionalism asking for my Flying Blue number to see if they could add my missing miles. At the end, they realized they could do little: since I am a MilleMiglia member, only Alitalia can solve this issue. At that point, I did not care much anymore. They were nice and gave me an answer almost instantaneously. In the meantime, I had also faxed Alitalia with my e-ticket and MilleMiglia  number, but still no reply from Alitalia.

Only a few days later, Alitalia calls me and asks for my boarding pass: without boarding pass, no miles. Guess what? I did not keep my boarding pass. Lesson learned: we still need to keep our boarding pass in our digital era for Alitalia , even if we can do online check-in. @KLM delivered a great customer experience though!