People love a good PR disaster. As if there were a bright red beacon attached to your brand, a company can find itself attracting unwanted attention faster than a blink of an eye. As of late, the cruise industry has been under this kind of extreme scrutiny following a rash of public relations nightmares across a number of cruise lines.

Casino marketers face the challenge of too much competition.

Before I launch into this piece I have a confession: I graduated from the old school. Not the old-old school, as in "how do you turn this thing on?" I have seen my share of change in the world of marketing, though, with a career arc that began in the era of White Out and Selectrics (those under 35 may have to Google those references). I've passed through the clunky word processor to the early Macintosh to a peaceful coexistence with all of my iStuff.

Marketing is a matter of relativity. Not only is it crucial for you to present the right image - but it has to be better than the other guy's. Let's face it: business is about beating the other guy, and when it comes to social media, that becomes a very complex affair.

About a year ago in this column, I waxed poetic about the potential Google's self-driving car has to revolutionize the rental car industry. Since the car is in the very early stage, proof-of-concept testing, such a revolution is years, if not decades, off; however, there is one revolution that Google is already helping fuel today-virtual tourism.

Some travel brands kept marketing like nothing had happened.

Everyone is talking about native advertising these days as the hot new trend. Since there are so many different flavors of native, I thought I should start with some broad explanations and examples. Native advertising is when an advertiser publishes or sponsors content as part of the user experience. So instead of running banner ads around the editorial content, the brands actually weave their content into the site. Native can be a video, photo, infographics or a text article. An advertorial could be native. Facebook Sponsored Stories and Twitter Sponsored Tweets are also a form of native. When an advertiser …

Numbers don't tell the full story, it turns out. After considering circulation and impressions of media coverage and debating various reporting methodologies, public relations industry leaders believe that relying exclusively on quantitative measures to evaluate results is insufficient. As a result, it's critical to layer on a qualitative element to measure communications effectiveness. With that in mind, here are five tips for reporting meaningful travel PR results.

It's a well-accepted truism by now that "you can't sell on social media," but as savvy suppliers have become more sophisticated about the use of social media, it's also become true that social media can be part of a multi-leg -- even multi-directional -- path toward sales.

Non-travel brands look to build customer engagement through travel.