Luckie & Company occasionally publishes a series of marketplace-specific Trend Tracker newsletters. This month, we take a quick, topical look into the restaurant industry. While we sometimes look at traditional stuff like new campaigns and promotions, we tend to focus on interesting insights that relate to emerging technologies, digital and social happenings and consumer behavior.

Read below for the headline stories and download the report for free by clicking the link.

Restaurant Trend Tracker

• Pin It & Cook It
• Gluten-Free Craze
• Surprise, Surprise
• Flexible Food
• Wine Has Never Been So Sweet
• Caffeine Addicts, Unite
• 2012 Social Media Strategies
• Bargain Hunting
• Pay What You Can?
• Whopper Delivery

For a free subscription to Trend Trackers — or our other monthly newsletter, Generational News and Views — contact Jay Waters via email.

Edward Bowser is Community Manager at Luckie & Company. You can contact him by email or follow him on Twitter.

A few month ago, I poked some Airbus-sized holes in Google Flights, the search giant’s lackluster attempt to offer an airline-booking service. So out of fairness, I feel I must admit this:

Google Hotel Finder is flat-out amazing.

While the tool has been around since last summer, it got a fresh injection of buzz this week with the announcement that you could now search for lodging based on proximity to landmarks. Bundled into this upgrade is the ability to map hotels based on travel time to the landmark, popular neighborhoods or your own customized boundaries within the city.

That might sound like a ho-hum set of features, but when put all together, they create a travel-planning experience that feels downright futuristic.

I decided to test Google Hotel Finder with a relatively low-interest landmark. Sure, it can find you great hotels near the Eiffel Tower, but what about San Francisco’s Coit Tower? Found in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood, the tower is a bit of a slog from the city’s most popular hotel districts, so it seemed like a good test.

Searching for the landmark by name quickly pulled up a map and the closest hotels, which I could sort by average rating, price, promotional discounts, class (three-star, etc.) or an intuitive ranking system called “magic.” I sorted by magic, in hopes I would find a place that was both reasonably priced and violently haunted.

Many users will probably stop there and start picking some good hotels, but it’s the mapping system that really makes Hotel Finder a treat. Clicking on the default neighborhood map lets you expand the search area or switch between three different types of maps: Select Area (which you customize), Travel Time or Popular Areas.

Here’s how these different options looked on my search:

Once you start digging into the information on each hotel, the process continues to be easy and downright fun. Reviews (from Google Places) and photos are displayed prominently, along with links to more reviews on other sites such as Trip Advisor.

You can add your hotels to a short list or go ahead and click “Book.” Then you’ll be shown the price to reserve your room through an advertiser like Orbitz or through the hotel’s official booking site. Being able to see the per-night price for each option is a nice touch.

Google has created what is probably the best hotel booking site of all time, and I am eager to see how they continue building on this platform to create an all-inclusive tool that will undoubtedly redefine how we plan travel in the 21st century.

David Griner is Director of Digital Content for Luckie and Company and contributing editor for Adweek’s blog, AdFreak.com. You can contact him by e-mail or follow @griner on Twitter.

This year, our annual promotion for the Alabama Tourism Department features a yearlong celebration of the state’s delicious and diverse cuisine.

For the last few months, we here at Luckie & Company have been sorting through photos of ooey-gooey goodness, writing detailed descriptions of decadent dishes (making our sack lunches and frozen meals pale in comparison) and figuring out the best ways to serve up all this great food on the Web.

The result is a beautifully designed site showcasing 25 of the more than 200 dishes featured in Alabama Tourism’s 100 Dishes To Eat in Alabama Before You Die brochure. In addition, the Farm To Table Blog features articles and posts from some of the state’s celebrated chefs, seasoned food writers and dedicated foodies.

Other fun features include recipes from some of Alabama’s restaurants and professional chefs, trails with stops throughout different regions of the state and access to information about food festivals and events.

So prepare your taste buds and dig in. It’s going to be a delicious year. Also, be sure to follow @AlabamaFood on Twitter for delectable prizes and updates.

Molly Folse is Digital Content Coordinator at Luckie & Company. You can contact her by email or follow her on Twitter.

This has been a confusing and unpredictable year for Google’s users and observers, who can’t tell if the search giant is focused on shedding weight or expanding its reach.

On one hand, Google made the wise decision to drop more than a dozen underused products (Aardvark, Sidewiki, etc.) in 2011 while also launching the mega-successful social network Google+.

But looking at the tech company’s other launches, including this week’s liftoff for Google Flights, a disturbing trend becomes apparent: Google seems perfectly comfortable to be a copycat, not an innovator.

Just look back at some of the more recent Google projects:

• Google Offers: A knockoff of Groupon, which was already being copied by upward of 500 competitors.
• +1 Button: Google’s stab at a “Tweet” or “Like” button. Didn’t really make sense until Google+ came along a month later — and even then wasn’t integrated for another two months.
• Music Beta by Google: Great potential, but still showed up late to the party, launching two months after Amazon CloudDrive

And now we have Google Flights, which lets you find and book air travel. Who’s heard of such a thing? Oh wait, everyone. Back in 2007.

Don’t get me wrong. This product was destined to become reality, seeing as how Google recently completed its purchase of ITA Software, which powers the flight search tools for most major airlines.

But the real issue is that Google simply isn’t bringing much to the table. The execs saw Orbitz, Expedia, Travelocity and Kayak making money, and they wanted to swipe some of that money. Hey, that’s life in a capitalist society. But a company like Google has to do a lot more than just show up.

Google Flights is a speedy but altogether mediocre tool, one that drives you to airline sites for purchase. This is a model pioneered by Kayak, which also lets you scan other third-party sites like Travelocity and Priceline.

In a head-to-head comparison, The New York Times found Kayak to be a better option, though the writer gave Google credit for speed and simplicity.

But this is the very thing that’s wrong with Google Flights: It’s OK. It’s fine. It has potential.

That’s great if you’re talking about some startup graduating out of Ycombinator. But this is Google. When Google decides to go into a five-year-old industry already filled with strong competitors, why should we expect anything less than a generational leap forward? Instead, we get what we’ve recently come to expect from Google: a faster, whitewashed version of someone else’s idea.

Google Flights isn’t bad. But the message it sends sure is.

David Griner is the Director of Digital Content for Luckie and Company and contributing editor for Adweek’s blog, AdFreak.com. You can reach him by e-mail or follow @griner on Twitter.

Photo credit: Toprankonlinemarketing via Flickr

Our current justification for hallway acrobatics is courtesy of the Alabama Tourism Department “Year of Small Towns and Downtowns” campaign from 2010.  The National Council of State Tourism Directors recently honored the campaign with a 2011 Mercury Award for Best Promotion. It’s even more fun to note that this is the third time in six years that the state’s annual “Year of” campaign has earned this distinction. (We’re currently promoting The Year of Alabama Music, which is already winning awards.)

The 2010 campaign had a wide range of components, including the Tourism Department commissioning more than 200 historic markers to present to each participating town. To help turn this effort into a true celebration, Luckie created “The Great Alabama Homecoming,” which encouraged all Alabama natives and descendants to return home for a visit.

The campaign resulted in tremendous consumer engagement for communities across the state, especially in social media. Luckie created 215 individual Facebook pages for Alabama towns that did not already have a Facebook presence, then trained local representatives on how to use the pages for destination marketing and communication with residents.

To help former residents, descendants of Alabamians and newcomers find these Facebook pages, Luckie created an interactive map that served as the central navigation for The Great Alabama Homecoming website.

By the end of the year, more than 175,000 people had “Liked” the new Facebook pages created by Luckie for these communities.

Luckie’s work for the Year of Small Towns and Downtowns also included charming and heart-warming print and television ads to build awareness for the Homecoming events and to drive travelers to the website and Facebook. You can view the television spot below.

Looking back, this campaign was a great opportunity for Alabama to showcase what makes it such a great place to visit and why we call it home.  It’s a state rich in unique experiences you can find simply by traveling from town to town, each one full of people who treat you like family.  We at Luckie are excited to keep telling this story and can’t wait to show you what’s to come in 2011 and the years beyond.  You might want to go ahead and start packing the car – it’s going to be a fun ride.

Mary Lanaux is an Account Executive at Luckie & Company, where she coordinates the agency’s daily work with the Alabama Tourism Department. She can be reached by email.