Every Monday we post a few highlights in marketing, social media, hotel distribution and other news that we think you might want to read. Below are a few articles from last week in the news.

Mobile

Last week’s WIT (WebInTravel) conference in Singapore took a deep journey into innovation trends and the next steps for the travel industry.  This recap of the first conference day offers a good summary into what Asian leaders in travel innovation had to share on mobile:

WIT Day One – The Future of Mobile is Bright!

We tell our customers on a near-daily basis about the many faces of mobile and the growing number of forms that mobile devices will take in the years to come. This guide, a little on the techie side, is filled with useful tips for optimizing your site on the various platforms:

Optimizing Your Website for Mobile and Tablet Devices

Revenue Management

Hotels don’t take enough advantage of the capabilities of their Revenue Managers. This is an interesting article that  highlights the possibilities for the role of the Revenue Manager within your hotel, including the steps that you can take to elevate this role.

Elevating the Role of Revenue Manager

The economy is still in distress: hotels are turning to OTAs to drive occupancy. We were surprised to see trends posted by Rate Gain showing that European hotels are not offering rate parity across channels. (Stay tuned…Paul King will be blogging on this topic later this week):

Hotel Rate Parity Trends – Europe (Oct – Dec 2911)

Marketing and Social Media

Social media marketing takes a lot of time! It is tempting to make the marketing process more efficient by automating news to be sent out through your channels. In some cases this can work for you – but this article warns not to over-automate or you’ll miss out on your message, and your audience.

Four Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Automate Your Social Media Marketing

Twitter creates a closer connection between brands and consumers and, according to this study, creates consumers who are more likely to buy. Does your marketing mix include cultivating loyalty and creating new guests through this channel?

Following Brand on Twitter Increases Purchase Intent

*Image source: http://searchenginewatch.com