Thought for the day

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.
Thomas Paine
US patriot & political philosopher (1737 - 1809)

Works on so many levels.

Google alerts Marriot

Of course, I really wanted to track 'British Airwaves'...

Google trends displays the web searches for two specified terms. In this case I've picked Hilton and Marriott. The handy built-in news item flag shows us that the bulk of web traffic is not significantly affected by business news around the brand. I'm sure if some wannabe rock star had trashed a Marriott hotel room it would be a different story.

Looking at other services on Netvibes (BBC RSS feeds, Google Alerts, Alexa web traffic, Blog search and Flickr), the key noise this week

1. Travel and Terror
Lots of noise in from traditional news stories about the suicide bomber in a Pakistan Marriot. Traditional news discusses the effect on business (business volumes still reported to be down post 9/11) and the blogosphere is strangely quiet on the subject, despite specific searches. Time will tell as to whether business will be hit again.

2. Read it, don't risk it
Web 2.0 has blown apart the traditional information-seeking pre-holiday behaviour. Now people can check out real reports from real people about the county, the locale and even the accommodation that they're considering. This points to the importance of cultivating volume of chat around your brand. The more there is, the greater the 'normalisation' - don't only want the extremely aggrieved or oddly ecstatic talking about your brand. And if you promote chat, it'll get linked to by independent blogs


3. Luxury vs. budget.
Marrior is acquiring star hotels. It looks like the hotel industry is polarising - luxury hotels doing very well, as are the super-budget hotels. Two different travel mindsets being catered for, or different customer groups?