The Future of Visitor Guides or The Wired Tablet App – Say what you will about iPad, but the team at the Travel 2.0 blog continues to see some innovative applications when it comes to the futuristic ‘tablet.’  While we are still unsure of the final impact on the Travel Industry (see our post ‘The iPad Effect on the Travel Industry‘), we cannot help but think that the evolution of the visitor guide will follow this same path…or at least something close to it.

That said, there are still complications to overcome, namely the adoption rate of a tablet computer, however the barrier to technology has been significantly lowered in the past few years primarily due to the iPhone/iTouch.  Meaning, as soon as these things become cheap enough and cool enough, the adoption rate will rapidly increase.

Tech + Cool Factor / Cost = Adoption…or something like that.

Anyway, check out what the team at Wired is working on…Wired, the print magazine, on a tablet.  Too soon to tell, but at least these guys are thinking about what the publication looks like after paper.  And we like it.

http://www.wired.com/

2009 Internet Usage Stats – Ah, we love stats.  From our friends at the Center for Media Research, just the facts.

Travel E-Commerce:

• Travel e-commerce spending dropped 5% to $79.8 billion.

Search:

• The U.S. core search market grew 16% overall in 2009, driven by a 6% gain in unique searchers and a 10% gain in searchers per searcher. U.S.

Social:

• Social networking continued to gain momentum in 2009 with nearly 4 out of 5 Internet users visiting a social networking site in December 2009.
• The activity now accounts for 11% of all time spent online in the U.S., making it one of the most engaging activities across the Web.
• Facebook Users: 112 Million
• Twitter Users: 20 Million

Video:

• In December 2009, 86% of the total U.S. online population viewed video content.
• Six out of seven U.S. Internet users now view online video content in a month.
• The average online viewer consumed 187 videos in December 2009 (up 95% vs. year ago), while the duration of the average video viewed grew from 3.2 to 4.1 minutes.

Mobile:

• In the past year, the mobile industry witnessed smartphone ownership increase from 11% to 17% of mobile users, while 3G phone ownership increased from 32% to 43%.

http://www.mediapost.com/

Sweet Home Chicago.

The team from the Travel 2.0 blog…Mo and Troy…went on an all too brief road trip on Thursday, visiting our friends in Chicago for the 2010 Illinois Governor’s Conference on Tourism.  For the record, we did make it to the Billy Goat Tavern for lunch.

Invited to present on interactive marketing, we decided to go a bit more advanced and talk about how we see the next 5 years in the DMO / CVB space.

Sorry, this was not Social Media 101 or ‘Let’s Start a Blog,’ instead we focused on 4 core issues that will impact CVBs (and really, all travel industry peers) in the future, namely:

• Content
• Membership
• Social Media Marketing
• Mobile

For those of you at the presentation and there were a lot of you (thanks!), the presentation is embedded below or available on slideshare.  For those of you who missed out, feel free to check out the presentation, but honestly, it was so much better in person.

Thanks to the staff at the Illinois Governor’s Conference on Tourism for having us, Sarah (who arranged everything!) and our audience for the session.  It is always a pleasure speaking with our tourism peers.