Wednesday 20 September 2006 by Edward.

Apparently realizing the major changes taking place in tourism and in the tourist experience, national newpaper USA Today has relaunched its travel website. Readers will get travel news, planning and booking tools, expert advice — the total tourist experience, before, during and after the trip.

The USA Today website is content rich. It offers, for example:

Information on destinations
A Flight Centre (flight tracker, flight delay map, WiFi airports, and more)
Travel News
Travel and destination deals
Travel Columns

Posted in Website/Event, AFTER the visit, DURING the visit, BEFORE the visit | No Comments »

Tuesday 19 September 2006 by Edward.

Selected recent internet partnering in tourism: Tourism Partnerships 2.0
Maryland, USA, Office of Tourism contracts Travelocity to handle bookings.

Spainexperience accesses Worldspan’s global distribution and e-pricing system.

Expedia’s platform and network supports eLong’s Chinese outbound travel bookings

Alitalia airline joins Worldspan to speed e-ticket connections.

Jet Airways signs interline e-ticketing agreement with KLM via GDS

Rule 2 “The Rule of Partnerships” in the book ‘The 25 Immutable Rules of Successful Tourism’ by Roger A. Brooks and Maury Forman states that ‘Relationships require more than one person.’ The most important rule in creating a successful tourism strategy is to establish partnerships writes Brooks. One the internet, these partnerships can leverage resources for all concerned.

Posted in Report/Book, AFTER the visit, DURING the visit, BEFORE the visit | 2 Comments »

Monday 18 September 2006 by Edward.

Free WiFi (wireless) internet access is spreading like, well wildfire. Highway restrooms in the USA are installing free WiFi to aid the weary or lost traveller. Bustops are connecting the commuting traveller to the web. And now towns are beginning to offer free, broad area WiFi internet access.

Here is a selection of free, city-wide or distributed WiFi installations I encountered on the web over the past few days:

Forest Grove, Oregon, USA

Springfield, Illinois, USA

Portsmouth, Virginia, USA (waterfront area)

39 Iowa highway rest stops

Toronto, Canada, downtown core

Posted in BPL/WiFi, DURING the visit | 1 Comment »

Tuesday 12 September 2006 by Edward.

You’re in charge of a hike in the woods, a coastal whale watch tour, or a biking expedition and you want to retrace your path taken. Perhaps you’d like to send the route travelled to members of your party, via the internet. New thumb-drive sized GPS tracking devices are entering the market that you can take on your travels to record your every movement.

SkyTRX is one such GPS tracker. This unit records every second once it receives its two AAA batteries — recording for 28-42 hours depending on the battery type used, and able to store 100 hours of data. It is compatible with Google Earth and Google Maps. Cost is about US$300.00

I had earlier posted notes about the GPS thumb-drive loggers GPS-CS1, by Sony, and the Trackstick.

Posted in Gadget/Idea/Webtool, GPS, AFTER the visit, DURING the visit | 1 Comment »

Sunday 3 September 2006 by Edward.

Washington State joins Iowa, Utah, Michigan and Texas, among others, to provide wireless internet connection at its highway rest stops, reports Ars Technica. Washington provides free internet access to the Department of Transportation website, to travel sites and to state tourism sites. Other websites and checking of email cost $1.99/20min or $3.99/day. Towns such as Forest Grove, Oregon, are also getting in on the act by providing free internet connections to lure the tourist.

For the tourist this service is invaluable. One can check on available accommodations and tourist destinations in the area and on road conditions during the winter.

Roger A. Brooks Rule 4 “The Rule of Necessity” tells us that ‘Toilets attract more than flies.’ People need restrooms. Clean, readily-available restrooms translate into visitor spending in the area, writes Brooks. Make them publicly available and visitors are likely to stay awhile, and spend money in the community. Internet availability, through WiFi locations, can also translate into visitor spending in the community. Combine the two, restrooms and WiFi hot spots, and you have a recipe for success.

Posted in Gadget/Idea/Webtool, DURING the visit | No Comments »

Sunday 27 August 2006 by Edward.

Unfamiliarity with an area can lead you into a traffic quagmire. Web tools are emerging to help you avoid a potential nightmare.

TRAFFIC CAMS

Typical of many traffic cams around the world is the I-264 @ NSU between Ballentine and Brambleton traffic cam in Norfolk, Virginia, accessed via the WVEC webcam map. One navigates each webcam to see what traffic is like.

GOOGLE TRAFFIC CAMS

Quebec traffic can be viewed very efficiently via Google Earth Traffic Cams and Google Maps Traffic Cams. Multiple images are shown simultaneously, along with warning icons of different colours. I expect to see sites like this to grow in number.

INTERACTIVE TRAFFIC MAPS

Less efficient to navigate visually, but quite detailed is the UK traffic map. Coloured dots show location of traffic problems, and the severity of the problem.

I also anticipate traffic cam mashups tied to your GPS location in future.

Roger A. Brooks Rule 6 “The Rule of Wayfinding” suggests that ‘Real men don’t ask for directions.’ For tourists, good signage can lead the way to a great time. Sometimes , however, even these great signs don’t help if you encounter a traffic jam. That’s where online traffic signs (traffic webcams) can lead the way out and around — so you can still have a great time.

Posted in Webcam, DURING the visit | No Comments »

Saturday 26 August 2006 by Edward.

Evhead.com shares an Alexa ranking and his brief writeup of 30+ podcasting services. These include players such as: Libsyn, Odeo, Podomatic, PodcastPickle, Podshow, PodcastAlley, PodcastingNews, and Podcast.net.

Tourist podcasts come in several flavours: destination podcasts, podcast guides and tourism website podcasts.

Destination podcasts are those that relate to a site or event. Listen to a podcast from Tasmania, Australia, from Edinburgh, Scotland, or Galveston, Texas. Podcast guides are those audio-tours one can take while walking about, such as in Toronto, with CitySurf, in Dublin, Ireland, with iWalks, or in New York’s meat packing district with Soundwalk. Tourism website podcasts are those sites that provide regular (and irregular) podcasts on tourism topics, such as Doc Martin’s Travel Show Podcast, from Melbourne, Australia, Alan Lew’s Geography for Travelers, from Flagstaff, Arizona, and Nick and Andrea’s European iPod Traveller. A tourist podcast directory is shown at Podfeed.net.

Rule 16 “The Rule of Telling Stories”, in the book ‘The 25 Immutable Rules of Successful Tourism’ by Roger A. Brooks and Maury Forman, states that ‘Great stories make the campfire memorable’. Whether by word-of-mouth or via iPOD, the story sells the destination and unearths the nooks and crannies of the world. Great stories develop great bonds with the local community.

Posted in Blogs/Podcast/eInfo, DURING the visit, BEFORE the visit | 1 Comment »

Thursday 24 August 2006 by Edward.

Imagine counting steps, counting calories, watching time and listening to your portable radio — at the same time and all in the same unit. The Sony-Ericsson W710i comes with cell phone, pedometer, radio and digital camera. The unit can count your steps and measure distance and running/walking speed. Cost is US$270.00. for the 30Gb unit. It can store 7500 songs (MP3, WAV and WMA) and video (MPEG-4).

This would be a great gadget for the active tourist.

Posted in Gadget/Idea/Webtool, Multimedia, DURING the visit | No Comments »

Tuesday 22 August 2006 by Edward.

Whether you walk, hike, run, ski, scavenger hunt, or golf on your vacation, you may find that your hotel will hook you up with a GPS. Hampton Roads’ Daily Press reports that Hyatt, Four Seasons and Marriott hotels, among other hotels, give their guests tools to navigate and have fun.

Posted in GPS, DURING the visit | 1 Comment »

Saturday 19 August 2006 by Edward.

The UK Guardian Unlimited reports that “Saudi Arabia has lifted a ban on photography in public areas as part of an effort to attract more visitors.” Certain restrictions remain.

Meanwhile, Australia is starting to selectively ban public photography. The Herald Sun recently reports that tourists were asked by security to delete images taken with their cameras in Melbourne’s Yarra River retail and dining centre, a popular tourist destination. ABC southwest Victoria reports on a ban on Geelong camera club members from taking photos near the oil refinery. The Victorian Law Reform Commission is reviewing public-place photo bans and is inviting comments as part of their review.

Rule 21 “The Rule of ‘wow’ Photography”, in the book ‘The 25 Immutable Rules of Successful Tourism’ by Roger A. Brooks and Maury Forman, states that ‘Photos are worth a thousand nights’. Nothing sells tourism as well as photography. Enough said.

Posted in Multimedia, DURING the visit | 1 Comment »