How about a big bounce for the one man show over at PairUp - a niffty little start-up that helps traveling nomads on business make a connection and shake a hand. We’re all about niche over here @ Bounce and think this fits the bill quite nicely.

As the concept of Web 2.0 pushes its way into every concievable market niche imaginable, I often find myself wondering if it is able to go much further (and it has really only begun). Caught wind of this today via a chop-lickin’ newsletter called Springwise. If you don’t subscribe, well, you should because I get excited every time it hits my inbox. It’s full of trends, insights, and wild predicitions about the market - all the kinda stuff that kids love to read.

What is PairUp? Pretty simple really. They connect business travelers. In their own words…

?our passion is to reinvent the business trip with Connected Travel

Business travel hasn?t changed since the introduction of the Internet, with travelers making plans oblivious to the itineraries of industry colleagues and sometimes even people on their own team, wasting time and losing valuable opportunities to connect ? even when they?re not traveling.

PairUp is about empowering the business traveler to reinvent his/her business trip by introducing the concept of connected travel, allowing businesspeople for the first time to easily share travel plans and instantly search for potential business connections at their next trip destination or industry event ? across companies and across booking engines.

If you believe that the future of travel lies in connected travel, come join us and explore the possibilities or contact us at info@pairup.com.

Well there you have it. We reccommend you head on over and check em out.

Ian continues to be a true visionary in so many different areas: boutique travel, nightlife, living, and pure design to name a few. Love this video, love the idea of the NYC’s 40 Bond, and love this man’s compelling vision for an “effortless living” standard.

Another reason for posting this video was to highlight and touch again on our topic of the month: online travel/destination video and how it is changing the aspect of travel (actually lifestyle in this case) distribution via the Internet. This piece delivers an extraordinary look into Ian’s vision and really brings an emotional connection to users who view it and buy into this innovative lifestyle concept. Enjoy!

The entire concept of luxury has, and currently is, undergoing a radical change. The idea of conspicuous consumption is disappearing about as fast as the world’s winter weather. What used to only be accessible to an elite few is quickly becoming available to the masses. Individuals are finding luxury in the experience and memorable qualities of goods are services they consume rather than price tag alone, if at all.

In online/offline travel the trend is no different. The need for tailor-made and bespoke travel services are pushing unique luxury travel providers and Destination Clubs into the forefront of the luxury travel industry.

The recently published David Report on Future Luxury covers a number of different future concepts that can be applied to this lucrative consumer base. Here are seven trends that will define the future of the luxury goods markets as according to the David Report:

1. Timeless quality - The future consumer will seek excellence both concerning behavior and product. We will see a new type of sustainability where quality is paramount both concerning material and design.
2. Security and safety - The cutting-edge of consumer culture will find a new arena in these new urbanized country zones. Safety will be the number one thing in our mind and our comfortable homes will work as hubs towards the surrounding world.
3. Emotional branding - A lot of people have turned almost anti-brand. It will be a great challenge for companies to find new methods to converse, involve and interact with the consumers and offer them to experience the brand according to their own wishes. In the future building a relationship with your consumers and offer them relevant brand experiences will be paramount. It will be about engaging and understanding the consumers needs and develop product and services according to it. To create passion and desire and improve their lives. The brands that will understand that they are just a tool for the consumer to realize their personal dreams will survive and flourish.
4. Good karma - From the consumer point of view responsible purchasing is a growing trend. We will demand transparency. Companies can achieve success by doing good and as a socially conscious consumer you have the power of change in your hand.
5. Seize the day - Time has turned into luxury. True luxury. Time is more or less one of the only things you can t buy with money. That?s why it is so desirable. The great luxury in the future will be about taking control over your own time, because it will never come back.
6. Supreme regionalism - There will be a great wish for authenticy in the society in the future. The ongoing globalisation is erasing regional specialness with the speed of a bullet. Supreme Regionalism grow as a reaction to the present standardisation. Inside this trend we will find a new cultural luxury. Locally produced and controlled products with textures and flavours with a unique twist, made with great craftsmanship.
7. Food and health - Health is turning into one of the biggest luxuries in our time when most food has converted into mass-produced semi-finished products. By choosing well tasting food that does not harm the environment and animal welfare you are choosing life? and health.
8. Individual editions - This trend is a spin-off from both the Timeless Quality and the Supreme Regionalism trends. The globalisation forces us to buy the same products from the same brands all over the world. Limited-editions are desirable because it attracts and flirts with your persona. We will see a reaction towards the standardised global assortment and meanwhile the limited-edition series will help us feel individual and special.

The idea of ‘individual editions’ plays nicely into the area of tailor-made and bespoke travel - a possible focus of the upcoming Bounce online travel play. We totally agree with this one (and others) presented on this list. An online travel product that can help consumers save time, money, and sleep a little easier the night before they embark has a good chance of hitting a home run with consumers. The idea of ’security and safety’ as a future trend is a dead give away for any online travel product marketer looking to make an emotional connection with their consumers.

We’ve wrote a little bit on the wall about Location Based Services (LBS) and how they could tie into mobile tourism products or the current trend in online travel video production/distribution. Here is a pretty cool section cut from a HotelMarketing.com article. It waxes a little love on the 5 Hottest Hospitality Trends According to Microsoft. There is a big push on the horizon for mobile advertising & marketing services - no doubt about it. Over at Bounce we’re interested in how this will push into the travel industry and help people experience perfect travel with ease (sound famaliar?). If you’re really interested, try Googling “mobile tourism services” to kick up some head scratching research on the topic.

Find yourself (and pay for lunch). People in the hospitality industry have found a variety of uses for new radio frequency identification (RFID) technology?from helping guests find each other at a ski resort to allowing them to pay for a meal. That?s because, increasingly, this technology is gaining traction with hotels and resorts in the form of cashless payment systems that can be used on-property and, more and more often, off-property as well.

For example, at Wild Rivers, a water theme park in Irvine, Calif., RFID locator bracelets can be preloaded and used to pay for food and beverages (which is especially useful when everyone?s wearing a bathing suit). The RFID systems, developed by Guest Technologies, have yielded an almost immediate return on investment. After the system was introduced at Wild Rivers, guest spending quadrupled, with the average family of four spending twice their normal amount on meals.

Another key capability of this offering is location-based services, where groups of individuals can be instantly found at the property, simultaneously allowing for more freedom and security in these safety-conscious times. ?Imagine taking a group of seven 12 year-olds to a water park for a birthday party,? says Frizzell. ?You can go to any information kiosk in the park and instantly find where all of the kids you are responsible for are, and what activities and payments they have made, using their RFID bracelet. All of this is enabled through the implementation RFID and location-based services, using Microsoft technologies and Microsoft MapPoint Location Server.?

For more information on RFID technologies in the hospitality industry, please see this Guest Technologies article.

The Guest Technologies product is developed in the Microsoft Visual Studio development system with the Microsoft .NET Framework. It also relies on Microsoft BizTalk Server to help integrate applications and technologies from disparate systems, and Microsoft?s MapPoint Location Server for location-based services.

How, when, and where it all plays out will be subject to which parties decide they want a shot at a piece of the pie. Hotels are naturally in an advantageous position to deliver mobile based tourism services built on such technologies as RFID and/or GPSish applications due to their point of consumer engagement in the travel product lifecycle. Another party whom we think could carry a large interest in this type of play are destination specific tourism boards interested in delivering support for the very products and services that support their corresponding ecomony.

It also means headaches for online advertisers.

According to a recent study on affluence by Jupiter Research, Americans with annual household income over $100,000 spend a median of 17 hours a week online, compared with 14 hours for everyone else. They tend to also be more alert of advertising - and how to avoid it - as well as much more active online. Both of these elements are important factors for any OTA or small online travel brand to consider when developing any aspect of their Internet strategy.

And if you think affluent Americans are online for reasons of pleasure, you may want to take a second look at your analytics/adwords. A majority of their time is spent on such functions as online banking, bill payment, stock trading and media engagement. The Jupiter study found that 20% of wealthy individuals visit Web sites dedicated to business/research compared with 11% of other web-heads, and 37% of wealthy people did research for work online, compared with 27% of non-affluents.

As recently as March 7th, 2007 the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) reported that Internet ad revenues for 2006 reached an whopping estimated $16.8 billion, a +34% jump from 2005. Separately, Jupiter Research figures show the U.S. market for paid search advertising online was $6.4 billion - while marketers spent $5.7 billion on display ads, which includes (the now completely annoying) pop-ups and (slowly dying) traditional banners.

The reasoning behind such behavior is rather clear: affluent consumers spend more time online because they are more tech-savvy. They also have the money to spend on the latest tech gadgets and are happy to fork over the sometimes outrageous fees one must endure to “always be connected”. For marketers of online travel products/services it is a clear call to action: think mobile, think rich-media, and deliver on your organic/paid search results efforts. Consider new channels such as social networking, blogs, and rewarding valuable WOM customers. Also stay up late at night thinking of new ways to reach an ever elusive demographic, and make that coffee before your next online marketing meeting nice and strong - because this isn’t going to get any easier.

Here is a great article by author Hollis Thomases over at ClickZ.com: Building an Online Travel Brand. Be sure to check it out.
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The independent Bounce take…

Pretty solid stuff on building a online travel brand in today’s hypercompetitive environment. In terms of strategy Jim Hobbs is right on. There is a more cost effective way than a pure PPC campaign given the current state of the online/offline travel industry. While the future of traditional travel agents has been all over the board - depending on whom you speak with - the fact remains, the agent/consumer relationship still remains important, especially in the luxury sector. This is an important market factor that any small online travel business needs to have a firm understanding of. Websites like Orbitz, Expedia, and others are fat targets that provide ample opportunity for small brands to chip away at market share and win out on ideas like powerful design, less managerial layers, better customer service, and better content.

We’ve recently received some dierct questions from our blog audience about Bounce - which is awesome and we welcome it. Therefore, I wanted to make a point (plus I like this image) to contact us if you need help, have questions, or just want to chat.

…if so contact us. From the press? If yes, we’d love to share some insight on our upcoming site launch or just learn more about our readers.

An interesting finding on an old adage. Picked this snippet up via Spanner Networks - check it out here.

It’s an interesting finding on the part of Jupiter (and good watching out by Spanner) and is about like anything else anymore; totally confusing in an information overload way. I find it hard to keep up with the sheer amount of advertising industry analysis out there anymore. Jupiter always has good information though, especially in the online space.

An investigation into the effect personal wealth has on reactions to advertising has found that paid search is likely to be more effective with richer consumers.

Paid search and text advertising are the two most effective ways of targeting well-off web users, JupiterResearch’s Affluents Online report indicates.

Defined as those with household incomes of over £50,000, wealthier online users are nonetheless less likely to trust advertising of any kind, with just 41 per cent doing so compared to 51 per cent of other demographics.

Of the sites that were trusted by more affluent web browsers, company sites or well-respected portals are their likeliest sources of information.

Such users are also more likely to fall into the 18 to 24-year-old age bracket, according to the research, confounding commonly held assumptions.

“Marketing dollars will be better spent on paid search, product reviews posted on companies’ web sites, and content posted on social media sites than on pop-up and banner ads,” Internet Retailer quotes the report as suggesting.

Recent investigations into internet user demographics found that 88 per cent of 18 to 29-year-olds in the US now regularly go online.

Time for a little self-promo on a tiresome (this time change stuff has me a little off) Monday afternoon.

So, if you have been keeping up with the writing on the wall around here you’ll notice that Bounce is getting ready to make some big waves in the online travel industry. You’ve heard us talk a little bit about AZURE, a little bit about adventure, and maybe even a mention about niche markets in online travel. In order to keep the pace and not to leave our readers hanging, I’ve decided to give a few snapshots into the big Bounce play that is literally right around the corner.

Bounce pursues niche oriented markets in online travel - for those of you just joining us. We also follow very closely offline travel trends, general trends in internet and technology, and of course - every move the guys at Google make. Fast forward to present day - or more specific - this writing. If you have an interest in adventure travel, luxury goods, and the online space you’ll want to keep a close eye on what we’re up to. We have a really cool + unique solution currently about to enter the boring yet significant ‘private beta’ phase of launch.

If you’re interested in taking a tour of the site, contact us to arrange a tour with the fearless (yet humble) creator of Bounce and the soon to be kick ass website for the world’s top adventure travel companies.

Serving up a little more destination/travel video here at the BounceWall.  What are your thoughts?  Useful?  I’m going to be making a video comparison of some premium content on our latest websites of interest.  Stay locked in this month.