DESTINATION AND TOURISM
prnewswire | April 06, 2023
Travelex Insurance Services Inc., a leading travel insurance provider in North America, announced it is launching a program to support the company's partners in their marketing efforts: integrated marketing campaign materials delivered quarterly, starting today.
Travelex President and CEO Shannon Lofdahl said the company's partners of all sizes have expressed the need for cohesive marketing materials they can use to effectively market travel insurance. "Often, we hear that time and budget resources are challenges for our partners," Lofdahl said. "And the expense associated with developing creative assets can be costly, particularly for small businesses.
"We see this as an opportunity to leverage our team of talented, nimble marketers and provide our partners added value while saving them money," Lofdahl said.
The amount is significant. At current ad agency rates for concepting, copywriting, design work, and photo licenses, the value of the integrated campaign materials Travelex is several thousand dollars each quarter. Partners will receive digital display ads in multiple sizes; print ads, color and black-and-white; a social media content calendar and graphics for regular posts; and an article and coordinating photo that partners can distribute to their client lists.
"Businesses know they need to advertise, but it's costly," Lofdahl said, "and the expense of an ad agency or freelancer to develop the creative assets increases the cost.
"Travelex has a team of highly skilled marketers right here, and they can help our partners," Lofdahl continued. "These integrated campaigns differentiate Travelex among our competitors, but most importantly, they are one more way we can deliver the outstanding customer service our partners know us for."
About Travelex Insurance Services
Travelex Insurance Services has been a leading U.S. provider of travel insurance. As a premier partner to the travel industry, Travelex offers an array of products designed to help travelers create and protect the moments that matter most while they explore the world. We are part of the Zurich family of global brands and a woman-led organization that appreciates diversity. Guided by our values, we are optimistic, caring and reliable. With forward thinking, determination and a sense of togetherness, we help travelers dream, explore, and travel on.
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TRAVEL TECHNOLOGY
businesswire | April 10, 2023
Officials of HEI Hotels & Resorts, a leading hospitality investment and management company, today announced the company was awarded a Vibe Vista award for “Best Beverage Menu” at this year’s Questex Vibe Conference, the premiere on-premises beverage conference for executives. This marks the second consecutive year in which HEI was recognized, winning for Best Overall Beverage Program in 2022.
“Vibe Vista Awards recognize the top performers in the beverage industry through the creation, training, execution, management and on-going positive results of beverage programs, and we are humbled to be recognized from among this year’s outstanding participants,” said David Miller, corporate director of beverage operations, HEI. “It is important to our entire F&B team to work with hotels individually to create beverage menus that add to the experiential nature of our properties. While our mixologists are experts in what they do, it takes that extra property-level knowledge to create something unique that stands out from the crowd. This award is a testament to the hard work done by our executive team comprised of Rachel Moniz, Aliya Kritzler and me, as well as the individual hotel teams and beverage partners who helped us achieve this amazing goal.”
Vibe Vista Awards entries were reviewed by a panel of Johnson & Wales University beverage faculty, staff and alumni and were judged on positive beverage sales initiatives, efficient operational innovations and training and service programs producing high quality standards.
As an example of its beverage program, HEI worked with the F&B associates at the Westin San Antonio’s recently remodeled Zocca Bar to create “The Paloma Rossa,” a cocktail derived using Blanco tequila, grapefruit, Big Red syrup, torched rosemary and lime to create a similar taste to a popular local soda. “San Antonians are in love with Big Red Soda, but people from outside the 210 and 726 area codes likely aren’t that familiar with the drink,” Miller noted. “By working with our on-property bar teams, however, we were able to create a truly unique cocktail for our guests that takes a casual drink to a truly localized experience we find visitors prefer.”
ABOUT HEI HOTELS & RESORTS
HEI Hotels & Resorts, headquartered in Norwalk, Conn., is a leading hospitality investment and management company that owns or operates 100+ luxury, upper-upscale and upscale independent and branded hotels and resorts throughout the United States. HEI’s branding partners include Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, IHG, Choice and Wyndham. The company is renowned for its commitment to its associates under the culture of HEI Loves, its revenue management, profit contribution and empirically based real estate value creation, driven by a full complement of proprietary software tools to set and exceed targets on a fully integrated basis. HEI works hand-in-hand with institutional capital partners on existing assets under management as well as sponsored acquisition opportunities. The company has ample equity capital and strategically co-invests with its partners on many transactions.
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BUSINESS TRAVEL
prnewswire | April 17, 2023
Tripadvisor, the world's largest travel guidance platform, released the third edition of its Review Transparency Report, revealing detailed trends around review contributions and the steps taken to ensure the integrity of user-submitted content.
The report, which is published biennially, analyzed a full year's worth of community contributions - over 73 million reviews and opinions in total - to give readers a deep dive into global submissions. The report also reveals how review trends have shifted since 2020, when the previous edition of the report was published. Key trends include:
Strong growth for reviews and business listings
The report reveals a significant increase in the volume of reviews left on the platform during 2022 - up +20% from 2020 levels to 30.2 million - as the world's explorers returned in force following two years of lockdowns, and restrictions. During 2022, Tripadvisor also saw business owners respond to over 10 million reviews, while community members asked and answered more than 940,000 questions from fellow users.
As global recovery continued in 2022, the platform saw an influx of new listings created, with 1.3 million new businesses added to the site, leading to a record 11.1 million listings at year end, up +16% from 2020's total of 9.6 million. Regionally, two out of five newly listed businesses were located in Europe, while Asia and North America each accounted for about 23% of the total.
Success in combating fake and paid reviews
Only a fraction of total review submissions from 2022 (4.4%) were determined to be fake or fraudulent, totaling just over 1.3 million. Of these, Tripadvisor's robust detection and moderation processes prevented 72% of submissions from ever making it onto the platform, a significant improvement on the 67% prevented during 2020.
Reviews from paid review companies represent an even smaller proportion of fraudulently submitted content, but have the very real capability to negatively impact consumer trust. In total, Tripadvisor removed 24,521 reviews associated with paid review companies in 2022. Nearly half of these originated from just six countries: India, Russia, U.S., Türkiye, Italy, and Vietnam.
Once fraudulent content has been identified and removed, Tripadvisor takes a range of actions against offending businesses, including content bans, ranking penalties and for the most severe cases, red badges. The Review Transparency Report reveals that Tripadvisor applied a ranking penalty to more than 33,000 businesses for fraud and issued 341 red badge warnings in 2022, each of these enforced with a ranking penalty.
"Tripadvisor is built on trust, and we will never stop improving our systems to ensure our community has access to reliable content and the businesses listed can compete on a level playing field," said Becky Foley, Vice President, Trust & Safety at Tripadvisor. "The findings from this report show that our approach is working; we're catching a higher proportion of fraudulent content before it is published, with nearly three-quarters of fake reviews never even making it to the platform."
Progress in helping to keep travelers safe
During 2022, almost 600 reviews were posted by Tripadvisor's community that described a serious safety incident during a travel or dining experience. Listings associated with these types of reviews, are subject to additional measures, aimed at increasing awareness among travelers.
Tripadvisor is able to place additional filters on listings associated with reviews that contain warnings or serious allegations, helping users more easily identify potentially problematic businesses. And this approach is clearly working, with reviews that reveal a serious safety incident over 10 times as likely to be read, than reviews that do not.
"I'm incredibly proud of our efforts to shine a light on the more troubling review content submitted by our community," added Becky Foley. "Sharing details of distressing incidents requires courage and all those who have been brave enough to share their experiences will hopefully take heart from the fact that their reviews are being seen by others and are making a real-world difference."
About Tripadvisor
Tripadvisor, the world's largest travel guidance platform*, helps hundreds of millions of people each month** become better travelers, from planning to booking to taking a trip. Travelers across the globe use the Tripadvisor site and app to discover where to stay, what to do and where to eat based on guidance from those who have been there before. With more than 1 billion reviews and opinions of nearly 8 million businesses, travelers turn to Tripadvisor to find deals on accommodations, book experiences, reserve tables at delicious restaurants and discover great places nearby. As a travel guidance company available in 43 markets and 22 languages, Tripadvisor makes planning easy no matter the trip type. The subsidiaries of Tripadvisor, Inc. (Nasdaq: TRIP), own and operate a portfolio of travel media brands and businesses, operating under various websites and apps.
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