MasterCard and Lonely Planet have launched a website today selling holidays to the 10 most popular destinations for MasterCard-ªs target market.
The locations - Dubai, Egypt, France, Ireland, Italy, Las Vegas, London, New York, South Africa and Spain - were selected using MasterCard spending data that tracks the destinations cardholders visit most regularly alongside internet search metrics that identify which locations people are searching for online.
The new site - www.pricelesstravel.co.uk - will give MasterCard holders access to bespoke Lonely Planet travel content as well as exclusive deals with travel companies including Virgin Atlantic and Novotel.
From next week, visitors to Priceless Travel will be able to add comments about their trip alongside Lonely Planet travel information and then share this with their own Facebook network.
This will be tracked through postings on the reviewer-ªs Facebook feeds and will encourage cardholder friends to visit and interact with the website.
Ben Rhodes, MasterCard Europe vice president marketing UK & Ireland, said: -¬---In these challenging times we understand that the summer holiday is a must have, and that a real challenge for consumers is finding credible travel information and money saving offers in one place.
-¬---This new site is part of our wider strategy to deliver priceless content to cardholders and provide them with a much needed resource.-¬~
The website was built by Universal McCann and Big Group.
By Bev Fearis
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
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It is pertinent to remember that Lonely Planet is partly owned by the BBC. Travelers using Priceless Travel would be wise to consult travel guides other than LP guides as many LP guides are dated and contain inaccurate information. Thomas Kohnstamm, a former LP author, detailed his experiences whilst traveling for LP, and how inaccuracies ended up in guidebooks. The publicly funded BBC indirectly participating in selling vacations must be galling to UK tour operators,
By J Hewson, Wednesday, July 15, 2009
It must be galling to UK tour operators that LP, partly owned by the publicly funded BBC, is partnering competitive vacations. And, I wonder, what is 'bespoke Lonely Planet travel content'? Hopefully it is not from their guides for since LP initiated staff cuts their guides have become increasingly inaccurate and dated. It didn't help LP, either, when a former guide writer, Thomas Kohnstamm, revealed the truth behind guide writing in his book entitled 'Do Travel Writers Go To Hell?'.
By J Hewson, Wednesday, July 15, 2009