Bigmouthmedia's 2011 Travel Report Reveals Social Media Spending to Overtake Direct Email Marketing

EDINBURGH, Scotland, December 14, 2010 - Bigmouthmedia's 2011 Travel Report has revealed that the sector's
enthusiasm for digital marketing is set to continue in the face of extremely
challenging trading conditions.

While the travel sector has continued to be amongst the worst affected by
events in 2010, the standout statistics from the bigmouthmedia Travel Report
2011 (
www.bigmouthmedia.com/downloads/files/Bigmouthmedia_Online_Travel_Report_2011.pdf)
indicate that enthusiasm for the nascent social media and mobile
channels is set to continue unabated, with social strategies taking a larger
share of budgets than direct email marketing for the first time. Meanwhile
smart phone enabled enthusiasm for mobile grows, with 28% planning invest in
apps development and 22% looking to build mobile sites over the course of the
next year.

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"The industry has been forced to cope with a rich variety of challenges
ranging from exploding volcanoes to a stuttering economy over the past year,
but our research shows that across the travel sector, these setbacks only
appear to have increased companies' enthusiasm for digital marketing in
general and the social media in particular. With the need for budget
transparency and accountability becoming ever more important, the measurable
nature of digital is fast making it the dominant channel," said Anneli
Ritari, Senior Travel Strategist at bigmouthmedia.

According to the report, which surveyed 78 leading travel professionals
from bigmouthmedia's client base, parent group LBi and the readership of
Tnooz, digital's share of the overall marketing budget looks set to continue
to grow - from 56% in 2010 to 60% in 2011 - with some 85% of companies
planning to increase their spend in the months ahead. While the majority
intend to do so by means of a direct investment, some 33% will transfer the
funds across from traditional channels.

As might be expected Online Travel Agents (OTAs) and comparison search
engines have the largest budget share devoted to online marketing at 90%,
while airlines and hotel companies have the lowest proportion allocated to
online spend, with around 30% in 2010. However, this figure is set to
increase to 33% for airlines and 38% for hotels in 2011.

An explanation of these trends may be found in the fact that satisfaction
with ROI is increasing, and that many businesses are indicating that much
effort will go into improving their measurement in 2011. Some 58% of those
polled said that they intended to introduce attribution modelling to
calculate ROI for their online marketing spend in the year ahead.

Ritari added: "Although the travel business' adoption of digital
marketing techniques continues to improve, the industry can still learn from
the example set by other sectors. Examples of great video virals or social
media campaigns from the travel sector are few and far between - perhaps
because as an industry we tend to be too focused on ROI - and as a general
rule tend to lack the creative flair that has seen companies in entertainment
and retail reap rich rewards."

About bigmouthmedia:

A dedicated digital marketing specialist since 1997, bigmouthmedia is one
of the world's leading digital marketing agencies, with a team of over 200
staff located across a raft of international offices. Bigmouthmedia offers a
full range of services including search engine optimisation (
www.bigmouthmedia.com/products_services/search_engine_optimisation/ )
(SEO), PPC, affiliate marketing, (
www.bigmouthmedia.com/products_services/affiliate-marketing/) display
advertising and social media. Bigmouthmedia also provides up to date daily
digital marketing news (
www.bigmouthmedia.com/news_information/industry_news/) to ensure
clients are fully informed and aware of all industry developments.

A recipient of numerous awards, the agency has a strong track record of
running digital media solutions across the board and its global footprint and
experience makes it the ideal partner for international and multilingual
digital marketing campaigns.

In August 2010 bigmouthmedia merged with LBi to create Europe's largest
marketing and technology agency, combining LBi's best in class digital media,
marketing, communications, design, branding and technology services with
bigmouthmedia's leading search engine marketing product portfolio.

    PR contact:

    Iain Bruce
    Media Strategist
    bigmouthmedia
    51 Timberbush
    Edinburgh
    EH6 6QH
    +44-131-555-4848
    @bigmouthmedia

PR contact: Iain Bruce, Media Strategist, bigmouthmedia, 51 Timberbush, Edinburgh, EH6 6QH, +44-131-555-4848
at bigmouthmedia