Is HUT 8 a Good Buy After Its $9.8B AI Pivot? Institutional and retail investors are all abuzz about AI infrastructure stocks particularly the best AI small caps where the rotation over to small caps will be even more intense. These are companies involved helping with the trillion-dollar AI computing build out and the 4th…
Next Week’s Market Forecast Last time I spoke of a market scare, oil prices hovered below $60. Now they’re up around $110. And the big indexes were much lower than now. Caution for Investors This Week (June 18th) Friday’s stock price stumble on the exchanges reflects a lot of uncertainty swirling around the markets. Investors…
👊 🤺 Resisting and Controlling AI to Save Your Business Do you feel negative about Artificial Intelligence and all the hyped-up generative AI tools and agents that are reshaping business and marketing? You’re not alone. Small business owners in travel, real estate and ecommerce are watching their analytics and sales reports and are really not…
☀️ Super El Nino Could be a Boon for Summer Vacation Bookings A languishing US travel market could get a sizable lift from a coming Super El Niño, reported by the NOAA. The NOAA charts show predictions are for an unusually warm summer. And as June nears, the CPC ENSO Probability predictive scales show the…
Paid Promotion Powers Up Successful Travel Campaigns Working as Delta Hotels SEO, I managed to get their franchisees and their brand dominant in the free, organic Google search results — affordable, hotel marketing. They appeared several times in a top ten search (e.g., hotels in [city name]) and in maps like top 8 links that…
🚚 SEO & Demand Strategy for Mid-Sized Moving Companies Turn Search Visibility Into Predictable Bookings Mid-sized moving companies don’t lack capability. They lack consistent, high-quality demand. You have the crews, equipment, and operational strength to scale—but growth stalls when: Website traffic is almost non-existent Customers leads are inconsistent Paid ads become too expensive Website traffic doesn’t…
🤖 MindTrip.ai Personalized Travel Planner It’s 2026, and AI chatbot-powered trip itinerary planners are evolving with new services and powerful new partnerships to compete with travel agencies for a select portion of the travel market. In the case of the Mindtrip.ai travel itinerary planner, that potential is in improved range of services and travel planning options. …
🚚 SEO for Moving Companies: Turning Search Demand Into Booked Moves Most moving companies are doing more right than they realize. You’ve built a business that people trust. You manage crews, schedules, equipment, and customers during one of the most stressful moments in their lives—and you make it work. Yet if you’re reading now, you…
Real Brokerage Merges with REMAX! Last week, Real Brokerage made the decision to acquire REMAX for $880 million, creating the 3rd largest real estate company in the world. The deal closes later this year. RE/MAX is well known for its mastery of residential real estate, with trusted, experienced agents, and rising above the competition in…
Versatility Creates Focus on Maximum Performance “Versatility in digital marketing is not about doing more tasks. It is about connecting the tasks that actually create revenue.” “The versatile marketer protects the marketing budget by finding the few channels, messages, and content experiences that create the most trust, engagement, leads, and buying action — then concentrating…
The Best Buy the Dip Stock Opportunities Coming Soon? Stock market analysts might be divided about where the US stock market will be by year end 2026. If you review the stock market forecast for 2026/2027 and for the next 5 years, you might feel optimism – that the worst is just about all in…
Why Luxury Travelers Are Quietly Choosing Alaska in 2026 Traditionally, luxury summer travel tended to follow a predictable script. Affluent travelers usually go where the sun is guaranteed, where the air is warm, water is calm, and the destination experience satisfying, comfortable and familiar. 2026 will see a departure from that routine especially for European,…
Upgrading to Become a Luxury Travel Advisor? The titles luxury travel advisor or luxury travel designer are ones any travel professional would love to have. Prestige, income, freedom and high brand value come with that designation. Yet, wealthy clientele as you may have learned, have sophisticated tastes and premium expectations about travel and who will…
Helping Your Travel Agency Thrive This year’s travel season is a little challenging, but we know it’s going to pick up as the economy strengthens, the Iran war ends and the tariff issues weaken. People love to travel and there’s so much more for them to choose from. Market expansion creates more opportunities for your…
Oil Price and Gasoline Price Forecasts Oil and Gasoline prices were expected to fall in 2026, primarily due to a weaker global economy and a rising flood of oil supply from non-OPEC+ producing countries. As we know in March, those forecasts flew out the window as the US/Israel/Iran war has curtailed production globally. And Iran’s…
Major US Stock Indexes Hit New Record Highs Iran’s current regime announced all commercial ships would be allowed to pass through the straight of Hormuz. It’s sent the Dow Jones, S&P 500, NASDAQ and Russell 2000 upward today. The Dow jumped 1000 points today (Friday) and the S&P 500 hit 7100, a new record. It…
How to Build Your Successful Creative Team Are your creative producers generating high-performance, impactful, persuasive materials that customers love to engage with? Creative content holds a special place in business performance, driving marketing’s goal to to serve and delight prospects and current customers, along with your brand fans. Supporting creators in building your content marketing…
NASDAQ:KEEL. Keel’s Vertical Shift Upward to AI Infrastructure Services Bitfarms, founded in 2017 in Toronto, Canada, initially established itself as a global, vertically integrated Bitcoin mining company. Fast forward to now, the company is relocating to the US, (New York City) and has rebranded as Keel Infrastructure, a new company focused on AI infrastructure and…
Emotional Intent Satisfaction: A Framework for Travel Content That Moves People Nobody talks themselves into a big purchase decision — they feel their way into making one. From your content, they accumulate positive, reinforced thoughts which lead to stronger emotions — the real power behind an eventual purchase. Your web and social content help you…
Which Travel Agencies are the Best? Travelers don’t often type in “who are the best travel agencies in [city]”, but they have a vision of who is best, at least for them. The message of who is best gets told on social media, new stories, and blog posts. It could be subtle too, which can…
What’s Happening with Host Agencies, and Should You Switch Yours? The uncomfortable truth most travel advisors are facing right now: There’s a quiet shift happening for most travel companies. Fewer travelers are calling. More are planning online. Leads are becoming tougher to obtain. Reach to travelers seems to be slipping away. Other online travel sites…
Create Guided Travel Booking Journeys: Paving the Path to Conversion A great way to improve your content marketing and website content strategy is to look at it differently. Stale views really are outdated. And novel, unique views open new creative avenues for you to explore — each one contributing to a much better content experience…
Fuel Price Crisis: Another Opportunity for Entrepreneurs May Update: As the summer driving season approaches and international travelers prepare to fly to Europe, they’re getting hit with extra unexpected costs and cancellations. The current crisis is one of rising costs, recession worries, global slowdown, Iran war and border security hassles. It’s affecting travelers’ choices in…
Why is a Travel Content Strategist Your Best Asset? Today, the web and content experiences are the victims of trends, i.e., ChatGPT and Google’s takeover of the discovery layer of search. Visibility is tough to achieve. And there’s the tsunami of generative AI slop polluting the content ecosphere. This is making worthy businesses invisible. Our…
Stay22’s Affiliate Travel Report: Where the World is Booking The big question you need to grapple with in 2026, is how to monetize your web traffic — converting them into actual leads and bookings. Does your content provide the best context for your desired travel buyer’s travel wish? Does it present an optimized travel booking…
Moat Management for Travel Businesses: Advanced Techniques Even for small travel agencies, it is essential to build your own brand and engagement channels which acts as a moat that your competitors can’t access. Because, in this Generative Ai era, it’s so simple for another agency or a travel company startup to copy your agency, from…
Leverage the Power of In Person Events Too often, digital travel business owners and entrepreneurs get caught up in the digital only mindset. From Zoom, to email and online ads, to AI marketing platforms, it’s leading many to neglect the real, actual in-person, human side of travel promotion. You need to make a stronger connection…
How to Get AI Search Engines to Trust You and Your Website Content We’re into the AI search era now and it’s challenging to stay visible and relevant to customers interests and inquiries. They’re asking and finding on the new AI chatbot search engines. Unfortunately, most Realtors, travel agencies, hotels, destination websites, tour companies and…
European Travel: The Biggest Growth Opportunity Many Agencies Haven’t Fully Tapped Yet For as long as anyone might remember, Europe has hosted some of the most sophisticated, rewarding, and transformative travel experiences the world has to offer. From adventure to culture and cuisine with a variety of climates, settings and views, to shared group tour…
How to Profit from this Goldilocks + Innovation Supercycle Coming Stock market bull runs happen. They’ve happened many times and some investors have become wealthy from them. They weren’t Warren Buffet or Tom Lee. They just invested at the right time. Stats show that much of investors’ actual, real wealth gains occur during these periods…
Your Travel Magazine Is Worth More Than You Think Why are Travel Magazines the Next Travel Platforms? Travelers still love travel magazines, because they contain the content experiences they want to view. And travel magazines celebrate the joy of travel and enliven the travel heart and mind of travel dreamers. The fact is, they’re the…
How to Get Travelers Calling You Again As with most small travel companies (i.e., travel agencies), you’re likely seeing a drop in calls and leads. It’s a worrying trend haunting even the major OTAs. The data shows the attrition but what to do about it is the big challenge. And while invisibility to travel audiences…
The 8-Stages of a Powerful Travel Demand Generation Model Now that you’re clearer on the travel demand generation urgency you face, let’s see how you might execute it via this 8-stage process. Let’s clarify the digital marketing process for one more purpose — fulfilling it within an agentic AI travel marketing platform. Yes, it will…
Create your Company’s Demand Generation Engine If you’re waiting and hoping your website will deliver high intent, willing, paying customers and on a reliable basis, you should uncross your fingers. A better approach is convert your website and social pages into demand generators. Aside from developing a demand generation strategy and using AI platforms, your…
Building Trust in Travel Marketing Trust is a big factor in business and ecommerce. From job interviews to lending to word of mouth to booking a vacation, trust is an important consideration in everything we do. It’s vital for customers, and even important to search engines. Even when travel consumers like what you offer, trustworthiness…
From Overwhelmed, Exhausted Travel Search to Decided Bookings When I visit travel websites and influencer social media pages, I’m impressed with the personal creativity and style they deliver in their content. In some cases, they’re enjoying good success via their fun, personalized, engaged and even delightful discussion of travel (joy of travel), discovery of perfect…
The Bizarre State of the Toronto Housing Market in 2026 It’s a bizarre “Mexican standoff” for anyone waiting to buy or sell in the Toronto housing market. It’s a market of intense interest from a growing set of financial enabled buyers while those with properties, condos, townhouses and houses withdraw from the marketplace. That’s even…
🤖 Agentic AI Marketing: A Key Evolution for Your Travel Business Travel businesses face a difficult marketing reality. Travelers are searching, comparing, and planning trips across dozens of online channels — while the largest travel companies such as Google, Expedia, Marriott, and Booking.com use powerful AI-powered technology to capture their attention first and nurture them…
The Future Belongs to the Decisive A quiet plague is affecting many business owners about moving ahead with their companies. Travel agencies and advisors are feeling overwhelm or uncertainty with Travel AI solutions, hiring strategists/creators and implementing marketing campaigns. At first, it’s not an issue, but as your competition with the “just do it” philosophy…
🏞️ America’s Travel Choices in 2026: Venturing Across the Northern Border Americans will be traveling domestically, within North America this year. Rising political tensions and risks are making many focus entirely on trips across the country by train, car, bus and jet. And why not? The US is one of world’s most picturesque and diverse…
Build a Powerful Engagement Experience for Your Visitors Good things can happen if your visitors find your content, brand and personality relevant and interesting. When they’re spending time in it, it shows your content has impacted them, and made them feel good about themselves and their pursuit. The more engagement, the more likely they’ll progress…
⚾ Win the Battle of Top Sports Brands, Definitively For decades, sporting goods brands won their battles on an old familiar playing field: product performance, athlete endorsements, retail relationships, and in-store merchandising. Today however, consumer/team equipment and clothing buying decisions aren’t made that way. The battle of the big brands now is in the moment,…
Branded Search is no Longer “Easy Traffic” This isn’t 2003. Things have changed. Google users don’t jump on the first search result as they did when search was in its golden years. Back then, when they searched for your company name, they generally found your homepage url without distraction and clicked through quickly. Through SEO…
Profitable Spring Break Travel Audience Segments The Spring break vacation period is a pivotal one for travel businesses. In the U.S., it represents a multi-segment, multi-month revenue window driven by families, groups, cruises, and short-trip experiential travel — not just college party traffic. Normally, it’s been a brief lead window – sort of like lions…
Find Where your Travel Website is Leaking Sales and Revenue Let’s move past marketing theory to focus on where your travel website might be losing customers and sales. This is a weak spot for most small businesses including real estate sites, travel sites, and residential services companies. It might be the mysteriousness that’s affecting your…
Finding the Right Freelance Marketer For most small businesses, competent and versatile freelance marketers are a good fix in times of great upheaval. And when they also possess specialist skills, and a true affinity with your target audience, whether full time or part time, their contribution can be profound. In fact, they might be your…
Travel GEO Strategy: Establishing Your Priorities First Travelers reliance on AI search engines for travel planning is growing. For them, this new channel is exciting and perhaps becoming indispensable. Being visible in AI search engines is more important than you might realize. Yet optimizing your travel content (the material they want) for the way they…
Make the Travel AI Threat a Benefit There’s a lot of fear about AI these days. It’s disrupting the travel sector at a faster pace and most small travel companies likely don’t have a plan to deal with it. The rising competition is a data center full of high speed, advanced servers collecting data on…
Generative Engine Optimization: A Practical Guide for Small Business Owners More customers are now getting answers, recommendations, and buying guidance directly from AI systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot—often without ever clicking a website. For many small business owners, this shift shows up quietly in fewer search engine referrals, less inquiries, and more hesitation from…
How To Optimize your Content for ChatGPT, Gemini, and other LLMs AI search engines are giving consumers an exciting new source of information. They provide not just links and info, but also act as an expert source engaging with the user. As you’ve read in the Generative Experience/Engine Optimization post, gaining visibility in them requires…
High-Intent Shoppers are Slipping Away — How Smart Travel Companies Are Stopping that Loss You might be doing the right things to attract visitors to your travel site via SEO, social, and PPC. Yet when they arrived, you’ve seen bookings stall, pages skimmed, and their confidence quietly faded. They left. They’re not impacted and they’re…
The Quest for Persuasive Travel Content You have to agree that your content must persuade. Travel content can be fantastic — yet still fail because it couldn’t convince the visitor to become a customer. It’s this frustration in converting visitors to customers that’s keeping travel business owners up at night. In this post, we focus…
Use the AI Search Threat to Your Advantage If you’ve found your free organic Google traffic, repeat visits, and online sales dropping at an alarming rate, you’re not alone. Both SMBs and large corporations, news media and even government sites are seeing their free organic search traffic disappear. Google and other tech monopolies are creating…
Website Persuasion Architecture Framework For decades, free traffic from search engines (and social media) was substantial. Unfortunately, most websites provided a poor user experience and they weren’t proficient generating conversions. The result? Lots of bounces – a sure sign the content has not captured its audience. Conversion rate optimization sprang up as the hottest trend…
Grow Sales and Loyalty with Persuasive Content Experiences There’s little doubt you’ve seen your website and social media performance stats, and now you don’t want to think about that anymore. If you’ve done Google/Facebook PPC campaigns with poor results, then it likely wasn’t very persuasive. Visitors don’t seem moved to click through or become a…
Gold Price Forecast: $5,000 an Ounce and Climbing! Should you be investing in gold stocks or Gold ETFs? Are these the best stocks to buy right now? Last year, I wrote about the Gold’s explosive growth to $3000 an ounce, and alerts that it could go higher. Well, it did to $5,000 today. You don’t…
GenZ and Millennial Best Homes to Buy Right now in 2026, winds are howling in the housing market leaving some buyers out in the cold. The conversation around the dinner table for Gen Z and Millennial couples along with single women who are most interested in buying a home, has gone from “where do we…
Canadians in a Sour Mood about 2026 It’s truly sad that an amazing country with so much potential is suffering in the throes of yet another recession, with a majority of its citizens expressing fear about the future. Surveys from Abacus Data and MNP show Canadians are feeling gloomy. MNP with its just released survey…
Mortgage Rates Falling: Freddie Mac’s Outlook With 2025 out of the way, homeowners, economists, Realtors and home buyers are developing or revising their their view of this year’s housing and mortgage markets. Of course, it’s more than lower rates on their minds. It’s down payments, home prices, inflation, employment trends, loan terms, length of mortgage…
Compare Lowest Home Mortgage Rates Housing markets from Boston to Tampa to Los Angeles and Denver all crippled by the mortgage rate locked-in effect. Sellers can’t afford to sell their homes and adopt a new mortgage at a higher rate. For mortgage agents, it’s a frustrating situation as they wait for mortgage holders forced to…
Mortgage Rates Must Fall in 2026 With resale home transactions falling, mortgage rates steady at 6%, and inflation easing there isn’t a lot to fuel big home price increases. And that’s fortunate, given how difficult and expensive it is to buy a home, or find refinancing. Sure there are a lot of buyers waiting and…
Fresh Look at the US Housing Market In his most recent announcement in December, NAR’s Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said he believed the US resale housing market would see prices surge 3% and sales grow by in 2026. All told, they see a housing market showing signs of a rebalance—and a notable rebound—in 2026. This…
🏆 What is Advanced SEO? Advanced Search Engine Optimization is the use of sophisticated techniques, frameworks, tactics and practices in designing content, choosing topics and copywriting strategy, to create strong ranking signals for search engines. It’s done under a cohesive strategy that focuses ranking power and channels that through linking structures. Advanced SEO identifies critical…
Mexico Vacation Packages Every fall and winter, millions of vacationers from Europe, US and Canada dream of a vacation to warm sunny Mexico. Some travel agencies who are able to capture this demand, are rewarded with new bookings and revenue. The diversity of this spectacular destination added to the wonderful accommodations in Mexico, restaurants, venues,…
🤩 The Essence of Stellar Travel Content Arguably, the biggest weakness of most small travel companies online is shallow, mundane content. Yet, the problem really is about what business owners and marketing managers believe what good content is. Everyone has their own conception and biases which may be holding their businesses back. After research, creative…
😎 How Does Travel Boost Health? In the rush to book and sell trips, the travel industry may not be fully selling travelers the full benefit package they could. And health is no insignificant benefit. In fact, health is one of the top benefits sought by travelers and it colors their initial interest to trip…
Finding the Right Travel Agency for You in Toronto (GTA region) Your Traveler Guide to Find the Right Travel Expert for Your Kind of Trip The Greater Toronto Area (GTA) is one of Canada’s most diverse consumer or corporate travel markets. With millions of residents who love to travel, with their deep cultural ties around…
Your 2026 Dream Trip: Where Will You Find Yourself This Year? Not every dream trip begins with wanderlust or an impulse to get away this week. For many travelers looking ahead to 2026, it could begin a little quieter, spawning from a feeling that this winter will linger just a little too long, slowly building…
Travel for Health, Enjoyment and Healing It’s that time of the year, when most Americans, Canadians and Europeans dream of traveling. Amidst the cold of North Hemisphere winters, visions of southern beaches of Spain, Mexico, Caribbean, Florida, Costa Rica and Australia become vivid, maybe even haunting. But in the vision of destinations and activities, we…
How to Buy a House During a Recession Tens of thousands of prospective homeowners are asking a common question right now, “is this economic and real estate market lull the best time to buy a house or condo?” It depends, of course, on where you hope to buy. Some states and cities are suffering economically…
Informing Content Strategy with Attribution Insight How do we achieve better performance via content marketing, SEO, ads, email, and promotions so we know what moves the needle? Answer: We improve our workflow and craft a strategy that’s measurable using advanced attribution metrics software. There’s a lot of magical talk online about “campaigns” and performance marketing,…
Launch and Scale a Luxury Travel Agency Looking for a high-potential business idea? Have you considered building a travel agency? It’s a hot business idea. And the luxury market is just one niche you could focus on. Today, that might only mean hiring a small team, offering some equity, and leveraging their joy of travel…
Your Website Is Your Business — Make it Great For most online firms, and for a good number of brick and mortar businesses, the company website still is their business. It’s a market visibility generator, product/service educator, cool digital storefront, captivating branding statement, helpful customer service center, traffic volume builder, hospitable welcome center, lead generator,…
Why Banff Alberta Has to be on Your Trip List Having lived in Calgary, Alberta for 10 years, and continuing to visit when I can, I can recommend nearby Banff in the Rocky Mountains as a must-do epic vacation adventure. Banff is more than just mountain tops although that’s often enough for sightseeing visitors here….
Dow Forecast DJIA 2026 Institutional and retail investors across the globe were waiting for US industrial companies and their stocks to rocket forth as the US economy emerges from the oppressive weight of high interest rates, regulations, and high taxes. At the confluence of all of those being rectified under the Trump administration, the Dow…
Your REALTOR® Brand Identity Workbook Let’s transition you from “just another agent” to the recognizable, trusted market authority and the only agent for them. As the 2026 housing market boom nears, it’s likely that most Realtors aren’t ready to capitalize on opportunities coming. That means fewer leads and commissions, and perhaps erosion of your customer…
Real Estate Marketing for 2026 and the Next 5 Years While sales in the US and Canada are frustrating most Realtors, some Realtors appear to be enjoying a good sales year. They’ve found paths to success. They took their time and drew up a marketing plan — one that helped them reach new prospects and…
San Diego County Driving Tour: Your Love Story Plan for an exquisitely personal and romantic journey through San Diego County in California. Couples dream of escaping to places where comfort and rejuvenation happen simultaneously. It’s a tall order for your travel advisor, but there is one place that has everything you want in a couple’s…
What Are We Learning About Employment Today? A new report from consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas revealed US employers announced more than 1.1 million layoffs so far in 2025. That’s the most since during COVID pandemic in 2020. And perhaps surprisingly, it’s the tech sector that’s seeing the greatest carnage. CGC reports that technology companies…
Is Short Form Video the Right Opportunity for Small Travel Agencies in 2026? As an experienced travel agency owner, hotel owner or DMO manager, you’re hoping for some sure hits, or maybe even a magic bullet for your inbound traffic strategy. You’re reading a lot about how some channels are great while others not so….
The Power of New Ideas How would you win a best design competition at the Albuquerque International Balloon Festival? Would you show up with the usual round balloon with a different color scheme? Or would you brainstorm a brilliant unique design that evokes judge’s imagination and resonates with the balloon festival spirit? Would you go…
Inbound Travel is Receding – Here’s how US DMOs can Rebuild for 2026 If you manage a US-based travel agency, destination management organization, or perhaps a hotel, or tour company, you’re likely finding 2025 is a little tougher. Foreign demand for US travel destinations dropped, particularly from alienated Canadians. The European outbound market is still…
Blogs Drive Engagement, Leads & Revenue With the glut of AI slop, automation, and the noise of global competition, you’re faced with a big challenge to create content that will be seen and heard. The apparent downgrade of organic content and SEO has led to many marketers withdrawing from creating organic content. The demand for…
A Refreshing, Warm Winter Sunshine Vacation in Spain You’re dreaming of a beach holiday with warm sunshine to beat your winter blues. This year, some travelers are avoiding US sunshine destinations, but they’re still looking for sunshine, water fun, slow walks on palm-strewn, golden sand beaches, and relaxing restaurant dining. US inbound travel has been…
How to Surmount the Major, Current Travel Business Challenges Small travel company owners and managers today face a marketing landscape that’s more fragmented and demanding than ever. Your travel audience isn’t a single audience anymore — they’re seniors, empty nesters, Gen X planners, multigenerational families, solo travelers, luxury buyers, affinity groups, and experience-hungry Millennials and…
Loss of Canadian Travelers Hurting the US Travel Sector US inbound international travel is predicted to fall by about 6.3% in 2025, falling to an estimated 67.9 million visitors, which marks the first decline since 2020. A sizable portion of that loss is attributed to missing Canadians, who look to be cutting out US travel even…
TMR’s Travel Market Reports 2025 A couple of travel market research reports by TMR show geopolitical tensions, overtourism, AI, and economic uncertainty are hampering the travel market. And travel company owners have to decide on how to respond to reduced bookings. Change and challenges like this generate opportunities, or gaps in the marketplace, which in…
Toronto Travel Spending a Market Worth Fighting For Canadian travel to the US has plummeted and now your Toronto region travelers are searching on Google for other destinations in big numbers. That’s great news for all Toronto travel agencies. Not only are new customers in the GTA up for grabs, they’re shopping with an open…
Show Your Audience You Care For humans, caring is the glue of society and personal relationships. If your marketing is all about value, price, customization, and services offered, your marketing could miss the mark and make your brand irrelevant. Because how your brand feels to visitors/customers tells much about whether they like your products/services/staff. It…
Your New Theme of Efficiency, Service and Performance Most travel agency owners and travel advisors find themselves with diminished visibility online and a dependence on OTAs for leads. It’s a painful place to remain given how Travel AI is progressing and how OTAs are better positioned to score big time in the new AI-mediated marketplace….
How to Market Small Beach Towns Beach town communities are special destinations. From open sky vistas over a lake or ocean setting, to golden sands with kids playing, to surfing and boating, to gorgeous sunsets, and amazing waterside dining experiences, they are a compelling experience for almost any visitor. And these places deserve a special…
Lean Marketing: Save Money & Increase Performance The theme of how to do more with less is always in vogue. Especially now, with the economy slowing, particularly for small businesses, and given helpful, assistant AI tools have entered the scene, (i.e., ChatGPT) managers/entrepreneurs are looking at their workforce differently. The fact is, the small business…
Stock Market Forecast for the Next 5 Years In this report, we focus on the longer-term outlook with some predictions. It’s all post tariff adjustments where deregulation is successful. Deregulation is underappreciated in how it can free up America’s productive power. It’s about much more than “drill baby drill” for energy security. It’s more about…
Hiring Older Workers Might Save your Company Small to mid-sized companies are struggling to find good talent today. It might be technology, a shortage of highly trained workers, unmotivated Gen Z’s, along with the wave of retiring baby boomers and more. Strangely, stats show many company owners aren’t interested in hiring older workers to fill…
✈️ 20 Travel Startup Ideas (Low-to-Mid Budget) I discussed the many business opportunities in travel for VC investors and entrepreneurs and want to expand with some practical possibilities that you might find very interesting (and profitable). It’s a billion-dollar industry of course, and has a bright future despite current geopolitical, migration, and recessionary issues. People…
Your Career in Travel? Are you looking for a new career? Drained by another week doing work you have no interest in? Are you starting to dream of a more engaging, inspiring, and rewarding workday, while enjoying a whole swath of cool benefits? Who isn’t right? After all, the employment market is shrinking and changing…
Travel Business Opportunity: The Right Plan for VC’s and Entrepreneurs Travel remains a growth sector with amazing possibilities, even when there are lulls in consumer or business-related bookings. If this is that lull, then the sector must be promising for the years ahead. The US and global economy is expected to improve, and any easing…
🍁 Why Canadians Still Make a Great Choice for Outsourcing The US is undergoing a fantastic economic, cultural and business transformation launched via tariffs, deregulation, tax reduction, cheaper energy and artificial intelligence. Growth will be phenomenal. In 2026, the FED rate will drop allowing small US businesses to enter the boom times. We’ll see burgeoning…
How You Can Beat AI Travel Agencies With OTA’s and new AI travel agencies impinging on your audience and customer base, you’re understandably concerned. Young travelers are open to AI-driven travel planning and services. Agency owners on the other hand appear to be resisting anything that carries that artificial intelligence tone to it. However, as…
Why is Real Estate SEO in such High Demand? SEO remains as perhaps the largest source of new leads for search-savvy Realtors. Whether it’s Google, Bing, ChatGPT, Google AI/Gemini, or just listings on Realtor.com or Zillow, ranking algorithms can be mastered to build more exposure for you and your client listings. Real Estate SEO arises…
Small Business Marketing Report The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) says its latest Small Business Optimism Index in July, rose 1.7 points to 100.3, slightly above the 52-year average of 98. Uncertainty remains (fell 8 points from June to 97) and is a big factor in growth and hiring intentions. Yet, respondents feel the…
🏅Content Strategy: Your Number One Marketing Asset Content strategy isn’t regarded highly enough by many business owners. Most don’t know what it is. Content strategy is how you design and use digital assets to make customers feel strongly about what you offer. Done well, it achieves many marketing objectives — producing customers with higher intent…
🥇SEO Services Toronto It’s a new business environment for many Toronto companies in diverse industries ranging from travel to manufacturing to software development. A US business cultural trend to exclude Canada is afoot, and a good way to counter that threat is to employ effective digital marketing. A comprehensive marketing strategy that leverages high-quality content…
🥬 Google Loves Fresh Content – So Do Your Visitors How do you feel about eating that 4 day old salad you left in the fridge? How about that salmon that’s still in the garbage bin after a few days? Then you understand freshness so well. And that’s not all. How about the hypnotizing aroma…
AEO Answer Engine Optimization If you’re a digital marketer, you may have caught wind of a new type of search engine optimization. They’ve dubbed it Answer Engine Optimization or AEO. It’s actually a subset of Generative Engine Optimization, in that it is optimizing content pieces so they meet AI search engine indexing priorities and guidelines….
Adobe™ Offers AI LLM Optimizer for AI LLM Content Optimization Adobe™ has been an innovative, graphic design software company for decades. It’s products were world class. And this year, it’s extending its brand reputation by venturing into the Generative AI realm with new some cool, new AI tools for the mid to enterprise level marketing…
Sales Boost: Grab Your Low-Hanging Fruit Easy lead generation for travel companies! Yes, I’m not crazy. It’s like picking cherries. You know how I can help you generate significant visibility on ChatGPT or Google/Bing search engines, build brand recognition, and get your offer to new customers (and former customers who are online). You need to…
Best Marketing Analytics Solutions for Travel Businesses The only thing worse than knowing your digital marketing isn’t working is not knowing why. Which is why we need deeper insight into the full marketing funnel. In this post, I present some great analytics software solutions for you to review and I think you’ll be surprised at…
The Ultimate Guide to PPC Optimization and Lead Generation At some point in time as a small business owner, you have launched an online ad campaign on Facebook or Google, and likely discovered how difficult it is to produce leads and revenue. Your budget suffered and so did your confidence. Then you wondered if ppc…
Build Deep Insights of Your Targeted Travelers If you’re fortunate enough to have website traffic, social engagement, leads, and traveler inquiries, you may still struggle to convert those leads. It’s because they’re not getting the content experience that meets all their needs. You can improve conversions through understanding the why’s and whats via user-intent analysis,…
⚡ Why You Need Me on Your Travel Marketing Team If you own or manage a traditional travel agency, you’re likely concerned about keeping your loyal clientele and creating more bookings and clients via word of mouth. Travel is competitive and the US/European market is aging, changing, and it has slowed which I’m sure you…
The State of Hotel SEO Travelers from Europe, Asia, South America and in North America conduct billions of searches for hotel rooms. Given the scarcity and cost of hotel accommodations, they may see the hotel search as the most important aspect of their itinerary planning. All travelers need a place to stay. SEO is a…
🛡️ Bulletproof Hotel Marketing While the leisure travel market has returned to surpass pre-pandemic levels and B2B travel continues to recover, there remains significant headwinds for small to mid-sized US hotels. While hotel businesses spend fortunes on physical assets and advertising, it’s wise for CEOs and marketing managers to reconsider the power of digital marketing…
🚗Top Tour Marketplaces Online The tour industry has grown in leaps and bounds, as global travelers search eagerly on Google, Bing and tour company websites for interesting travel experiences. Travelers want something invigorating or interesting to do for a sense of personal meaning, and a feeling that they’re immersed in these wonderful places. It’s all…
Visibility is Everything Whether you’re in the travel business or in real estate sales, being discovered and getting your message heard is paramount. And I’m reminded of what SparkToro’s well-known CEO and co-Founder, Rand Fishkin said recently — that discovery is the next big marketing objective, ahead of clicks. Because as he puts it, being…
🧭 The Easy Marketing Playbook for Travel Business Owners A 5-Step Guide to Get More Bookings Without Losing Your Mind (or Budget) You’re a busy travel company owner booking flights, trips, tours, and managing your staff and day-to-day business challenges. A lot on your plate, while revenues might have slipped a little in late 2025….
😇Travel Angel Investing: A Goldmine if you Choose Well Like the rest of the globe, US travel is changing dramatically, drawn back to a domestic focus which I explored in the US domestic travel market report. As an angel investor, you have plenty of industries to invest in, however, as mentioned in the travel startup…
🚀 2025 Best Small Business Opportunity: AI Travel Agency Given the turmoil in the North American travel sector, you might think it’s an industry to stay clear of. And as an entrepreneur, you might not be licensed or have sufficient qualifications to run a travel agency. Then there is the whole challenge of it and…
🗽Exploring the US Domestic Travel Boom A big change is happening in US travel and tourism — a shift to domestic travel destinations and vacation experiences. Such a trend is good for the economy and good for Americans by encouraging them to explore their own country by plane, train or automobile and thus support tourism…
🤗 Selling Vibes to Travel Customers? Most travel salespeople would agree that the customer’s wants and pain points are the core of any selling strategy. Travel decisions are complex and emotional, and travelers tap into emotional reasoning to simplify their decision. And basically, that means they rely on the “vibes” they get from your marketing,…
Website Traffic is Your Company’s Lifeblood Traffic is everything. Without visitors to your website, there is no impact, no content consumption, no brand building, no convincing sales pitch, no customer or sales revenue. In fact, when your site is never visited, it means your current customers are being wooed away by highly visible competitors. A…
Stock Market Forecast The 2026 Stock Market Update: A Post War Bull Market Supercycle? Will the US stock markets hit a lower bottom, and is the ultimate buy the dip moment for global investors who want to ride the US economic resurgence? Have you identified the best sectors and the best stocks to buy? Are…
Advanced Search Engine Optimization Consulting One of the issues of being in a prosperous city such as beautiful regional Calgary, is that dedicated marketing services sometimes lag current demand. Calgary is economically hot and growing fast. Finding qualified talented Search marketing consultants and expert content creators is difficult, let alone those with experience or expertise…
San Diego – A Place Where Summer Never Ends Imagine a place where summer never truly ends, where the ocean breeze carries the promise of adventure, and where every sunset feels like nature’s own masterpiece. Visualize yourself in the most sunny, southwestern part of US, next to Mexico, a place famous for its American and…
Overcoming Travel Buyer’s Inertia or Hesitation As a travel consumer yourself, you’ve likely experienced hesitation, doubt, inertia or some other emotion that caused you to not click that buy button. Perhaps, your commitment or intent was weak to begin with due to a lack of input. You needed to explore more. And sometimes that commitment…
SEO Services for Travel Companies There’s often a lot of doubt and confusion about how SEO is done and delivered, so I’d like to present this series of steps that clarifies how I will work with your travel business. Google’s ranking algorithm looks for many strengths in content quality and relevance, and that clear signals…
Making Impact on Your Visitors is High Priority For a decade now, marketers have been focusing more on the visitor experience and user engagement. Yet the first part of experience and engagement is the impact your content and brand make on visitors. You may have some great product shots, a nice-looking webpage, and a…
San Diego County: An Urban/Recreation Adventurer’s Paradise from Golden Beaches to Sculpted Terrain Features San Diego County in California, is a stimulating, unfiltered mix of experiences that weaves together natural wonder, action adventure and urban cool. It should absolutely be on your bucketlist. It’s not trite to say San Diego won’t bring transformation, as it…
US Travel Market to Return to Record Levels As a Canadian, I still find the US the most compelling place to visit. Even up against the splendor of the Alps, Spanish Beaches, France architecture and history, the azure Mediterranean Sea, and mysterious Asia, the US is comfortable, fun and accessible. Now in the midst of…
Travelers View a Lot of Content Expedia’s most recent travel market report is a treasure trove of insights for travel startups, travel agency owners, tour operators, hotels, car rental companies and destination marketing companies. One area highlighted in the survey that’s relevant to your business is the sheer amount of time taken and content viewed…
Creativity is in the Eye of the Beholder At some point in time, maybe now, you’re wondering about the creative appeal of your travel content pieces. Creative expression really amps up the persuasive power of content, and there are travel publishers that put an emphasis on creative travel copywriting. They hire professional creative writers at…
Why Search Engines Are Essential for Your Travel Business Success Given the promise of the incoming Trump 2.0 government with its pro-business agenda, both personal travel and business travel will see a big boost in 2025. And with travelers using digital tools such as Google to plan their trips, its absolutely necessary to build visibility…
The Rise of User-Generated Content in Travel Marketing Any serious travel company needs to produce authentic content to draw traffic, engage customers, and build its brand. In terms of authenticity, helpfulness, and immersion, it’s a tough task for most travel companies to produce affordably and genuinely. That’s why augmenting your current content strategy with the…
Get Your Guide’s Fall 2024 Travel Experience Report Smart travel business owners and marketers should get access to insight travel market research. It drives smarter business decisions so you’ve got the right presence for your brand for the exact audience you need. Bold, confident, profitable decisions are driven by real data and insights. A healthy…
Improving Your Agency Tours and Packages The tour and travel package sector has been strong for two years now. Travel agencies are doing well. Competition however is increasing as eager entrepreneurs sense the opportunity. However, as the competition for travelers increases and as old sightseeing tours become too mundane for repeat travel buyers, your agency…
Reaching Babyboomers and Senior Aged Travelers A statistical fact that might shock many today, is not only the size of the senior population in America and globally, it’s how many are traveling. By 2050, seniors 60+ will comprise nearly a quarter of the global population. In contrast to Gen Z’s and Millennials who are unfortunately…
The Rise of Influencers in Travel Marketing Travel marketing companies have a challenge today. If they’re unable to draw enough qualified traffic and convert them to customers, then it could be the consumer market has changed. And keeping clients relevant, visible, and generating leads is becoming more difficult. With SMBs web traffic and social media…
6 Unique Groups of Travelers 1.3 billion lucky people today enjoy the amazing benefits of enriched travel experiences. The quality, access and variety of travel options possible is creating a different view of traveler’s personalities, wants, and buying behavior. Because very unique experiences are available to everyone of any age, background, or sex —…
DIY Low Risk, High Return Marketing Test Project If you’ve avoided digital marketing, it’s understandable given how competitive and challenging the channel is. There’s the risk, the investment, the time and expertise, and confidence needed too! But any challenge can be conquered with faith, determination and strategy. The first part of the strategy is to…
Advanced Content Strategy: Power in the Creative Mix Every travel agency owner, travel management software manager, and tour company CEO has to decide what their blog content theme will be. Because a company blog creates the lion’s share (up to 90%) of web traffic. Which means content choices will decide how much traffic, rankings, impact…
How to Change Travel Consumer’s Minds Tourists and travelers of all kinds have particular tastes and preferences. Sometimes strong, sometimes not. How profitable would it be to change travel consumer’s minds about their loyalties, tour choices and destinations? These are well targeted, influential, and loyal customers to your customer list. Such insight in…
The Power of Iconic Brand Symbols If you’re not up on branding or impressed that brands have any power, you might want to take another look at it. Because a brand is your biggest asset once you build it. Brands have many dimensions, promises, value points, and touchpoints with travel consumers. And your travel content…
What Makes a Great Travel Experience? Why do people leave the comfort of their homes to spend a lot of money, interact with strangers, to see and do things they’ve never done before? And what about you personally? What experience do you you feel is essential to any long journey you might take this year?…
Adventure Travel, Tours, Experiences and Thrills The adventure travel market is exploding in opportunities, services, hosts and places to visit and it’s so easy to book a trip. Many travel adventure consumers are jumping in to create new, more fulfilling travel experiences. And while we think of adventure travel as appealing to only thrill seekers…
Boston Expert SEO Services You’ve been thinking about the lead generation possibilities of search engine optimization and you’re weighing whether to hire an agency, SEO company or a specialist SEO consultant. It’s not an easy decision, so let’s go through some of the process of prioritizing services and skills that each might provide. I’ve enjoyed…
10 Ways to Get Homeowners to Sell Entering 2026, we’re seeing a stronger interest in homeowners wanting to let go of their beloved property. Many are giving up on their dream price. Others in some regions of the US and Canada however, are hanging on, even seeing higher selling prices. There’s big reasons why people…
FaceBook META Stock Turbulence The stock chart shows Facebook/META have enjoyed a good run and META stock buyers have enjoyed a 400% gain on their shares over the past 3 years, quite a growth. The company’s growth in users, social media marketshare along with advertising market monopoly makes it one of the world’s premier profit…
Update March 2026: The 3 Month Forecast for the Stock Market Over the last year, the equities market has suffered numerous and successive negative shocks, (e.g., Liberation Day where the tariffs were applied). And there was the constant worry about inflation and Trump’s heavy-handed treatment of America’s enemies. Despite, Mexican drug cartels, Ukraine war terrorist…
Why Do Canadians Vote for the Liberal Party? When I asked ChatGPT to help me research the preferences of Liberal voters across Canada, it initially did provide the generalized, left-filtered, excuse-laden explanation you might expect. AI search engines do lean left. Yet with AI search engines, it’s a matter of pressing them, forcing them to…
Stock Market Plunge to Begin February Today’s additional plunge in the major indexes is a sure sign that negative signals that were there before are starting to hit home with business owners and investors. Beginning on Tuesday, a riskoff sentiment began but didn’t really take hold until Wednesday, while the plunge came today. It looks…
Top 10 Drivers of the Housing Crisis in Canada (ranked) Canada’s Liberal media mills don’t use the phrase “housing crisis” and instead refer to it as affordability issues. They assume a growing homeless population still has a job, and min wage paycheck, personal health, and the willingness to stay alive. Truth is, adequate housing is…