January 2008 Archives

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Hat tip: Happy Dude

Our latest column for Travel Weekly (a title aimed at High Street travel agents):

When was the last time you used a high street travel agent? This is a question members of the Travolution team are asked frequently.

So, a full disclosure: I last used the services of a bricks and mortar agency in the spring of 2000, when my wife and I visited the Camden branch of Bridge The World to plan and book a rather complicated series of flights around India, Nepal and southeast Asia.

The counter agent was knowledgeable (especially about Nepal), had a trick or two up her sleeve (she made a call to Emirates to get us a decent deal) and reassuring (the trip was essentially an extended honeymoon-cum-backpacking jaunt).

So despite the near-perfect service, why haven’t I used an agency since? In some respects it’s due to work commitments – we simply haven’t had that many holidays since then, which, yes, is pretty ridiculous.

But equally the holidays we have taken have not needed someone to guide us through the detail of a booking or accommodation or package.

And herein lies the challenge to the travel agency community.

There is an argument that searching for travel – especially massively commoditised products such as flights, and a large number of hotels – is easier via the web for many a supposed ‘time-poor’ consumer.

The notion that there are cheaper prices to be found online is also a factor.

The role of the agency in the future, therefore, has to evolve to meet this very real and – to many – frightening situation.

Use the online channel in an innovative and experience-led way to reach the ‘quick dealers’, as we call them.

But equally, make sure your shop offers the type of service on complicated or niche products that, for example, is going to make a cynical, web-savvy hack want to evangelise about you in eight years’ time.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: travel agent

Can't wait for the videos and consumer reviews for the "first" official nude flight being launched by OssiUrlaub, a German travel agency, according to Eturbonews.com.

But will they get past the internet police?

One thing is for sure baggage surcharges are unlikely on the service between Erfurt and a Baltic Sea Resort called Usedom. However, passengers will have to dress again before they leave the aircraft.

A quote from the founder says passengers will enjoy the hour-long flight 'as God intended' but I'm not sure we were meant to fly!

The picture below shows an early prototype.


Linda Fox, lead reporter, Travolution

Technorati tags: naturist germany airline

Dedicated Firefox users here at Travolution Towers, primarily for its tabbed pages and multi-search engine toolbar (yes, IE7 does this but we're luddites and old habits die hard).

Anyway, we discovered this morning that users can add an Expedia search button to their Firefox toolbar.

For example, type in "Las Vegas" into the box and a list of hotel options for the Nevada city are displayed (data comes from the US Expedia site).

It also produces options for flights if you type in the airport codes. - although it gueses the departure dates).

One wonders how much use this toolbar gets. Other add-ons, we suspect, like BBC News, USA Today and Amazon, probably get a lot more traffic. But that's probably not the point either...

Other travel-related add-ons include Lonely Planet and the Weather Channel.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: expedia firefox

Hot off the press: online travel agency Opodo has today turned a profit for the first time in nearly six years.

Understandably the company is making a lot of noise about this achievement and chief executive Ignacio Martos has literally just got a flight from Spain to talk to meedja about it.

We have some interesting comments from Martos which we'll publish very soon, but here are the top line stats for 2007 in today's announcement:

• Profits of Euro 6.6 million.
• Sales bringing in Euro 1.3 billion.
• Double-digit growth expected in 2008.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Never let it be said that the Lastminute.com PR machine is bereft of ideas when it comes to producing press releases.

But we are "delighted" - as many a travel press release quote begins these days - to learn that the pink'un was so impressed with our recent post about Newcastle United's Kevin Keegan and his love of dynamic packaging on Lastminute.com that it has spun its own version.

Lastminute.com has seen a massive 23% increase in holiday sales from Newcastle addresses in 2008, compared to the same period in 2007.

Over the same period bookings from Newcastle Airport have also increased by an impressive 16%.

Etc, etc, etc.

No official word on an approach by Lastminute.com to Newcastle about replacing Northern Wreck Rock as the club's official sponsor.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: northern rock lastminute kevin keegan football

We will be at the Travel Technology Show next week, hosting our live blogging stand and hosting four seminars.

A dedicated blog for the event is up and running over here.

Our fantastic line-up of speakers for our seminars on Wednesday 6 February is as follows:

9.45-11.00: If Only I Could Create the Perfect Travel Website… - Two design agencies offer their tips on how to engage users with the next generation of travel websites, explaining the subtle differences for prospective online operators and agencies.

Jason Till, digital production director, Designate Communications
Justin Cooke, managing director, Fortune Cookie


11.15-12.30: Integrating the Old Into the New – Understand how legacy platforms, constantly under pressure to integrate booking and reservation systems into an array of channels, can be overhauled to meet the needs of modern consumers and travel companies.

Alex Bainbridge, managing director, Travel UCD
Ornagh Hoban, vice president marketing and strategy, Datalex


14.15-15.30: It’s Marketing, Jim, But Not As We Know It – Learn how best to evaluate where to spend the valuable advertising pounds, as travel companies look to reach consumers in as many ways as possible over the web including organic search, PPC, display and social media.

Duncan Parfitt, head of paid search, Steak Media
Warren Cowan, chief executive, Greenlight
Nick Hayward, strategic development director, Latitude


15.45-17.00: Starting-up again – Re-invention, an influx of capital, turning plans into action? Learn about the pitfalls and how to turn a bright idea for the web into a real business.

Ranjan Singh, chief executive, Isango
James Dunford Wood, co-founder and managing director, Worldreviewer.com.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

A clip from DEC - Glimpse of the Future, in 1994.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1l6aBgX5UY&rel=1]

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Hat tip: Jebworks

Following last night's post pondering the state of Yahoo!, Silicon Valley guru Sramana Mitra has shared her thoughts on what Yahoo! should do next.

Given that it's probably losing the search battle with Google, Mitra reckons Yahoo! should snap up an online travel company.

But not just a content site or meta search engine. Oh no, aim high.

Yes, really high - like Expedia, Priceline of Orbitz.

"Yahoo should acquire one of them, and become a serious player."

A few questions about these pearls of wisdom:

• How much should a company which has lost $20 billion in market cap over two years be willing to pay for a business like Expedia?
• Is this really the right strategy?
• How would the market react to a - still reasonably signifcant - search company owning a online travel company?
  

Mitra offers more advice on the GigaOm.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Hat-tip: The Boot

Technorati tags: yahoo expedia priceline orbitz

UK media giant Sky has persuaded Expedia and TripAdvisor to put into practice what many have seen as one of the most valuable ways to utilise two market leading brands.

Combine the two to provide a very good white label deal for a third party.

Sky's travel channel will have flights, hotels, car hire and city breaks search and booking functionality provided by Expedia and user reviews from TripAdvisor.

Makes sense really...

Full story.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Some people would answer that question with these five words: 'it', 'will', 'never', 'be' and 'Google'.

One of the first sentences of an excellent article on ZDNet, written by Stefanie Olsen, goes like this:

If Yahoo could be placed on a psychiatrist's couch, the internet giant would be told it was suffering from an identity crisis.

Here in Europe the problem is even worse, with the site languishing even further behind the dreaded Google in terms of search traffic.

As the ZDNet article explains, Yahoo and its reasonably new CEO Jerry Yang - one of its co-founders - have a tough job on their hands.

In the meantime, employees are waiting anxiously to see if the widely rumoured job cuts are coming their way.

All is quiet in the UK. Tim Frankcom, who used to run travel for Yahoo and Kelkoo across Europe, has moved upwards in the Yahoo foodchain and has not been replaced.

Any questions about Yahoo and the fate of Kelkoo - a hot topic considering that Yahoo in the US has recently intergrated its highly rated Farechase into its travel channel - are met with a line about no comments ahead of financials.

Fair enough. The problem with not saying anything is that speculation mounts. And the market is talking a plenty...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: yahoo google zdnet

You won't find this in the toilets at Piccadilly Circus tube station. But maybe on a business-class only flight perhaps?



From Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine at the Davos conference in Switzerland last week. Indeed, I suspect you will find this kind of contraption only in Switzerland.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Roll up. Roll up.

A handful of tickets are available for tomorrow (Tuesday 29 January) night's Travolution Question Time in London.

If you wish to spend the evening interrogating the following people, then a few hours of your time will be well-spent sitting in the luxurious Charlotte Street Hotel theatre.

Alan Josephs (Ebookers)
Kristie Goshow (Jumeirah Hotels)
Steven Freudmann (ITT)
Chris Roe (Virgin Holidays)
Kevin Edwards (Affiliate Window)

More details.

Contact Jane Cartwright on 020 8652 3659 or email to obtain a ticket.

Cheers!

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Latest Newcastle saviour manager Kevin Keegan used everyone's favourite pink online travel agent to describe how he felt about returning to management at the North East club, where he is taking the reins for a second time.

From the News of the World blog:

I didn't have a brochure this time. It came like a whirlwind — it is like one of those Lastminute.com holidays!

There was no brochure — I just came. The exciting thing for me is that it is all here and it is a question of can we just package it and pull it all together?

What an endorsement for dynamic packaging!

Will the Toon be swapping their current sponsor Northern Wreck Rock for the pink'un?

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: northern rock lastminute kevin keegan football

So despite the obvious problems in the US with its real estate housing market, some of meta search giant Kayak's investors are also dabbling in a site which buys and sells houses.

TechCrunch explains more about Roost.

The idea is that the principles behind a highly Ajax-led site like Kayak can also be applied to the user experience for a site which basically aggregates properties on the market.

It's rather smart and worth a second look.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: kayak roost

Interesting article on ZDNet about the likelihood of all passengers getting internet access on flights.

The saga is a pretty sad one in some respects as aircraft manufacturers and airlines have spent a lot of time over the years claiming they will have the quickest, safest and most reliable connections.

But not a lot has happened.

And, unfortunately, this situation is not about the change that quickly.

• Expensive to maintain
• On-board kit is heavy
• No industry standard

Read on.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Travel Rants recently launched it's Travel Blog Carnival, a project where other travel bloggers submit their best post of the week and then a group of us select the best ones from the list.

The first one we have picked is from FoxNoMad. Price of Transportation (POT) Vacation Budget Rule gives advice on how to work out a budget for a holiday based on the flight costs. It uses a rather simple formula which is actually rather neat for both domestic and international trips. Clever.

Next in our trio of winners is this highly political effort by White Point Manor Weblog - which outlines the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. We particularly like the introduction, when explaining what the WHTI is:

If you ask most people in Canada the consensus would be that it is a paranoid reaction by American Homeland Security to the notion that the Canadian border is made of Swiss cheese. And that there are versions of Bin Laden behind every moose waiting to crawl through the porous 49th parallel.

Nice and topical.

Finally we have selected another fine turn from Les Explorers. Claude describes the major differences he has seen on different websites when trying to book his trip to Berlin for this tear's ITB. It's all about distribution!

Well done to all.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags:

What is it about WAYN that it seems to attract a disproportionate amount of attention in the travel industry for a site of its size?

This summarised the - unfortunately - private comments of a senior executive from the industry who I spoke to yesterday afternoon after we published the latest twist in the AOL takeover non-story.

I suspect he meant "size" with regards to its commecial elements, because it does have rather a few users.

But it's a good and valid point to make because the WAYN travel community has come from nowhere to be hailed by some as the best travel social network on the web.

So is it justified?

We will leave that to consumers to decide, but no site seemingly comes from obscurity to become a significant player in its market (think Facebook, Flickr) without something decent to offer users.

From an industry perspective, what WAYN does have is two young and obviously bright frontmen who have ploughed the conference circuit over the past 18 months, spreading the word about the site.

In the meantime the team has certainly done a remarkable job of attracting commerical partners to the site (Lastminute.com, Isango for starters).

It hasn't all been plain sailing. This time last year WAYN was seeing traffic levels take a worrying turn southwards - something which probably didn't exactly encourage its suite of new investors.

But rather than attempt a sale then, when it could have made a fair few quid for its creators and staff, WAYN pretty much admitted that its original subscription model was not reaching initial expectations and axed it, apart from a few key services.

So rather than try something else, WAYN has had another go.

The company certainly has its detractors. Travolution received a string of mystery emails last spring from someone slamming the industry for fawning over WAYN and questioning - with some interesting analysis - its chances of success.

However, as another senior figure said recently: "Their determination to get the WAYN thing right impresses people in an industry which sometimes gives up too easily."

Perhaps that is the difference? In the travel industry there is a certain 'wow factor' about WAYN - in new media circles, far less so.

WAYN certainly has its work cut out in the coming months. There are sites emerging in the US which will absolutely give it a run for its money - and Facebook is not going away.

So - as we revealed - AOL was not one of the companies which has come looking in recent months, but others are clearly interested.

For that reason, and because it has a tendency to do the unexpected (in comparison to others in the travel sector in the UK at least), we suspect WAYN will continue to get a fair amount of attention in the industry.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: wayn aol facebook
social network

Here are the top five stories by visits on the Travolution website for the week ending Friday 25 January 2007:

• WAYN approached over sale - but no by AOL
• TripAdvisor reveals results for Hayes & Jarvis deal
• Thomson jumps ahead of Expedia in post-Christmas booking
• Expedia UK founder eyes British travel tech companies
• Hotels4u.com enters mobile booking arena

Best of the blogs:

• Who markets products better, from Musings.
• Google at Davos, from BuzzMachine.
• Google in a recession, from Search Engine Land.
• Tripit goes social, from TechCrunch US.
• The Crunchies, from Drama 2.0.

Please post any further recommendations in the comments section.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

The Consumerist, thorn in the side of many a corporate giant, has today unveiled details of how to launch an email campaign against Virgin Atlantic.

As well as providing general advice about what consumers should do in the digital age when the usual channels for complaints are not working, users are treated to a list of the email addresses for the likes of Richard Branson, the chief exec, director of ops, director of sales and marketing, chief operating officer and senior customer relations managers.

Whether this type of action by disgruntled customers ever makes a difference is another matter, but we'd be interested to learn what companies do if they suddenly get an influx of hate mail complaints to a senior exec's address? What does the PA do with them all?

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: virgin branson consumerist

So, what is the motivation for Lufthansa and Swiss putting surcharges on certain fares booked by travel agents through the GDS.

• Could it be they are just flexing their muscles?
• Are they driving traffic to their own online channels, trade and consumer?
• Could it be that European airline/GDS contract negotiations are ongoing?
• Maybe it's something to do with all three.

This seems completely at odds with a deal just completed between Iberia and Amadeus which is being heralded - by Aedave, the Spanish version of ABTA, no less [you'll need to dust off your Spanish] - as a first step towards airlines doing away with surcharges for fares booked through a GDS.

More on the subject from Business Travel Europe.

Thoughts?

Linda Fox, lead reporter, Travolution

Big day today. We are officially launching our Travolution European Summit 2008, produced in association with PhoCusWright.

We have started assembling what we believe will be the best line-up of participants from the online travel industry you are likely to find anywhere in the UK in 2007.

Confirmed so far:

• Caroline Cartellieri, Expedia UK (managing director)
• Graham Donoghue, TUI UK (new media director)
• Steve Hafner, Kayak (chief executive)
• Adam Healy, VibeAgent (chief executive)
• Brent Hoberman, Mydeco.com (executive chairman)
• Chris Lee, Barclays Commercial Bank (head of travel sector)
• Yen Lee, Kango (president)
• James Lohan, Mr and Mrs Smith (managing director)
• Ian McCaig, Lastminute.com (chief executive)
• Chris Nixon, Travelsupermarket.com (acting managing director)
• Andrew Owen Jones, Amadeus (director, travel distribution solutions)
• Jeff Revoy, Yahoo (Europe vice president, search and social media)
• David Soskin, Cheapflights (chief executive)
• Robert Torres, Google (managing director, travel advertising and marketing– North America)
• Gareth Williams, Skyscanner (chief executive)
• Philip Wolf, PhoCusWright (president and chief executive)

More names will be added in the coming weeks.

Delegates places, more information, programme, and the rest, available from the conference website.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Here on the editorial team we try, of course, not to get involved in squabbles between advertisers - but this is rather amusing.

Affiliate Window created the following full-page ad in the December edition of our magazine [thank you very much - any other sales enquiries, contact Charlotte Davies!].


But then in this week's New Media Age, rival network TradeDoubler unveiled their new display advertising campaign.
Hmmmmm...

The guys at AW were, er, suitably flattered - and moved sufficiently enough to write about it on their blog.

Calculators at dawn!

[NB: For the latest on this scandal, interrogate AW's Kevin Edwards at the Travolution Question Time next Tuesday]

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: affiliate affiliate marketing affiliate window tradedoubler

More from the LinkedIn news today.

Buried at the bottom of today's announcement is this ringing endorsement from the UK government's minister of state for trade and investment, Lord Digby Jones:

"I am delighted that LinkedIn has made the UK its European location of choice. The UK is the global hub for business.

"Technology companies such as this can become global players using the network of financial and business connections that London provides.

"Innovative companies of every description can invest here confident of a well educated and savvy workforce and great connections to the rest of Europe as well as the rest of the world."

Apparently LinkedIn "worked closely with UK Trade & Investment and its regional partner, Think London, in sitting its new European headquarters".

So here's the lesson for prospective online travel companies: when deciding whether to start a business or not, consult a quango or government department and get a nice message in your launch material.

Double-edged sword perhaps considering where the UK government currently sits is in the polls?

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Quite brilliant article on the E-Consultancy website, explaining in some depth why the internet's favourite upstarts (Facebook, Twitter, Slide, Digg and the like) should not be smug about surviving a slump in the global economy.

The industry’s optimism stems from a belief that many of today’s hottest concepts either are recession-resistant or are developing moneysaving products that may have even more appeal during an economic downturn.

Full article: "Why the internet economy is not immune from recession"

This issue is equally relevant for the online travel sector, where the 'start-up' is in overdrive yet many have yet to realise their potential commercially, meaning potential backers may be nervous about investing.

This in turn poses an interesting dilemma: if 'start-ups' are less likely to succeed if investors shy away where will the innovation come?

Many believe real innovation comes from start-ups because the big players are too busy being, er, big.Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Well, in fairness, European managing director Kevin Eyres left Sidestep in September last year, three months ahead of the meta search engine's takeover by Kayak.

Perhaps he saw the writing on the wall then?

But clearly he has done rather well for himself, being picked to run the new European division of business networking site LinkedIn.

So what of the remainder of the Sidestep employees?

We are told the Kayak acquisition will see a core team of around 20 Sitesteppers remain in various posts.

Almost certainly looking for new jobs at some point soon will be chief executive Rob Solomon, wo we understand is kicking around for a while but will be off pretty soon.

Time to join LinkedIn, Rob?

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Connect with me on LinkedIn.

Technorati tags: linkedin sidestep kayak

World Focus Airlines recently re-branded to Ank Air.

Oops.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Hat tip: Flight International blog

We like this one. Electronic contact lenses displaying images in front of the wearer’s eyes!

It’s sufficiently nerdy but it’s out there and it’s happening. Right now it’s being tested on animals but those guys at Washington University (Seattle) want to begin human trials.

You could be walking along a street trying to find a restaurant and a virtual map would appear before your eyes.

You could surf the net without a keyboard or screen. You could even head off on a virtual holiday from the comfort of your hotel room when you’re supposed to be writing a report.

At the first Travolution Summit in April 2006, BT futurologist Ian Pearson talked about the convergence of travel and gaming.

Similarly, at the TTI Spring Conference last year futurologist Rohit Talwar of FastFuture, gave his view on how some of these technologies will affect our world.

Linda Fox, lead reporter, Travolution

Purple Hotels!


"Low prices and funky style " coming to an airport or motorway junction near you.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Could this be the year for mobile travel?

Lots of people reckon so and we put a mobile phone article on the front cover of our December 2007 edition, so we're reasonably confident that something is about to happen.

A number of holiday firms - Cosmos, Hotels4u, Pegasus - have been quietly working on searchable content for mobile phones for some months. [Hotels4u announced their effort yesterday]

Others – such as Malmaison in partnership with Mobile Travel Technologies - are dabbling with mobile marketing campaigns.

We already know that in some countries such as Japan, mobile travel is a few steps ahead and simple airline bookings are being made using mobile phones.

And, we are beginning to see movement in the US as well, including Apple’s Arizona Travel Deals on your iPhone or iPod Touch combining searchable hotel and travel content with a webcam.

Travelocity has today also released an application for the iPhone. In fact, there are already around 50 or so travel-based apps for the iPhone!

The applications show off the iPhone’s user-friendliness but it won’t be long for other suppliers to come up with handsets that are just as good – arguably they already exist but haven’t had the fanfare of the iPhone.

Anyway, the point is the phones are improving and so is the content and there are loads of applications for which it will be rather useful:

• Travel alerts when you are on the go
• Bar codes for checking-in at airports or with hotel confirmations
• Marketing messages/promotions with a call to action
• Using GPS to see where someone is and then pushing relevant travel info. to them
• Searchable and bookable hotel, tours content

There are more, and as the technology moves from WAP to HTML we’ll probably see ones we haven’t seen much of yet such as social networking on the mobile phone.

WAYN has talked about allowing members to update their profiles from their phones - but it some respects it seems a bit strange to network with people via your mobile phone when you could just call them!

In some respects the extraordinary growth of the SMS message indicated how we feel about communicating with other people on a mobile.

More fuel for those predicting the death of the conversation perhaps?

Linda Fox, lead reporter, Travolution

Thomson is understandably chuffed to pieces after overtaking Expedia in the first few weeks of January in the Hitwise online agency rankings.

Being able to say "We are the #1 online travel agency in the UK", or similar, on promotional material goes a long way. Not that Thomson has used it in that way yet.

But the scene at the top of the pile changes often.

The top ten for the week ending 13 January went like this:

• Thomson Holidays
• Expedia
• Lastminute.com
• First Choice
• Thomas Cook
• TravelSupermarket
• Cheapflights
• TravelRepublic
• Teletext Holidays
• Ebookers

But here is a graph illustrating the relative positions of Thomson and Expedia throughout 2007.


One can read a few things into this:

Seasonality impacts on Expedia and Thomson in different and/or the gap between the two is incredibly close, meaning the positions change frequently.

The other thing to note with the remaining sites in the top ten is the presence of TravelRepublic (above Ebookers), the inclusion of non-travel agency sites (Cheapflights and TravelSupermarket), and the absence of Opodo (number 12 or 13 normally).

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: hitwise thomson expedia

The crash-landing at London Heathrow last week has - predictably - sent the consumer travel press and mainstream media into a frenzy over the safety records of our favourite airlines.

For those eager to check out such detail before they fly, The Guardian has today pointed readers to a great site - Airsafe.com - which notes in incredible detail the safety records of the world's airlines, outlining fatalities and crashes as well as the performance of individual aircraft.

It's fascinating reading.

• "No-fatals" - airlines with a seemingly unblemished safety record. Europe, North America, Africa and Middle East, Asia and Australasia.
• The last 15 crashes.
• British Airways safety record.
• Crashes by aircraft type.
• Multimedia!
  

But is this stuff popular? Alexa gives the site a ranking of around 230,000 across the web, but much higher in the US (102,000) and the UK (104,000).

In turn 42% of its traffic comes from the US, 7% from the UK - although this is bound to increase following last week's events.

But for a site that has fantastic linking throughout, it's presence on Google, for example, is not good.

Indeed the two best performing sites for the phrase "airline safety record" are Placecrashinfo.com and Airline-Safety-Records.com - both of which are rather out of date with their data.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: british airways crash safety record

Here are the top five stories by visits on the Travolution website for the week ending Friday 18 January 2007:

• Sidestep axed in the UK
• Monarch to switch web address
• OpenSkies to operate from BA.com
• DoSomethingDifferent opens platform to third parties
• Drakefield creates travel insurance meta search site

Best of the blogs:

• WAYN-AOL shenanigans, from Musings, Travo, Drama 2.0 and The Boot. [Original Techcrunch post]
• Interview with Bezurk, from The Boot
• Hotels price guarantees, from Les Explorers
• Google's nice tendencies, from Mashable
• The fog of revolution, Open

Please post any further recommendations in the comments section.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

The BBC is carrying a story about how a strong of retail websites are recovering from an attack by "malicious code".

Apparently travel sites and hotel booking portals are on the victim list alongside estate agents, butchers and car spares specialists.

It's a long shot, but anyone out there fallen prey to this?

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

our latest column in Travel Weekly:

For much of its history, the fate of the industry was guided by those who lived and breathed ‘travel’ for most of their professional careers.

An ambitious rep or counter clerk in an agency could rise through the ranks of a company or sector to become a key figure in shaping how the business developed.

Relationships – for ours is, perhaps more than any other, a ‘people’ industry – were an important catalyst in securing deals.

This is still the case, of course, but the web has enabled people with no previous interest or experience in the travel industry to swoop in with a big idea and make a success of it.

This is good news for the existing travel industry. Competition from outsiders with a fresh prospective can only be a positive thing.

In the past few years a number of supposed outsiders have made their mark on the web in a big way.

Travelsupermarket.com, Skyscanner.net and WAYN.com, for example, are all led by people with little or no experience in running travel businesses – but are doing an excellent job.

And, lest we forget, Expedia was created pretty much as a side project by that well known tech firm Microsoft.

The point to all this is that disruptive influences from outside the normal confines of a sector should be watched carefully, rather than shunned as ‘not one of us’ or ignored.

Something we are often asked is what outsiders are likely to emerge as big players within the travel industry in the coming months or years.

This is difficult to determine, such is the pace at which this industry develops, but from personal experience, there is one organisation we at Travolution feel has the opportunity to make a huge impact.

After spending countless hours browsing the web last June trying to find a holiday, Family May settled on one from a rather unlikely source.

Watch out for eBay.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

BA is updating its website regularly following today's incident.

So is airport owner BAA, giving over most of its Heathrow homepage to the latest information.

These types of events put enormous strain on the web servers of travel companies. A feature about how to deal with surges in traffic, which we published in just a month ago, goes into a lot of detail.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: boeing heathrow runway 777 aircraft

Today's accident involving a British Airways Boeing 777 at Heathrow Airport in London is soaring around the news media here in the UK.

BA itself is quick off the mark and has a message on its homepage and a statement from chief executive Willie Walsh on its media centre.

Here is where the incident took place, at the eastern end of the southern runway, courtesy of Google Maps.


View Larger Map

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

TechCrunch UK is reporting rumours of talks being held over a $200 million deal from AOL to buy social networking site WAYN.

WAYN has reacted with varying degrees of exasperation to the story (officially and privately), claiming no discussions have taken place, it is not up for sale, and it is forging ahead with its own "exciting" plans.

Key figures close to both companies are also denying any knowledge of a deal to Travolution.

UPDATE: Annike Erskine statement to TechCrunch via its comments section:

Further to the comments referred to in this article we would like to confirm that WAYN has at no point had discussions with AOL and are not currently looking for a strategic sale.

WAYN is unique in that it is focused on the travel vertical which represents by far the largest and most lucrative sector online and we are excited about the new products we are introducing to our members and the prospect of developing into the mobile space with location based data and services being one of our core strengths.

We benefit from a broad demographic with over 50% of our UK users over the age of 35. We are also one of the only social networks which is 18+ to improve the safety for our users.

Our present focus is to create long term value and build a truly successful business. The WAYN vision is to become the world’s largest and most successful travel and lifestyle community portal and our management team is solely focused on achieving that goal.

More updates as we get them...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: wayn AOL TechCrunch

The online travel industry's favourite academic Dimitrios Buhalis has recently moved to Bournemouth University on the South Coast of England.

The faculty is offering TWO fully-funded PhD scholarships for its eTourism course.

The first covers social networking and the second focuses on wireless technologies.

More information about the scholarships on the Bournemouth Uni website.

Buhalis goes into further detail on his blog.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Travolution is a media partner for this year's Travel Technology Show, taking place in London on the 5 and 6 February.

We've created and will be hosting a blog in the run up to and during the event at Earl's Court 2.

Add it to your RSS readers for the next three weeks! And visit now.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

User review site TripAdvisor picked up the Innovation Award at the Globes Travel Awards last night, hosted by Travolution sister title Travel Weekly.

Other onliners winning on the night included - in the consumer awards, sponsored by Associated Newspapers - Lastminute.com (favourite European short break provider) and Expedia (best online booking website).

In the trade awards, Galileo (best technology provider) and Holiday Extras (best travel trade website) also left the Grosvenor House happier than when they arrived.

Full list of winners.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Not content with investing in innovative products such as MySpace and The London Paper, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp has bought a stake in Asian meta search engine Bezurk.com.

The deal is being run out of News Corp's Australian division News Limited, owner of The Australian newspaper.

Whatever next...

Co-founder Craig Hewett told us the investment from News Corp is for a "significant minority stake", so anything between 5% and 30% by our reckoning, and a seat on the board.

Amazingly the Singapore-based Bezurk has just 20 employees - and 53,000 new friends in the Murdoch empire.

Offical release here.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: bezurk murdoch

According to a BT consumer survey the pink'un is the nation's favourite travel website.

Lastminute.com pipped TripAdvisor, First Choice, Rough Guides and Ryanair to the top spot.

The great thing about these kind of surveys is that they very rarely reflect traffic or usage. Let's face it, Rough Guides is a bit leftfield on this list.

And pity poor Expedia.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Your correspondent is currently nearing the end of a period of paternity leave so apologies for the lack of blogging since Christmas.

Normal service will resume next week. And we will also be welcoming Linda Fox to the team following 18 months as one of our regular freelancers.

Fox joins us as lead reporter after years of experience working for the likes of TravelMole and Travel Trade Gazette.

In the meantime, here are a few reminders:

To make sure you receive a copy of the February edition of our magazine, you need to subscribe for free immediately.

Our twice weekly e-news bulletin is also free and can be obtained simply by registering your email.

Cheers!

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Kev's blogging time is limited at the moment, so here’s an open question to Travo readers from the Travel Weekly Blog.

In each issue of Travel Weekly we interview a prominent person about their travel habits.

This week, ECPAT UK director Chris Beddoe gave us the following response when we asked whether she books online or with an agent:

Definitely online, because the only time I have to think about holidays is after 10pm.

Where does that leave smaller agencies?

Do they try to compete online by investing in better web services - e.g. adding supplier data feeds to their site?

Or do they play to their traditional strengths, emphasising in their marketing that an agent could be exactly what someone with very little time to think about holidays needs?

Even worse, do they have to admit that someone in Beddoe's situation is lost to them?

Do your worst: I'll feature some of your responses in a post on the Travel Weekly Blog.

Nathan Midgley, web producer, Travel Weekly

Computers are technologies of liberation, but they're also technologies of control. It's great that everyone is empowered to write blogs, upload videos to YouTube, and promote themselves on Facebook. But as as personal data becomes more exposed and data-mining software grows in sophistication the interests of control will gain the upper hand. If you're looking to monitor and manipulate people, you couldn't design a better machine

Robert Scoble on Facebook? Nope, it's Nicholas Carr, technology expert and one-time executive editor of Harvard Business Review. Provocative stuff from an interview in Wired.

(If you missed the Scoble/Facebook reference go here.)

Nathan Midgley, web producer, Travel Weekly

...asks an article on the BBC Online's Magazine section, regarding guidebooks - triggered by the re-launch of the famous Baedeker range.

It ponders the future of the humble travel guidebook as internet research takes over.

Simon Calder adds his two-pennies worth, saying the guide market faces huge problems, as people taking short breaks are more likely to consult the internet than buy a guide.

Make sure you take in the comments at the bottom of the piece from other readers.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Staff mutiny at Scottish hotel.

HotelStaffAdvisor perhaps?

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Our latest column for Travel Weekly, with some more predictions:

The travel industry has finally accepted its fate: that it needs to embrace as many distribution channels as possible to reach the modern consumer.

This shift in thinking will be put into practice by many travel companies in 2008, with equal emphasis given to offline and online interaction.

But what else can we expect this year?

Expedia’s announcement in November last year that it would adopt what it calls a “media model” (cost-per-click for referrals) for its partnership with the InterContinental Hotel Group set tongues wagging across the online sector.

Not only did it signal the return of IHG to Expedia after a high-profile bust-up in 2004, but it triggered discussions about how the online travel agency model will develop.

The industry is divided as to the logic behind Expedia’s decision to effectively become a metasearch engine for that particular client.

Rival OTAs and suppliers will be watching this relationship closely – and expect an escalation of the model by Expedia to others if it works.

A significant change to the OTA business model has repercussions throughout the online travel industry.

Meanwhile, this year should also see whether the (often wild) enthusiasm for social networks by consumers is going to stay or simply disappear before you can say “MyTravel, remember that?”.

If social networks continue to grow then it is critical travel companies try to reach consumers in these new channels.

With only 300 or so travel-related applications on Facebook, for example, including TripAdvisor, Sidestep and, more recently, Youtravel, there is certainly plenty of room still for innovation.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Someone left some comments on New Year's Eve against two posts.

After looking at the source - which the commenter provided - and some links in the text, because the comments were poor and off-message, it turns out that a string of blogs have been created using existing travel company brand names.

There is, some might argue, nothing wrong with that. But the blogs are not content-driven and exist only to scrape some revenue out of Google AdWords.

The same person/organisation, it appears, has created the following blogs:

BestAtTravel.Blogspot.com [which has nothing to do with BestAtTravel]
DialAFlight.Blogspot.com [ditto Dial-A-Flight]
Travel-Republic.Blogspot.com [ditto TravelRepublic]
Travel-Supermarket.Blogspot [ditto TravelSupermarket]

It beggars belief that these make any money from AdWords, so what's the point?

Well it also looks like someone holds a bit of a grudge at least against one of the companies.

In a post (one of two) on the BestAtTravel blog, there is a link to a "blog" about BestAtTravel's co-founder, Rita Sharma, which many would conclude has been created by the same source.

The content is not very complimentary - and a decent lawyer would have a reasonably good chance of bringing about a libel case against the content owner.

All very messy and unhelpful.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution