Everyone agrees that social media is important and on the rise. But I still come across so many skeptics on a weekly basis when it comes to getting support for social media providing a strong return on investment. Maybe some of these impressive stats will help convince those naysayers.

We've all known about the "power of mobile" for quite some time now. Smartphones already have a big impact on the travel industry, and with the steady increase of mobile adoption, they will continue to heavily influence the way consumers make travel plans.

Part One: Narrowcasting Your Target Audience For Optimum Results: Knowing that much of today's travel planning occurs online, it can feel impossible to sort through myriad available communications channels -- pay-per-click, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, e-mails, banner ads and branded content. With limited marketing funds, what's a travel marketer to do?

There's a lot of discussion in journalism these days about how important it is to be first -- at a time when getting a "scoop" means breaking a story a few seconds ahead of the next (or next thousand) news outlet. That has led to mistakes and embarrassments.

Of all the terms associated with airline travel, one of the most apropos these days has to be "gangway." The gangway, of course, is the narrow passageway through which passengers board and exit the aircraft. Thanks to ever-increasing checked baggage fees and liberal gate-check policies, the gangway has literally become the place where gangs of impatient business travelers gather to snatch up their bags as they are offloaded-one-by-one-by a single, orange-vested airline employee. Indeed, on one recent, regional flight, I counted over 30 passengers-more than half the airplane's capacity-lining the walls of the gangway, awaiting their gate-checked luggage. It was …

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