High Margin = Poor End User Experience November 13, 2010
Posted by Jussi Huotari in : business,travel , 1 comment so far
Tripadvisor really knows how to monetize travel. And according to a post on Techcrunch: “It’s more or less the worst experience in the world for an end user.”
The worst end user experience somehow generates spectacular growth: Tripadvisor’s revenue for Q3/2010 grew by 40% from 2009 (.pdf). It means their revenue for 2010 will be around $495 million with margins “well north of 50%”.
$250 million yearly profit!? And what does it mean to the 40 million unique monthly visitors? According to TC:
You’re greeted at the top by a banner ad. Below that, you get 10 sponsored links. To the right of that, affiliate links. Below that, hundreds more affiliate links. And more banner ads. There is not a single piece of actual content on this page. It’s one giant ad. And there are 76 pages of this.
Right. 
Here’s their page that is the 1st hit on Google: Paris Vacation. In all fairness: it’s not Tripadvisor’s main page for Paris. The main page is better, but I still prefer Tripsay’s version of showing information about Paris, France.
Social Media in Russia November 1, 2010
Posted by Jussi Huotari in : business,travel , add a commentRussia is big in social media. According to Natalya Koroleva from Редкая марка (a marketing agency in Moscow):
Russia ranks first in the world in social networks involvement
Huh? 1st? Don’t know if that can be true. But after Natalya’s presentation I’m convinced that the russian Internet or Runet is worth a closer look. It’s a parallel universe with its own Facebook, LinkedIn and Youtube clones (Vkontakte.ru, Moikrug.ru and Rutube.ru, respectively). The localized versions are typically much more attractive for the 50M russian Internet users than their western counterparts. приятно познокомиться!
In general, the rules for marketing and PR sounded the same than what we’ve learned in the States and Canada: Be personal and interesting, and that achieving results require long term planning. Nothing new.
Natalya showed us some interesting travel PR cases. My favorites were the Insipired by Iceland campaign because the video soundtrack is by Emiliana Torrini, and the Keep Exploring campaign by Canadian Tourism Commission. The Keep Exploring campaign launched interactive “Twitter Walls” displaying tweets about Canada travel. Looks interesting.
