Media and PR

The travel industry was among the earliest pioneers of online commerce. As Cyber Monday grows in importance for online retailers, it's only natural that more travel marketers are looking to capitalize on all the deal-making.

Young people aren’t one monolithic group: an 18-year-old is very different from a 34-year-old. The travel industry needs to act smarter and start thinking in subsets.

For now, Airbnb Trips is mostly a threat to the tours and activities sector. But it's not much of a stretch to imagine the service evolving into a full-blown online travel agency in the near future.

Search advertising continues to dominate travel ad budgets because it's extremely effective at converting shoppers into buyers. But new research on travelers' "path to purchase" suggests travel marketers should question this assumption, finding that earlier stages of the booking process may be equally influential.

"Like" buttons could be the solution for hotels, airlines, and other types of travel companies eager to gather guest feedback during the trip. Consumers are already accustomed to the idea, so it is definitely worth further testing.

Google may not be on the road toward becoming an online travel agency, but the search engine is inserting itself more aggressively in the travel research and hotel-shopping process.

Whether we're discussing Instagram or conversational "chat bots," more travel brands seem to be experimenting with ways to make online commerce more social. The question is, do consumers want that too?

Yelp struggled outside North America, and is giving up on developing its business abroad. Competing against business listings from companies like Google and TripAdvisor has taken its toll on the company.

Cross-device marketing remains a complicated, but necessary, task for today's travel marketers. Thankfully, there are more tools and better methods available to do it than ever before.

When it comes to reaching consumers, travel agencies don't have the resources to fight against travel providers and online booking titans. They need to be more creative with the tools they do have, and many are experimenting on social media and other digital channels.