I had a really great conversation with Barbara Vega, founder of I Heart BackPackers, a tour operator who specializes in backpacking tours all over the World.  During our talk, Barbara wanted to know if I had any suggestions on how to get started with social media and how to improve what she was already doing.  This got me thinking that the best thing I could probably do is put together my top 5 list of things to do to get started with Social...

In my recent distribution and supply chain collaboration sessions at the Adventure Travel World Summit, I had an opportunity to sit down and discuss aspects of distribution with adventure travel operators and outfitters.  I was joined on the panel by a number of key players in the adventure distribution space including James O’Leonard  (Founder & CEO, PEAK 15 Systems), Michael Valkevich (Director, Global Customers IT ...

The Adventure Travel World Summit is on October 19-22, 2009 in historic Quebec City.  I’ll be attending this year as a speaker focusing on Social media and distribution systems for the adventure segment.  I am really excited about being part of the conference this year because it is really well executed and, from what I have heard, one of the best conferences to attend if you are an adventure travel operator.  Although I am not an...

Packaged goods in traditional retail have a very different meaning to packaged goods in the travel space.  In retail, a packaged product is a product that is sold in a “package”, ie. a box or a blister pack (literally packaged).  In travel, a packaged product is one that is a combination of two separate products packaged together, for example a hotel room and a concert ticket.  Then there is dynamic packaging, the concept of being...

Joe Buhler sent me a link to a New York Times article titled “Worst Part of a Trip May be Booking It“.  The article describes how frustrating the on-line booking experience can be for many consumers and how far behind the travel industry seems to be in comparison to other e-commerce sectors.  We continued the conversation along with William Bakker from Tourism BC about what needs to be done to improve the on-line booking...