I am excited to announce that Tnooz, world’s number one online media for travel industry has now acquired Travopia. All acquisition formalities have been completed and now brand Travopia along with all its assets belongs to Tnooz.

Effective today, I am joining Tnooz as General Manager of Asia. In this role, my responsibilities would include writing in Tnooz about travel tech developments in Asia, leading the operations and business development initiatives in Asia.

I’m grateful to all Travopia’s readers for being part of the wonderful journey through it’s success and hope your support will continue to stay with us as we become part of the global entity, Tnooz.

I request all our readers to follow Tnooz for constant updates in travel technology.

Love,
Karthick
Signing off as Chief-Editor, Travopia, one last time

Travel Industry Survey Results:

• The Hertz Corporation, has revealed that British men are feeling the pressure after almost one third (31%) admitted to trying to pass off hired or borrowed items as their own just to impress a date.

• A research study conduced by Text100 on travel and tourism industry is available as downloadable whitepaper. This report talks about:
  • Travel patterns across the globe (example, how is staycation marketing picking up)
  • Various decision parameters in planning a trip and how these parameters vary worldwide
  • Impact of social media in trip planning
  • Various technologies used during vacation
  • Purchasing preferences across three regions

• A study by Insites Consulting reveals that,
  • In real world discussions in Western Europe concerning desirable travel destinations, US topped the list at 45%, Australia was second with 25% while Canada was third with 20%.
  • Air France was the leading brand among airlines. It was discussed in the last four weeks among 38% of those who responded. British Airways and Lufthansa came second and third at 36% and 35% respectively.

• For the second consecutive year, TripAdvisor travelers have named Presidente InterContinental Cozumel Resort & Spa among the top 25-finest hotels in Mexico on the website’s distinguished Travelers’ Choice list.

Interesting Read:

• Does a traveller really need self-service more self-service ability at airports? Interesting article by Amadeus where they talk about their pilot self-service baggage checkin project at LHR.

• What does it take to fly for free? When we redeem our airline miles and fly free, are we really flying free? Interesting pointers here.

Airline / Airport Update:

• Aircraft flying into UK and Irish airspace are set to enjoy seamless data link service as they enter continental airspace from the North Atlantic and move across Western Europe. This is a result of UK NATS and the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) working together with SITA, the air transport communications specialist, to deliver Controller Pilot Data Link Communication(CPDLC) services to the British and Irish area control centers.

• According to the latest report released by the Department of Transportation (DOT) this week, U.S. airlines mishandled 3.09 bags per 1,000 enplaned passengers last year. DOT considers a bag mishandled if it’s “lost, damaged, delayed or pilfered.”. That’s an 8% drop from the year before and a 56% improvement over five years ago, when the airlines misplaced 7.05 bags per 1,000 passengers.

• Atlanta’s Hartsfield Jackson still continues to be the busiest airport (since 1998) in the world. This is primarily because of Atlanta being the home base for Delta Airlines (one of the biggest in the world) and also the location of the airport – 80% of US population can be reached in a two hour flight.

• Middle East’s biggest carrier Emirates expects to see 18 – 20% income rise this year. For the first six months of the current fiscal year its net profit jumped by 104% to 1.7 billion dirhams from 836 million dirhams in the corresponding period of the previous year. Currently, Emirates operates a fleet of 197 wide-bodied Airbus and Boeing aircraft. By spring 2014, the airline expects to have a fleet of 210 aircraft.

• Aer Lingus reported a 2012 net profit of €34.1 million ($46.1 million), down 52% from €71.2 million in 2011.

• Northrop Grumman Corporation’s Europe-based airport systems group has signed a contract with the U.K.’s East Midlands Airport, part of the Manchester Airports Group, for the delivery of the Passenger Flow module of its Airport Realtime Collaboration (ARC) suite.

Travel Mobile App Update:

• A new app called Travelgram makes your iPhone photos look attractive by automatically adding location stamps. Simple to use; date, time, and location information is automatically added to shots you take with the app.

• Travel Wallet, a frequent flyer and loyalty program management has released new app for Windows Phone 8. The app is available as free download. In the new version of the app, users will be able to sync their data with Microsoft’s SkyDrive.

• Burpple, application that caters specifically for amateur food-snappers with a that combines services of Instagram, Path and Pinterest to showcase daily eats. Burpple earlier launched an iOS app and last week they have launched an Android app.

• Click A Taxi has launched the world’s first and only global taxi app. The free app now enables more than 1 billion people to order a taxi (with an inventory of 3,00,000 taxis) almost anywhere, domestically as well as globally in 50 countries. The global service is currently in beta with over 2,000 taxi companies that have been handpicked for the global network to ensure quality and safety

Hospitality Update:

• According to TravelCLICK’s Jan’13 North American Hospitality Review (NAHR),
  • Hotels continue to see a steady increase in occupancy and revenue performance
  • For the first quarter of 2013 through the fourth, the current outlook is for moderate growth, with continued ADR being the key driver
  • For 2013, committed occupancy across all segments is up 2% compared to a year ago. Based on reservations currently on the books, ADR is up 4.9%, compared to the same time last year. RevPAR is up 4.1%
  • Group sales are the driving force behind occupancy growth in 2013, up 2.2%. The survey found that group occupancy is showing the strongest gains in the second and third quarters
  • The transient segment, comprised of individual business and leisure travelers, which has been responsible for the majority of hotel sector growth in the past, is up 1.2%
  • February looks to be the strongest month of the quarter with occupancy currently up 4.7% and revenue per available room (revPAR) up 8%, based on current reservations

Miscellaneous:

• Indian railway’s total approximate earning for the 10 months from April 2012 to January 2013 has been INR 101,223 crore which means it needs to earn INR 34,000 crore in the next 2 months to meet the target. A loss of INR 3000 crore was estimated due to the rollback of fare hike that was introduced in last budget.

• US Passport Online, the leader in the online passport expediting industry, reports a targeted increase in sales by one-hundred percent for the months of January

• China Intercontinental Communication Center (CICC), a media production arm supervised by China’s State Council Information Office, partners with 3rd Planet to co-organize the largest consumer tourism initiative online. The massive project, Wonders of the World (WOW) will be launched to consumers globally in the first quarter of 2014.

We interviewed Jiri Parimucha, Project Manager, Tripomatic about the core problem the company is trying to solve, their past challenges and how they overcame it, future plans for Tripomatic that Jiri shared exclusively with Travopia.

Read the interview below.

What is Tripomatic into and what problem are you trying to solve?

Tripomatic is the answer to a traveler’s plea for inspiration and planning. Taking the tension out of organizing a trip, Tripomatic offers users a wealth of ideas, from things to do, places to go, sights to see and much more.

Not only users can checkout the sights and attractions in their chosen destination, they can also add them to their own itinerary. As they do, Tripomatic helps them build their perfect trip; scheduling attractions, transportation and hotel bookings into their day and offering valuable information and a personalized itinerary. And with the mobile app, designed to work even offline, it’s easy to use on the go as well.

This stress-free planning tool not only saves a lot of time (and nerves) but also helps travelers make informed decisions about their trip, making the whole planning process pleasant and enjoyable.

When Tripomatic was founded and tell us about the founders.

Husband and wife team, Lukas and Barbora Nevosad, co-founded Tripomatic in the fall of 2010, when the stress of organizing a trip to Switzerland gave birth to the idea. The couple met on a Business Studies course in Jyvaskyla, Finland in 2005 before moving to Lulea, Sweden to study e-commerce.

They launched Tripomatic in July 2011 and now run a team of twenty enthusiasts from their offices in Brno, Czech Republic.

Who all are your competitors?

Generally, we compete with those who make trip planning and guidance of travelers during a trip easier.

How is your service different from your competitors?

Our Unique Selling Point is ‘convenient freedom’. Tripomatic offers users the freedom to design their own perfect holiday. We simply guide with inspiration & information. We also offer complete trips, pre-planned for users based on a couple of questions. Users can then modify every segment of their trip.

When there are hundreds of trip planning apps and websites in the market, why do you think travelers will use Tripomatic?

Because Tripomatic is the most convenient way of creating travel itineraries deployed to particular days and visualized on the map.

Any information you can share with us on funding?

So far, Tripomatic has been supported by revenue from our other projects.

What’s your revenue model?

Although monetization of users is not our primary goal, our source of revenue is affiliate marketing. We enable our users to connect with subjects offering services they might consider useful and relevant to their trip; hotels, travel agents, car rentals, tours etc. We also sell offline data packages and city guides in our mobile application.

What were the challenges you faced in the past and how did you overcome them?

When we started in June 2011, we offered a website based travel planner only. In the first year, we struggled a bit to get traction. We underestimated the importance of mobile devices in the travel industry, which set us back a few months. However, since the launch of the Tripomatic iPhone app in May 2012, our user base has grown significantly and we are back on track.

How are customers reacting to Tripomatic so far?

We receive a lot of feedbacks from our users and so far the response has been very positive. We even ask selected users personally about their experience using Tripomatic, mainly about the areas we can improve in, and that’s what helps us shaping the future development.

What’s the plan for Tripomatic for next 18-24 months?

Based on numerous feedbacks, we have been preparing a whole new web planner (and you are the first to know!). It is going to be simpler as to UI, but yet offering much more possibilities and functions. We have also been working on an Android app, which is going to be launched in March.

The decision comes even as Kingfisher Chairman Vijay Mallya has promised to airline employees about clearing their salaries for 11 months and has assured of restarting operations with the forthcoming summer schedule.

Etihad Airways is reportedly in talks with Jet Airways and Kingfisher after the government approved foreign direct investment in Indian carriers. From the recent developments, it looks like Etihad might strike the deal with Jet Airways. One of Kingfisher’s strong backing would have been a successful Etihad deal.

Kingfisher Airlines today traded lower at Rs. 10.58 on the BSE as of 4:00 pm. The stock had gained 10% over the last two days after dropping as much as 26% in the last month.

Shymal Acharya, Deputy managing director of State Bank of India said,

“They have not been able to come up with a plan. The consortium thought we cannot give them more time and we have decided to recall the loan. The recommendation will go to the Board. Each bank will go to their respective boards and a notice will be served to Kingfisher Airlines following which there will be a legal recourse. We have the personal guarantee of Dr Mallya and when we take the legal recourse even that will be revoked.”

State Bank of India has the maximum exposure of Rs. 1,600 crore, followed by Punjab National Bank (Rs. 800 crore), IDBI Bank (Rs. 800 crore), Bank of India (Rs. 650 crore) and Bank of Baroda (Rs. 550 crore).

Since 2006, Kingfisher’s max share price was Rs 355 and lowest was Rs 7.4. Kingfisher’s all-time share price chart is below:

Kingfisher Airlines was once considered as a premium airline to fly in India.

In September 2012, the carrier had the least market share of 3.5%. Kingfisher has been grounded since October 1 2012 after a labour unrest due to non-payment of salaries which have not been paid since last May.

The carrier has never made a profit since it began flying in 2005.

With this being the case, Captain Gopinath (Founder of India’s first LCC Air Deccan in 2003) has received No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the Indian government for launching a new low cost carrier. Post Air Deccan’s acquisition by Kingfisher, Gopinath had a non-compete agreement with Kingfisher till end of Jan, 2013.

It is reported that Gopinath might launch the new LCC this year.

The design of VideoTravelers heavily resembles YouTube. Home page is segmented into continents – US, Europe, Asia. Also, there are dedicated sections for Popular videos and text-articles.

Left side pane lists all major geographies along with various communities. ‘Channels’ in YouTube is called as ‘Community’ in VideoTravelers.

User will be able to upload a video by providing YouTube / Vimeo video URL.

VideoTravelers can be considered as a wrapper built on top of YouTube and Vimeo, but plays only travel videos.

Majority of the YouTube features can be found in VideoTravelers. Users can like (upvote), unlike (downvote) a video, get the code to embed the video in other websites, view the user who posted the video, save the video in a playlist.

User can login to VideoTravelers using Facebook credentials, right now that’s the only login facility. With Facebook login, user will be able to comment on videos.

When a YouTube video is played in VideoTravelers, the views are counted in YouTube. Also, ads in the video work exactly similar to YouTube.

So, for people who earn by having a dedicated YouTube channel – VideoTravelers is another platform for you to market your travel videos.

Companies like LonelyPlanet have already made a presence in VideoTravelers. Users can also subscribe to a community.

Overall: VideoTravelers kind of website is needed in travel industry. Rich media is where the industry is moving to. Since VideoTravelers was launched only last week, we could see basic features are setup and its working. But, to really stand out of YouTube and beat the competition, VideoTravelers have to roll up their sleeves and transform this product with creativity and innovation. A good start.

Microsoft has released an infographic that brings out some interesting insights in the Big Data world.

This infographic was prepared by surveying 280 IT decision makers in mid/large size companies in the U.S.

Among all pointers in the infographic, the one point that makes the eye pop out: Nearly 9 out of 10 decision-makers (89%) surveyed already have a dedicated budget allocated for Big Data implementations.

Big data cloud image credit: Illustration by Mike Kloran

Airline fares are like water-spill-on-floor, you never know which direction it goes, airline fares are no different from a traveller perspective. A traveller might notice a flight fare for destination A->B as Rs 50,000 (USD 1000), and a day later the price for the same segment might shoot up to Rs 75,000 (USD 1500). This is a familiar case, especially in international travel when the fare (and also the hike/drop) is pretty steep.

Cleartrip’s Pricewatch will perfectly fit in above scenario.

Pricewatch works only on international flight bookings. Once a traveller makes an international flight reservation (defined as: at least, one airport destination in the itinerary should be out of India) for X price, Pricewatch starts kicking in. The air fare for the booked segment is continuously monitored.

When a price drop is noticed and if the price drop is more than the amendment charge associated with the reservation, then Pricewatch automatically refunds the difference amount to the customer’s bank account / credit card.

During price refund, for some scenarios, a rebooking might happen because of the change of fare class. In this case, a new PNR will be given along with new e-ticket.

Example: Kiran books a flight ticket today from Bangalore – Chicago on Air France today for Rs 50,000 for departure on June 1st.

Feb 12:    Booked flight fare: Rs 50,000

Mar 05:  Fare drops to: Rs 43,000

Amendment charge: Rs 3,000

Refund amount: Rs 4,000 [50,000 - (43,000 + 3,000)]

In above example, if the (new fare + amendment charge) is equal or more than booked flight fare, then the amount won’t be refunded. Obviously.

Also, Pricewatch refunds only once. Meaning – if the price drops more than one time, Pricewatch refunds the amount only at the first time.

Partially cancelled international trips are not eligible for Pricewatch refund.

There are many apps and websites in the market that provide a flight fare price drop alert/notification. Example: TripIt Pro and Yapta offers this service. But, the pain of calling the airline / the site in which the flight was booked is still left to the customer. Cleartrip has automated the fare refund and has addressed the scenario of end-to-end.

Similar auto-refund of flight ticket service is offered by CheapAir and Orbitz.

In hotel industry, Tingo.com, a TripAdvisor company offers an auto-refund (if price drops) functionality for hotel bookings.

Recently, Cleartrip launched iOS Passbook support for flights, hotels and train bookings.

Toozla is a mobile service that combines GPS with audio tours and stories, user content, and local information.

Travellers can use Toozla to learn more about famous sights, art works, explore the city’s less-known details, independent restaurants, small but exquisite parks, unique shops, theatres and museum exhibits.

Toozla is an all-in-one travel guide for a traveller. Toozla works only when an internet connection is available. As long as you have a GPS enabled mobile with an internet connection, you are good to go.

Overall, it’s a good news that, among all category of apps available in the app store, a travel industry app has attracted most audience.

Chichinkina Alesya, Marketing Director of Toozla says,

“We are pleased with achieved result and are grateful to our users for the acknowledgment. Our application is available for both flagship models on Android platform and for Samsung bada smartphones. Thus the major quantity of Samsung users are able to use Toozla service. And moreover the existence of guides in 16 languages extend borders of the usage of the app. For example, our application is very popular in Spain and Italy, because of availability of the content over there and because of popularity of Samsung bada platform in these countries.”

Mobile audio travel guide market is growing. UK and U.S are matured markets in audio travel guide while in India the trend has just started picking up with companies like Audio Compass, GoPlaces.

The new HipTravelMama.com site is more video-centric, with short, weekly video clips. The new site is organised into six sections:

• Hip Tips: Offers travel tips for families
• Hip Hotels: Reviews of hotel and destinations, along with pictures
• Hip Escapes: Writeup about sun, beach vacations, ski vacation, city and wine country getaways, along with pictures and videos
• Life + Style: Offers travel fashion, style tips for Hip moms
• Disney Magic: Writeup about the latest updates / happenings in Disneyland, on Disney experiences, parks, hotels, cruises and adventures
• Hip Travel Mama on TV: Videos from HipTravelMama’s television and YouTube segments

Anne Taylor says,

“A well-traveled family never goes out of style. The new HipTravelMama.com is centered on helping parents raise kids who are well-traveled, while saving families time and money. Traveling as a family provides an opportunity to create a lifetime of lasting memories”

HipTravelMama will also feature Q&A interviews with travel industry thought leaders to share insider tips for planning your next vacation, new tools for finding great deals on hotels, airfare and travel experiences.

The company also helps brands inspire and engage influential travellers via broadcast media, social media and the blogosphere.

HipTravelMama works with companies such as Starwood Hotels and Resorts, Expedia, Disney, Kimpton Hotels, Bing, Farecast, and others to provide tools for families to live a well-traveled life.

The Clipboard app can be used by agents using classic view in Sabre Red Workspace. Using this app, agents can quickly and easily send air itinerary options to customers. The Red App transfers flight information from the Workspace including flight times, airlines, city codes and fares and creates an easy to read list of shopping options that can be sent to the traveler.

Chris Kroeger, Senior VP of Marketing, Sabre Travel Network says,

“The Clipboard app will save agents valuable time when creating customer trip proposals. In these competitive times, it is vital that agencies harness the benefits of technology to stay ahead of the competition.  This app will not only help agents deliver increased levels of customer service but will also make agencies more operationally efficient.”

Clipboard allows agents to customise the app according to their requirement. Agents can configure the trip proposal template to meet their needs, such as including their agency logo and contact information.

Agents can also include any service fees or markups with the trip proposal pricing.

The app is smartphone friendly, and flight options can be sent in both plain text and HTML.

At the time of Sabre Red App Centre launch, there were 60 apps loaded, most of them were developed by Sabre. Currently, the Sabre Red App Centre offers 80+ apps, with additional apps under development by more than 50 Certified Red App Providers globally.

In April 2012, Sabre announced “Red Appy Competition” where developers were encouraged to build apps for Sabre Red App Centre. In the last 11 months, the company has added 20+ apps to its market place.

Note: Read this to understand how Sabre Red App Centre works.