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The travel and tourism industry is evolving ever so fast and makes it a very interesting playground. Yes, a playground we’d like to call it, because in fact travel is a fun activity, and our work in the tourism and travel industry is entertaining and engaging.

ITI Marketing, Inc. is a global destination marketing company with over 25 years of experience in the travel industry. We work with international and domestic destination marketing organizations and help them market their brands on the Internet with the ultimate goal to align online initiatives with  their other more traditional marketing strategies. ITI Marketing, Inc. is at the cutting edge of the new destination marketing paradigm, helping clients imagine, implement and re-invent off- and online strategies and mobile solutions.

The company is lead by CEO Franci Edgerly (connect with Franci at LinkedIn). Other key staff include Christina Warren, Director of Marketing and Product Development, and Andy Uhlig, Director of Client Relations (connect with Andy at LinkedIn).

Meetings2Go – Managing Meetings from your Mobile Phone

Challenge: You are a meeting planner, hosting a trade conference with 1,000 attendees. It is 3pm, just two hours left until the cocktail reception to be held in the beautiful outdoor setting of the River Landings. A heavy rainstorm is threatening the event, and the event has to be moved to the ball room. How can you quickly and effectively communicate this change of venue?

Solution: Reach all conference attendees with one single SMS instantly to announce the change in program.

Challenge: You are a trade show attendant, and you must connect with Joe Doe to discuss the details of the proposal you sent him last week. However, you cannot find his phone number to call him and set a time and place. How can you find his information and contact him on the go from the trade show floor?

Solution: Look up the Meetings2Go.mobi site that was set up for your trade show on your mobile phone and find Joe Doe in the Networking section. Call, text or e-mail him, or any other registered trade show participant, directly from within the application to set an appointment.

Challenge: You are having your second glass of wine at the cocktail reception with one of your clients when you discuss dinner plans. You have heard about this great French restaurant, but you have no idea where it is.

Solution: Go to the City Guide section on the Meetings2Go.mobi site right        from your phone and look up the restaurant, connect to its website, look at the menu and get directions.

Meetings2Go.mobi is a dynamic platform that not only helps event and meeting planners run their operations more efficiently,  it also offers exhibitors sponsorship opportunities for increased visibility and an easy way to communicate with conference attendees, and even a tool to take instant surveys or votes.

And best of all, it looks good on the event planners budget, since much of the printed conference material that usually comes with a conference can be avoided. Go Green!

Marketing Experts Urge Companies to Ready Their Web Sites for Mobile Access

Companies Who Don’t Adapt Are Missing Important Marketing Opportunities

T-Mobile is rolling out their new G1phone in October – a highly anticipated event that will allow users more effective handheld viewing of websites.

While most businesses have yet to investigate whether their Web site is accessible to handheld users, according to an M:Metrics March 18, 2008 survey, 85 percent of iPhone users access the Web for information and are 10 times more likely to search the mobile Web than cell phone owners. Mobile technology experts say that the public release of Google’s Android by a major mobile phone manufacturer (HTC) with a major carrier (T-Mobile) signals increased acceleration of the trend.

Read the rest of the article.

RSS Feeds in Plain English

Do you find it difficult to keep your bookmarks organized and refer back to blogs you find interesting on a regular basis? Overwhelmed with the vast information available on blogs and websites, and want to go back on a regular basis and read updates that are posted?

RSS to the rescue! What is RSS? RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it. You can receive an e-mail every time your favorite websites post updates.

Here is an explanation, easy to follow, which explains the purpose and benefit of RSS feeds: