February 2010 Archives

New Media Age reports that Google has extended its AdWords Comparison Ads trial into the UK credit card market.

Says NMA:

"Google wouldn't confirm whether it would extend the format to other vertical sectors, such as mortgages."

Yes... mortgages. That's what we're all thinking, right?

(PS: You can hear Google UK head Matt Brittin speaking at the Travolution Summit on April 20.)

The first proper session at this year's Travolution Summit features a familiar face from last year - namely HSBC chief economist Dennis Turner, who went down brilliantly in 2009.

Here's a 2008 clip of him on surviving the recession. If you can be compelling in a three-minute, to-camera solo web video, you're a good speaker. Period.

Take a look at the full agenda over on the Travolution Summit minisite.

Travo got in touch with Nucleus managing director Peter Matthews - of the 'site seeing' reviews in our magazine - for an expert take on Cheapflights' flight metasearch site...

The verdict:

"Clearly influenced by Google online aesthetics and usability, Zugu beta provides a pretty good user experience, albeit a search layer above travel providers, so you are at Opodo or BA or others mercy once you select an option.

Search and results speeds are good and everything loads double fast, but will it do so under load?

Sorting options are also very good and the site makes good use of Web 2.0 interface design while keeping everything well organised and uncluttered.

Main gripe is that once I viewed details of a chosen flight the 'select' or 'book now' button wasn't where I expected it to be.

While I quite liked the name, I found the brand mark typographically mean and spiky. I'd be more generous, warm and cuddly.

The lime livery is what one American client once termed 'monkey-vomit green', but I like it."

Shortly after the tie-up between eBay and Octopus Travel was announced, we had eBay director of partnerships Phillip Rinn write a column for Travel Weekly.

Here's a snippet:

"In the past year, eBay has seen its holiday and travel category grow significantly in response to consumer demand for new ways to book a holiday. As a consequence, the travel industry needs to change the way it works.

Many retailers have opened up to the world of online but not explored its full potential. eBay has proved that retailers can have great success and benefit from incremental sales to their existing channels.

Travel retailers must now look at harnessing the web beyond their existing offering to reach new online shoppers."

 

A general call to arms? Or does it translate as "swallow your fears and work with us"? 

Say what you like about Ryanair - and let's face it, most people do - but is there a more successful travel business out there, if you measure success in terms of profits rather than what second-home-owning Daily Mail readers might say?

The Q3 results today tipped the airline to end the year with a profit of €275m (£240m). In the sector's weakest quarter - October to December - it slashed losses to €11m. I wonder what BA will report when its third quarter results come out on Friday.

For a Travolution audience, the key metric is one that Ryanair doesn't even bother mentioning anymore - all of their business is transacted online at www.ryanair.com. Traffic figures for the site must be phenomenal - especially as all of its passengers also have to visit ryanair.com to check in online.

That's 66 million passengers - call them online customers -  this year.  I imagine there are very few online travel agents who gets 66m hits a year, never mind 66m bookers. And if things go according to plan, there will be 85m Ryanair passengers in Europe by 2012.

Ryanair.com effectively has a "total transaction value" of €2.4bn for the first nine months of the year, with €1.9bn from seats and €0.5bn from ancillaries.

Ancillaries is a great catch-all phrase which includes checked baggage fees, card charges, as well as the revenues earned for the partnerships it has in place with car hire providers, hotel providers, travel insurance suppliers etc. There is even a dedicated cruise channel on the site.

Unluckily, Ryanair does not break out the ancillary revenues in any way, declining when asked to give Travolution even a top line indication. So we'll never know how many cruise bookings Costa Cruises secures via its deal with Ryanair, nor the terms of that deal.

Most people think that Expedia Inc invented the media model for travel sites, but Ryanair is also pretty good at monetizing its traffic. It's a pity we'll never find out exactly how good.

Martin Cowen

Not sure this requires much of a preamble - see our news piece on ebookers' new mobile site.

Ebookers has designed the site to be incredibly simple, but that verges on obligatory when producing pages for mobile browsers.

That said, it would be interesting to know how it performs on various different handsets - whether it's simple enough to be user-friendly on my clunky N95 as well as a web-friendly iPhone.

So if anyone has road-tested it, drop a note in the comments section...

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