Travellers in favour of body scanners

The article “Travellers in favour of body scanners”, published in January 15^th 2010 on Skyscanner.net is talking about body scanners that many authorities are planning to install in airports and train stations in the near future.

This will mean that security guards will no longer check you physically, tell you to take off your shoes, belt or other things that you wear and that are looking suspicious to them.

Not surprising then that 2/3 of surveyed passengers liked the idea as it speeds up security checks, but there is still another third against it for health and privacy reasons.

Even if it has been proven that radiation is harmless and privacy is maintained, why is it in that case that so many travellers are against that technology? Probably a fear that their intimacy is violated!

The question is not whether this technology will be used in the future, it is when. The number of passengers at airports and train stations continues to grow, implying that security checks must be accelerated.

If some do not trust the technology or do not want it, traditional manual check will still be available.

Aggregator travel sites

The definition of an "aggregator" travel site

The comparison of two aggregator travel sites:
* Farecompare.com
* Cheapflights.com

Opinion of travel experts on those sites

My prospective

My sources

Fairmont plans new property in Greece

“Fairmont” is a luxury hotel chain. It works in partnership with the World Heritage Alliance to promote conservation, sustainable tourism, and economic development for communities located in and around World Heritage sites.

This article talks about the implementation in 2012 of a hotel of the chain in the old city of Corfu, a Greek island on the Ionian Coast. One of the main reasons why the chain chose this city of Corfu is because it has been listed as one of UNESCO’s world heritage.

Having such a hotel in Corfu will bring a new kind of high spend travelers to the island thereby contribution to the local economy, as well as to the reputation of the city.

This will add Corfu to a list of prestigious destination offered today by the Fairmont group: Hamburg, Scotland, and Monte Carlo …

On Twitter and in the Workplace, It's Power to the Connectors

The article “On Twitter and in the Workplace, It's Power to the Connectors” was published on November 16^th, 2009 on the Harvard Business Review site.

The article says that in order to have a successful career nowadays, one must have good networking skills, such as the ability to build relationships, to pass on information, and to introduce people to one another.

In the past, you needed to fit in a vertical organization where power was centralized and information was not shared; decision making was in the hands of a few people at the top of the hierarchy. One needed to be technically adept and have good interpersonal relationships.

Today, learning connector skills is facilitated with the new social networking tools like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedln etc …

Formal assignments work best in a vertical organizational structure whereas connector skills work best in the horizontal organization structure. Both aim at achieving company’s goals, however the advantage of connector skills lies in its ability to access knowledge quickly with the help of a human network.

Comparison of two community sites

Community Sites Final

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Comparison of two community sites

http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dfg4tnqp_13cxnhznhq&interval=5&autoStart=true

Presentation done with Lucy Dy and Dindar Kassim Bandjee

The great online travel revolution

To select a destination, a traveller has always had to access information on its location, to reserve the trip and to plan the time to do it.

In the past, he relied on the travel agent to get information on the business or holiday destination. Today, the web brings at its finger tips a wealth of information on the destination location through detailed descriptions, pictures, videos, etc… Social networking websites also bring him the opinions and advices of other travellers.

The same was true for the reservation. The travel agent had established relationships with the airlines, the hotels, the tour operators. The web has suppressed that intermediary link and the traveller is now in direct contact with the various service suppliers and tools are provided to find dates, to compare prices or to run simulation to find the best package,.

Before, it was a long process to book a holiday or a business trip. Agents had to check with the various players on availability of dates, seats, and prices and wait for their responses etc ... This took some time and planning. Today all this is available online. Modern travellers are busy with their professional and personal lives and tend to wait until the last minute to find the best deal. Therefore, they prefer make reservations from home or their desk at the office whenever they have time.

Does this mean that travel agents will disappear? Certainly, they cannot compete in their traditional form with the services provided by the web. However, some travellers are always in need of some human help to plan their trips. This explains why some sites (for example travelwizard.com) are now providing online advices to travellers wanting to book online. This is may be the biggest revolution!

http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/article/the_great_online_travel_revolution/