And while you can’t eat tweets, social dining has become a top foodie trend. What is it? Social dining is when an atmosphere is created which encourages a group of people to come together and share their meals. The goal is to connect with others through food.

Experiments in social dining have taken off in Chicago and San Fran and as a result, NYC dining club – Grubwithus, a site connecting people through communal feasts – just launched. Created by two friends who wanted to ease the post collegiate friend-making process, its mission is to meet new people, build friendships over food at your favorite restaurants, and never eat alone.

How it works: members can browse a list of reservations at restaurants and pre-purchase a family-style meal (kosher and vegan nites are available too). Tax and tip are included, and there’s never any waiting. You’re able to screen attendees before committing and can even organize private reservations just for friends.

Are you connected?

Those of us in the industry have watched this trend grow exponentially over the last several years as “wellness and looking good continue were moving up in consumers financial priorities.” The trend has not only gained widespread acceptance but continues to expand.

The rise of medical tourism to glittering hospitals in places like Singapore and Thailand has turned coddling and elegance into marketing necessities. As mentioned in the Herald Tribune: “It’s not just competing on medical grounds and specialties, but competing for customers who can go just about anywhere.”

Many American hospitals offer a V.I.P. amenities floor with a dedicated chef, lavish services,  and concierges, from Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, which promises “the ultimate in pampering” in its $3,784 maternity suites.

Take Beyonce and Jay-Z’s lockdown of Lenox Hill Hospital for the birth of their baby Blue Ivy was done in style — in its ultra-luxe “executive suite” looked more like a five-star hotel. The glamorous room comes with four flat screen TVs, top-notch electronics, a kitchenette, art, mahogany walls and plush furniture.

This subgenre of travel is understandably being criticized for objectifying the suffering of others. However, proponents say that tourism does not have to become an economic loser following large disasters.

For instance, New York City, site of the World Trade Center attack, now draws more than 9 million visitors per year, according to the Associated Press.

Disaster tourism took hold in New Orleans – post-Hurricane Katrina tours were a hot ticket following the storm that struck in August of 2005. Today there are guided bus tours to neighborhoods that were severely damaged and/or totally destroyed by the flooding.

Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano began erupting on March 20, 2010, and again on April 14, 2010 halting air travel and covering Northern Europe in volcanic ash. Disaster tourism quickly sprang up in the wake of the first eruption, with tour companies offering trips to see the volcano.

Similarly, “tornado travel” maps were distributed to tourists in Joplin, MO for those wishing to see areas devastated by a massive tornado that blew into town, creating a six-mile path of destruction the city.

USA Today just reported that ‘disaster tourists’ are beginning to swarm to Costa Concordia island. Barely a week after the cruise ship ran aground and keeled over just off the tiny Italian island of Giglio, ferries from the mainland are jammed with day-trippers trying to get a ringside view. More than 1,000 visitors arrived on Giglio from Tuscany’s Porto Santo Stefano Saturday, almost 10 times the normal number for a weekend in the off season. So close in the wake of the disaster, Giglio tourism officials are naturally aghast at the unwanted notoriety.

Not sure which disaster you’d like to experience? UK tour operator Disaster Tourism will assist.

So what do you think about “disaster tourism”?  How would you feel about visitors coming to see your disaster ravaged city?  Is it tacky for tour operators to profit off of others losses?  Or does it provide a much needed economic boost to a recovering community in need?

By: Chelsea Orth, KWE Partners

• Original idea on funding for cultural advertising: Sarasota CVB asked arts patrons to contribute to an ad section on culture in US Airways’ Pace magazine. They ended up contributing half of the cost. Then the local paper repackaged the section and overprinted it, enabling distribution to local realtors. Congrats to the Sarasota CVB and our colleague Gary Leopold’s ISM agency.

• Watch for ProjectAudience.org, a new aggregator of cultural event information for the US. The pilot project is in southern California and will last for one year

• Tourism Australia has the largest number of Facebook fans – 2 million+ at last count

• American Express reported that fast casual restaurants have been thriving in this economy and the biggest winner in the dining category – bars, with a revenue increase of 40% (our takeaway: if you don’t have a bar menu, do so post haste!)

• Also from Amex, sweet spots in sales this past year: Baby boomers are over cutting back. Male boomers, especially interested in premium jewelry, GenX and GenYers. And after Canada and Mexico, top growth areas in luxury purchases are Asia-Pacific, with Australia, South Korea and Japan leading the way in that order. Then comes Europe (Turkey is up there in growth) and fourth place, the Middle East.

• Shoppers live longer. So wrote UK’s The Week, reporting on a survey of 1850 Taiwanese. Those who shop more than once a week are living longer.

• Speaking of Rosemary Rice McCormick, President of Shop America Alliance and Co-Founder of US Cultural and Heritage Tourism Marketing Council, she just published a book on Marketing Cultural and Heritage Tourism, a valuable resource.

• A case study of a cruise line’s Facebook loyalty point program spearheaded by Travelmole was said to generate $20,000 in sales on Facebook daily! Well worth checking out or contact Kieron.Keady@TravelMole.com (by the way, he looks like Bill Clinton).

• And finally, social media guru Susan Sweeney detailed a list of website short cuts – everything from free conference calls and outsourcing web design, to ebrochure templates, website graders, and sites that will do a job for you for $5 – $25.

And a photo from the conference – a bespoke, seriously bling Chanel tablet case.

Now we’re taking it to the next step – it’s all about renting and sharing between consumers, everything from homes to fashion, to cars and parking spaces. Having seen the success of smaller startups, expect to see bigger, luxury brands getting in on the action. In car sharing, the great success of Zipcar, currently a market leader, is luring Daimler into the game in Hamburg, Germany and Austin, Texas.

While the vacation rental industry isn’t new, it’s segmenting more by price point (Airbnb on the budget end, and Quintessentially Villas on the high end), by destination, destinations within a destination, and by special interest (the obvious ones being golf, photography, and mainstream outdoor activities such as skiing). We’ll see even further differentiation by alternative interests such as paddle boarding, geocaching, quilting, triathlon training, writing/studying, species specific nature watching to name a few.

Its also segmenting by level of exclusivity….starting at $3000, it’s now possible rent a mountain for one weekday of personal use, giving you private access to trails, rental shops and on-site dining through Liftopia.com’s new full-mountain rentals.

The vacation rental industry will also evolve by embracing new technologies: those that make it easy to share vacation rental options with groups of friends and family, and that make vacation booking a breeze for the best price. For example, www.bidonskihomes.com is one of the first to employ the online auction business model for vacation rentals. And look for smartphone apps that help travelers book spontaneously, on the go, such as Airbnb and HomeAway.

Small luxuries can just be about a treat to feel good or something you need that’s usually inexpensive, but you’ll pay a little more because of the packaging, the branding and the experience that comes with it. Case in point: consumers lined up around the block for the launch of Tom Ford’s new $48 lipstick and for the opportunity to meet the man himself.

Look for growth in mini-indulgent services.  Spa “tapas” are being offered at some of the top spas around the globe, allowing guests to pick and choose from a variety of abbreviated treatments.

Want a first class travel experience without the full fare? Munich Airport just opened a VIP wing. London’s Heathrow by Invitation provides clients with personalized VIP airports services (airport transfers, private entrance and lounge and a dedicated VIP team, limo-to-plane transport. And American Airlines launched its $125 Five Star Service, one-on-one airport service that includes meeting customers curbside or at the arrival gate; assistance at check-in and with baggage; escort through security, immigration, customs, to the gate for pre-boarding and baggage claim.

And while the notion of hotel rooms by the hour is historically notorious, some luxury hotels are embracing daytime stays and renting rooms by the hour, which promotes sampling and fills up rooms that would otherwise be vacant. Day rates allow shoppers to rest their weary feet, and gives transient travelers a refuge for layovers or a late plane. (New York’s The Marcel at Gramercy and Le Parker Meridien). And now, two airports in the U.S. and about a half-dozen overseas, have  Minute Suites –  little rooms for rent right in the terminal from with a desk, internet access and a daybed for a nap.

All this being said, there’s still a market for full blown indulgences, with luxury purveyors always trying to raise the bar on exclusive, most expensive and rare offerings – from Virgin America’s unique, once-in-a-lifetime offer to jet away with your closest 145 friends on a jumbo jet that has your name on it, to a special-edition Ferrari FF complete with matching leather luggage set. All of the 10 limited edition units priced at $395,000 each sold out in just 50 minutes.

For more marketing trends that we foresee dominating 2012, click here

This blurring and blending of marketing functions is creating new marketing disciplines, and is leading to new jobs and titles such as “community managers,” “content managers” and “relationship leaders.”  Traditional marketing disciplines and their roles need to be redefined. Hats off to the Public Relations Society of America, which just launched a major initiative, with the help of crowd sourcing, to redefine public relations for the 21st century.

Companies will also need to think about hiring a different way, looking for marketing staff with more varied skills. They’ll need people with solid, versatile, editorial skills; who can write blogs, white papers and slide presentations; that can conceptualize and perhaps even edit video. Brands will need content marketers who match their demographic. Those in social media roles most likely need to be like the customers they’re serving, or at least must be able to walk comfortably in their shoes.

For more marketing trends that we foresee dominating 2012, click here.

The essence of content strategy is that instead of pitching products or services, you deliver consistent, ongoing valuable information to buyers, making them more intelligent. You also engage, reward and entertain them with the overall business goals of customer conversion and customer loyalty/retention, thus creating passionate subscribers.

Some key content marketing ingredients:

- Insider insights can help grow audiences; interviews, behind-the-scenes photos and “a day in the life” stories can provide that sense of insider privilege that clients are looking for.

- Create rewards for Facebook likes and followers, which allow fans to become part of an inner circle (Kimpton rewards fans with periodic passwords that earn guests a surprising reward, from room upgrade to F&B benefits at check-in).

- Hold online events with limited attendance. This can be anything from a sneak preview video to early access to new stuff.

- Be invitation-only to increase your following for that sense of being “part of the club” feeling.

- Seek feedback through comments, contests and quizzes. The more you seek their opinions, the more they’ll come back.

For more marketing trends that we foresee dominating 2012, click here

Online shopping has finally overtaken traditional shopping according to a study by American Express Publishing and Harrison Group, and 2012 will be the year of reaffirming traditional retail. To be able to draw shoppers from online retail back into the real world, brands must up their game. Quite simply, people want to experience more.

British label Alfred Dunhill championed a branded lifestyle world by recreating the namesake’s home into a store housing numerous artifacts and pieces of his earliest collections. The three-storey ‘Home’ immerses consumers in a full shopping, dining and grooming experience with a branded bar and café, a movie viewing room, a bespoke tailoring room, a leather goods area, a spa, a barber and old-fashioned gentleman’s club.

Hotels will need to ratchet up offerings that entertain, educate and transform for special interest groups. Some of the more original offerings include The Dorchester’s Niemierko Wedding Academy for those aspiring to a career in wedding planning. Because the décor by famed designer Dorothy Draper is so much a part of The Greenbrier’s identity, those keen on interior design can enroll in its new Dorothy Draper School of Decorating. We’ve created a Mommy Bloggers Camp at Mexican client Velas Vallarta, a mini-conference/  getaway for professional and aspiring parent bloggers to learn and get professional blogging tips and advice from expert speakers.

Look for more innovative lifestyle hotels that cater to those passionate about micro-niche lifestyle interests. Some good examples: The Food Hotel in Neuwied, Germany is a supermarket themed hotel that is furnished with stools made of beer crates, cushions that look like biscuits and chairs that resemble shopping carts. They teamed up with thirty-six of Germany’s biggest household food brands to each design a unique guestroom. Guests can then choose which snacks, beverages and marketing campaigns they would like to spend the night with. And as couples can get hitched quickly in Vegas, there’s a hotel to help you get unhitched – the Divorce Hotel in the Netherlands offers single rooms, mediators, notaries, even psychologists and other specialists to help couples getting divorced at a fraction of the time and cost.

Museums are also evolving into the lifestyle space by adding to their retail and dining offerings with cultural education programs such as painting, culinary, glassblowing, ring making, silk screening and letter press printing workshops.

For more marketing trends that we foresee dominating 2012, click here

In travel surveys we conducted this year, from spa media to wedding planners, they all indicate that the affluent still crave products and experiences that are authentic and offer a sense of place, in everything from food and décor to destination offerings and entertainment.

But take care. The tide will change by year’s end as certain buzzwords become adopted by the mass market. When Domino’s introduces “artisan pizzas” and Burger King rolls out burgers on “artisan buns” you know it’s the end.

What will replace these words? Luxury vocabulary will need to be more evocative, charismatic and precise – precious, rare, even sacred will better describe what we’re selling. The prose? Think good journalism: it describes.
If possible, avoid adjectives altogether. Successful images tell a brand story. 

For more marketing trends that we foresee dominating 2012, click here