In the design departement Foursquare have done a really solid job – the interface is a simple, familiar experience. The layout is intuitive, meaning you’ll be racking up the badges in no time. I won’t go too deep in to the rewards and recognition aspect of the app, but having a motivational points based system is an important factor in Foursquare’s rather quick rise to internet fame.

What I found the most intriguing about Foursquare was its seemingly unlimited potential and more importantly, its possible integration in to the travel arena beyond its obvious use a trip planning/recording tool. While “Checking in” for lunch with my wife, a message let me know that another nearby restaurant was giving discounts to Foursquare users, tempting me to take my patronage elsewhere. If we were to apply these location based, hyper relevant marketing techniques to hotels and attractions, it becomes clear there could be a new playing field emerging that will challenge businesses not at the forefront of social media marketing.

Personally, I don’t see this as an important distribution channel (for the time being) and I don’t think it will overtake any traditional sales models. I do think those who ignore opportunities like Foursquare are handing an advantage to their competitors. It may not be a huge advantage from a profit perspective, but the implications of being seen as, “Anti social media” can be dire. I may be biased due to my social circle, but businesses that “Just don’t get it” when it comes to new technology feel old and out of touch, meaning its not just about sales, it’s also about brand awareness and strength. In a time of post financial crisis revival, a bit of extra brand strength is something we could all use more of.

Last week a very interesting article by Shashank Nigam (Simpliflying) was featured on mashable.com outlining 5 ways hotels and airlines can drive revenue from social media. I am in complete agreement with Shashank, it’s time some of the more traditional travel businesses got on board with social media, it has become very clear this is more than a passing fad. What I found the most intriguing about the article was not what was said, but what was implied (Possibly Intentionally?) about the future of hotel inventory distribution.

“Ultimately, using real-time platforms like Twitter helps the airline circulate cheap fares and get people to fly more often, or even for the first time. Hotels could similarly post unfilled room inventory on Twitter. Ultimately this fills up the planes and hotels and drives more revenue”

The thought of hotels having direct control over distressed inventory without having to engage third party resellers will be a bit worrying for last minute websites like lastminute and wotif. Curious about the importance of different distribution channels, I managed to track down a paper called, “The future of hotel electronic distribution” by Peter O’Connor and Andrew J. Frew from 2002. In the paper, researchers and industry professionals gave a percentage rating to a distribution channel based on their opinion of its importance to the hotels overall revenue. Both industry professionals and experts gave the hotels own website 3% and 1% with the highest marks going to the CRS and GDS systems. Of course it would have been impossible for the study to include technology that had yet to be invented, but if we were to look in to the future and guess as to how Twitter and Facebook would affect the importance of the hotels website as a revenue generator, it would be safe to assume there would be a positive shift.

In my personal opinion, the playing field for smaller organizations and hotels is levelling thanks to the increased market penetration social media offers anyone willing give it try. Hotels are beginning to have access to consumers from around the globe, allowing them to engage in two way conversations centred around their brand and are essentially taking back control from 3rd party resellers. The industry has seen the beginnings of this trend in the declining commission levels being offered by suppliers. One of the best examples of this was seen last May when Singapore airlines refused to work with Flight Centre after their “Turn the Screw on SQ” campaign. Instead of crumbling to their demands and offering a higher commission rate, Singapore turned the boycott on Flight centre, refusing to allow the agency to sell their product.

The barriers between suppliers and their customers are very quickly coming down thanks to social media, for better or worse. With agents and wholesalers swimming in the same stream as suppliers, commissions will continue to drop, benefiting the consumer and consolidating the distribution network. At this rate the travel landscape of the near future could look a little foreign to us all.

First up we had Kevin Smith, aka Silent Bob, being thrown off a flight by a Southwest Airline captain for safety risks arising from his size. Kevin took out his anger about the treatment to his 1.6 million Twitter followers, (read Tnooz article here) creating a veritable “Storm in teacup” for Southwest PR to sort out. They did a pretty good job addressing the issue over twitter with Kevin and offered to get in contact with him directly. That being said, it didn’t stop Smith from releasing a podcast titled, ““Go F**k Yourself, Southwest Airlines”. Classy.

It’s hard to fault either party here. I do agree with Southwests large passenger policy, but the process and procedure around its recent implementation is incredibly vague, leaving them open to these kinds of situations. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it appears check-in staff have to visually gauge a passengers size and make a judgment call based on this opinion as to whether they are too large to fly in one seat or not. That aside, I think it’s very brave of Southwest not to back down when faced with someone pulling the, “Don’t you know who I am?” card. If nothing else it shows that their staff are well trained, and more importantly believe in their own policies. It has yet to be seen if the PR team can withstand the Twitter storm.

The second social media explosion came from a post on tech blog Tech Crunch. Writer MG Siegler clearly had a less than satisfactory experience this Valentines day when trying to check in to a hotel booked through Expedia. It seems MG experienced something all too common, the dreaded “Overbooking”. I can relate to MG on this one, no one wants to find out their holiday is in jeopardy due to some kind of booking error, but that is where my sympathy ends.

In open forum, MG admits to swearing and carrying on in front of passers-by and children, “At this point I start really yelling. On the street. With a lot of children around.” There’s nothing worse than someone so irate they’ll no longer listen to logic. Add to that a complete lack of understanding about the travel industry or the booking engine used by Expedia and you have the recipe for disaster. MG goes on to attack the booking system,” Because it would be too much of a hassle, and more importantly, cost too much money, Expedia has an automated system for communicating with its partners. Sometimes this is done with an email, sometimes this is done with a fax. Yes, a fax.” Unbeknownst to MG, the reason for this mixture of communication mediums usually has nothing to do with the wholesaler, but more to do with the hotels outdated systems. If Expedia have an integrated booking engine with the hotel and can confirm bookings from allotment, I’m sure they would use it. Unfortunately, not all hotels have have such a system and rely on fax or email.

Without fully understanding the intricacies of hotel allotment and distribution, MG takes his uninformed personal opinion and puts it forth to the masses in a rant that treads dangerously close to defamation.

Any company that still believes ignoring social media will make it go away or somehow minimize its damage needs to look at these two unrelated issues. In both cases the companies involved were directly attacked via social media after what seemed like a small lapse in procedure or in Expedia’s case, an accident. What set Southwest apart was it’s quick response over the same network, hopefully Expedia will do the same.

My Trip Quote appeals directly to consumers who don’t have time to shop around face to face with travel agents and find trolling through different sites online tedious. Basically, passengers pay an upfront fee of $50 AUD , describe how they would like their holiday to look (Airlines/hotel preference etc.,) and My Trip Quote put together a booking using quality controlled suppliers. This also entitles the passenger to 25% off the cost of insurance. The whole process is extremely simple and user friendly from a passengers prospective. See below for a sample quote:

There seems to be some value added in the booking process when compared to the standard face to face agent booking. This could be intentional, but it feels like you get a more personalized worry free service and get to leave the running around up to the agent. From the agents point of view, this eliminates customers that use your knowledge face to face and book online. Looks like a win for all parties.

If you get the chance, check out the My Tip Quote site and say Hi to Nick on Twitter, I’m sure he’d be more than happy to talk further about it.

They say those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it, and I tend to agree. Like most people I’d like to put the last year behind me and look to the future. For this reason I am not going to review 2009, talk about 2010 or make a “10 things that “X” taught us about “X” in 2009″ post. Instead I’d like to take a light-hearted look way back to 1996 and 1997 at some of the best travel websites the internet had to offer. With any luck, looking at where we’ve been might give us some insight in to where we are going:

Expedia.com

Hertz.com

PhoCusWright.com

Sandiegozoo.org

Qantas.com

Travelocity.com

There you have it, a short trip through time thanks to the wayback machine. Feel free to look back on some of your own favourite websites, it can be quite educational (funny).

If anyone has experience with packages please leave your comments below.

It was obvious to me within the first few minutes of downloading the app that a lot of time and effort had gone in to the production and user experience. The look is crisp and the way information is presented appears minimalistic, but as you drill down the depth of guide becomes quite impressive. Walking tours, bookable accommodation (with internet connection) photos and maps to name a few. I took a screen shot of a map I had set up for myself which filtered out everything but hotels and bars:

I feel confident that Travelfish have set the benchmark for travel apps in 2010 for style, usability and content. With another 30 guides on the way, iPhone/iPod touch users visiting south east Asia will be in good hands.

For a more in-depth understanding of how this app came to be, please listen to the interview with Stuart McDonald, owner of Travelfish (below).

So what caused the flight crew to walk off the job over Christmas? Mainly, BA’s proposal to cut one staff per flight and freeze pay for two years. To be totally honest, I don’t think even that would be enough to stop the bleeding - BA lost £401m last year and it looks like it’s only going to get worse.

My first reaction to this was disappointment. Those of us that actually work in the travel industry have been through one of the worst years anyone can remember. We’ve all made sacrifices, we’ve all taken on more work than we thought we could handle and we did it happily because we had faith in our organizations as well as our industry to rebound. It will be very sad if these unions have destroyed BA’s chance to recover in 2010. There has already been murmurings that the strike may only have been postponed, further damaging consumer trust with the vague threat of a strike still looming.

I am all for employee rights and it’s never a good thing when someone loses their job, but sometimes these things cannot be avoided. Hopefully BA can get through this without any lasting effects; if not they will join the ranks of the many other UK airlines to go bust this year.

The first issue involved wheelchairs and their use within the airport. If you haven’t had a chance to read the story yet, click here. In brief, paraplegic adventurer Kurt Fearnly was returning from completing the Kakoda track and if you listen to the media hype, he was made to crawl through the airport, across the tarmac and in to his plane. I will tread VERY carefully here, I’m not looking to upset any Fearnly supporters but this is an over-exaggeration, so much so that its actually disappointing that this story got as much traction as it did. Jetstar followed the procedures set out in their policy:

Wheelchairs

For flights operated by Jetstar (JQ)

Passengers requiring a wheelchair for transfer into the aircraft can be accepted subject to the following limits:

• Arrangements must be made through Jetstar Telephone Reservations prior to your travel to advise a wheelchair is required.
• Customers requiring a wheelchair will be provided an airline wheelchair and assisted to the aircraft.
• Time is required to allow orderly movement of customers using wheelchairs through the check-in system, transfer to the airline’s wheelchair at check-in and stowage of the customer’s wheelchair (where appropriate), preboarding and seating.
• Wheelchair customers will be requested to check-in earlier than other customers, 90 to 120 minutes prior to departure for flights departing from a domestic terminal and 120 to 180 minutes prior to departure for flights departing from an international terminal.

So what really happened? Jetstar staff offered a wheelchair that has to be pushed by airport staff, but Fearnly wasn’t having any of it and chose to crawl. Of course this was picked up by the media and eventually Jetstar was forced to apologize for something that had been clearly outlined in their in their booking terms.

The second Jetstar related PR mishap didn’t get as much attention, but I’m not sure how it got any at all (Read article here). A couple flew Jetstar to New Zealand but had to cancel last minute due to a death in the family and were charged a $400.00 rebooking fee. I’m not sure if it was a slow news week, but people being charged a last minute cancellation fee isn’t exactly anything new, not to mention Jetstar offer a fare with more flexible booking conditions for a slightly higher price. If all else fails, a little travel insurance would have gone a long way.

How have we gotten to the point where the general public no longer understand the theory behind low cost carriers? They offer the most simple level of service, comfort and entertainment at the lowest possible price, meaning profit margins are much smaller than full fare airlines. Strict policies protect that slim profit margin from being eroded as much as possible. To illustrate my point, I could fly to Auckland from Sydney return for $144.67 with Jetstar. If I was to fly economy with parent company Qantas, the price jumps to $892.00 for and $2512.00 for business class!

The bottom line- if you book a flight with a LCC, you get what you pay for. There are polices in place to protect the business from lawsuits and a well advertised fee structure to keep costs down for the rest of us.