It will be interesting to see what the tool looks like when it is rolled-out, screenshots for the cubeless product from Sabre are available at cubeless.com.

As we have said for quite a while: getting recommendations from colleagues and other trusted sources can make business travel a lot easier. There is no doubt that companies will embrace tools that have been available for leisure travelers as a way to increase service, lower costs and drive compliance. It will be interesting to see how the concept of “openness” and “sharing” that is the heart of Web 2.0 will look like in an enterprise environment.

And I do not know why so many are complaining that it is not funny or the lyrics don’t rhyme - go and make a better video! We promise to post it here!

That is pretty powerful stuff. Image an airline being able to achieve 20% higher yields or a hotel being able to get a 20% higher RevPAR for offering consistently superior service. And yet when I look at ads or booking engines it is all about price, price, price ….

One of the biggest news - at least in my eyes - at PhocusWright was the announcement by the CEO of American Express Travel that Amex would roll out a social networking site for corporate travel soon.

Here are some excerpts of what he had to say:

“Imagine the power of the wealth of expertise of our 14,000 travel counselors around the world, our 1,000 sales client managers and consulting experts … and employees of 20,000 corporate customers around the world that the new technology would allow us to harness in. What we will see soon emerging is the advent of consumer-like behavior in the managed corporate travel world … the end user being more informed, more information-equipped and hence being more global.”

“For example, our dynamic traveler marketing concept, which we plan to launch in 2008, is a pure social software technology-based solution,” he added. “Social software technology platforms will be more and more used to accelerate the base of new product development by incorporating more
strategic partners and customers into the [research and development] process. This will be further accelerated with the 2.0 concept.”

Now that even Amex is getting onto the social networking bandwagon, does anybody still not believe that social networking in travel will go corporate soon?

But how disappointing was the roll-out of another Amex social networking site a couple of days later. Membersknow.com allows Amex card members to share travel related information. However for a site built in 2007 it lacks a lot of features. If you are info user-generated-content, web 2.0 and social networking, read the terms and conditions for the program. Talk about being restrictive …

Although the sheer number Amex card holder will bring a lot of traffic to the site I doubt it will create real stickiness. But at least one big consumer brand is getting it and is starting to utilize (and maybe also monetize) all these consumer relations in a new way.

A recent example from Hotelmarketing.com:

Quite simply, people believe people who are like themselves. People want to hear the opinions and unbiased critiques of like-minded individuals (classic word of mouth). This is the trust component of the decision process being satisfied.

With social networks and consumer content being so readily accessible, satisfying trust is the new industry standard – not marketers spin. The implications of which are enormous now that over 60% of European online consumers take part in social computing activities such as blogging, reading and writing reviews, or taking part in social networking sites.

What most studies fail to mention is that in the world of UGC not all people are created equal. People are different and as a consequence content created by users varies greatly in quality and relevance. UGC has to be relevant and has to come from a trusted source in order to carry more weight than an expert opinion or even a marketing message. In the long run tools and filters will be needed to weed out bad and irrelevant UGC.

We have updated the interest pages on all sites of the GoSeeTell Network. The new user-interface makes it a lot easier to quickly pick the things you like - or hate - to do when traveling.

Why should you fill out your interests?
We will give you two very good reasons: the interests allow you to search and find members who share your passions and lifestyle.

And in a second step you can also see the places these users - your AlterEgos - like to go.

And voilà you have recommendations for places you should visit, created not by an editor, not by a computer, not by an advertising agency - no, created by people just like you who happen to like the same things you do.

But there is more to come, stay tuned!

But wait! Videos say more than a thousand pictures.
So we decided to throw in a video upload tool as well. Just for the fun of it …