Awareness, Inc. Powers Online Web 2.0 Community for Flight Centre
"GlobalTravelBlog.com" Brings Flight Centre Increased Brand Awareness and Gives Users a Place to Share Travel Experiences and Recommendations
Waltham, MA — March 10, 2008 — Awareness, Inc. today announced that its Enterprise Social Media platform is powering GlobalTravelBlog.com, a new Web 2.0 online community where travelers from around the world can contribute content about their favorite travel experiences and recommendations, managed by Flight Centre Limited, a leading travel service provider.
Flight Centre Limited provides a complete travel service for leisure and business travelers internationally. The company employs more than 9,000 consultants and support staff and boasts more than 1,500 retail stores as well as an online travel service for customers worldwide. Using Awareness' Enterprise Social Media platform, which provides a host of enterprise-ready Web 2.0 technologies, Flight Centre has developed a global community centered around user-generated content, positioning the company as trusted information resource, and providing an innovative medium to acquire new customers and ultimately drive sales to both online and retail travel outlets.
Making Flight Centre a hub of travel information for customers and potential customers, as well as expert advice from the company's travel consultants, GlobalTravelBlog.com presents valuable information, photos and advice about travel destinations. An interactive map shows the user-generated content that has been geo-tagged by location and contributed through a variety of social media technologies, including RSS, tagging and blogging, giving travelers a vacation planning resource to research accommodations, tours and a country or region before they book their travel.
"In a world that is increasingly driven by consumer feedback and peer-to-peer recommendations, we are excited to give our customers a voice about their travel experiences, while also expanding our brand and increasing the SEO of our retail websites," said Grant Waldeck, Flight Centre's online marketing manager. "This community provides a significant competitive advantage for our organization by putting Flight Centre truly at the center of the travel planning and recommendation process. Flight Centre is committed to providing the best possible travel experiences to our customers and the content created on the GlobalTravelBlog will not only be valuable to consumers as they plan their trips, but also to Flight Centre professionals, keeping everyone updated on the quality and offerings of travel destinations around the world."
"By tapping into the pulse of travelers around the world and looking closely at customer-driven content, including blog posts, voting, photo submissions and other community interactions, Flight Centre can better gauge market and customer trends and demands, and ultimately make smarter and more informed decisions," said John Bruce, CEO, Awareness. "Awareness' platform gives Flight Centre the flexibility of a wide variety of social media tools to better encourage wide participation and ensure that their community is a popular destination."
About Awareness
Awareness helps companies build and operate branded Web 2.0 communities. These online communities let customers, prospects, employees, or partners connect with each other and share content. At the core of the Awareness solution is an on-demand social media platform that combines the full range of Web 2.0 technologies—blogs, wikis, discussion groups, social networking, podcasts, RSS, tagging, photos, videos, mapping, etc.—with security, control, and content moderation. Awareness builds these features into complete communities for companies, or customers use the Awareness API and widgets to integrate Web 2.0 technologies into their own web properties. Major corporations such as McDonald's, Kodak, the New York Times, Northwestern Mutual, and Procter and Gamble use Awareness to build brand loyalty, generate revenue, drive new forms of marketing, improve collaboration, encourage knowledge-sharing, and build a "corporate memory."
The Awareness platform was first launched in January 2005 and now hosts hundreds of online communities. Backed by Greylock Partners and NorthBridge Venture Partners, Awareness is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Media Contact
Jennifer Gazin or Virginia Zimpel
awareness(at)launchsquad(dot)com
415.625.8555
Awareness Contact
Eric Schurr
eric.schurr(at)awarenessnetworks(dot)com
781.622.2388


