Blog homeTravel industry blogging is looking up….. but one trend that should worry larger travel companies is the move towards “rumour blogging”.
Just this week…..
Darren from Travel Rants.com managed to uncover the sale of Holidays Uncovered to TUI UK.
Tim from The Boot has started a rumour about TUI looking to buy AsiaRooms. He is also speculating on some other deals that may happen.
Tim also “outs” OnlineTravelCrunch (the single source blog that created the rumour about Amadeus / Opodo selling Karavel)….. noting that the blog is actually written by an Opodo staff member…. (which I knew before posting earlier this week - but I didn’t say because their lawyers are bigger than me).
I now am subscribed to 4 blogs that are written “without a company name” – but by senior employees of large travel companies – and hosted on free blog hosting. It takes a while to fathom out who everyone works for…. but you get there in the end. The golden rule is not to use posts on these blogs as quotes from that company because they are plainly not – however bloggers publishing in this way should remember that if you write about a rumour involving your own company – you can hardly expect us other bloggers not to expose you – as Tim has just done to OnlineTravelCrunch (Opodo - Amadeus).
I have now decided not to post any more rumours (unless they are really juicy!) as I can’t afford the legal fees. Besides, this blog is best when on topics I know about – which is web design, web 2.0, reservation systems and usability.
Tip to rumour creators and responders!
My tip is to publish a rumour on Friday afternoon. Others will comment and repost over the weekend – and then when the PR team from that company comes in on Monday morning there will be too much on the web for anyone to deal with 
In reverse, PR teams need to become like IT teams – on constant 24 hour standby – 7 days a week. Now it will no longer be just IT teams that get phone calls at midnight saying “I know you are at home but we have a problem and I wonder if you could just take a look at it……”
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