Mr Zen Ltd

AiTO, the Association of Independent Tour Operators, is an organisation representing over 150 of Britain's best specialist tour operators.

Mr Zen is proud to be appointed as an AiTO business partner, offering advice and services to the specialist travel industry.

MD Matt Illston said "We have worked with AiTO companies in the past and the it is a very good fit for us. Our client-side experience of the specialist travel environment in the UK and throughout Europe should benefit all AiTO members. We are looking forward to the first meeting."

AiTO Chairman, Derek Moore said "We're very pleased to have Mr Zen on board with AiTO as an Appointed Business Partner."

Visit the AiTO website 

September 3rd 2008 - Google launch a new internet browser

Immediately, the cynic in me said - "oh yes, and what stunt are they pulling there?", the developer in me said - "oh no, not another browser", the geek in me said - "ooh, a new thing to try out", and the security concious me said - "oh no, if I download that, I will open myself up to some nasty attacks..."

I ignored most of my instincts and am writing this entry using the new browser.

First Impressions 

• It's fast - faster to render a page than both IE and Firefox - Opera is similar...
• It's fairly compatible - apparently it uses the same engine as Safari, so if your site works on Safari, it will work in Chrome. 
• It's neat - helpful pages on new tabs listing recently visited tabs, incognito mode for surfing that you're not keen to share
• It's tidy - no messy toolbars, tabs right at the top of the screen, opens up the page, displaying more content 'above the fold'

Many people have asked us what effect the downturn in the economy will have on online marketing in the Travel Industry. As our business is purely focussed on online marketing for the Travel Industry, we have been thinking about it too.

Marketing Spend

Typically, marketing spend is an area which demands greater scrutiny when heading into uncertain times, but of course you can't simply cut back the budgets, or you'll take an even smaller piece of a shrinking pie. So how do you balance cost?

Our approach would always be to fall back to what you know - make sure measurement is in place across all of your marketing disciplines (off line included) and focus on those items that are really delivering return on investment.

Paid Search

Paid search is a good starting point - make sure that the terms that really drive traffic are still delivering a good CPA, and keep them up there against your competitors. Cut back on underperforming terms.

eMail Marketing

Use your database - eMail marketing is amazingly effective - use your existing database wisely to make sure that your existing clients and your enquirers book with you, not your competitors. This is simple, and cheap!

Closed User Groups

Drive offers through closed user groups - if your business is relying on delivering revenue from Fixed Assets, or your profit is all in the last few passengers - make sure that you are filling your allocations, transportation and hotel beds, but not teaching your clients to book late and pick up cheap deals. Closed user groups, special registrations for email and intercompany deals are a great way of picking up those last few crucial bookings...

Invest in Analytics

If you can't measure return on investment, you might as well throw money away. Measurement comes across online and offline disciplines and involves a number of techniques from call logging, web analytics, campaign tracking software and so on.

Conclusion

We at Mr Zen are agreed that during these harder times, we will all have to work that little bit harder to make our marketing spend stretch that little bit further - we'd be happy to talk to you about how we can work harder for you...

Internet on the move 

It is certainly time to consider developing websites that work well not just on a computer's relatively large screen, but also for mobile phones. Gone are the days of slow applications on tiny screens!

We have seen over the past few years the number of mobile phone hits on our websites increase dramatically. With smartphones becoming ever more common, and mobile broadband reducing in cost enormously, this is a trend that is set to continue into the future. Apple's iPhone, and especially the new 3G iPhone is going to drive this trend even further.

So what do we need to do to make sure that our content is readable across platforms?

1. Use strict CSS design across your site. By using strict CSS design, you can make sure that the content of your website can be customised for mobile phones - if your site is already sticking to modern standards, it may be easier than you think to make the required changes...

2. Create a simpler version of your website that is more in tune with the requirements of mobile users - what are people likely to want to see when they are on the move? Focus on those areas of the site to ensure that the on-the-fly information is easy to find and to get to.

A solution for your requirements

It's up to you whether you need to make your entire site available to mobile users, or whether you can make life really easy for your mobile customers by just providing what is required by them, but the important thing is to do something now. Mobile internet is not going away, and will form a major part of everyone's eCommerce strategy into the future.

It's amazing what you can find on YouTube when you search around... This has nothing to do with us, but I thought it was funny...