reknown
Is AI Over-Hyped? Or Do We Actually Need to Learn This Stuff?
Daniel Craig | July 23, 2024
After so much buzz about AI over the past two years, things have grown a bit quiet. Was it all just marketing bluster, or is generative AI still poised to transform how we work and live? For hoteliers, is it enough to dabble occasionally with ChatGPT or Gemini, or do you actually have to learn how to use these tools? To find answers to these questions, it’s helpful to look at the path new technologies typically follow from inception to mass adoption. Charting AI on the Hype Cycle Decades ago, Gartner introduced the Hype Cycle to map the maturation process of emerging technologies. The model is intended to help people and compan...
Is AI-Generated Content the Spam of Our Time?
Daniel Craig | May 1, 2024
By Daniel Craig Lately I’ve been coming across a lot of content online that appears to be AI generated. I’ve seen it in articles, blogs and whitepapers, on news sites and social media, and in email, product marketing, and media releases. It makes me wonder, has the use of generative AI to write marketing content become an accepted business practice? I’m not referring to using AI to enhance our writing. I’m talking about publishing content that is written predominantly by an AI chatbot like ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini. I would share examples, but I don’t want to shame anyone. We’re all experimenting with AI. There’s ...
The Work-From-Anywhere Trend Is Changing 2023 Travel Patterns
Daniel Craig | January 3, 2023
By Daniel Craig Here we are at the start of 2023, and it’s almost time again for ITB Berlin. It’s a long way to travel from Vancouver for me, so I usually make a larger trip out of it, visiting clients in cities across Europe. But this year I can’t help but wonder, will there be any clients to visit? With so many people working remotely these days, many offices are running on skeletal staff or have shut down completely. Enabled by technology and precipitated by the pandemic, the remote-working trend is one of the biggest shifts in business demographics we’ve seen in decades. And the hotel industry has yet to see the full i...
Will Hotels Become Faceless, Hands-off, Sterile Environments?
DANIEL CRAIG | May 19, 2020
By Daniel Craig Hoteliers, are you ready for the Covid-19 recovery traveler? In this time of struggle for the travel industry, we can’t help but acknowledge the irony. Are hotels, after working so hard to build reputations as high-touch, warm and intimate, going to become faceless, hands-off, sterile environments? How will hoteliers uphold guest satisfaction while ensuring the safety and wellbeing of guests and staff? In my next webinar with ReviewPro, From High Touch to No Touch: Transforming the Guest Experience Post Covid-19, we’ll discuss how hotels around the world are implementing new health, safety and social-distancing...
Events Canceled Due to Coronavirus? Here’s How to Replace Lost Business
Daniel Craig | March 4, 2020
By Daniel E. Craig, Founder, Reknown This week, the travel industry is reeling after the cancellation of ITB Berlin and various other events due to COVID-19. Whether this is just a blip on the radar or the start of a prolonged downturn, we don’t have the luxury of waiting to find out. We need to regroup and re-strategize now. For tech vendors and travel suppliers, tradeshows provide a rare opportunity to meet in person with hundreds of clients, prospects and industry partners, launch products, hold demos, give presentations and build relationships. After a successful event, attendees come home with a long list of leads, renewals an...
Why Google Ratings Might Just Be Your Hotel’s Most Important Quality Metric
Daniel E. Craig | June 27, 2019
By Daniel E. Craig, Founder, Reknown Move over, TripAdvisor — there’s a new sheriff in town. Over the past couple of years, Google has revamped its review product, increased review volume exponentially, and made Google ratings more prominent in search, maps and hotel listings. As a result, Google ratings may have emerged as the most important measure of quality for hotels. Here’s why. In Search, Google Reigns Supreme Google’s role as chief gatekeeper to online travel planning difficult to dispute, but does it hold a monopoly on search? While company officials bristle at the suggestion, others aren’t so convinced. “Goo...
So You Want to Host a Webinar
Daniel E. Craig | June 25, 2019
By Daniel Craig I love giving webinars. Attendees can’t see me, so I can wear pajamas and drink wine. I can’t see them, so I don’t know when they’re rolling their eyes or falling asleep. And if anyone asks a hard question, I can just mute them. Try doing that at a conference. But seriously. Done well, webinars are a cost-effective way for companies to reach a large, global audience and drive sales leads without having to travel or pay conference fees. This may explain why it seems like everyone is doing webinars these days. Problem is, today’s corporate webinars are often poorly organized, sparsely attended, rife with tech ...
Content Marketing Tips for Travel Tech
Daniel E. Craig | June 3, 2019
By Daniel Craig To drive sales, tech companies need to reach decision-makers. As traditional methods like advertising, prospecting and social media increase in cost and decrease in effectiveness, more companies are turning to content marketing. The trend is particularly evident in the hotel and travel technology space, where news sites and email boxes today are stuffed with brand content. The problem is that a lot of this content is thinly disguised promo material full of hype, dubious claims and clickbait. It's not nearly as effective as it could be. Having produced hundreds of articles, guides, webinars and presentations over the year...
