This week...ASA investigate TripAdvisor, Londoners buy the most online travel and beware of the supercookies!

It’s another Monday, which means it’s another update from us at CWT Digital! This week like every other week in travel and technology has been filled with news and changes. As always we’ve highlighted the top industry trends and news for you to keep up to date, we hope you enjoy!

CWT Digital News

The Big 10- 5th September- Entries are still open to be in with a chance of winning a free PPC audit for your company. This prize is an invaluable tool to help guide your PPC campaigns in the right direction. The prize includes a full audit of your PPC strategy/ campaigns with a detailed document of recommendations of where you should be heading with your campaigns. You can apply here and entries are taken up to the 21st September.

Travel News:

ASA confirm TripAdvisor investigation- 2nd September- You may remember a few ‘This Week’s’ ago we mentioned that TripAdvisor was under scrutiny for fake reviews, well now the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) have confirmed they are investigating the issue. Kwikchex, an online reputation management company who have been leading the attack on TripAdvisor have received complaints from over 2,000 hotels. The ASA. who have only in the last year started investigating websites and are now looking into TripAdvisor’s claims on their website of ‘Reviews you can trust’ and ‘TripAdvisor offers trusted advice from real travellers’ as part of the investigation against false advertising. The report will be published by the ASA once the investigation is complete.

London has the most online travel sales in the UK-1st September- The latest Experian Hitwise data has revealed a difference in online travel purchase behaviour in different parts of the UK. The report indicates that Londoners are 32% are more likely to book a pure online holiday, while the North East is 27% more likely to use a multi-channel website. The most popular online travel sites were Thomson, First Choice, Teletext, Lastminute.com, Cheapflights, Thomas Cook, Expedia and Travel Supermarket. The report indicates the main growth in online travel is being driven by niche brands rather than the larger, more well known brands.

Technology News:

Chrome adds the Facebook like button extension-2nd September- Chrome has now added a Facebook like button extension for it’s tool bar meaning that you can now like any content all over the web. Up until now users could only like and share sites if the sites had installed the like buttons or by using 3rd party tools. The Facebook extension from Chrome is very easy to use and tells you how many people have already liked the site. If you want to install the app then you do so at the Chrome web store for free here.

Supercookies and the dangers of using them-2nd Sep- Mashable looks at the use of ‘supercookies’, a new breed of cookies which are being used across the Internet to track user data. These cookies differ from standard cookies as they can track user behavior across a range of sites rather than traditionally just being focused within a site. What makes these ‘supercookies’ even more unethical is that they are almost impossible to delete. The cookies are stored in multiple locations on a users machine, in applications such as Flash, and have to be deleted manually. Website owners are erged not to use these ‘supercookies’ in order to not only protect users privacy but to also protect their brand reputation. Some sites maybe using these cookies without even knowing, so it’s important that you test your site for them.

Living Social brings Escapes to the UK-31st August- Living Social has decided to extend it’s Escapes travel and holiday brand to the UK after seeing success in the US. The site will offer UK members of Living Social access to 4* and 5* hotels and experiences at a discounted rate. Living social insists that this platform isn’t another flash sale last minute holiday site, but one that is focused on giving quality holidays and experiences by only offering the higher end hotels. Living social believe that advertising on the Escapes platform will increase traffic by up to 5 times, it will be interesting to see how this platform performs in the UK where local deals and Groupon style sites are becoming increasingly popular.


That’s it from us this week we hope you enjoyed our updates! Remember if you do want to keep up with us during the week then please do follow us on Twitter or like us on Facebook . Have a great rest of the week!