This morning I found an interesting speech by John Scott in the v7n blog. John takes up the issue how future sale trends of any product or service on the Internet will be influenced by Web 2.0.

The network is becoming a real physical location: many people spend more time exploring, having fun, meeting and buying on the network that in real geographical location.

Let's take the case of a normal Leisure travel - like mine in Barcelona last week:

I booked the hotel - on-line

I bought the flight - on-line (now airlines like Ryan Air offer fast check-in for customers buying tickets on-line)

I found the major Barcelona attractions - on-line

I kept in touch with my family - on-line

In a clothes shop, they gave me a ticket card to visit their on-line store on-line :)

If I had my laptop, I don't want to imagine how many other on-line could have been

The need to start a community-oriented Hotel marketing

As John correctly point out, so many people are beginning to identify more with on-line location and network relationship than with the off-line ones; when Internet becomes a community more than a market, who sells in a community-oriented way has clear competitive advantages on competition.

No one is claiming that these concepts are easy to understand, neither that a hotelier has to see them as something concrete to put into practice with a single click. The question that we hear more often from other hotel marketing agencies is yes, it's all true, but how can I tell hoteliers?.

These trends are the current reality of Internet and they'll develop more and more in the upcoming years: integrating in on-line relationship circuits will make the real difference between success and failure in hotel marketing.

We must use the strength of these communities to carry traffic, create a brand, sell rooms, and this can be done in a GENUINE, HONEST and PASSIONATE way. To make it clear, it's probably essential to start just to communicate the shape of the on-line medium in the next few years.

Which elements will affect travel decisions on Web 2.0?

Let's return to Barcelona (unfortunately, only with our minds): which elements have been more influential on my hotel booking decisions?

LOCATION/PRICE: they will always be, joined together, the most important element for the 90% of travellers.

SUGGESTIONS: from "Friends" that I have never seen in person, in a on-line Community that not even talk about travels. In less than half a day I could have 3 opinions about hotels on the Ramblas with the best value for money, packed in a communicative form that resembles a really dispassionate dear friend's suggestion: who's so rational to be not influenced -in a substantial way- by a similar informal exchange of information?

From isolated and scared users to protected and savvy travellers

Thanks to entertainment multi-media favoured by broadband connections, more and more people spend more and more time in Internet and become expert in this particular "Location", and also an integral part of a tacit community: community that helps them to become savvy and well-informed consumers.

Up to a short time ago, the Internet was the ideal medium for the good advertising of a bad product: in an immature market, the user was convinced more by the quality of the website than by the quality of the product or service that the website was proposing.

Now the value is returned off-line: Internet has become a very powerful communication and sale channel, but the good Hotels are one again made of stone