The following lists some of its recommondations:

1. Enable customers to choose how to sort results when they first start a search.

Customers will often choose to sort by price, but other options are useful, such as star ratings of hotels, departure times, direct flights and so on. Allowing customers to sort these features in their initial search will make the process smoother later on.

2. Do not allow customers to select dates or times which occur before which a booking can be made.

An obvious one – but many sites still allow users to search for tickets and holidays that are too late to book and only inform them once the booking process starts. To avoid this, state clearly when bookings can be made.

3. Pre-empt customers’ choices of travel dates.

For example, if a customer selects a departure date for a flight in October, and the return date doesn’t default to the same month, the customer then has to click through the calendar to October or input the date. That’s annoying.

4. Allow customers to restrict searches to weekends or long weekends.

Many sites will allow customers to book flights and hotels three days either side of their selected date. However, many customers want to travel on a weekend only, so a more useful choice may be plus or minus three weekends.

5. Prevent people from entering nonsensical dates.

Make sure customers cannot enter a return date that is before the departure date. Otherwise, you’ll get the blame

According to the report, Online travel sales increased by as much as 31% from 2005 to 2006 and reached EUR 38.3 billion in the European market in 2006 – or 15% of the market. A further increase of about 22% during 2007 to about EUR 46.8 billion may be expected.

Few important facts

The UK remains the largest online travel market in Europe, with Germany in second place. These two markets accounted for 54% of the EUR 38.3 bn. European online travel market in 2006.

• Growth high also during 2006, 31%, and a further increase of 22% may be expected during 2007.
• The European online travel market (including the ten new EU member countries) may reach EUR 54.8 bn. by 2008, which is about 21% of the total market for selected travel and tourism services.

Get the full report here. 

And both the TripSync booking tool and the new application, TripSync Mobile, will soon end using Sabre for inventory access and will transition to Galileo, according to a Portaga spokeswoman.

Both TripSync applications integrate with Microsoft Outlook, enabling groups of travelers at a corporation to view and coordinate itineraries through the e-mail calendar.

Portaga conceded that mobile booking “is not a money maker,” but a convenience for business travelers who might need to rebook a flight or reserve a room because of a changed itinerary during a business trip.

TripSync doesn’t charge booking fees, but travelers are subject to customary airline change fees if they modify flights.

In India, Amadeus recently announced that four online travel agencies have chosen Amadeus technology: Indiatimes, MakeMyTrip, Sify and Yatra.

Amadeus’ continued success is based on the identification of the specific needs in the online travel agency segment and the company has developed and offers a unique suite of products and services to satisfy these requirements. One of the key elements in the Amadeus offer is the suite of low fare search solutions; during 2006 Amadeus launched Master Pricer Calendar, the only worldwide calendar display on the market. This innovative solution allows consumers to easily view a range of international flight and price options from multiple airlines in a calendar format.

“Our strategy is to provide online travel agencies with the best content and technology and we believe that our clear lead in Europe is confirmation that we are succeeding. Looking ahead, we plan to build on our success in Europe to take advantage of opportunities in the fast-growing Asia Pacific market,” says Gillian Gibson, Vice President, Amadeus Multinational Customer Group.

The Trip Recommendations feature claims that it’s not eating your cookies. Rather than base vacation tips on your interests, it is aggregating the surfing habits of others. That’s certainly a win for privacy advocates, though it may result in less than ideal getaway pitches.

If you are an online travel site like Travelocity, Cheapoair or Priceline, these are the things that worry you, although it doesn’t seem like much of a threat at first. Yahoo! is ultimately feeding its leads to the travel specialists.

Digital marketing agency iCrossing announced the results of the “Search 500 Index: Travel.” The “Search 500 Index” is a study series measuring the visibility of Fortune 500 companies among people who search online.

The “Search 500 Index: Travel” finds that Fortune 500 travel companies in general have adequate natural search visibility on the major search engines, based on 110 travel-related keywords that iCrossing has determined online searchers are most likely to use. However, the study did find that there is room for improvement within certain segments of the travel industry.

“Natural search visibility” refers to the non-sponsored (non-paid advertisement) position of a company’s brand, products and services resulting from a user searching with a keyword relevant to that company’s brand, products and services on an Internet search engine such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Ask.com or AOL. Beyond driving direct sales, high natural search visibility can be critical to building awareness, positioning, and protection of a company’s brand both online and offline.

Source: Hotelmarketing.com

“TripAdvisor has built a very successful media business with user- generated content as our core and returned remarkable revenue growth and best- in-class profit margins,” said Stephen Kaufer, founder and CEO of TripAdvisor. “By acquiring a number of other travel media companies, we expect to apply our learnings over the past seven years to fuel similar growth across all of these great consumer brands and active travel communities.”

Kaufer added, “These are strong, profitable standalone businesses, run by talented travel industry experts. Our acquisition strategy is to build on their success, while capitalizing on obvious efficiencies, but not to mess with sites that appeal to travelers and suppliers and advertisers alike. We expect the businesses to operate independently and continue to prosper.”

With the designation of “You” as the Person of the Year, hospitality leaders are once more confronted with the redirection of their industry into its user base: the customer. Visionary literates of finance, technology and development have seized the moment to specialize in the debut of social networking sites that embrace the world of travel.

Social networking advertising is expected to top $1.8 billion by 2010. Juston Parker, President/CEO of Parker Hospitality and Executive Vice President of Gusto.com comments: “Social networking is not new. From the beginning of recorded history, man has left his mark on cave walls to share with others the best places for hunting, food, and other needs.” Granted, social networking enables people today to connect with one another at the stroke of a keyboard; however, issues of privacy, user control and authentication are paramount.

For many business travelers planning a trip still means reaching for a telephone instead of keyboarding onto the Internet.

But that has changed, according to a new report, which suggests that online travel booking is capturing an increasing share of the corporate travel dollar.

How far those inroads will go remains to be seen.

Companies trying to save money and cut the best travel deals are increasingly shifting responsibility for travel arrangements onto their employees through on-line systems, according to Susan Steinbrink, who wrote the report for PhoCusWright Inc. The company supplies the travel and tourism industry with research and forecasts.

Online travelers today are faced with an overwhelming number of options and it is no wonder that customer loyalty simply does not exist in the online travel-planning arena. The sheer number of travel sites alone is mind-boggling and more often than not, consumers simply surf the various options until they find the best possible price.

In the new era of online travel planning, consumers demand personalized service that extends far beyond bargain prices. The real value is delivered through impeccable, personalized customer support available 24/7 spanning over all aspects of travel from selecting a desired destination, to finding attractions, to choosing the right product for each customer’s unique set of needs and priorities.

In this age of information overload, consumers are looking for reliable knowledge to help them make decisions easier, faster. Although price is still the most popular differentiator, consumers are closely examining reliability, performance and delivery when making their purchasing decisions.