The final shortlist - WTM Fresh

by Mark Frary

Photo: Gideon Tsang

The five start-ups that have made the final shortlist for this year’s innovative WTM Fresh elevator pitch session, organised by Travel Perspective, have been announced. The five finalists will have five minutes to impress our panel of judges on Wednesday 6th November. The elevator pitch session, taking place at the WTM Knowledge Theatre, is open to all-comers but is expected to be very busy so come early.

The shortlisted start-ups are as follows, with what they say about themselves:

The Escape List

The UK’s first and only affordable luxury hotel website. Our handpicked selection of the most inspiring and indulgent places to stay around the UK. The eclectic range of properties all promise to deliver on quality but also importantly on price - all must offer rooms at under £150 per room/night.

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Blogger beware - the battle over Bill Bryson’s words

By Steve Keenan

In 1994, travel writer Mike Gerrard interviewed illustrious author Bill Bryson for a magazine he published called Passport. The article duly appeared. Journalist does interview, gets published, end of.

Except that two decades later, Mike brushed the dust off the interview, thought there was more that could be made of Bryson’s interview and decided to re-publish as a Kindle e-book, entitled Bill Bryson: The Accidental Traveller, running to 27 pages and some 8,000 words.

He made clear it was a reprint of a 1994 interview at Bryson’s home, and included links to the author’s books on Amazon. Initial sales were good and it appeared a good example of an enterprising journalist making good use of new mediums to effectively re-sell his interview.

I’d show you a photo of the book but, yesterday, Amazon suspended sales of his e-book following a complaint from Bryson and his lawyers. They claim infringement of copyright. And therein lies a worrying tale for any freelance, staff journalist or blogger - do you own the rights to the words given you in an interview?

According to Bryson’s publishers Transworld, a division of Random House, you may not. Transworld wrote to Gerrard stating that Bryson did not authorise additional publication of the interview, or sale as an e-book beyond the contemporaneous interview for the magazine.

Furthermore, Transworld’s lawyers argue that Bryson remains the owner of the words spoken by him. Which begs an almighty question. If you interview somebody for a specific publication, does that mean you can not use those words elsewhere, or at a later date?

The implications are obvious. As Gerrard says: “If that were the case, no journalist could ever quote anything anyone ever said to them, because the person speaking the words owned the copyright in them. There would be thousands of breaches of copyright every day, in newspapers and magazines, in the radio and on TV, and online.

“Bill Bryson himself quotes conversations with people throughout his travel books, frequently to ridicule them. Does he breach their copyright in the words they spoke? Does he ask their permission?”

Gerrard did offer to accede to one demand from the lawyers, to change the image of Bryson on the Kindle e-book, on the grounds that some Amazon customers may have believed that the e-book was written by Bryson. But he refused to concede on the request to take down the e-book - a decision now taken out of his hands by Amazon.

Gerrard is consulting lawyers at the British Guild of Travel Writers, of which he is a member, as well The Society of Authors.

In the meantime, he points to common law copyright in the case of Falwell v Penthouse, which states: “Plaintiff’s claim of copyright presupposes that every utterance he makes is a valuable property right. If this were true, the courts would be inundated with claims from celebrities and public figures all of whom may argue that their expressions should also be afforded the extraordinary protection of copyright.”

It’s a fascinating debate, not a view that Gerrard might share. He has taken to Facebook with broadsides against a man whose public persona as a cuddly, humorous observer of travelling life Gerrard might now question.

We await developments. But beware - the outcome of this literary spat may well have ramifications for us all.

Could you be the next travel startup success?

by Mark Frary

Photo: Gideon Tsang

In the world of entrepreneurs, failure is often a pre-requisite for success. It seems that the experience of the bad times gives them the character and experience to make a go of it with a new idea. Failure is common in the world of start-ups.

Take the UK. In 2012, there were around 400,000 new businesses launched. It estimates that one in five of these will fail in the first year. Worse still, half of them will have gone under within three years. Those sobering failure rates do not stop serial entrepreneurs or other people who have that lightbulb moment.

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What really makes Instagram work?

By Steve Keenan

“Sunsets, silhouettes and symmetry,” is what works, apparently. That’s according to Gabriel Hubert of Nitrogram, a platform that does nothing but analyse, consult and report on brands using Instagram.

He was quoting Instagrammer @Oggsie, who yesterday earned his 2,000th follower on Twitter - me. I was delighted to follow someone who apparently knows what he’s talking about (he has 214,594 followers on Instagram).

Instagram is one of those social media channels that most wonder whether it’s worth bothering with. It’s a niche channel, in that it has incredibly passionate users with big followings (Oggsie, @Dutchie68) and huge brand involvement, from the likes of Nike, Adidas and Red Bull. But for most small businesses, it’s just something else to do.

Which is why I went to The Holiday Inn in Camden, north London, to learn more during Social Media Week from Gabriel, Charlie from Triptease, a woman on Skype from Sweden (?) and some Holiday Inn/Inter-Continental people.

I learned from Sweden that user-generated content (UGC) does well on Instagram, such as with tourism brands @australia and @visitnorway. Presumably because it’s free, and gives brand free images to use elsewhere (cue interesting chat with one guest and Gabriel re: Disney, which Nitrogram works for, and Mickey’s policy of sending the Instagram poster a note asking for permission to use).

While not watertight, legally, it appears that it’s OK if a brand credits the poster’s name and re-uses on its Instagram account - but not if the image is used elsewhere.

Interestingly, Gabriel said that UGC images from Instagram posted on the home page of brand websites show increased conversion into bookings. Presumably as visitors are more inclined to trust websites that show guest’s images, willingly provided.

It’s a philosophy I follow. Having run the Instagram account for African safari lodge company Singita for six weeks, it appears that UGC (with a few homegrown images) works well, as you are posting great guest images (via the Repost app), with credit, and reflecting their enjoyment of a visit.

We gain five followers a day and the content is real, the passion genuine and there is no ‘gaming’ to get inflated numbers. Sunsets work, but safaris don’t lend themselves to much symmetry or silhouettes.

I’ve asked Nitrogram whether it could rethink it’s pricing lists to do more for small businesses and Gabriel says he will. After all, £29 a month for basic stats I can get from, say, Statigram, is not a great deal. But I, and most small firms, need one key stat - geodata, where followers come from. That would cost me £250 a month which is a bit rich - but I can’t find it elsewhere.

I hope Gabriel does have a review. I instictively think Instagram is worth the effort as it can repost guest photos, credit them, thank them with comments and gain brilliant UGC - for free. I don’t hashtag images to death to get flakey followers (and there is a lot of rubbish out there).

Just get the permissions to use right and everybody is happy. Me, for starters. Oggsie too. And, most importantly, the guests who may well come back again.