Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Press Releases Expedia Media Announces Marketing Campaign Support For Gulf State Destinations Impacted By Oil Spill

By Michael Chase

One industry that has been revolutionized from the internet and e-marketing is the travel industry. There are now dozens of sites where travelers can find the lowest prices and reserve flights, hotels, rental cars, cruises and entire vacation packages. Some of the sites that offer such deals are Kayak.com, Priceline.com, Expedia.com, and Orbitz.com.

Expedia.com headquarters are located in Washington and is the largest online travel website. It was formed in 1996 as a division of Microsoft and was later purcahed by Ticketmaster.com in 2001 and finally InterActiveCorp in 2005. A brief history of the site can be found at fundinguniverse.com.

In an article appearing this week in Marketing Weekly News reports that http://www.expedia.com/ is running promotions for the Gulf State’s affected by the BP oil spill to help their tourism boards. The states include; Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama and according to the article for the months July, August, and September:

Organizations in these areas will receive three dollars in marketing value for every one dollar spent with Expedia Media. The matching program will allow destinations in need of tourism to stretch their promotional dollars and further increase their visibility among travel shoppers visiting the Expedia, Inc. sites…."Expedia stands behind our destination and supply partners throughout the Gulf states," said Doug Miller, Global Vice President, Expedia(R) Media Solutions. "We hope we can help minimize the economic impact of the oil spill and help Gulf state destinations overcome challenges in consumer perception that have kept travelers away even from unaffected areas.

Along with the tripling the marketing dollars spent by the tourism boards of that region Expedia also plans to donate one full day to each of the Gulf states on their homepage and homepage of partner hotels.com for free. The article also goes on to say that Expedia will donate $50,000 to update their homepage for the gulf relief:

A separate campaign will run for each state and will utilize Expedia's premier Homepage Wallpaper advertising product, providing highly visual, exclusive placement on the Expedia.com and hotels.com homepages. Together, the two sites are the most highly trafficked online travel agency marketplace, offering prime marketing visibility for the Gulf states to reach a very large, relevant audience of travel shoppers when they need it most.

The most important aspect of Expedia.com’s campaign is the increase in tourism to the Gulf states, which otherwise would have most likely been avoided by vacation travelers. The economic situation in this area is under a large enough strain, perhaps some savvy vacations has ease the economic downfall of this region. E-marketing can quickly capitalize and promote areas of the country to larege appropriate audiences, which are in need of assistance, far quicker than traditional advertising.


For more information about Expedia check out:
Marketing Weekly News. Atlanta: Jul 17, 2010. pg. 107

http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Expedia-Inc-Company-History.html

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10797395/1/expedia-media-announces-marketing-campaign-support-for-gulf-state-destinations-impacted-by-oil-spill.html

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