Top five online travel markets in Europe

Top five online travel markets in Europe

An interesting run down on the top five european countries and their e-commerce Travel development.

VerticalResponse Email Marketing Blog: 6 Ideas For Segmenting Your Lists

This is quite a funky, but simtple breakdown of email marketing segmentation. Excellent way of explaining segmentation and giving examples to clients.

Quantcast - Open Internet Ratings Service

Quantcast - Open Internet Ratings Service

Today I discovered this site Quantcast. It's the world's first open internet ratings service". Still, if you're looking for some information on a site, that's a little more segmented than the reports by Alexia, I'd give it a go. Excellent for anyone doing online competitor research or if you're going for a job in Web or Online Marketing.

My Article Printed in Barcelona Connect Magazine

Barcelona Connect Magazine - August Page 14

Here's the original I submitted. All in all pretty much all of it has been printed.

Many will agree that Barcelona has a diverse, vibrant and flourishing classical to modern art scene. This month Barcelona Connect looks at how to get involved and set up a studio, and the future of artists who are just starting out in Barcelona.

There are a plethora of places to get your hands and feet dirty with art projects or courses in Barcelona. A few places to start looking include venues such as El Taller d'art MAÑO and Espai Jove Bocanord. Both offer a range of interesting workshops. There are posters for all types of artistic workshops in the Ravel area and an organisation called Talleres Internacionales de ARTE Contemporáneo who run interesting events and workshops in and around Barcelona.

Prices for non-qualificational courses start at around 40€ and the price range depends on the venue, teacher, level and materials used. Photography courses in general are highly popular. A centre that is quite well-frequented and very reasonably priced is Casa Elizade. A three-month course in photography costs around 50€, however, the courses are only in Catalan! As with all venues it is recommended to book in advance to avoid disappointment.

Barcelona Connect chatted to Tom Gruner, an artist who has been active on the Barcelona scene for three years. “For me the most interesting art spaces in Barcelona apart from the MACBA and CCCB that everyone knows, are Caminal, Niu, Hangar, and previously La Escocesa – before it was turned into a 22@ development,” he said.

Getting directly involved in underground art is not necessarily difficult. There are great support groups trying to consolidate the various artistic factions. “A group called Puto Encuentro are at the forefront in bringing fractionalised underground art groups and artists together," Tom said.

Rising property costs have not only affected homebuyers; art studios have experienced a dramatic rise in ground rates. Tom agrees: "Urban regeneration projects such as the @22 project have created a lot of property price speculation. Now many spacious properties are out of the price range of artists here. I don't expect many more to open. I've heard of a few artists finding low cost spaces around Sants or in Hospitalet, but it's a bit far from the centre."

Many artists agree that Barcelona is a difficult city to be successful, mainly due to the cost of living and maintaining a stable studio. Similarly, unless you produce standout works of art, it is hard to sell. Setting up a studio costs around 4 to 10€ a square meter. Most artists are hit with ongoing costs such as utilities, a hefty deposit and, at times, management fees. For about 600-1,500€ a month you can find interesting spaces, with more possibilities towards the higher price range. It might be better for smaller groups of two or three artists to self-manage their own spaces to keep costs down.

Your speciality can at times dictate where it is more reasonable to set up a studio. For those specialising in jewellery or smaller scale art, the Gotico or the Borne seems to be the area of choice. For painting large works or sculpture seek places in Hospitalet, Sants, Poble Sec and Zona Franca.

For the most part, English-speaking artists rarely bring over a workshop from the UK! Creative thinking can help with finding the best places for second-hand materials to kit out a studio. Tom said: “We find a lot of stuff just in the street. Our first studio was built from the leftovers of great construction materials from the Forum de las Culturas. Otherwise the Encants market is good for finding missing tools.”

If you are a budding artist and wish to exhibit here, it’s a good idea to find galleries/spaces and the shows you like, then contact the gallery’s organisers. Tom agrees: “Galleries are always looking for artists. It’s just important for artists to really commit to their ideas and make a collection relating to those ideas, then present them with confidence. Artists shouldn't have to pay anything for an exhibition beyond commission to the gallery for sold works.”

An interesting studio-to-rent project worth a mention is WorkBox - a project set up by the Metropolitan Museum of Barcelona. Basically, you hire a maritime container per month and can even exhibit there. Prices are a uniform 300€ a month, which is expensive but the benefits include a chance to be involved in this art project, to exhibit with established artists and do some networking.

Personal relationships and networking are the key to moving around here in Barcelona and it is important for artists to explore relationships outside their studio. Luckily there is an excellent online resource called Arte En Barcelona fulfilling this need. “One of the best ways to get respect here is to consistently make work and experiment,” said Tom. “People respect dedication a lot and will take you more seriously if you take your work seriously."

Tom Gruner has been in Barcelona for three years and works with print making and ceramics at BCN Art Factory, www.bcnartfactory.org

About The Author: Anton Leaton is English and presently works in internet marketing in Barcelona. He is a bassist in a thrash metal group Vivid Remorse

Information and Links

Art in Barcelona www.arteenbarcelona.com

Art Mirall, Loft www.espace-ample.com

Caminal www.caminal.org/druno

Casa Elizade www.casaelizalde.com

El Taller d'art MAÑO www.tallerartmanyo.com

Espai Jove Bocanord www.bocanord.org

Hangar www.hangar.org

La Esocesa www.laescocesa.org

Niu www.niubcn.com/esp/index.htm

Puto Encuentro putoencuentro.com

Talleres Internacionales de ARTE Contemporáneo www.talleresdeartecontemporaneo.com/

Work Box www.barcelonaworkbox.com

Great Tips on E-Mail Delivery

This article addresses the top 10 things one needs to be aware of when conducting any email campaign. I feel for marketeers who work in agencies for clients. Chopping down non respondents is practically impossible. Still some good snippets. Now we need the tell me to the show me... as with most CLICKZ articles.

A

Top 10 Challenging Questions to Ask Your Internet Marketing Vendor | By Max Starkov and Jason Price

Working in the travel industry you sometimes come across some very good articles about how to measure a supplier and types of questions to ask.

This article is very interesting and raises some very tough questions to Hospitality industry on-line marketeers. However, there's nothing in the article about benchmarking the answers.

For example:

4. Industry Recognitions and Awards
Awards of merit, and invitations to speak at conferences and serve on panels recognize the expertise of the individual and the credibility of the firm.

Questions to ask:

• Have experts from your company ever been invited to serve as panelists and guest speakers at internet and hospitality marketing conferences?
• Has your company won any awards or recognitions?

Sure... but unless you really know on-line marketing, if I win a web award, will the hotel really know it's value?

Additionally, these questions are a bit fallacious as you ought to be asking, has this person paid to speak - indirectly through offering sponsorship.

These questions are valid, but they need to be benchmarked against other through the back door marketing practices for recognition.

Another part goes on:

6. Best Practices
"The first step is to identify best practices in the online hospitality marketplace, and the second is to educate the client base on these practices."

"A good Internet marketing company has conducted extensive market research and testing capabilities.....".

Okay..... if you're a hotel that can afford Weber Shandwick.. please step forward.

There's leading practitioners of SEO in the UK who do not need to do this? Why, conferencing with ISPs or even Search Engines. The article starts to fall down from here.
Questions to ask:

• Does your company identify and adopt best practices in hospitality?

Answer: yes.... but how would they know how to measure the answer?

• What Internet market research and analysis in hospitality does your company perform? How do you keep up with all the changes in the industry?

Answer: surely this is client lead? It's what your clients and prospective clients want/need.

• "Does your company test its recommendations?"

Answer: This is a case on case answer. If you recommend to try something in email marketing for example it is done on past experience from another state of affairs. Even brand imaging for one hotel to another with the sexiest of offers might deter people from acting to a tried and tested method.

• How are your recommendations for my hotel different, when compared with a major hotel brand, hotel management company, franchisee, or independent?"

The article ends..

"When you are looking for the Internet marketing vendor who will manage one of your most important revenue channels, make sure to ask these challenging questions so you can find an experienced, transparent, and accountable firm"

Also, come up with some benchmarking questions to these answers!

The Google Behmoth

Caught a snippit on grok. It outlined the size of Google and how they're being blocked by the NTC.

The article states the following:

Google is as big and as weighty as:

• The top 15 Wall Street banks/asset managers;
• ~60% of the hedge fund and private equity industries;
• The New York and London Stock Exchanges;
• The two leading providers of financial analytical tools: Bloomberg and Factset;
• Two of the three national providers of credit profiles: Experian and Equifax; and
• ~60% of the Federal Reserve’s and U.S. Census Bureau’s raw market and consumer data.
  

Scary stuff...

Great Email Best Practice White Paper

This paper's quite nice. It's concise with all the pertinent facts for email marketing. I liked the viral and landing page considerations.

Very well written and recommended for any beginner or intermediate in email marketing

SEO Definitions

This is an excellent resource if you're finding it hard to explain a term like Algorithm or Crawlers or Bots.

Like me, sometimes you have a client you might not be able to get through to. These definitions have helped clarify some hairy client meetings.... recommended.

Top Tips for submitting a site to blog and RSS subscription directories

Four top tips for submitting a site to blog and RSS feeds. There's some great links in the article. It's been written by Jeff Behrendt so it has some weight. Interesting reading and short!

Excellent List Of Links For Directory Submissions

Answers the question.... “What are the best directories to pay to submit my website to?”

Thing is, now it's been posted as a link from a great article on econsultancy, every boy and their monkey are going to be using the same directories!

Still great for an internet start up with a great pot of cash!