SGTP E-News 5/10/06

Welcome To The New – And More

1. – Donnie’s Web (Thanks To Gloria and Dan Bohan)

2. Travel Industry Indicators – April 28, 2006

3. Federal Employees Can Prepay Their Conference Registrations

4. Web Site For Government Jobs

5. Internet Booking Study From TIA

6. Hotel Brands Lag On Overall Web Hits

7. E-Mail Back In The Media Mix

8. e Government Innovations: “Ask Louise!”

9. Use Data You Have To Improve Data You Get

10. Heads In The Sand: Ignoring E-Commerce

11. Union Official Strikes At Hoteliers

12. How To Build A Media Mix Model

SGTP’s EdCon’06

September 6-8

Register Today!

1. – Donnie’s Web

Welcome to our newly expanded and updated web site. We’re very grateful to SGTP founders Dan and Gloria Bohan who, when we went through the 2000 name change, immediately protected for our use: it now fully accesses all our web site information – public, and members only. Enjoy the experience. Thanks, Gloria and Dan.

Our next newsletter will detail all the updates and adds to SGTP’s web site. Enjoy the gusto of $28 billion in government travel.

2. Travel Industry Indicators

April 28, 2006

James V. Cammisa, Jr.

Travel Industry Analyst

Tel: (305) 868-3818

E-mail:

Summer travel opportunities are now the focus of our industry. Prospects appear good, but there are some uncertainties that could make it a somewhat different summer than last year.

Domestic trip volume for June/July/August should show an estimated increase of 2.5 percent. We project that the auto vacation gain (+2.8%) will outpace the smaller gain expected in air travel (+1.2%).

Slower volume growth, that we anticipate, are tied to two uncertainties that are now present. For the drive vacation market, it’s not really high gasoline prices but, more importantly, the possibility of spot shortages of gasoline. Our second concern is that higher summer airfares may impact the most price-sensitive sectors of the travel market.

Spot fuel shortages this summer could occur as a result of federally mandated requirements calling for ethanol to replace MTBE as a clean air additive to gasoline. While most all of the change-over will be completed in May, there will still be limited supplies of ethanol that have to be moved by rail or tanker truck to distribution terminals, where it is blended with gasoline before being shipped to retail gas stations. Since the source of most ethanol is in the Midwest, it is shipments to the East, West and to the Southwest that could be affected by logistical problems. As of this writing, it is not clear whether the government will grant regulatory waivers to ease the MTBE to ethanol transition.

Pricing replaces volume as the central theme for Summer 2006. As noted earlier, we anticipate travel price increases (+8.5%) that will be 21/2 times the national inflation rate of 3.4 percent. Domestic resort area hotel room rates in the first quarter were 7.0 percent above year ago, based on data from Smith Travel Research (STR). In Florida, California and Arizona, the increases all were 8.5 percent or above. Car rental operators will certainly look to pricing increases to make up for the loss of transaction increases.

Consumer spending is holding up well, in spite of worries that a retrenchment would occur as consumers bring spending more in line with their incomes.

Business travel will take a seasonal holiday, but its strength will again exhibit itself in the fall. Corporate earnings for the first quarter, now being reported, will show a 15th consecutive quarter of double-digit percentage growth rates. Consensus estimates are for S&P 500 earnings to be 11.2 percent above year ago. Transient business travel, group and meeting/convention businesses, are all showing solid volume increases, but more impressive spending increases.

Continued problems for the airlines would not be good news for those in our industry who are dependent on growth of the air travel market. During the 1995-2000 period, there was a 1.0 to 1.0 relationship between U.S. GDP growth and U.S. airline system passenger enplanements. Eliminating the 2001-03 lows for the airlines, and looking just at 2004-06, the economy now is growing three times faster than airline passenger growth.

TREND WATCH

Employee Productivity Lessons From The Airlines

While financial problems for the nation’s airlines still continue, significant progress has been made by the carriers in reducing their operating coasts. Major gains in worker profitability are contributing to this. The airlines are now operating with 20 percent fewer employees than they did in the year 2000. In 2000, labor cost represented 35 percent of total airline operating costs.

Productivity improvement clearly should be given high priority. As part of its business plan, every organization should have a comprehensive set of departmental productivity goals. The targets should be expressed statistically on a per unit cost or revenue basis, i.e., revenue per inquiry, per booking, per passenger, etc. If these targets are met, so will be bottom-line profit goals of the organization. One of the keys to generating increases in productivity is to raise targets every year for every department in the organization. Unfortunately, many only use productivity measures as static performance norms, and do not challenge their organizations by increasing the targets to higher and higher levels.

As a service industry, travel is an industry that’s labor intensive. As the airlines are finding out, their key to success in the future is dependent on their ability to carefully manage employee costs with a highly productive workforce. There are lessons here for everyone.

3. Federal Travel Regulation; Conference Planning—Prepayment Of Registration Fee

Federal Register

April 26, 2006

(Vol. 71, Number 80)

SUMMARY: This final rule amends the Federal Travel Regulation (FTR) by clarifying that advance payment of discounted conference fees may be treated as an allowable travel advance, and by adding a new section to allow for the reimbursement of the prepayment of “early bird” discounted registration fees to attend a conference or training seminar. This clarification is added to allow agencies to take advantage of discounted “early bird” registration discounts, thereby saving Government funds. The FTR and any corresponding documents may be accessed at GSA’s website at

Effective Date: This final rule is effective April 26, 2006.

For clarification of content, contact Umeki Thorne, Office of Governmentwide Policy, email or by telephone at (202) 208-7636. Please cite FTR Amendment 2006-02; FTR case 2006-302.

4. Web Site For Government Careers

The Washington Post

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

By Stephen Barr

Most of the “ask not” generation has quietly left federal service, and a mainstay of the federal government – the baby boom generation – will be retiring in the next few years. The transition to the next generation may be one of the most important facing the government because polls show that many young people see little appeal in government service.

In a bid to renew interest in public service, the nonprofit Council for Excellence in Government plans to launch an Internet-based project to provide research data and ideas that commencement speakers at middle schools, high schools and colleges can use to talk about the importance of working in government.

The Web site will provide a sampling of speeches by presidents and famous people on the importance of public service, including a selection of inspirational quotations, and some polling data on attitudes toward public service.

The council, which has about 700 former government executives as members, sponsors fellowships and other programs aimed at enhancing interest and understanding of the government. A 2004 survey conducted for the council found that only 27 percent of young people said they had been asked by their parents, teachers or others to consider government as a job option, down by 11 percentage points from two years earlier.

Federal agencies, however, will soon need an influx of new hires. Personnel officials predict that substantial numbers of federal employees – about 60,000 annually in the 2008-2010 period – will retire. In recent months, agencies have been at work on plans to step up recruitment and reduce the time it takes to hire job applicants with foreign language, technology or other critical skills.

5. TIA, Forrester Release Internet-booking Study

April 24, 2006

By Michael Milligan

Consumers like the Internet because they feel it gives them more control over their travel purchases, but many go back to the phone when booking complicated trips, according to a new study.

The study, titled “It Doesn’t Have To Suck: Making Web Travel Planning Better,” was prepared by the Travel Industry Association in cooperation with Forrester Research and released at the TIA’s TravelCom 2006 conference in New York. It reflects responses from 2,468 leisure travelers.

To access the full report, go to:

Seventy-two percent of leisure travelers are plugged into the web, and the study says that they are increasingly using it to research and book travel. About 35.2 million households are expected to buy travel online. Another 20.3 million are expected to research online but buy offline.

The research shows that as trips become more involved, travelers become increasingly reluctant to book online.

And 63% said they used Web sites’ “help” pages.

Forrester recommended that web sites take the following steps to improve the online buying experience for consumers:

  • Audit to find out what’s not selling and what product information is not available online.
  • Rethink the way they present search results, including clearly presenting product details, destination attributes and rate restrictions.
  • Offer an internal keyword-based search engine to help travelers search for information online.

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  • Let consumers store and retrieve information so that they can build on it.
  • Use third party content to fill in certain information gaps.

6. Brands Lag On Overall Web Hits

H&MM

May 1, 2006

By Christine Blank

Contributing Editor

The hotel and motel industry has come a long way since Expedia, Travelocity and other travel Web sites got into the business of selling rooms just a few short years ago. In those travel sites’ first years in business, consumers were finding hotel rooms on those sites rather than on the hotels’ own Web sites. Now, when they research for hotel rooms online, they are referred to the hotels’ Web site much more often.

Still, hotel companies need to work harder to make guests aware of their sites. A recent study shows Orbitz, Expedia and other travel Web sites still hold the top rankings in search engines when consumers search for hotel rooms.

None of the major hotel chains, such as Marriott and Radisson, is listed in SEMphonic’s overall ratings analyzing paid and organic results. Only Choice Hotels International, which includes Comfort Inn, Clarion and Sleep Inn, ranks in the Top 10 paid listings.

“We were pretty surprised to see that the larger travel aggregators were really pushing the paid market and squeezing the actual hotel companies out,” said Paul Legutko, an analyst and consultant with SEMphonic.

Hotels fare much better in organic listings, where they comprise 48 percent of the top 50 sites. Travel aggregators make up only 6 percent of the top 50 sites. But only Marriott.com, Radisson.com, and Starwoodhotels.com ranked in the top 10 organic listings.

In searches for “cheap” or “discount” properties, lodging aggregators such as Hotels.com make up 62 percent of the organic listings; travel aggregators make up 24 percent; and hotel companies make up only 6 percent, SEMphonic found.

In that case, hotels may not be willing to buy keywords such as “cheap” because they don’t want to associate their properties with those words, but those are the terms consumers use.

“As zealous as people should be about protecting their brand, it is critically important to respond to what the person is thinking when they put the word in,” said Gary Angel, c.e.o. of SEMphonic.

To improve search rankings, Angle suggests hotels implement a balanced mix of organic and paid search marketing. They need to optimize their Web sites to improve organic search results, as well as buy the right keywords on the paid search side.

To ensure a successful overall search-marketing program, it should be constantly guided by one executive within the company and be a constant effort by all staff involved in search marketing.

7. E-Mail Back In The Media Mix

BtoB’s Interactive Marketing Guide

2006

By Carol Krol

Deliverability still a concern, but marketers forge ahead, focus on integrated message.

Need to Know

5 ways to ‘pilot’ perfect landing pages for e-mail

  1. Make one person responsible for the entire campaign. Just because e-mail messages and Web landing pages exist in different media doesn’t mean they are separate. When an e-mail recipient clicks on a link, they expect continuity. Most don’t even realize that they just migrated from their e-mail client to their Web browser.
  1. Avoid using home pages or multipurpose landing pages. The more dedicated the landing page, the more effective the results.
  1. Stay focused on the call to action. Don’t forget why you brought this person to your page. You warmed them up in the e-mail message and now you want them to complete the transaction. Keep the prospect focused on the desired action and don’t distract them with random opportunities or irrelevant information.
  1. Don’t intimidate. Limit the number of fields your prospect must complete as much as possible without compromising lead quality. You can always ask for more information later.
  1. Test. You should test landing pages with the same discipline you do e-mail messages – one element at a time. For example: Send coupons, p.s. messages, opening sentences and calls to action separately.

Source: Randall Litchfield, Inbox Marketer News, “Perfect Landings,” March 2006

Resources

  • Contrary to popular wisdom, Friday may be the best day to send e-mail. In Q4, 21% of e-mails sent on Friday were opened, followed by 20.8% of e-mails sent on Tuesday.

Source: eROI, “Q4 2005 E-mail Statistics” report

E-mail best practices

  • 52% of b-to-b newsletter subscribers use their preview pane to view e-mails, making it important for marketers to deliver their messages in this smaller window space.

Source: EmailLabs, November 2005

  • 39% of b-to-b marketers have no formal permission (opt-in) practices in place for collecting e-mail addresses. Only 7% of b-to-c marketers have no formal practice in place.

Source: Direct and Multichannel Merchant magazines

The spam problem

  • In 2005, the percent of users that “are less trusting of e-mail because of spam” decreased to 52% from 62% in 2004.

Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project 2005

  • To help manage spam, many users route opt-in e-mail to Webmail addresses. 26% of American Internet users route opt-in e-mail to Yahoo!, 21% read marketing communications through Hotmail and 13% use AOL.

Source: Lyris Technologies, March 2006

There is a lot of talk about ‘e-mail reputation.’ What does that mean, and do I need care?

Answer: It seems that every time you turn around these days people are talking about e-mail reputation, and every company in the e-mail space seems to offer a solution for it. Here’s what you really need to know:

  • Your e-mail reputation is how e-mail recipients view your e-mail program.
  • You most certainly need to care about it; reputation dictates if your messages reach the in-box, get junked or go missing.
  • You can easily control your reputation, increasing your program response as it improves.

Think of your e-mail reputation as your credit score for e-mail. Your past and present behaviors factor into your credit rating, and your future behaviors can make it better or worse. The same is true with e-mail.

While there are thousands of data points factoring into

reputation, we see that there are three primary levers

that most influence reputation and subsequent delivery:

Bounces: Too many bounces spell disaster in the eyes

of ISPs. Removing bounces might be a hassle, but doing it regularly will have a dramatic effect on your e-mail delivery. ISPs use your unknown user rates and other bounce metrics when deciding whether to let your e-mail through.

Blacklists: Sure, you’ve heard about them but does anyone really care about blacklists? The answer is yes. Most e-mail receivers reference blacklists in order to filter unwanted e-mail. By finding out what blacklists you are on and doing everything possible to get removed, you will dramatically improve your e-mail deliverability.

Backlash: If you think that your customers’ clicking on the “This is spam” button won’t affect your e-mail reputation, you are mistaken. Complaints drive 70% of e-mail deliverability issues. By determining your complaint rates and sources, you can begin minimizing your complaint rates at ISPs and increasing your delivery rates.