Recently in travel technology show Category

Here are the top stories by visits on the Travolution website for the week ending Friday 8 February 2008:

• TripAdvisor buys HolidayWatchdog.com
• British Airways Holidays set June 08 for DP push
• Ryanair to shut website for three days
• Travel trends for 2008 - report
• Mobissimo unveils dramatic new site

Best of the blogs:

• Reputation in a social network, from Travel Technology
• Travel writing cliches, from Travel Weekly
• Reuters CEO on the semantic web, from Reilly Radar
• Why Google is unstoppable, from ValleyWag
• Soggy, from Seth Godin

Travel Technology Show coverage:

• Live blog
• News round-up

Please post further recommendations in the comments section.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Normal service on the blog resumes after a hectic few days at the UK's Travel Technology Show.

A wide variety of comments and posts were left on the special blog we created.

But none more so that this from Andrew Knott, Global Travel Group's IT director.

He suggests we might see the likes of EasyJet and Ryanair putting one of the those funny words, known as a captcha [thanks Darren Cronian], for users to type before getting into price and availability.

Perhaps simple and effective. But equally rather far-fetched and even the threat of it would undoutbedly send the usability experts into fits of disgust.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Most of our blogging over the next two days will take place on the dedicated Travel Technology Show blog, created by Travolution.


If you are attending the show make sure you stop by at the Travolution Blogging Space. We also have our own seminars.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

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

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

Interesting article in the Sunday Telegraph yesterday about the sweeping changes affecting the traditional travel industry and the impact of the web.

The piece starts off with a look at the MyTravel-Thomas Cook merger but eventually gets into some issues we at Travolution have been discussing for the last 15 months.

Declaration of interest: Simon Ferguson, Travolution's publishing director, who must've impressed a member of the national press with his presentation to the Travel Technology Show last week, is quoted throughout the piece.

Minor error in the article. It says there are "50m travel blogs" on the web. But thankfully, in reality, there are closer to 5 million.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Coverage of the Travel Technology Show will be live for the next two days here.

Normal service resumes on the Travolution Blog on Thursday.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Some more housekeeping stuff.

Next week is the annual Travel Technology Show at London's Earl's Court.

Travolution has a major presence there this year [suddenly feels like we've come a long way in such a short space of time] and we will be doing a number of things:

• Chairing four seminar sessions
• Sharing a speaking platform with Heather Hopkins (Hitwise) and Francois Jordaan (LBi)

...but perhaps most exciting of all:

• We have a dedicated blogging stand, where delegates can come along and post their opinions live to a blog created exclusively for the event on the 13 and 14 February.

Visit the blog here or read Travel Weekly's TTS preview.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution