TravelMuse is excited to take part in the EyeforTravel, Social Media Strategies for Travel USA 2009 conference to be held in San Francisco, March 10 to 11 at the Hotel Nikko.

We’ll be making a short presentation and participating on a panel focusing on Social Media Marketing: Why a Holistic Approach Pays Dividends, alongside Jeff Hanson (Marriott International), Jeremy Jameson (Southwest Airlines) and Juston Parker (Parker Hospitality Group).

Last year we attended the conference and came away armed with lots of ideas, so we’re looking forward to this year. The conference is aimed at travel marketers who want to learn more about social media and how to generate leads, drive traffic, boost conversions and ultimately grow sales.

•    Learn how to measure and monetize your social media campaigns

•    Discover how to profit from mega-sites like YouTube, Facebook and Bebo

•    Create a social media strategy that leverages your marketing spend

•    Align your search strategy with your social media campaigns

•    Find out how the semantic Web will impact your business

•    Reach out to specific audiences on niche social media sites

•    Target the business traveler through social networks

•    Appeal to the next generation by utilizing online networks and mobile technology

There’s a wide range of leading industry experts from new and established companies presenting, including OTAs (Orbitz and Priceline), social networks (LinkedIn and Bebo), hotels (InterContinental Hotels and Joie de Vivre) and more (Disney, Lonely Planet, Mobissimo, UpTake etc.). 

To find out more and register, go to: http://events.eyefortravel.com/social-media/agenda.asp.

To receive a 20 percent discount on your conference pass, send an e-mail to Helen Raff (helen@eyefortravel.com) and tell her that TravelMuse referred you!

Hope to see you there!

Having voted in the recent Webby Awards, I was excited to view the Webby’s Winners Gallery last week. I checked out the nominated companies that some friends are involved with, including Trullia, and Zannel, but I was naturally drawn to the travel section.

Congratulations to Farecast who won the Webby for Travel and to Kayak who won the people’s choice for Travel. (When I worked at SideStep, we were excited to be named as an Official Honoree a few times, so it was great to see the people’s vote go to Kayak—who recently acquired SideStep.)

Farecast predicts fare trends for air and hotel and Kayak is the leading provider of metasearch (the ability to simultaneously search many travel sites and suppliers to find the best flight, hotel, car or package option based on factors such as price, availability and schedule).

It was only two years ago that Expedia scooped up the Webby award for the Travel category. This year, none of the major online travel companies were even nominated. In this fast-changing world, Expedia and the major online travel agencies (OTAs) have become household names, reached maturity and now newer sites are lauded for their innovation.

So if metasearch comes after the OTAs, what comes after that?

Here at TravelMuse, we believe it’s the upstream research and planning process personalized to you that offers the next great opportunity. I’m excited to watch how the landscape changes over the next 12 months and to see what comes next after metasearch.