The Great Travel Site Showdown - Michigan vs. Virginia

After a thrilling (well, as thrilling as you can get online) semi-finals showdown which saw over 4,400 votes and a last-minute comeback via a 'viral' campaign from Virginia, the finals are set.

Michigan (George's Army) Vs. Virginia (The Lovers)

Congrats to our 3rd place, Illinois, and 4th place, Oregon, finishers.

We will give everyone in Michigan and Virginia a break over the weekend and start up the finals next Tuesday. Which will officially and finally declare one of these two sites as the undisputed, greatest DMO travel site ever!

Too much hype? Nah, just right.

The Great Travel Site Showdown - Final Four

A quick reminder that the polls are currently open, for the next couple of days, for the Great Travel Site Showdown.

Currently, Michigan and Virginia are in the lead, but both Oregon and Illinois have time to close the gap.

Before we forget, thanks to everyone who participated in the Great Travel Site Showdown. We hope you have enjoyed the friendly competition as much as we have.

Follow the Travel 2.0 Blog on twitter

For all of those readers currently addicted to twitter, you can now follow the Travel 2.0 blog on the 'micro-blogging' service. Just go to our twitter page...

http://twitter.com/travel2dot0

...and follow all of our posts to the Travel 2.0 blog, plus any other random thoughts we might have.

All of the posts and articles on the Travel 2.0 blog will be posted on our twitter page, so you won't miss a thing.

Thank You To Our Readers

Every once and a while, Mo and I feel like you, the reader, is entitled to an update about the Travel 2.0 blog. How many people are reading it, who else is listening to our crazy demands, etc, etc. Not to mention offer a huge thank you to everyone who does read the blog.

So, here are the numbers:

616 readers of the Travel 2.0 blog.
524 read via email.
92 via RSS.

An average of 250 readers are considered 'daily' or as we like to say, 'obsessed' readers.

Plus, we have 1,802 members in the Travel 2.0 Group on LinkedIn.

Not too bad if we don't say so ourselves.

So, to all 616 of you, thanks for reading. Mo and I amazed and humbled on a daily basis by the following of the Travel 2.0 blog.

The Great Travel Site Showdown

Voting for the final 8 of the Great Travel Site Showdown finished last Friday with Michigan, Oregon, Virginia and Illinois all moving one step closer to be named the greatest travel website of all-time! Or at least the winner of this poll.

Voting and match-ups for the final group will start this Thursday.

That should give everyone plenty of time to get the word out, email friends, bribe public officials, etc, etc.

Thanks again to all who have voted so far, and good luck to our final competitors.

The Great Travel Site Showdown - Semifinals Update

As many of you know, the blog, and more specifically the Blogger / Google Poll feature, have been experiencing some voting issues for the Great Travel Site Showdown.

So, to be as fair as possible in this semi-official poll, we will reopen the voting for the semifinals starting today. The polls will be new, meaning the original votes will not show in the tally, however, we will simply add a (+ whatever) next to the state currently in the lead.

Voting will be open until Friday. Hopefully it will work correctly this time.

Glad I don't own any stock in Google. Oh, wait, no I am not.

The Great Travel Site Showdown - Semifinals Begin Tomorrow

Well, the semifinals of the Great Travel Site Showdown are set and voting begins tomorrow on the Travel 2.0 blog. Our final 8 is quite a varied group, spanning the entire country and quite a few website design styles. But, there can only be one winner.

Here is a preview of the match-ups:

Ohio vs. Michigan
North Carolina vs. Oregon
Hawaii vs. Virginia
New Hampshire vs. Illinois

All pairings will be available for voting tomorrow (Wednesday). Good luck all!

(Author's Note: For all of those whose state is already eliminated or are just bored with the Showdown, stay tuned for our next poll: 'The Top 20 Most Annoying Blog Polls of All Time!' We guarantee you'll be annoyed with it.)

The Great Travel Site Showdown - Round 2

Okay, a day late...sorry, we got busy yesterday with our other jobs. Anywho, in the first section of Round 2 Michigan, Oregon, Ohio and North Carolina all advanced to the semi-finals.

Today, we start the later half of Round 2 with the following match-ups:

Louisiana vs. New Hampshire
Florida vs. Virginia
Hawaii vs. Arizona
Illinois vs. Iowa

Why do I get the feeling that the Florida v. Virginia match-up will result in a lot of votes, some bad blood and a possible boycott of ESTO by Virginia?

And watch out Iowa, Illinois has been ready for this day since 1818.

Voting is live on the Travel 2.0 blog starting today. (Reading via email or RSS, visit the blog to vote)

Good luck all!

Top 5: Our Favorite Posts

Since the Travel 2.0 blog just celebrated our one year anniversary, we figured a quick look back...for all you new readers...at some of our favorite posts, thoughts and stories was in order.

So, in no particular order, here are 5 posts that you should read.

...and for those of you who skipped out early that one Friday like 7 months ago, you should read these too.

Top 5:

1. Word of the Week - The Long Tail
2. When Fewer Clicks Are A Good Thing
3. Travel Trends - .travel, JetBlue, Privacy
4. Bloggers? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Bloggers!
5. Who's Been Clicking On My Banner?

Ah, so many great posts...hard to pick just 5.

Enjoy!

The Great Travel Site Showdown - Round 2

After an exciting opening round of competition, we have reached Round 2.

The winners from our opening round were:

Minnesota
Virginia
Hawaii
Florida
Iowa
Michigan
Montana
Ohio
North Carolina
Wisconsin
Arizona
Louisiana
Illinois

And the 3 top, second-place states:

Tennessee - 634
New Hampshire - 436
Oregon - 233

Round 2

So, let's get to the match-ups for Round 2, again, randomly paired with help from our friends at random.org. The second round will be one on one contests, with four groups available for voting each week.

Thursday, June 5th:

Wisconsin vs. Michigan
Montana vs. Oregon
Minnesota vs. Ohio
North Carolina vs. Tennessee

Thursday, June 12th:

Louisiana vs. New Hampshire
Florida vs. Virginia
Hawaii vs. Arizona
Illinois vs. Iowa

(Reading this post via email or RSS, visit the Travel 2.0 blog to vote.)

As you can see we have some intriguing match-ups for Round 2, with some traditional state rivalries that are sure to generate some interest.

Link To / Email

For your emailing / linking convenience, send the link below to your office, friends, cousins, etc. to ensure total domination over your smaller rivals:

http://traveltrendreport.blogspot.com/

The Great Travel Site Showdown Review

Miss a round of the showdown? Catch up with all of the voting on the Travel 2.0 blog.

Good luck all.

The Great Travel Site Showdown - Groups 11, 12 and 13

Well, we are in the home stretch of Round 1 with only 3 groups left. Meanwhile, North Carolina and Wisconsin advanced to the second round with convincing wins in Groups 9 and 10 respectively.

Let's talk a look at the lineup for Groups 11, 12 and 13:

Group 11
41. Arizona
42. Idaho
43. Nevada
44. West Virginia

Group 12
45. Louisiana
46. Connecticut
47. Wyoming
48. Texas

Group 13
49. Massachusetts
50. New Hampshire
51. Illinois
52. Colorado

The voting closes for these final 3 groups next Tuesday. Good luck all!

Miss a round? Catch up on the Travel 2.0 blog.

Happy Birthday Travel 2.0!

Happy Birthday to us! We are celebrating a bit early, our actual birthday is on Saturday...so you know it will be a long weekend of partying! And a holiday on Monday, sweet.

1 year, 250+ posts (thoughts, trends and rants), 300+ daily readers and 2 tired writers later, Travel 2.0 is officially 1 year old.

As always thanks to all of our readers and contributors. We are proud to author this blog as well as continue to inform our industry of the latest interactive / travel trends. The response from our readers and the travel community has been tremendous and we look forward to another year of telling you what to do.

Mo and Troy

The Great Travel Site Showdown Returns!

Okay, 2 trips to the hospital, 100+ hours of sick time and one less appendix later, we can finally get the showdown back on track.

A quick recap, Michigan won Group 6, Montana won Group 7 and Ohio won Group 8. Could we see an Ohio v. Michigan match-up in the second round? Better get your team ready George!

So far we have Minnesota, Virginia, Hawaii, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Montana and Ohio already in the second round.

Today, Groups 9 and 10:

Group 9
33. North Carolina
34. Nebraska
35. New York
36. New Mexico

Group 10
37. Rhode Island
38. Wisconsin
39. Missouri
40. South Dakota

Voting is available on the Travel 2.0 blog and open until Monday.

The Great Travel Site Showdown Returns with Groups 6, 7 & 8

You have one unscheduled ER visit for a quick appendectomy or, as I am thinking about it, my new diet, and the entire Travel Site Showdown quickly gets out of hand.

No worries on the ER visit, everything went well.

Anyway, onto to the showdown.

In Group 4, Florida outlasted Tennessee by a slim margin...recounts are still underway...in what was a true, two-state showdown for the group. A huge performance by both states, which sets the vote tally bar pretty high. However, don't overlook Delaware and Maryland, two states who were lost in the shuffle of this group, but who have pretty solid sites.

Group 5 produced what many would consider our first upset of the showdown as Iowa beat Puerto Rico and Pennsylvania. Nice showing Iowa.

Since we have fallen a bit behind, we will start voting for Groups 6, 7 & 8 today, with voting concluding next Tuesday.

Group 6
21. Vermont
22. South Carolina
23. Georgia
24. Michigan

Group 7
25. Utah
26. Oklahoma
27. Kentucky
28. Montana

Group 8
29. Indiana
30. Arkansas
31. Kansas
32. Ohio

Good luck all.

The Great Travel Site Showdown - Group 5

On to Group 5. Could we see our first upset of the Showdown in Group 5?

Group 5
17. Pennsylvania
18. Mississippi
19. Iowa
20. Puerto Rico

Voting is available on the Travel 2.0 blog and open until Saturday.

Virginia Takes Group 2, Hawaii Wins Group 3 and Group 4 Voting Opens (a little late)

Well, Group 2 was quite a battle. Back and forth for the first few days, the lovers of Virginia finally overtook Oregon in the final tally. A true heavyweight fight. And I think it is safe to say we will probably see more of Oregon in Round 2 as one of our second-place finishers.

In Group 3, Hawaii quietly beat out Alabama and New Jersey.

Finally, voting for Group 4 is officially open. Another potentially huge match-up, Florida and Tennessee look to be the early favorites...of course, I am sure there is no way Visit Florida or the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development could get close to the vote total we saw from Oregon and Virginia. And don't count out Delaware, a small state with a big website.

Prove me wrong Group 4.

Group 4 (Group of Death)
13. Tennessee
14. Florida
15. Delaware
16. Maryland

Voting is available on the Travel 2.0 blog and open until Friday.

Remember to tell us why you voted in the comments section.

No TravelCom For You!

As many of you know, neither Mo or I were able to make it to TravelCom this year...however both Travel Oregon and the Arizona Office of Tourism are well represented by Ashley Moran and Casey Ambrose respectively...so we want to hear about the experience from our readers.

What did you think of the conference?

How many times did you hear the word Web 2.0?

Did you learn anything new?

What did you feel was missing from the conference?

Are you sick of mobile yet?

How was the bar?

Is Chicago really that windy?

Tell us your thoughts in the comments field, we would love to hear from you.

Oh and be sure to tell everyone you see from TIA that you think Honolulu would be the perfect location for TravelCom in '09.

Manifest Destiny…Conquering Oregon via the Oregon Governor’s Conference on Tourism

First and foremost, a very big 'thank you' to my fantastic hosts at Travel Oregon. The staff and associates are a credit to the leadership and hospitality of the industry, which not only resonates within the Travel Oregon team, but the entire travel industry in Oregon.

Let’s get to the recap:

Weather:
Being a true son of Florida, I love the rain. But, thanks to Todd, the rain held off (at least as far as I could see) until yesterday (Tuesday) morning. Even with the weather being cloudy and cool, it was great. But, I do love cold weather…go figure.

Portland:
First time to Portland, but alas not enough time to explore the city. However, what I saw was great…Columbia River, green trees (everywhere), the Pearl District, some more green, PDX and more green. A charismatic city and certainly a location for a future, non-business trip.

Speakers:
Between preparing for my own portion of the panel presentation, I was lucky enough to hear several great speakers.

‘New Media Strategist’ Josh Hallett, who also spoke during ESTO in Phoenix, presented a thorough, yet easily digestible discussion on new / interactive media. I enjoy Josh’s presentation style which uses common language (no words over 4 syllables) and actual examples to introduce the audience, as well as provide a solid overview, to the subject of new media.

In addition to myself and Mo, we were fortunate to be joined by Paul Wille on our web analytics panel. After about 30 seconds of speaking with Paul prior to the panel I knew he got it…not to mention agreed with me. Just like Josh, Paul has a clear presentation style that seemed to be well received with our audience. He also cited a social media project with a Hawaiian hotel which would make a great case study for the Travel 2.0 blog. Once he gets a free minute, I will have him pen that post.

Steve Pinetti from Kimpton Hotel Group provided some fascinating insights into the enormous challenge of instituting and maintaining a true sustainable program within the travel industry. While Steve had some great stories, particularly the tale of converting the housekeeping staff to green cleaning products…which took 12 – 15 months and to which the housekeeping staff said, ‘if it does not foam, it is not working’…the largest take-away for me was that adopting a sustainable program for your organization is an endless, but rewarding, process. As Steve said, it is more that simply placing a sign in the break room, it is a complete, life-long, company-wide, vendor-wide, overall commitment to protecting the beauty and resources we promote to consumers.

And with more and more consumers actively searching out these green travel organizations, the importance of adopting an eco-friendly mindset has the very real possibility of being a choice you adopt and embrace or the reason you went out of business.

Speaking of green, Jonathan Tourtellot, Director of the National Geographic Center for Sustainable Destinations, presented on the topic of geotourism, which seemed to be very well received by the crowd. After the pleasure of enjoying dinner at Andina with Jonathan, I can say first-hand that his knowledge and experience with the natural world (or just the world in general) is impressive.

Finally, the conference concluded with an active presentation from Paul Wesselmann. Usually most conferences end on a quiet note and most people skip the last 1 or 2 presenters, but that was not the case for Paul's presentation. Hard to describe via the written word, but it was thought-provoking, entertaining and funny. If you are looking for a great final act, I would recommend Paul.

Engagement:
Circling back to an interactive topic, a lot of time was spent during our session discussing the meaning of engagement. Several members of the audience asked what numbers should they pay attention to...that certain programs (Omniture) produce too many metrics and they don't know which ones are important...and if they should worry about page views.

As we said during the panel, engagement is different for each organization. Personally, I find it fascinating that someone would ask me what numbers to track. My response would be, what numbers are important to you? Are you booking hotel rooms or giving away maps? Whatever your primary website objective is, that is your primary engagement metric. Now, you can of course add additional metrics to that formula, but it should all center on a few key metrics.

Let's take unique visitors as an example. You receive 10,000 unique visitors a month. Some percentage of those 10,000 are on your site for less than 10 seconds...and the number (bounce rate) is probably higher than you think...but let's say that number is 40%. So, right off the top, 4,000 visitors to your site spent less than 10 seconds there. Unless you have a remarkably brief message, no one is getting any benefit out of your site in 10 seconds. So why would you report to your superiors, peers, counterparts, etc. that you received 10,000 unique visitors...almost half of them did not do anything!

Why would you report that number? Report on a number than actually means something...email sign-ups, brochures ordered, rooms booked, etc, etc.

Now, that is not to say you can ignore a number like visitation, but put it in perspective with some sort of an engagement metric.

Secondly, don't send raw reports from your analytics tool to your staff or superiors. I am sure they are very intelligent people, but they don't have the context or perspective that you do...nor do they care about all those numbers. If you have to send out a monthly report, sit down with your team and discuss which numbers would be most beneficial to see...hopefully an engagement number...and send those. Then, if they want to know the visitation per minute for last month, you can send that to them separately.

New Media:
If you read our Random Thoughts post from earlier in the week you have an idea of how this topic was discussed at the conference, but it is worth repeating.

You do not and should not do everything that is out there!

Just because someone else is doing it, does not mean you should!

Stop launching 'Web 2.0' projects without (A) planning, (B) goals and (C) determining if your audience is right for it!

There, 2 or 3 Web 2.0 conferences summarized in a few sentences.

Final Score:
A

Great conference, great speakers (including yours truly and Mo, thank you) and a great location. If you are planning a tourism conference in the near future, I would highly recommend any of the speakers we mentioned above (including us!), I am sure they would be a strong addition and provide valuable insight to your constituents.

Comments:
If you were at the conference, let us know your thoughts and how we did. Always open to more questions and suggestions!

The Great Travel Site Showdown - Group 3

After the 'Battle of Columbia' between our friends at Oregon and Virginia (700+ votes and counting), we move onto Group 3, which features more strong contenders for the title, including the islanders from Hawaii.

Group 3
9. Hawaii
10. Alabama
11. New Jersey
12. North Dakota

Voting is available at the Travel 2.0 blog and open until Saturday.

And remember to tell us why you voted in the comments section.

Minnesota Takes Group 1

The race for Group 1 finished a little tighter than originally thought with Minnesota taking the win over a tight battle for second among Maine, California and D.C. Minnesota now moves onto Round 2.

Group 1
1. Maine - 23%
2. Minnesota - 33%
3. California - 22%
4. District of Columbia - 20%

Original poll results available in the right column of the blog.