July 2006 Archives

Well, things are winding down here at the NBTA conference in Chicago and not a day too soon because any more of this humidity and I might have permanent hair frizz.

Usually, the last day of a conference is pretty uneventful, and today is not much different.

Most people are feeling a bit rough from the night before (BCD and Continental threw the mother of all parties at the legendary House of Blues [surely this is the reason for the hair frizz? - Ed]) and the trade show vendors have already begun to pack up thier booths.

Alas, so far (I've still got 6 hours to go), there is at least one piece of final news worthy of reporting.

That is the plan by Concur Technologies, which owns the Cliqbook self booking platform, to roll out a restriction-based ticketing tool.

The new tool, which is being implemented across continental Europe, the UK and Australia over the next five weeks, will enable business travellers to view fares with varying levels of restrictions, so they can more easily select the best pricing combination on point-to-point and multi-leg journeys.

The tool is particularly appropriate for the intra-European market, where there exist multiple types of restricted tickets, which, unlike in the US where even highly-restricted fares are somewhat flexible, cannot be changed without facing hefty penalties.

For those of you who don't think this sounds very exciting, trust me, it is – if for no other reason than it shows that the Yanks are finally starting to realise that the rest of the world is not America. Hurrah!

Tricia Holly Davis, freelance journalist in Chicago

SAS, Swiss and Lufthansa have all agreed to create a direct connection to Farelogix, Dave Cerino, the firm's chief marketing and product officer told Travolution in an exclusive interview.

The news comes on the heels of Farelogix's agreement with Emirates (read previous blog entry), which became the first international carrier outside of North America to create a direct connection with the next-generation distribution firm.

Farelogix, which already holds similar agreements with major US carriers American, Continental and Northwest, has been a target of criticism by the leading GDSs, which insist that the GNEs do not pose a serious competitive threat, particularly because they are limited to content agreements with North American carriers.

In light of this recent development that argument no longer holds water.

If Farelogix or one of the other alternative distribution companies manages to plug the hole in the UK market through a deal with BA, for example, then things will get really interesting.

Tricia Holly Davis, freelance journalist in Chicago

Here’s the latest offering from the wise-cracking advertising team at Zuji.com.

You DO need sound for this one!



Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Try as conference organisers may to vet attendees, vendors flogging items akin to those sold on late-night home shopping channels are nonetheless a frequent fixture on trade show floors.

That said, I was delighted when I came across a useful gadget from office technology firm 3M.

The company’s laptop privacy screen is one of the most inventive products being exhibited on the NBTA trade show floor.

In a survey of 650 business travellers commissioned by 3M earlier this year, 45% admitted to sneaking a peak at their neighbours’ laptops.

Such voyeuristic behaviour is apparently rampant among male travellers, who let their eyes wander 20% more often than their female counterparts—surprise, surprise.

Of those who do peek at other people’s laptops, 42% admitted to being interested in what they see.

3M’s laptop filter, which retails for about £25, fits over any size computer and literally blacks out the screen from a peripheral view, so that only those sat directly in front of the computer can see what is being displayed.

This simple gizmo may not be the sexiest product in the world, but at least it will put off the weird guy sat next to you on the plane.

Tricia Holly Davis, freelance journalist in Chicago

Expedia Corporate Travel’s head of Europe, Jean-Pierre Remy, gave Travolution an exclusive interview about the company’s future plans in Europe.

Having completed the geographic phase of its European strategy with the plan to open operations in Germany this autumn, Remy says ECT will now focus on converging the company’s airline content and reporting platforms to make them consistent throughout Europe and North America.

The idea is that such uniformity will appeal to large volume, multi-national corporations, which are interested in fully-integrated booking, reporting and expense management capabilities, and want and a broad range of content and the ability to see the same content around the globe.

ECT has already completed the convergence of its hotel platform, which includes content from Hotels.com. Remy says ECT is in the process of creating a new airline platform, which will build upon the existing breadth of content currently available in the US and Europe, including those of low cost carriers and rail companies.

The new platform should be complete in a few months.

Once the new unified airline and reporting platforms are in place, Remy says ECT will be in a position to pursue expansion into other markets and has an eye on the Nordics.

Tricia Holly Davis, freelance journalist in Chicago

Chatting with the boss of a new online travel company this morning, he said during the planning stage for the website a series of focus groups were conducted to check ideas out with consumers.

One of the big dilemmas for the company, which specialises in high-end and exclusive products, was whether to include a booking engine, so users could snap up products such as luxury hotels, attractions and expensive restaurants direct on the site.

Apparently, an overwhelming majority - 90%, in fact - of those that took part said no because "they still wanted to barter to get a decent price", so would therefore prefer just the telephone number of the hotel!

And who said good old fashioned human interaction is dead?!?

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

The worst thing about attending a conference in the US in July is the oppressive heat – with humidity it feels like 45 and the British contingent is less than pleased.

Thankfully, those of us who made the trek to Chicago for NTBA have been preoccupied by some rather interesting news, not the least of which is that airline and hotel prices have officially reached an all time high.

According to reports released here by American Express, international business class airfares (including premium economy) are up by 7% in the first quarter, compared with the same period in 2005.

BCD Travel reported average international fares are up by 10% year-on-year, while hotel rates have risen at a similar pace, up 10% over the past 12 months.

As one might expect, the leading cause for the increase in airfares is the soaring price of oil, followed by labour and distribution costs. As for hotels, it’s a simple matter of demand outstripping supply.

Fox News, America’s “fair and balanced” news station, (which has apparently warned US citizens the current Israeli-Hezbollah crisis indicates the start of World War Three!!!), reported that the nation’s temperatures, like airline and hotel prices, have also achieved a record high.

Hmm…the phrase Global Warming comes to mind, but, hey, this is America so we won’t see that issue on the conference agenda.

[Tricia is an American, just in case Travolution is accused of US-bashing! - Ed]

Tricia Holly Davis, freelance journalist in Chicago

Tricia Holly Davis, one of Travolution’s regular writers, is in Chicago attending the National Business Travel Association's annual bash and will be blogging for us over the coming days.

Her first missive arrived this morning. She writes:

Those of you who read the cover story featured in the April issue of Travolution may recall the mouthy statements made by Emirates, which said it was fed up with being gouged by the GDSs and was consequently exploring direct connect options with its top travel agency partners and alternative distribution channels.

Well, it seems Emirates wasn’t bluffing. The carrier revealed it will establish a direct connection to Farelogix, the “GNE” set-up by David Cerino, one of the brains behind Orbitz.

The agreement, announced here in Chicago, marks the first of its kind between an international carrier outside of North America and an alternative distribution system. Farelogix already holds agreements with five US carriers.

The companies estimate the first phase of the implementation will be completed by the end of the third quarter of this year.

There’s no word yet on other whether other international carriers will follow suit, but bets are on BA.

Tricia Holly Davis, freelance journalist in Chicago

Following last week’s frighteningly popular post featuring a TV ad for the Japanese search engine, Goo, the Travolution Blog today launches a series of ads from online travel companies around the world.

Here is the first of three TV slots from Pacific-Asia online travel agent, Zuji, which US travel giant Travelocity paid $34m to earlier this year in order to take full ownership.

The series of ads go under the title “Check Out Your Hotel Before You Check In” – predictable but rather amusing.



More to come.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Some more news on the dot-travel domains issue we covered recently.

Select World Travel, which snapped up one of the dot-travel domain names for blog – Selectworld.travel – had been having a few problems since it relaunched a few weeks back.

First of all some UK internet service providers would not allow users to see visit the site.

Tralliance, the company that sells the dot-travel domains, told Select: “It is not true that this is a problem across the board for dot-travel registrants in the UK, but it is limited to a very few pockets of the UK. If you have any other questions or experience any problems, please let me know."

But now Lee Harrison, who runs Select from its Worcestershire home in the UK, writes to say Blog Juice facilitator Technorati is also not overwhelmingly friendly to the dot-travel domain name.

Under normal circumstances, Blog operators are able to “claim” their site on Technorati, which in turn enables them to view inbound links and create keyword categories – all vital tools for getting a blog off the ground and driving traffic.

Harrison wrote to Technorati to get to the bottom of the issue.

He had a pleasant response, but not a very helpful one in terms of fixing the problem.

Technorati wrote: “I'm afraid that our blog claiming system does not currently support the dot-travel domain. We are working on supporting it in the future.

“Thus, you will be unable to claim your blog at this time and install the code for the Technorati Button and other features as that is part of the blog claim.”

Looks like the dot-travel issue to set to run and run…

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Here’s an interesting development by our cousins on Gazetteers Plus, the online content provider for 60% of UK travel agents.

Seizing on the current trend for user-generated reviews, Gazetteers Plus has launched its own tool for agents, called Agents Advice.

Agents will be able to share their own opinions on a resort or properties with their counterparts around the country.

Similar to the massively popular TripAdvisor model, content now includes images, a general description of the property and feedback submitted by agents covering reviews, hints or tips.

To help woo agents to the new initiative, Gazetteers is holding a prize draw for the first month for every review submitted by an agent. Switched-on agents will be able to win one of four MP4 players.

Get reviewing…

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Gillian Gibson from Amadeus writes:

Last year, Amadeus found that travellers will pay more for their tickets. More specifically, in a survey of 1,000 American travellers, we found that leaving at a less ungodly hour in the morning, having access to an airport lounge or being able to use loyalty points to pay for an upgrade are all more important than paying the lowest possible fare.

People don’t choose the cheapest option, they choose the best option. But all “best options” are not created equal. The best option for Joe may not be the best option for Jenny. And the best option for Joe this week may not be the best option for Joe next week. Three days before payday Joe might be cost-conscious; three days later he might want to splurge.

With such a diversity of shifting needs, how do you empower all your customers to choose the option that best suits their needs at any particular time? There are complex tools which try to predict behaviour based on previous preferences but when they make mistakes, you look foolish.

A friend of mine shopped online for a compilation CD of rare funk from the 1970s. When he returned to the web site he was told: “You bought an album by ‘various’. Other customers who bought albums by this artist also bought ‘Now That’s What I Call Music volume 45’.” The pitch fell on stony ground.

[Wonder what website it was? - Ed]

It is much more powerful to give your customers the tools to make their own decisions. In online travel, the presentation of options on the search results page makes all the difference. If you present flight options vertically, with the cheapest at the top, you encourage your customers to shop on price; only the willfully profligate will dare to scroll beyond the third or fourth option.

But if you present flight options in a quadrant, with outward dates along the top and return options down the left-hand side, you can offer many more options on the screen. It sounds basic but it works. Your customers can choose the combination of dates and price which suits them.

Airlines which have adopted this format on their websites have seen online yield - the average ticket price - grow by 8%. They also received fewer calls to their call centres because customers could see all the available options on one screen.

In marketing, we’d love to know what our customers are thinking but it’s an impossible dream…it’s also unnecessary. It’s enough to let them make their own decisions.

Gillian Gibson, vice president, multinational customer group at Amadeus

[Amadeus unveils calendar tool for online agents]

Heather Sommerville from AOL UK writes:

As we launch AOL’s content onto the web this month, making AOL’s dedicated Travel channel available to non-members for the first time in our ten-year history, we’ve been investigating what makes for “sticky” content.

Research amongst our members was conducted to determine what the “must-have” travel content was to ensure visitors would keep coming back.

Three distinct groups of traveller were identified: Young Professionals, Empty Nesters and Families. There was much overlap between the requirements of the first two groups; however the Families differed quite considerably.

Young Professionals and Empty Nesters favoured city break deals, no frills aggregators, fare watcher functionality and quick search. These groups are most attracted by tools and content which allow them to make their own decisions and compare multiple sources.

For the Families, unsurprisingly, family deals came out top, closely followed by a secure site logo, site security being a major concern for this group. Also important to the Families are destination guides and those increasingly popular “warts and all” holiday truth guides.

What all groups agreed on was the importance of travel tips and advice, search engines, 360-degree hotel views and personalisation (“Your Itinerary”, “Your Profile” etc). All groups agree that the internet can provide them with more information prior to making a booking than has ever been available before, and what was once a ‘nice-to-have’ is fast becoming a travel site ‘must-have’.

Looking at ComScore’s results for average minutes per visitor, and average usage per day per visitor in May 2006, there is little differentiation amongst the top 10 UK travel sites in terms of ‘stickiness’. Whilst Cheapflights come at the lower end of the scale, with around 1.5 average usage days per visitor and an average of 3 minutes per visitor, the majority all cluster at around 2 days per visitor per month and between 10-15 minutes per visitor.

The TUI group, however does seem to have the edge with around 18 minutes per month per visitor. Thomson has made great strides with developing the content of their site in recent months, adding more and more features with their video tours being particularly impressive.

These developments seem to be paying off in terms of keeping users coming back to the site and staying on there for longer.

Heather Sommerville, travel and lifestyle specialist, interactive marketing, AOL

Interesting and potentially explosive case on the thorny issue of online branding has hit the headlines today.

Yellowikis, a UK-based listings website that allows users to create or update classified ads in the Wikipedia mode, has received a legal notice from Yell.com, the online version of the Yellow Pages, accusing it of attempting an unauthorised association.

The letter said: “The continued presence in the market of your website will cause substantial damage to [Yell's] good will and reputation".

The father and daughter-run company has taken the rather interesting route of publicising the news on its site and has asked for users to draft responses to Yell, perhaps in the spirit of open access in which Yellowikis was established.

Nevertheless the company said it could cost up to £5,000 in legal fees – and that’s before the case potentially reaches a courtroom.

So is this a case of the Big Boys muscling in on a successful but far smaller rival?

The implications for travel companies, if this case goes to the courts, are also interesting.

There is an argument that Cheapflights.co.uk, for example, which is an established internet brand of ten years, could take issue with Cheapestflights.co.uk.

There are others: Lastminute.com and Lastminute-wales.com or Hotels.com and AHotels.com.

For the record, of course: Travolution has no quarrel with Travelution.co.uk, an Edinburgh agency, or Travolution.com, a site that re-directs to T-Mobile.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Anyone disputing the power of the internet must be having second thoughts this year as a string of – admittedly quite bizarre and novel – ideas have helped secure its place as one of the most innovative business tools of the modern age.

In January this year an undergraduate student from Wiltshire created the Million Dollar Homepage, a website made up of one million pixels that he sold as individual pieces of advertising space, netting him a heap of publicity and a few pounds in the process.

Alex Tew, the brains behind the scheme, who just a year ago was a typical student, trying to make ends meet at Nottingham University, is now writing a book about the five-month journey from obscurity to stardom and speaking regularly on the business circuit.

But perhaps the most bizarre tale concerns a Canadian chap called Kyle McDonald.

Exactly a year ago to the day MacDonald created One Red Paperclip, a website to launch his somewhat wacky plan: to trade a simple red paper clip for house.

Since 12 July 2005 he has indeed managed to swap his red paperclip for a piece of property in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan.

The escapade has seen him swap such items as a doorknob for a camping stove, a beer keg for a snowmobile, a rent-free apartment for a year for an afternoon with rocker Alice Cooper, before finally trading a part in a Hollywood film for the house in Canada.

The achievement is all the more fascinating because of his use of the internet, mostly through his blog, to create massive interest in the adventure.

Not a huge deal in this post related to online travel – just a fascinating tale of how innovation, smart publicity and the internet can create remarkable results.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

If search engine giants Yahoo! or Google ever decide to create a new TV advertising campaign, they could learn a thing or two from the Japanese.

Here is a slightly unnerving, but rather funny offering from Japanese site Goo. [It's worth waiting the full 1m 46s for the ending]



Yikes!

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

The future of internet portals in relation to travel is up for debate this week at an industry event in London.

Attending the Toward Europe monthly forum – titled “Portal Power: Which websites will win out?” – will be a selection of luminaries from around the travel and new media industries:

* Wayne Morris, commercial director Yahoo! Travel
* Annelies van den Belt, new media director at the Telegraph Group
* Moshe Rafiah, chief executive at Travelfusion
* Kostas Trivizas, vice president for global sales and distribution at IXeo
* James Scott, director of SME sales UK at ChannelAdvisor

Travolution will be chairing the event on Thursday 13 July. Information and delegate places are available from Nick Mortimer on 020 7559 6622 or nick.mortimer@towardeurope.org

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

So what does a guest editor bring to a magazine, someone asked me over the weekend.

The questioned came after Travolution’s announcement last week that Cheapflights chief executive David Soskin is to guest edit our September edition.

The edition is being produced to hail ten years of online travel and David’s company is celebrating a decade in business this autumn.

His involvement with us for the edition is perfect: Cheapflights, perhaps more than any other a company, is synonymous with the entrepreneurial spirit that grabbed the travel industry in the late 1990s.

It is the gutsy determination of the early pioneers in online travel that has brought the industry to where it is now – so who better than David to act as a figurehead for our commemorative issue in September.

The Cheapflights model is not without its detractors, of course, so picking David to help steer the September edition, we hope, will be mildly controversial.

In the coming weeks the edition will start coming together: our online poll to find the Influential Ten – the innovators and trailblazers of the last decade – will be launched with a shortlist of 20 of the industry’s leaders and pioneers.

Some of you will also be invited to take part in a survey – one part of our three-pronged State of the Nation report – looking at the online travel industry and its impact on the trade.

In the meantime the results of another part of the survey – a study of online consumer buying habits, carried out for us by Metro newspaper – are in and being digested. The results are very interesting, to say the least.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

This blogging really is a fascinating medium. With the shackles of complying with a corporate message removed I can tell you what I really think!

And you can tell me if you think I'm typing complete blogocks!

I read recently a news release from a travel technology supplier claiming that its flight-engine was about to revolutionise relationships between low-cost carriers and agents, when clearly several suppliers have supported search, cost and book services with these airlines for years.

Similar claims are sometimes made about "unique" dynamic packaging services when seamless search across multiple suppliers is widely available and bolting-on new suppliers is essentially a question of allocating development-days in response to customer demand.

Buyers should beware companies making claims about unique technologies. Innovation is of course a great thing, but it has to be real.

It also extends beyond just clever technology - into commercial models, ongoing R&D investment and support and account management.

My advice would be to challenge such claims and shop around. You might be surprised to find that that “unique” is a very hard position to sustain in the travel technology sector.

Ed Whiting, product director, Comtec (Europe)

[Ed's column in Travolution - How much would you pay for eSP]

Dismayed at not having your own copy of the June edition of Travolution – fear not, help is on the way.

We are now producing the magazine in a digital format, with every article on every page available in high resolution. There are even hyperlinks to the websites of our advertisers!

But while the debate over digital editions in the printed media never seems to be too far away from the minds of proprietors, publishers and editors, opportunities and the benefits for travel companies with online brochures are gathering pace as technology improves.

[What to do with those brochures]

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Mixed messages on the Silver Surfers issue following the UK’s media regulator Ofcom’s report on the impact of the internet on so-called marginalised groups.

According to the BBC “just 28% of people over the age of 65 have home internet access, compared to a UK average of 57% of households”, making it difficult for pensioners to access government information and “competitive deals” on consumer goods.

These statistics are from Ofcom’s Consumer Panel, but the results run counter to other studies which put the so-called Silver Surfers as the fastest growing age groups on the web with a massive enthusiasm for buying products – especially travel – online.

[Read Travolution’s Silver Surfers feature from the June edition]

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

There have been some interesting developments in the world of the dot-travel domain in recent days.

The excellent Travel-Rants blog reports how one company has had difficulties with customers seeing its dot-travel tagged site.

Lee Harrison from Selectworld.travel, which featured here on the Travolution Blog earlier this week, says some UK ISPs are having problems.

Overseas users are apparently able to see UK-based dot-travel sites, including Selectworld.travel, but there does seem to be an issue somewhere.

Regardless of the technical difficulties, the dot-travel domain is not without its detractors.

In Travolution’s recent feature on dot-travel, journalist David Bicknell found research group Forrester were less than impressed with the system, hitting out at the accreditation scheme (“flawed”) and labelling the concept “nice, but not necessary”.

In the meantime, Harrison contacted Tralliance, the company behind the dot-travel domain system, to get some answers.

This is what Tralliance said: "The people having difficulty accessing your site should contact their respective ISPs. Most often this is a result of spam filters but they should definitely contact the ISPs. Please do contact us if the problem persists.

"It is not true that this is a problem across the board for .travel registrants in the UK, but it is limited to a very few pockets of the UK. If you have any other questions or experience any problems, please let me know."

Please let us know if you have experienced any problems with dot-travel domains.

The debate rumbles on...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Geoff Monk from Global Coach Tours writes:

Congratulations to Tony Radstone on winning his Sm@rt Agent award from Travolution. However, I wish to put the record straight. He’s not the only crusader and he wasn’t the first!

Globalcoachtours.com is my online agency, which pre-dates Tony’s Coachtrips by two years. I launched in June 1998 and have sold over £1m worth of escorted coach tours since then working from home.

As a Global Travel Group member I used to have a high street shop selling the full range of holidays until I realised that discounting was so bad, making money was seriously difficult. I closed the shop and moved the business home.

I decided to focus exclusively on coach tours as they do not tend to be discounted, so we don’t advertise any discounts (except for Contiki on PPC). Tony’s site advertises 10% discounts which is unnecessary and means he needs to sell three times as many tours as I do to make the same money.

Is that smart or is it a short-term view? Looking at what discounts did to the cruise business it only gets harder the more players enter the market. We price match if we have to, but giving 10% away is setting a dangerous precedent for the future.

Already this has angered Titan Tours who have cut commission and threatened to stop-sell any agents that discount. Conversely they have offered to reward agents that don’t. Tony fears “the coach sector could follow the mainstream leisure sector by slashing commission and going direct”.

I will be in a better position than Tony if this happens as I trade on quality and service, not giving away my profits to attract business.

My website is under constant review and most of our 700+ tours have the departure dates listed and can be booked on-line with a credit card if available. Whilst online booking is not yet live I always give a fast response. Our main suppliers are Trafalgar, Insight, Contiki and Cosmos.

Tony has found a way to book Cosmos on-line, which we are still looking into, but I disagree with him that they are the only internet friendly supplier as we get plenty of support from our chosen operators. We will be adding more soon so that most world destinations are covered. The small group adventure sector is a “niche within a niche” that isn’t yet served which I will be launching into soon. I also own several other domain names which point to our site, such as Coachtoursofeurope.com.

Using VOIP (we have a London phone number as our main contact) I already trade a few weeks a year from my laptop whilst on vacation in Canada or my sister-in-law takes over as a home worker if I’m not going to be near a high speed connection.

By running an internet based travel business I have the freedom to spend more time doing other things I enjoy when I like, rather than being tied down to a nine-to-five type routine.

I enjoy reading Travolution – keep up the good work!

Geoff Monk, managing director, Global Coach Tours

We have been commenting a lot recently on how the industry is being urged to embrace social media, with tools like blogs and user-generated content.

So it’s nice to see a handful of companies, outside of the so-called giants of the online travel world, which are using at blogs as an innovative way of reaching consumers.

We spoke to Lee Harrison, owner of Select World Travel in Worcestershire, UK, early last week to swap tales about blogging platforms and what his company is doing.

It’s an interesting case: rather than use the agency’s existing site for content and news, Harrison created a blog a while ago to run destination advice and news about the company.

Since moving platforms – from Blogspot [which also powers the Travolution Blog] to Squarespace – he has also snapped up one of the new dot-travel domain names, Selectworld.travel, for the blog.

[Travolution article on how to get a dot-travel domain name]

Within days of talking to Harrison, Dale Lovell, a former contact from Shermans Travel UK, emails with news of his new company, Travel Answers.

This is a blog-based operation that allows users to send in questions and then a team of “advisors” respond by posting comments back on the blog.

[News story: Travel Answers launches Q&A blog and travel deals]

Kevin May, editor, Travolution