Industry Watch: Rooms With a View

by Erin F. Sternthal, March 2006 issue , MediaPost

WHILE THE LODGING INDUSTRY IS charged with putting heads in beds, the new reality, according to hotel chains, is that to stay ahead of the competition they must offer more than just another square box. Long gone are the days when customers were satisfied with a hotel that offered a clean room, a restaurant, and maybe even a swimming pool. Today's savvy travelers expect higher levels of service, stylish design, wireless connectivity, and a place to sleep that is as comfortable as their own home, if not more so. The wake-up call for the industry may have been the launch of Starwood Hotels & Resorts' signature Westin Heavenly Bed in 1999, which prompted hotel chains to focus on the guest sleep experience. Thus began the "bed wars," with major brands swapping out tired bedspreads and mattresses with customized bedding ensembles promising a restful night's sleep. The bed overhaul also spilled over into the bath experience and ultimately the entire room, with chains redesigning spaces to include more luxurious and high-tech touches, particularly WiFi and high-speed Internet service, video game consoles, and CD stereo systems. The Web has become a relatively new means of touting these upgrades. For example, Hilton Hotels typically hasn't used online media as a primary marketing vehicle. Yet Hilton executives say that as more consumers research and book travel online, this channel has become increasingly more important. Research proves it. "PhocusWright's Online Travel Overview" estimates that sales from leisure and unmanaged business travel sites last year totaled nearly $65 billion, with 30 percent of all U.S. travel sales booked online. By 2007, that number is expected to jump to $93.6 billion, or approximately 40 percent of the market. GOING PLACES It's no surprise, then, that hotel companies are embracing the Web to capture more customers. Hilton's $1 billion "re-ignition" campaign, which launched in January, features emotionally driven print, TV, and online advertising components using the tagline "Travel Should Take You Places." "We heard that travel is no longer positive, that people lost those wonderful feelings of what travel should do," says Abby Spatz, senior director, Hilton brand marketing and advertising. So with the help of Y&R Advertising, the 87-year-old hotel chain launched a campaign tying together music and animation to forge an emotional connection with customers while promoting improvements to physical properties. With a Flash-enabled microsite (www.hiltonjourneys.com), Hilton uses dancing characters to feature the "Entertain" section of the site, a woman floating through the skies in its "Pamper" link, and a businessman on the run to illustrate "Empower." "Travel should awaken mind, spirit, and senses," adds Kirk Thompson, vice president, Hilton brand marketing. "Flash is an integral part of our site because sight, sound, and motion are the best ways for people to interact with us, as opposed to clicking and reading." The site uses a single line to underline the catchphrase, "Travel Is More Than Just A to B." In addition to videos, Hilton Journeys also allows viewers to interpret travel in their own way by drawing a postcard and e-mailing it to a friend. "We wanted the campaign to use a medium that people most actively use to shop for and understand travel," says Thompson. "While we wanted to ensure that the campaign signals the re-ignition of the brand, we also wanted the same transformation to occur in online connections." Marriott International was thinking along similar lines when it hired T3 Labs to develop an interactive Web site (www.ExperienceMarriott.com) showcasing its "guest room of the future." Using video and cutting-edge Flash technology, the microsite takes visitors through the new room, opening closet doors, turning down beds, turning on showers, and adjusting ergonomic desk chairs. "It's a virtual tour of the bed, the technology, and things users are most interested in," says Amy McPherson, executive vice president, sales and marketing, Marriott International. She adds that Marriott took home the 2005 Gold Adrian award for technology innovation on the site. "We will continue to leverage Marriott.com," McPherson says. "It's a great distribution channel, but it's also a huge marketing engine. Through search engine optimization, we're creating links with the Amazon.coms, so we're getting a lot of people we haven't seen before coming into the site from a lot of different channels." The $5 billion investment in Marriott's new look will span the next five years as owners and franchisees convert their hotels. To inspire and educate the traveling public, Marriott also hit the streets of New York's Times Square in September with the mSpot -- a four-day extravaganza with free concerts and morning workouts led by Marriott fitness instructors. A print ad campaign for the Revive bedding collection followed, showing an energized guest soaring over a crisp white bed. The campaign received the Innovation and Impact award at the JCDecaux Second Annual Airport Advertising Upfront. SMART STREAMING Interactive experiences are also part of Holiday Inn Express' Simply Smart shower program, featured on its Web site (www.hiexpress.com). The site, which receives approximately 20,000 hits per day, showcases the company's $20 million bathroom makeover with an online tour. A voice prompts visitors to click on one of four different bubbles to view the curved shower rods and new curtains, extra-fluffy cotton towels, bath amenities, and the Stay Smart showerhead by Kohler. Holiday Inn Express also linked its TV ads to the site and created a retail section for consumers to purchase the bathroom products. "We have seen enormous success behind the marketing of the Simply Smart shower launch, in which the interactive experience played a key role," says Verchele Mills, vice president of brand management for Holiday Inn Express. "It allowed the brand to truly highlight unique features and benefits of our experience in a way that it couldn't have via any other medium." The interactive experience, she says, receives nearly 10,000 unique visitors per month. As customers become more comfortable booking travel on the Web, look for hotel chains to step up their promotional efforts online. "Marketers are becoming more aggressive with their e-commerce decisions," says Jennifer Gassman, media director of Nurun/Ant Farm Interactive, a full-service interactive advertising agency. "A significant component of that aggressive strategy is targeting and converting prospective travelers online. We've definitely seen a shift in marketers' budgets toward online media."

Six travel technology trends for 2006

By John Bray, Cathy Schetzina and Susan Steinbrink.

2006 is already shaping up to be a productive year for travel technology. RSS feeds are popping up, venture capital is flowing in, IT departments are seeing projects large and small come to fruition ... and launching new ones. As anyone who has tried in the past to predict when mobile will really take off knows - it isn't always easy to anticipate just when a public-facing technology will reach the much-discussed tipping point. Some technology trends develop at a steady - and predictable - pace, while others are hyped to near-extinction before they flourish.

PhoCusWright analysts see several technology trends - some visible, some behind-the scenes - being important in 2006. Here are six trends to watch in the coming year.

1. Electronic Snacking

The consumer has developed an insatiable appetite for news, media and music tracks. To accommodate this, technology will play an even greater role "behind the scenes" in travel e-commerce by encouraging repeat and just-in-time purchases. More products are conforming to consumers' need for quick "sound bytes" of information, pricing and travel options prior to, during and post travel. For both leisure and corporate travel, its delivery will be driven by technologies that enable consumers to receive travel information and services off the browser.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication), which permits users to subscribe to their choice of content sources across the Web, will continue to spread across the industry and gain traction as more consumers become aware of its potential. Aggregation tools (such as personalized start pages) have the capacity to display summaries of these subscriptions, which update automatically when new information is available. RSS reduces the need for users to search multiple Web sites and will make it easier for travellers to pull only the information that interests them.

As anticipated, suppliers and online travel agencies have launched a number of RSS feeds over the last several months, most of which provide information on travel deals. More personalized feeds are in the works and will further the customization agenda and add value by providing real-time travel information.

Mobile devices, including phones, PDAs and iPods, will become increasingly important because they are ideal in the short term for receiving discrete hits of information. With more than 500 million people having their first experience this year with mobile phones, it may, in some regions of the world, surpass and leapfrog usage of the Internet, This is because, more people have access to mobile phones than computers and these devices are increasingly outfitted with more functions, capabilities and power. Their value in travel will increase exponentially when travellers are able to conduct commerce with them. Travel companies will continue laying the groundwork in 2006. In the meantime, mobile mapping applications, real-time traveller information and a renewed focus on the largely underserved mass of iPod users will rule the day.

The snacking trend translates to increasing interest in Software as a Service (SaaS) in travel companies' IT departments this year, with software-on-demand models providing a potential cost-saving alternative to hosting software in house. Worldspan, for example, in 2005 announced plans to shift its internal customer relationship management, human resources and payroll, and entertainment and travel expense management systems to a Software on-demand model. While the idea is not a new one, the model is becoming increasingly viable and spending on software-on-demand should increase significantly.

2. The web gets social; travel mingles

Social technologies are the talk of the technorati, with blogs, bookmarks and tag clouds popping up across the net. As the Web has grown larger, users have discovered that sorting the net is a lot more productive with a little direction. Social networking makes it possible for people to share information about personal experiences, recommended sites and interesting content. For people planning travel, the ability to tap the experiences and advice of a Iarge network of people could be invaluable - and when those recommendations have already been filtered based on shared interests, perhaps shared friends, the results will be impressive.

On the tagging front, users are exploring a new way to organize information on the Internet intuitively—simply by assigning searchable keywords to images, bookmarks and blogs. The practice has gained popularity on sites like the photo-sharing service Flickr, which was recently acquired by Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo! Inc., where the majority of images have been tagged by users. Tagging systems are also referred to as "folksonomies," which Wikipedia defines as "a neologism for a practice of collaborative categorization using freely chosen keywords."

In 2006, look for existing travel companies to begin incorporating social technologies into their online strategies. "Travel-related social networking tools will be hot on travel Web sites this year - and companies will take a close look at how tagging might be used as a differentiator in the hotel realm and in building excitement over travel experience planning. Look for a few social related travel startups as well in the coming year.

3. The three D's - Dashboards, Data Mining and Dating: Power shift toward consumers

This trend is about leveraging past trip patterns, traveller behaviors and trend data to predict future opportunities for savings (corporate through dashboards) and inspire relevant travel purchases (consumer through data mining). It is about anticipating what information travelers, travel managers or procurement decision makers want to have at their fingertips, what a firm could/should do next to better serve them and delivering on these needs. And, all three are required to strengthen a firm's brand affinity with prospective and current customers and cultivate "customer stickiness."

To date, travel providers have not effectively responded to travelers' interest in a branded site where information can be shared. This gap has given rise to blogs and online communities that exist throughout the net. Community sharing has become so popular and successful because these venues have helped travelers to visually and compellingly share their experiences with family, friends, colleagues and even strangers. Like on-demand TV, these chat rooms, blogs, social networks, and tagging and bookmarking activities have given travelers control of the experience (shopping, buying and travel) to make 2006 all about wooing the customer and forming a relationship based on shared information, not just purchases (similar to dating).

The challenges for travel companies lie in 1) effectively integrating and utilizing data mining technology, 2) embracing social technologies in a timely manner and 3) reconciling the need to relinquish control and discard outdated models with the ultimate goal of building brand.

Technologists have the opportunity in 2006 to help their organizations establish a plan for bringing all of the pieces together: dovetailing social and data mining tools to forge a new type of relationship with consumers and enabling novel ways of owning brand within an increasingly consumer operated Web.

4. Alternate distribution channels

Cambridge, Mass.-based ITA Software Inc. and Chicago, Ill.-based G2 Switch Works Corp. spent 2005 promoting their alternative distribution systems and refining their agent desktops. The GDSs could be on the losing end. Although the leak will be minor at first, ITA, G2 and others will make progress in building out to suppliers and begin to position themselves to optimize their market-share capture. ITA's $ 100 million influx of capital - whether it's largely earmarked for alternative distribution efforts or not - will further infuse confidence in the company and keep the subject of alternative distribution a viable one.

5. Rich Media

At The PhoCusWright Conference in November 2005, hoteliers continued to express concern about the commoditization of travel, and Michelle Peluso, CEO of Southlake, Tex.-based Travelocity, acknowledged the challenge of finding effective ways for hoteliers to differentiate their product. Rich media has the potential to be a powerful tool and travel companies will begin to capitalize on it,

With broadband penetration on the rise, rich media not only has the potential to differentiate hotel rooms, but enables companies to leverage sound, animation, real-time video and interactive maps to help consumers to visualize the travel experience. The novelty of mediocre rich media, however, has worn off. It's unlikely that an overwhelming crop of rich-media product announcements will hit the wires in 2006, but tech departments will be busy behind the scenes addressing the integration, content management and simple division-of-labour challenges that will enable rich media to become a truly valuable tool.

6. X marks the spot

Mapping technology has received a great deal of attention in the travel space of late, as more travel companies incorporate interactive maps into their Web sites and mapping APIs inspire technology enthusiasts to create their own custom maps. Mountain View, Calif.-based Google Inc., Yahoo! and Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft Corp.'s MSN have released mapping application program interfaces (APIs) and Denver, Colo.-based MapQuest Inc. is expected to follow suit—giving companies and individuals the mapping tools they need to create a broad range of mapping mashups.

Web application mashups combine two or more services, often a mapping application arid a data source, to create unique maps with overlaid location-based information. Maps are popping up that track favorite restaurants and hotels, drink prices, parking spaces and recommended walking tours of various cities. Blogs are appearing that are devoted entirely to tracking the maps that are being created ... a sure sign that this trend is going to be big.

Interactive maps provide an obvious way to organize information about a city or neighborhood and will increasingly become a staple of the trip-planning process. Travel companies should exploit opportunities to incorporate data-rich maps into their own Web sites and take steps to integrate the capability with social technologies in the short term and realtime data sources in the long term. As maps become even more data rich and GPS-enabled mobile devices become the standard, mapping technology will be a goldmine of opportunity in the travel space - before, during and after the trip.

Innovation Analysis Group is a market research, analysis and consulting firm.

The Flying Luxury Hotel

John MacNeill

Even though the Aeroscraft dwarfs the largest commercial airliners, it requires less net space on the ground than any plane because it doesn't need a runway. The airship takes off and lands like a helicopter: straight up and down.

The Flying Luxury Hotel
Tomorrow's cruise ship will sail through the air, not the water

By Joshua Tompkins

John MacNeill
LIFTOFF! On a pressurized plane, windows like these would explode outward . The Aeroscraft does not fly high enough to need pressurization.

This is not a Blimp. It's a sort of flying Queen Mary 2 that could change the way you think about air travel. It's the Aeroscraft, and when it's completed, it will ferry pampered passengers across continents and oceans as they stroll leisurely about the one-acre cabin or relax in their well-appointed staterooms.

Unlike its dirigible ancestors, the Aeroscraft is not lighter than air. Its 14 million cubic feet of helium hoist only two thirds of the craft's weight. The rigid and surprisingly aerodynamic body—driven by huge rearward propellers—generates enough additional lift to keep the behemoth and its 400-ton payload aloft while cruising. During takeoff and landing, six turbofan jet engines push the ship up or ease its descent.

This two-football-fields-long concept airship is the brainchild of Igor Pasternak, whose privately-funded California firm, Worldwide Aeros Corporation, is in the early stages of developing a prototype and expects to have one completed by 2010. Pasternak says several cruise ship companies have expressed interest in the project, and for good reason: The craft would have a range of several thousand miles and, with an estimated top speed of 174 mph, could traverse the continental U.S. in about 18 hours. During the flight, passengers would peer at national landmarks just 8,000 feet below or, if they weren't captivated by the view, the cavernous interior would easily accommodate such amenities as luxury staterooms, restaurants, even a casino.

To minimize noise, the aft-mounted propellers will be electric, powered by a renewable source such as hydrogen fuel cells. A sophisticated buoyancy-management system will serve the same purpose as trim on an airplane, allowing for precise adjustments in flight dynamics to compensate for outside conditions and passenger movement. The automated system will draw outside air into compartments throughout the ship and compress it to manage onboard weight.

The company envisions a cargo-carrying version that could deliver a store's worth of merchandise from a centralized distribution center straight to a Wal-Mart parking lot or, because the helium-filled craft will float, a year's worth of supplies to an offshore oil rig. "You can land on the snow, you can land on the water," Pasternak says. "It's a new vision of what can be done in the air."

Aeroscraft
Purpose: Long-range travel for passengers who are more concerned with the journey than the destination
Dimensions (feet): 165 h x 244 w x 647 l
Max Speed: 174 mph
Range: 6,000 miles
Capacity: 250 passengers

not a single high-rise

(Coastal Living ) -- These coastal bike rides show off scenery at whatever pace feels comfortable. And they parallel pavement, so drivers can share the views.

Lopez Island, Washington

Quiet, rustic, and always green, the San Juan Islands north of Seattle encapsulate the Pacific Northwest's gently rugged natural beauty. A leisurely ride around Lopez, the flattest of the San Juans, often yields wildlife sightings. Circling counterclockwise, thus staying on the shore side of the road, provides the best views. A full circuit clocks in at about 33.5 miles, depending on detours to shops, restaurants, parks, and beaches. Contact the Visitors Bureau at 888/468-3701 or visit guidetosanjuans.com .

Jekyll Island, Georgia

The bicycling craze hit this island a century ago, when Jekyll was the exclusive winter playground of Rockefellers, Vanderbilts and their gilded ilk. A loop around the island today extends about 16 miles, mostly on a paved, flat bike path that runs for long stretches beside the beach. It also wanders past the grand Jekyll Island Club Hotel and some of the showplace "cottages" that survive from Jekyll's posh past. Contact the Convention and Visitors Bureau at 877/453-5955 or visit jekyllisland.com .

Presque Isle State Park, Pennsylvania

Presque Isle peninsula curls protectively around Erie, Pennsylvania, on the north shore of Lake Erie. A 13.5-mile trail around the park offers lots of picnic areas and other enticing places to rest. Flocks of migrating birds (waterfowl in March, shorebirds in April) make spring a wonderful time to visit; 814/833-7424 or presqueisle.org .

Island Beach State Park, New Jersey

Visiting this 10-mile finger of a barrier island between Barnegat Bay and the Atlantic Ocean amounts to a trip in a time machine. Decades ago, most of the Jersey Shore looked like this -- unspoiled beaches, dunes, wildlife and not a single high-rise. The 8.1-mile, two-lane road saves a nice reward for the end: views across the inlet of Barnegat Lighthouse, known locally as "Old Barney." The park shelters a variety of birds, including a colony of ospreys; 732/793-0506 or njparksandforests.org .

Corpus Christi, Texas

Sailboats glide and windsurfers swoop across Corpus Christi Bay near the gray bulk of the aircraft carrier USS. Lexington, now a museum. Shoreline Boulevard/Ocean Drive curves along this pretty vista, running south almost 11 miles from the downtown Bayfront Arts and Science Park to Naval Air Station Corpus Christi. The route, which passes several waterfront parks and some lovely houses, includes a bike lane most of the way. Contact the Convention and Visitors Bureau at 800/766-2322 or visit corpuschristi-tx-cvb.org .

Maui, Hawaii

Some people hate the middle-of-the-night wake-up, the jam-packed van trip up the mountainside, the crowds at the summit, the biting cold, and -- depending on their risk tolerance -- the too-slow or too-dangerous pace of the ride itself. Others can't find enough superlatives to describe the awesomeness of an above-the-clouds sunrise followed by a 38-mile, switchback-filled bicycle descent of Haleakala volcano. The 10,023-foot summit does get genuinely cold (between 30 and 60 degrees, and windy). And those who pay too much attention to the incredible scenery risk painful wipeouts. On the other hand, how many other rides are downhill all the way? For outfitters, contact the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau at 800/464-2924 or visit gohawaii.com .

Florida Keys

Eventually, the Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Trail will run more than 106 miles along the islands that dangle in a languid curve from the southern tip of the Florida peninsula. The segments paved so far (totaling 61 miles) already provide the perfect way to explore this otherworldly place, so beautiful away from the souvenir shops and strip malls of U.S. 1. Bikers can view the graceful bridges built a century ago for the Florida East Coast Railway, and even venture onto the Old Railroad Bridge, which leads to a railroad museum on Pigeon Key. They can poke around alongside the gorgeously blue-green water. On Big Pine Key, they might even see one of the endangered Key deer, a miniature subspecies about the size of a large German shepherd; 305/853-3571 or dep.state.fl.us/gwt/state/keystrail .

Bandon, Oregon

The incredibly bike-supportive state department of transportation has mapped out the Oregon Coast Bike Route along the state's entire Pacific shoreline. Even better, it has widened shoulders to accommodate bicyclists, especially along the southbound lanes of U.S. 101. That's the side to ride because it offers the best ocean views. Also, there's usually a tailwind May through October -- though the hills may prove daunting. A fun (and easy) detour rambles about 20 miles past the shops and restaurants of historic Old Town Bandon and the spectacular sea-stack formations just offshore; 503/986-3555 or odot.state.or.us/techserv/bikewalk .

Huntington Beach, California

This may be Surf City USA (by official trademark), but the locals like to bike as well. Here in Orange County, south of Los Angeles, an 8.5-mile paved path runs the whole length of the city's beaches, providing continuous views of the Pacific Ocean. Checking out the surfers, joggers, pets, sunbathers, roller skaters, and fellow bikers can be fun, too. Outside the city limits, the path extends a mile north to Sunset Beach and nearly three miles south onto the Newport Peninsula for those who want a longer workout. Even city buses promote bicycling -- most sport bike racks on the front; 800/729-6232 or surfcityusa.com .

Outer Banks, North Carolina

This ride would rank higher if not for wind and traffic. The arrowhead-shape formation of barrier islands known as the Outer Banks thrusts way out into the Atlantic Ocean -- usually beyond sight of the mainland. These narrow, flat strips of sand afford lots of water views, especially on the Pamlico Sound side. The ride's difficulty depends on whether the capricious sea breezes provide a helpful tailwind or nasty headwind. The main road, two-lane Highway 12, lacks bike lanes or even much in the way of shoulders. Spring provides the best combination of nice weather and light traffic. A 28-mile lighthouse-to-lighthouse ride (plus a free ferry ride in the middle) runs from the famous Hatteras Light on Hatteras Island to the Ocracoke Lighthouse on the western tip of Ocracoke Island. Contact the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau at 877/629-4386 or visit outerbanks.org .

Trip Advisor enjoys viral growth with active travelers

TripAdvisor receives most of its traffic from search engines - accounting for 52% of visits to the site in February. Of these, Google (combined UK and .com) accounted for 70%. Trip Advisor sends 74% of its own traffic to Travel websites, with 41.3% going to Travel Agencies and 31.89% going to Destination and Accommodation websites. The top downstream sites (those visited after TripAdvisor) are those that are prominently displayed in sponsored listings and those that offer price comparisons on hotels listed on the site. Expedia.co.uk, which owns TripAdvisor, received nearly one quarter (22.49%) of visits from Trip Advisor in February. Hotels.com UK received 4.29% of visits, Venere.com received 2.91%, Lastminute.com received 2.89%, and eBookers received 1.80%.

It is not only the big advertisers that are getting traffic from Trip Advisor. Among the top 500 downstream sites from TripAdvisor in February were Sunrise, a resort in Turkey, and Nant ddu Lodge Hotel, a country inn near Cardiff.

By offering reviews of hotels and destinations by individual travelers, TripAdvisor hosts huge amounts of constantly updated content - a feature that helps the site appear among the top organic listings on the search engines. In the past four weeks. there were 38,923 search terms sending visits to TripAdvisor. Among the top 20 were 'blackpool', 'hilton blackpool', 'london attractions', 'paradisus rio de oro' and 'liverpool'.

TripAdvisor attracts 46% more visits from those aged 55+ than average for the internet highlighting the site's strength with "silver surfers". 62% of visits to the site are from those in Social Grade A/B and C1. The Mosaic Group "Symbols of Success" is the Experian Mosaic Group that is most highly indexed on the site. The Symbols of Success group are 61% more likely to be on Trip Advisor than average for the internet. According to offline statistics compiled by Experian, this group is 152% more likely to book three or more holidays per year and 91% more likely to book holidays online - and so represents a lucrative demographic for travel sites.

Get the full story at Hitwise

Mirror, Mirror, What Should I Wear?

Picture: Courtesy of Hitachi |

A Web-accessible mirror lets users to not only check their hair, but get fashion tips, scan news headlines, the weather forecast, or sift through email.

Local Search To Reach $1 Billion

LOCAL BUSINESSES WILL MORE THAN double their paid search to $987 million this year from $418 million in 2005, according to a new Borrell Associates report, "2006 Local Search Advertising."

The report also predicts that paid search spending by local businesses will continue to grow for the next several years, climbing to 1.7 billion in 2007 and reaching $4 billion by 2010--at which time it will account for 47 percent of local online advertising.

At the same time, local advertisers are expected to actually decrease spending on banners and listings by 2010. The report predicts that local spending on online display ads and listings will peak at $5.7 billion in 2008 and then fall to $4.5 billion in 2010; last year, such spending totaled an estimated $4 billion, according to Borrell.

This pattern of accelerating local search, but waning local display and listings ads, represents a threat to the online units of traditional media companies--which currently sell banners and listings to local advertisers. "The biggest concern for Web sites run by traditional local media companies is that they face being walloped by something that they should be all too familiar with--targeted media," stated the report.

To analyze the current state of local search advertising, Borrell researchers examined more than 2,100 paid links to appear on Google and Yahoo queries for city-related keywords--such as, for example, "Des Moines real estate." About 36 percent of such pay-per-click links were from local advertisers--up from 5.6 percent 18 months ago.

Search adoption varied by industry, with local real estate agents especially big users of search marketing. Nearly 50 percent of pay-per-click links in the real estate category were from local advertisers--up from 17.5 percent 18 months ago. At the low end of the spectrum, 28 percent of pay-per-click results in the local hotel space came from local advertisers.