The newly renovated NYC Information Center goes high-tech.
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Leveraging partnerships with Google, Travelocity and Time Out New York, NYC & Company, the official tourism marketing arm for New York City, has unveiled a new state-of-the-art visitor information center. Renovated to the tune of $1.8 million, the NYC Information Center is located in midtown Manhattan and features numerous interactive capabilities, including wall-mounted, multilingual kiosks, available in nine foreign languages. The center interacts seamlessly with NYC & Company’s new Web site, which houses a cultural calendar featuring more than 300 event and exhibition listings, driven by the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs as well as daily information feeds generated by Time Out New York.
The city’s partnership with Google takes interactive visitor planning to a new level. Through Google, visitors to the information center and NYCGo.com can take advantage of advanced mapping technology to search and explore specific locations throughout the five boroughs. At the center, interactive map tables allow people to plan a custom tour and then visualize it using Google Earth on a video wall. Venue and tour information can also be transferred to a user’s phone using short message service (SMS), and visitors can use Google Maps for Mobile to get to their final destination. This marks the first time an end-to-end experience has been created using Google — from home to mobile device to real-world exploration.
www.nycgo.com
Delta Passengers Help Direct Tribeca Film Festival
Delta Air Lines, the official airline sponsor of the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival, has rolled out its third annual national film competition: Delta’s Fly-In Movies. Through April 12, the airline is previewing five short film candidates, which were selected by the Tribeca Film Festival from thousands of entries. The five short films are being shown on all Delta flights equipped with Delta on Demand, the airline’s personal, seatback in-flight entertainment system. The finalists can also be viewed and rated at Delta.com/FlyInMovies, which can be accessed through the airline’s Gogo In-Flight Internet service for customers traveling with Wi-Fi enabled devices. The film rated highest by viewers will be featured in the Tribeca Film Festival’s Short Film Program.
www.delta.com/flyinmovies
Agents Can Win With Small Luxury Hotels of the World’s New Web Site
As part of a campaign to promote its new travel-agents-only Web site, Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH) is giving away 10 five-night trips to travel agents. Each week until mid-April, agents can sign on to the new site, SLH.com/TravelAgents, and answer 10 simple questions for a chance to win a stay at the SLH property of their choice. Because more than 70 percent of SLH bookings are made by agents, the brand has rolled out the new site to serve as a one-stop shop for agents. The Web site will provide GDS codes, high-resolution images of each property, the latest hotel offers, as well as information on SLH’s commission payment policy and contact details for dedicated telephone hotlines. A different set of questions will be featured each week, and one new winner will be selected for each question set.
www.slh.com/travelagents
