Alex Bainbridge关于旅游电子商务思考中描述的7种博客
这个星期旅游界一些人已经为博客而疯狂了。我想这是因为本周PhoCusWright ITB博主首脑会议在柏林举行。
我真的不喜欢这些自选会议（当然如果免费的话我还是会去的）。我觉得博客只是一种按时间顺序在网上排列东西，让人们去订阅，也可能有某种形式交谈的方式。它不给任何写博客的人“特殊权力”，也不应成为参会者的“黄金票”。最后，以技术角度来看，它只是网页中很小的一块。
旅游业博客不仅催生了会议，很多书籍和旅游博客排名表还可以供人们浏览和思考。难道大家都没有更好的事情去做了吗？（好吧——这本书很好——但如果去找以原有的形式存在，即在网页上的内容，它并不像一个结构良好的布局那么有用）。
更实际一点。作为一个旅游提供者，你可以考虑创建7种形式的旅行博客。
CEO博客
CEO博客通常是CEO（或公司其他高级行政人员）概括他们在过去一段时间主要观点的地方。这使得他们能够对业界或市场事件作出反应，与他们在平时不会与之交谈的人接触，并进行交谈。
案例：Randy的杂志-波音-市场营销副总裁Randy Tinseth
可能仅对懂得核心目标是对顾客有用、规模较大的公司有帮助。
业界博客
很多博客都是“面向业界”的。举例来说，这个博客（Musings）是为了多与你接触。我知道我的大部分订阅者（约300左右）看过我的日志。我不知道这对我的商务来说会有损害还是有所帮助——但是，私下来说，我很喜欢这样。
这个博客其实不是我的目标，但我想由于这个博客你知道我是谁了——我宁愿你知道的是我的产品而不是我！
产品->代理博客-“Fam” topup
如果你是基于目的地或集中于一个特定的活动，而且你将代理商作为分销渠道，那么，有意识地吸引旅行社阅读的博客可能会奏效。你的目标应该是一个信息性的博客——不一定是关于你的产品的（尽管你可以像我这样，将他们频繁插入）——而是更广泛的信息。
一个特定的代理人（在你的目的地以外）可能两年才访问贵国一次。所以你的博客焦点应该放在通知代理商他们有必要知道的变化上，从而更好地推销你的目的地。例如一个很棒的新餐厅，过海渡轮服务时间的变化——旅行社会订阅的有用及实用的信息。
你要使这些与焦点“紧密”联系。如果你推销5个国家，不要把他们都放在一个博客里——因为你的代理商不可能也推销同样的5个国家。要有5个博客（或一个博客有5个RSS Feed）。
面对顾客的博客
很多公司做直销（而非代理）。那么博客是不是直销的最佳方式呢？不是的——原因是，博客是为长期订阅的，并不必作为产品或公司预销售评估的一部分被浏览。这种“浏览”的结果就导致，面向顾客的博客最重要的页面是分类或存档页。
不过，拥有一个面向顾客的博客的结果是，你可能会发现搜索引擎排名在提高等等，这都是有用的。
具体提议博客/Feed
对这些我不敢肯定。两种情景下这些或许有用：
*生活在A城，并且在B城有家庭的顾客。他们需要在两个城市之间飞行，会在“价格合适的时候”去看旅行——否则不会去旅行。这些顾客或许会长期订阅提议Feed/博客。
*旅行研究阶段时间需要延长的地方。例如：如果我想明年去滑雪，我可以订阅一个具体提议Feed，及时得到切中要点的提议以作出决定。
产品新闻博客
对于最畅销的产品，你可以专门为那个产品建一个博客。不要担心你是不是仅仅经常发布东西，——使用博客订阅，数月没什么东西人们也会高兴的。
举例来说，我有一个只是公布我们的预订系统TourCMS的博客/ RSS Feed，只有一些“好的”订阅者，但是想了解的人都订阅了。
形势博客
天啊我的IT root又在显示了。IT界人人都喜欢“形势”这一概念——现在正在发生生么？一切都好吗？
形势博客或Feed的一个例子是本地渡轮。风暴正在临近，基于城市的旅行社需要迅速电话告知顾客渡轮今日是否仍会运行。形势博客在这里创造了奇迹。
在主页最新的帖子应该是“一切正常”——一个简单的划线句子。然后，当你有一个计划外的活动，把它放上去……。等事件结束，只把“一切正常”的帖子放回去。
订阅者会得知，你最新发布的帖子是他们应当注意的。
结论：
众多人们宣称“你必须有个博客”的网站中，你很难弄明白需要哪种博客。重点是记住你的博客要有个焦点。想想你能给其他人提供你所知的什么信息。希望这信息正是他们想要的。如果能从你的博客中获取商业利润那会是很棒的——但是首先要考虑信息焦点——然后是准备怎样商业化。
不管怎样，不要因为“跟风”去建博客。
原文链接：www.tourcms.com/blog/2008/03/05/
作者：Alex Bainbridge
What is a travel website blog? 7 types of blog described from Musings on travel ecommerce by Alex Bainbridge
This week a number of people in the travel industry have gone blogging mad. I guess this is to do with the PhoCusWright ITB bloggers summit taking place in Berlin this week.
I really don’t like these self-selecting conferences (although I would have gone if given a free entry!). I mean a blog is just a means to post stuff online in a chronological order, have people subscribe to it - and perhaps have some form of conversation. It doesn’t give anyone who blogs “special powers” - nor should it really be used as a “golden ticket” for conference entries. In the end, taking the technology view, its just a bit of HTML.
Not only has travel industry blogging spawned a conference - but there are now books and several travel blog ranking lists for people to look over and consider. Haven’t we all got better things to do? (OK - the book is nice - but not as useful as a well structured mechanism to find the content that exists in its primary form i.e. on the web)
On a more practical point….. here are 7 forms of travel blogs that you, as a travel provider, could consider running.
CEO blog
A CEO blog is normally where the CEO (or other senior executive from a company) outlines, over a period of time, their vision. It enables them to react to industry or market events and reach out to have conversations with people they wouldn’t normally converse with on a regular basis.
Example: Randy’s Journal - Boeing - by VP marketing Randy Tinseth
Probably only useful for larger companies where understanding the core vision is useful to customers.
Industry blog
A number of blogs are “industry facing”. For example this blog - Musings - is written to reach out to you lot! I know most of my subscribers (about 300 or so) read my daily ramblings. I have no real idea if this is doing damage or helping me commercially - but, speaking personally, I quite enjoy it.
I suppose you know who I am as a result of this blog….. which wasn’t actually my goal really - I would prefer if you knew my products not me!
Product -> Agent blog - the “Fam” topup
If you are based in a destination or focus on a specific activity - and you happen to use agents as a distribution channel - then a blog that is written with the intention of being read by travel agents would probably work for you. Your goal should be to produce an informative blog - not about your products necessarily (although you can slot them in every so often, like I do here!) - but more general information.
A specialist agent (from outside of your destination) may only visit your country every couple of years…. and so your blog focus should be on informing agents of changes that may be necessary for them to know in order to best sell your destination. For example a great new restaurant, the change in times for the cross-harbour ferry service - useful - practical - information that a travel agent will want to subscribe to.
You need to make these very “tight” in terms of focus….. If you happen to sell 5 countries then don’t lump them all into one blog - because it may be unlikely that your agents also sell those same 5 countries. Instead produce 5 blogs (or one blog with 5 RSS feeds)
Consumer facing blog
Many companies are looking to go the direct (non-agent) route. However is a blog the best way of doing this? Not really - the reason is that a blog is intended for long term subscription not necessarily something to “dip into” as part of a product or company pre-purchase evaluation. As a result of this “dipping into” scenario the most important pages on your consumer facing blog are the category or archive pages.
However as a result of having a consumer facing blog you may find improved search engine rankings…. etc - which is all helpful.
Special offer blog / feed
I am not sure about these. There are a couple of scenarios where these maybe helpful:
* Customers who live in City A and have family in City B. They need to take a flight between the two cities and are looking to travel “when the price is right” - but won’t travel otherwise. Maybe these customers will subscribe to an offer feed / blog over the long term
* Where the travel research phase takes an extended period of time - for example - say I want to go skiing next year…. I could subscribe to a special offer feed and be given offers upto the right point in time where decisions have to be made.
Product news blog
Maybe for your top selling products you can produce a blog just for that product. Don’t worry if you only publish every so often - with blog subscriptions people are happy to go several months without anything coming down down the pipe….
For example, I have a blog / RSS feed just for news about our reservation system TourCMS. It only has a few subscribers - but the people who want to know are subscribed - which is fine.
Status blog
Oh dear my IT roots are showing again. In IT everyone likes the concept of status - what is going on right now - is everything OK?
An example status blog or feed maybe for a local ferry. A storm is approaching and the a city based travel agent needs to quickly inform a customer they have on the phone whether the ferry will still be running today. A status blog works wonders here.
In the main the latest post should be a “All running OK” - a simple one line sentence. Then, when you have an event that is out of the ordinary - you can just put that up….. and when that event ceases - put back the single “All running OK” blog post.
Subscribers will learn that your most recent post is the one that they need to be paying attention to.
Conclusion
With many web people saying “you must have a blog” it can be difficult to understand what kind of blog you need. The important point though is to remember that your blog needs to have a focus. Consider what information you know that you could give to someone else. Hopefully it is information they want. If you can drive commercial benefit from your blog then great - but think of the information focus first - then how you are going to commercialise it.
However, please don’t blog just because you want to be part of the “in crowd”.
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