Travel blogs are the new Business Strategy 101

Along with his post on Expedia guest editor Michael Potts of e-interactive sent along another post for me to published. You will find it below. I am flattered by it and (as I am shy by nature) a little unsure of whether or not to publish. But this is a blog so I will publish and let you the readers decide. Here is what Mike had to say...

I went to see a potential new client today in Barcelona, a small but successful online travel company, Engrande. The guys at Engrande are smart and aggressively targeting a quickly developing online European market (selling low cost hotels, B&B's and hostels through city specific websites) - and use The Boot as one of their key points of market reference.

In fact this shouldn't be surprising given the depth of great content that Tim writes. What was surprising was the fact that John Erceg, CEO, placed such significance on the content of a blog. It struck me like never before how educational and powerful a simple blog could be. There was a time when Business Week and The Harvard Business Review were THE points of reference, but this position certainly appears to be tenuous especially given the accessibility of such a lot of good content.

The article that John wanted to speak about is entitled "Lastminute.com speaks and I agree a lot, a little and not much (all at the same time)". His query related to where his organization fitted into the analysis of both The Boot and Lastminute.com CEO Ian McCraig. Clearly Engrande is not a "scale" operator, and doesn't fit with the idea of a "niche" business, the two areas of success mentioned by Ian. In fact Engrande seems to be a convincing argument that the "market specialists" detailed by Tim can experience considerable growth and success through smart search engine strategies and a clear product pitch.

Offline business publications, be afraid - very afraid!