Media and PR

"Parts Unknown" is back and with two Emmys in its pocket. Season two's strong start in a challenging location highlights all the reasons that it stands out among travel and news TV: It uses a meal as the entry point to a deeper honest conversation about culture, politics, and people.

Parts Unknown takes an honest and holistic look at the world and at travel, considering the impact politics, history, and location have on a destination. It takes strong personality, vision, and team work to pull off the feat in today's media environment and ZPZ continues to raise the standards of production, travel focused or not.

Expect Google Glass to crop up in more tourism marketing campaigns and as a reward of social sweepstakes. It makes a destination look tech-savvy, puts played-out attractions in a new light, and attracts potential visitors that a destination might otherwise miss.

As far as its print strategy, National Geographic is such an iconic brand that it may be a special case. Yes, print definitely has a role, especially for guidebooks when roaming charges would otherwise come into play, but experiential writing, if not photography, can be savored just as nicely on tablets.

Some hotels see TripAdvisor as an adversary, and that's especially true of those that felt the wrath of negative reviews. In recent years, TripAdvisor has worked closer with hotels, or perhaps hotels have just come to accept founder Steve Kaufer's underlying message to the industry: "Adapt or die."

Carnival is evidently enlisting its friends in the media for its recovery tour, but it knows this is going to take a long time anyway.

Facebook, Twitter, and other social sources are now looked upon as legit travel information sources, while TripAdvisor lords over us all.

The Interior Department's first smart move was leveraging its own photo resources to build a social presence. It's now engaging the public on important department issues while generating excitement about the parks that were once at risk of being forgotten.

Despite all of the ignorance he sees, the Hotel Fixer thinks the U.S. hotel industry is in fairly good shape as long as educational resources are directed at "teaching the craft of hospitality and service." But, don't let hotel consultants rob you blind.