Jane L. Levere - The New York Times Media Group
NEW YORK
It may be a little late to the game, but business travel is now the subject of a variety of blogs.
In the past two years, companies in the travel business, including Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Marriott International, Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines, have introduced blogs to promote their products and brand images, as have business travelers who want to narrate their experiences and gripes.
One of the newest blogs intended to appeal to business travelers is BoardingArea.com, a portal created by Randy Petersen, a frequent flier program expert and founder of the online forum Flyer Talk.
Now in beta mode, meaning that it is still being tested before its official release, BoardingArea is essentially a directory to blogs that address issues of interest to business travelers.
Forrester Research said that in the second quarter of 2007, 21 percent of business travelers who use the Internet read blogs, not just on business travel, but also on sports, business, finance and other topics.
''This indicates that organizing a portal for business travel blogs, especially with good content, means the site has potential,'' said Henry Harteveldt, a travel analyst for Forrester.
Tracy Gamble, vice president of business development for Propylon, a software company, has found travel blogs to be a great resource. Gamble, who is based in Dallas and spends half her time traveling, reads three or four travel blogs regularly, including the Informed Traveler, Cloud Travel and Gridskipper.
''I regularly consult these blogs before making client dinner reservations,'' she said. She also uses them, she said, to keep up on travel news like changes in security procedures.
Last autumn, she said she was too busy to visit her own doctor to get a flu shot. But after reading a post on Gridskipper, she learned that she could get a shot at a kiosk in O'Hare International Airport. So in November, when on a layover at O'Hare, Gamble went to the kiosk and was done in 10 minutes.
''It gave me peace of mind,'' she said. ''A week before I sat on a seven-hour flight with a lot of sniffing and coughing types. If I'd seen the kiosk without having seen it on the blog, I wouldn't have stopped.''
Hotels, airlines and other companies in the travel business have also harnessed blogs to build customer loyalty, promote their brands and offer insights from their employees.
One of the most prominent bloggers is J.W. Marriott Jr., chairman and chief executive of Marriott International, who began a blog, Marriott on the Move, a year ago. It includes four or five posts a month and podcasts.
Marriott said he had tried to make his comments as personal as possible; for example, his post Wednesday discussed his and his family's experiences in the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.
''I love it,'' he said. ''I read an awful lot of responses we're getting. It gives us a chance to communicate with the world and a chance for people to communicate back.''
The company considers Marriott on the Move a success now that it has attracted more than 345,000 visitors, almost a quarter from outside the United States. This year, the company plans to translate Marriott's posts and add the blog to its Web sites in Germany, China and Latin America. This month, it also started a second blog, Marriott in the Kitchen, written by Brad Nelson, its corporate chef.
Starwood started its blog, TheLobby.com, in April 2006 to provide information for participants in its Preferred Guest loyalty program. Chris Holdren, vice president of Starwood Preferred Guest and global Web services, said the tone of content had changed since the blog's introduction to allow the ''perspectives of the bloggers to be brought to life.'' These include four travel writers and some 70 Starwood employees.
Southwest Airlines has operated its staff-written blog, ''Nuts About Southwest,'' a name that refers to its in-flight snack of peanuts, since April 2006.
Blogs can also be a quick way for companies to gauge customer reaction to policies. Early last year, Bill Owen, a schedule planner at Southwest, wrote in a post that the airline sold its inventory only three months in advance. But after an outcry from customers, it changed its policy and now sells tickets at least four months in advance.
The blog had 500,000 unique visitors in 2007, said Linda Rutherford, vice president of public relations and community affairs at Southwest. Southwest expects that number to double this year.
Delta is one of the newer entrants to the blogosphere. It began blog.delta.com last August, which also has staff-written posts.
Delta is using the blog for market research. In the next month, it will post proposed screen shots for its ticket kiosks on the blog for feedback from travelers.
BoardingArea.com lists not only these travel company blogs and those published by daily newspapers, but also features nine blogs started by individual business travelers. Two of the nine blogs, View from the Wing and The Gate, had their start in Petersen's other frequent flier ventures.
Brett Snyder, director of new products for PriceGrabber.com, a comparison-shopping Web site, and author of the Cranky Flyer, one of the nine blogs featured on BoardingArea.com, hopes the portal will do more than earn him and Petersen money.
''It will help with exposure,'' Snyder said. ''Business travelers will be able to come and read not just my blog, but others. I'm a big fan of sharing traffic, getting conversations going across blogs.''
January 29, 2008
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