Will the Tupperware model work for the travel industry? Royal Caribbean tried this marketing strategy in late summer to see if it would float.

At yesterday’s webinar on Mobile - The Next Platform for Travel, Norm Rose covered a lot of ground and provided useful insight into this topic travel services providers need get familiar with going forward. The changes brought about in consumer behavior by mobile devices, especially smartphones like the iPhoneare affecting a wide range of industries.

This latest edition of PhoCusWright’s Asia Pacific Online Travel Overview Third Edition addresses the Asia Pacific (APAC) region’s fragmentation a defining characteristic of this area of the world where economic performance has differed considerably with growth rates exceeding 6% in China and India at one end and a 4% decline in Japan and Malaysia at the other.

On the Caribbean paradise island of Barbados, TotallyBarbados.com has become the leading resource for local information by blending detailed travel and destination information for visitors with a strong business and investment section. BTN investigates how it has used indepth local knowledge to attract a global audience.

Barbados is BTN’s Destination of the Month. In the first of a series of features, Adam Hakansson looks at how the Caribbean hideaway continues to prosper during the global downturn.

The 120-year-old Westin Miyako is one of Kyoto’s oldest and best loved hotels. As Japan welcomes a new government and Prime Minister to power, BTN’s Daniel Rourke spoke to Junko Funakoshi, Westin Miyako’s Manager of Advertising and Public Relations, about growing markets and changing ideas in Kyoto and Japan.