Travel Remark! - Travel eCommerce and Technology

Travel Social Bookmarking Websites

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Whiting) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 03:38:00 +0000

There are a now a few dedicated social travel related bookmarking / voting websites out there. The main themes running through them all are the concept of voting and popularity.

There are degrees of variance though, and I don't see any of these websites exactly offering the same solutions. Being travel specific some have editorial control to ensure they are travel only and others open, so you could post/see non-travel related content on the website. The other variance is that some you can post content directly on the website and others you have to provide a website url to post.

If you have a travel related website then probably have a look at this list and start to engage / interact with these websites.

I have to admit that I founded Travelbeen so why post up other similar websites? Well the answer is that if you have a travel website then you probably should be dealing with as many online web 2.0 services that you can (as long as you rate the service and think that it will benefit you).

Travel Mills - social bookmarking

Travelbeen.com social search engine with bookmarking

Voteitfly.com - social bookmarking

Travelbookmarking - social bookmarking

Travelgeneration - social community with bookmarking

Flagr / - social bookmarking by map

Rrove - social bookmarking

Gusto - social network based bookmarking

TripSubmit - travel bookmarking widget

TravelVoter - social bookmarking

If you know of more then please feel free to post in the comments below and I will add them to the list.

Travelbeen Launches

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Whiting) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:27:00 +0000

Travelbeen launches at the PhoCusWright Innovation conference in Hollywood 17th November 2008.

http://www.travelbeen.com - the social search engine for travel

Virtual Social Travel

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Whiting) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 23:51:00 +0000

It comes in waves, the publicity and take up of virtual social worlds on the internet, but you can't help really wondering that this is leading to something big. I have written about a few times in this blog about Second Life, and whether is is really taking off or not and the impact it potentially will have on travel and this is a continuation of that.

There are now over 40 well used virtual social worlds online all of which are gathering pace it would seem with usage.

If you don't know what I am on about when talking about a virtual social world and want to get a glimse of many of them then see this recently published video by Gary Hayes - 2008 METAVERSE TOUR - THE SOCIAL VIRTUAL WORLD'S A STAGE

Where is this all leading? Well who knows exactly, but I do recon that at some stage it will become more attractive (for certain things) to visit the virtual place than the real place (travel costs, global warming, environmental, overcrowding, safety, been to most places).

One day a travel company (not as we know it) will offer a virtual travel experience?

Facebook Travel Apps Revisited

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Whiting) — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 21:17:00 +0000

The number of travel applications on Facebook continues to grow.

I last looked at the Facebook travel applications on the 3rd November 07 and there were 215 in total then, now there are 541 (2nd April 2008). ‘Trip Advisor’ still commands a high position currently in the number one position for usage and dominates with ‘Where I’ve Been’ in second.

Of the 541 applications the majority of the daily usage is with the top 15, a real long tail has emerged. Within the top 15, 65% of usage come from the top 2 ‘Trip Advisor’ and ‘Where I’ve Been’

Looking through all the applications, it is dominated by travel media intermediary companies and there are no traditional travel companies featuring in the top few, in fact American Airlines is the highest ranking at 50 with only 341 daily users.

Facebook overall is a growing online application and you have to question whether the effort put into running and maintaining a travel application is worth while. The one thing I would point out is that Trip Advisor (Expedia Inc.) are not often caught going down the wrong track and must be having some conversion success in turning their 62,027 daily Facebook users into revenue.

See a full list of stats at http://www.edwhiting.com/facebook/fbtravelapps020408.pdf

Travel Media Intermediaries in Australia and New Zealand

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Whiting) — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 01:08:00 +0000

There are a growing number of travel media intermediaries online and they are getting stronger and more important than before for all travel providers online; travel agents, tour operators, accommodation, airlines and attractions. PhoCusWright estimate that in 2009 71% of the online travel bookings are from suppliers direct for Australia and New Zealand.

The role of the travel media intermediaries is growing to simplify the suppliers’ product offerings into a narrow choice is in demand. Although the internet has made it easy for suppliers to sell directly, with all suppliers now doing this with different websites, booking engines, presentations and brand values, it does pose problems for the customers of the internet. Users are not able to sift through 100+ websites to find a travel deal each time, they need some form or simplification and hence why the role of the travel media intermediaries growing.

To look at this further I have done a simple review of the travel media intermediaries and categorised them by their Main Function and Revenue Model (definitions below). The list of websites were gathered mainly from Hitwise rankings in the travel category, but include also some other key websites that are being heavily promoted.

Travel Media Intermediaries in Australia and New Zealand Report

Definitions

Main Function
==================================
Booking Engine - Book with the website in a similar way to a travel agent
Guide - Editorially written guides on destinations
Maps - Focus of the website evolves round a map highlighting destinations
Meta Search - Price driven search across multiple travel suppliers and book direct with the supplier
Portal - General travel websites, usually a section of a search engine or directory
Reviews - A website service which predominantly evolves round the reviews of users
Search / Directory - Websites categorised in a directory and the ability to search across
Social - An online social network that evolves round travel

Revenue Models
=================================
Supplier Commission Fees - Transaction charge made to the travel supplier for bookings made
Display Advertising - Banners and Sponsored Links
Listing Fee - Paying to be listed within the website or service
Google Adsense - Google advertising system - sponsored links and display advertising
Yahoo Search Marketing - Yahoo advertising system - sponsored links and display advertising
Government Funded - The website is funded by public money and has no external revenue
Microsoft Advertising - Microsoft advertising system - sponsored links and display advertising

Reviewed WebSites
http://www.wotif.com.au
http://www.travelbug.co.nz
http://www.roamfree.com
http://www.needtoescape.com
http://www.stayz.com.au
http://www.lonelyplanet.com
http://www.wellingtonnz.com
http://www.jasons.co.nz
http://www.holidayguide.co.nz
http://www.about-australia.com
http://www.wises.co.nz
http://www.smaps.co.nz
http://www.zoomin.co.nz
http://www.whereis.com
http://maps.google.com
http://earth.google.com
http://www.street-directory.com.au
http://www.bezurk.com
http://www.kayak.com
http://www.news.com.au/travel
http://travel.ninemsn.com.au
http://travel.yahoo.com
http://nz.travel.yahoo.com
http://www.virtualtourist.com
http://www.tripadvisor.com
http://www.nzlive.com
http://www.aatravel.co.nz
http://maps.yellowpages.co.nz
http://www.totaltravel.com
http://www.accommodationz.co.nz
http://local.live.com
http://www.whereareyounow.com

Asia Pacific Low Cost Airlines – Holidays and Accommodation Review

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Whiting) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 01:55:00 +0000

There are now an abundance of low cost airlines in the Asia Pacific region, and rightly so, especially when this vast area accounts for a large percentage of the worlds population.

I have reviewed 59 low cost airline websites across this region with a view to gaining a picture of what supplementary holidays and accommodation products the airlines are now providing.

There is a supporting document of full results can be seen at http://www.edwhiting.com/asiapacificairlines.pdf

Holidays Summary
There were some interesting results from the holidays summary. I was looking for the airline to provide some kind of holiday which involves their flights. This was categorised as either a Flight + Hotel or a Package. The Flight + Hotel is the same thing in this case as a Dynamic Package allowing the user to search for a flight and applicable hotels in one single price with flexible dates. The Package is a fixed package with a single price for the duration provided e.g. 7 nights. Unavailable was that the website was having some technical glitches at the time of review.

In the results 73% didn’t provide any form of holiday for the user and 22% did provide holidays. Although this doesn’t necessarily show volume in passengers it does show a clear mark that these airlines are not providing holidays as a whole.

No Holidays - 43 / 73%
Packages - 7 / 12%
Flight + Hotel - 6 / 10%
Unavailable - 3 / 5%

Accommodation Summary
The accommodation review was to find out which airlines had a hotel or accommodation product on sale on their website. 51% didn’t provide any accommodation, 46% did and 3% was unavailable. Of the airlines that did provide accommodation, the most interesting find was that it is dominated by OctopusTravel.com (over half the airlines that provide accommodation) which provides a white labelling service to the airlines. There were a few other white label service providers which all provide to one or max two airlines. These include: Expedia – WWTE.com, Travelguru.com, Travelpartnerweb.com, Rates2go.com, Bookhostels.com, Roamfree.com, Wotif.com and Travel.Rakuten.co.jp. There were a few that didn’t rely on a white label and had accommodation built into their website. I classed these as In-House, however this could just be either in-house contracting or a close technology integration into another provider.

No Accommodation - 30 / 51%
OctopusTravel.com - 14 / 24%
Other Provider - 8 / 14%
In-House - 5 / 8%
Unavailable - 2 / 3%

Summary
There are only 6 airlines offering Flight + Hotel, however 27 offering accommodation. Of the accommodation providers OctopusTravel.com dominates but only seems to provide a white label solution. Although this review isn’t indicative of the number of passengers travelling, there does show clearly that the low cost airlines that provide accommodation could provide a better integration of accommodation into their product offering. This could be in the form of a Flight + Hotel search which gives the customer real flexibility and the airline the ability to potentially earn more money out of each customer. This is an opportunity for either some of the other accommodation providers or OctopusTravel.com to beef up their offering to get more sales from the growing Asia Pacific low cost airlines.

To see more details of the review go to http://www.edwhiting.com/asiapacificairlines.pdf

Dynamic Packaging and Extras in Australian Travel Websites

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Whiting) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 02:29:00 +0000

Following on from a similar exercise looking at Dynamic Packaging (DP) and Extras on New Zealand’s top travel websites, I have now covered the Australian top travel websites.

Overall there is a disappointing level of DP flexibility online in the top websites. Saying that the main three websites that stood out were WebJet, Expedia and Qantas, which all offered DP flexibility. WebJet and Expedia are slightly ahead of Qantas as they also offer a good range of Extras in the booking path.

The other interesting website was STA Travel which was the only one (as far as I could see) operating a shopping basket system, where a customer could search for a flight then add to the basket, then search for a hotel and again add to the basket. The basket could then be checked out and booked as one single booking. Despite the problems of the shopping basket system not being clear to the user it is a good system.

The rest of the websites in the list were pretty much all the same, had flights, hotels and offered fixed packages.

The only two negatives that I would highlight are Lastminute.com.au which at the time of doing this exercise its website wasn’t working properly and I couldn’t get any flight results and the other was Escape Travel which doesn’t seem to offer real time booking of flights.

Qantas v Air New Zealand – I though that I would give this a mention, when comparing the functionality between these two national carriers the main difference between the two is Air New Zealand offers Extras in the booking path which makes it a better experience (and probably more profitable).

The results are below of the top ten Australian travel websites covered.

If you can't see this table you can link to it at http://www.edwhiting.com/auswebsites.jpg

List of Links:

http://www.webjet.com.au/
http://www.flightcentre.com.au/
http://www.lastminute.com.au/
http://www.expedia.com.au/
http://www.bestflights.com.au/
http://www.travel.com.au/
http://www.escapetravel.com.au/
http://www.zuji.com.au/
http://www.qantas.com.au/
http://www.statravel.com.au/

Dynamic Packaging and Extras in NZ Travel Websites

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Whiting) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 23:20:00 +0000

As I am now based in New Zealand I did a little survey of the top travel websites (according to Hitwise) for New Zealanders looking to travel outside New Zealand. Only travel agents / airlines were included missing off media and some pure accommodation only websites such as Wotif.com and Travelbug.com. I would have included Qantas however at the time of doing the survey their NZ website was non existent and I was re-directed to the Australian website which didn’t allow NZ departures.

I have highlighted four main areas of the websites that usually provide the volume of sales and profitability, flight only option, accommodation only option, holidays that are either a dynamic package or set package and extras in the booking path. Although some of the websites offered extras, in my eCommerce experience the volume in extras is offering it as an option before payment in the booking path. I did not look at the product pricing or range in this exercise, but will be done at a later stage.

The main headline results of the survey are that only three websites scored highly in my book. They were Air New Zealand, House of Travel and Expedia.co.nz. All three of these have a good user experience, offered a good range of product and real flexibility. Although not all of them had the same flexibility or offering they were equal.

The Top Three
Air New Zealand – Good dynamic packaging, offered a good range of extras in the booking path. Only Air NZ flights (wouldn’t of thought of anything else)
House of Travel – Good dynamic packaging for flight + hotel, didn’t offer hotel only booking and only insurance as an extra in the booking path.
Expedia.co.nz – very good dynamic packaging, not just flight + hotel but other combinations such as flight + car and hotel + car. Additionally Expedia do provide a full range of extras options in the booking path.

I think that the most disappointing were the Stella Group businesses, United Travel and Holiday Shoppe, their websites were the same with just different branding. There was some limited set packages which were not able to book online. The flights and hotel searches were separate and there was no extras offered in either booking path.

Without just giving the Stella Group a hard time, the other surprise was Travelocity not including flights or dynamic packaging. I know the rest of the Travelocity stable of websites Travelocity.com and Lastminute.com do offer flights and dynamic packaging and whether this is a temporary thing or not, there is some major catch up to do to the standards of Air New Zealand, House of Travel or Expedia.co.nz.

Website owners feel free to contact me if you thing that any assessment is wrong.

If you can't see this table you can link to it at http://www.edwhiting.com/nzwebsites.jpg

List of Links:

http://www.airnz.co.nz/
http://www.houseoftravel.co.nz/
http://www.flightcentre.co.nz/
http://www.webjet.com.au/
http://www.grabaseatquick.co.nz/
http://www.expedia.co.nz/
http://www.goholidays.co.nz/
http://www.unitedtravel.co.nz/
http://www.jetabroad.co.nz/
http://www.holidayshoppe.co.nz/
http://www.travelocity.co.nz/

Travolution Blog Pivotal Moments in 2007 – Travelsupermarket Float

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Whiting) — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 20:16:00 +0000

Travolution Blog is asking for input into pivotable moments for the online travel industry during 2007, so here is mine.....

The Moneysupermarket / Travelsupermarket floatation was a pivotal moment for 2007. It could be seen as one of the first major travel 2.0 companies cashing in. Although the travel part of the business was a smaller part, it did have an impact on the online travel world. Although not the same or as big, a parallel could be drawn with Lastminute.com float in the dot com 1.0 bubble. The reason I think it was pivotal is that it set a benchmark value (in the UK) on travel 2.0 businesses and will probably be seen as the start of a wave of companies following suit.

More travel 2.0 companies will have to realise their value for their investor/entrepreneurial shareholders in the foreseeable future such as WAYN and Cheapflights.

Stella and eCommerce?

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Whiting) — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 10:38:00 +0000

Stella (parent of Harvey World Travel) recent announcement that it is going to aquire Global Travel Group is an interesting one, especially as I can't see the companies aquisition trail stopping there. The well funded company (MFS funding Stella) looks set to snap up further travel distribution worldwide and not just traditional retail travel agents.

With the travel industry continually being revolutionised by the internet distribution channel, I would of throught that it wise for Stella to aquire now some eCommerce travel websites. In a blog entry in October I highlighted that there was going to be further consolidation and aquistion in the online travel sector and I think that Stella could be one of those that will be the aquirers. Stella doesn't have any strong eCommerce sites in it's worldwide portfolio which is either that they think too risky or that it will be on thier list to come.

The types of eCommerce travel sites I would have thought that they would go for would be independent to match that of thier traditional retail aquisitions.

Hot independent high traffic, large volume eCommerce targets for Stella in the UK are:

Travelrepublic - they have started to raise thier head above the parapet recently with press appearences (always a sign of up for sale)

On the Beach - was sold in the last 12 months I recall and the new owners could be interested in getting a quick return of thier investment

Directlinholidays - good independant travel agency website.

The only thing that I would comment on is that it may be harder to rebrand an eCommerce site succesfully than a high street retail travel agency.

Although not eCommerce, I could see Stella aquiring Travelcounsellors, it fits thier markets quite well UK / AUS / SA / US with a differing type of travel distribution. I wonder if David Speakman would sell?

Online Travel Distribution Consolidation

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Whiting) — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 13:58:00 +0000

There is looming some consolidation in the online travel distribution space. I have commented on this before in Who's next to acquire travel distribution on the 2nd October but I thought that it was worth just noting some further thoughts as I believe there is likely to be some consolidation in a addition before the acquisition of distribution.

Current Facts…..

Advertising is getting more sophisticated in travel.

WAYN’s new targeted travel advertising

Expedia announcing their new advertising structure

The OTA’s are getting by passed to book and need to add more value.

Expedia said at the TTI Autumn conference that 50% of traffic use their website to research and book direct

Travel Companies are going more direct says PricewaterhouseCoopers

Travel Meta Search engines are established

Travelsupermarket and Cheapflights bigger than most travel companies online (Hitwise)

Skyscanner.net getting funding to go global

Travel Social networks being established with advertising

There is now more consumer reviews to read then ever before

At the PhoCusWright 07, Kevin May (Travolution) reported that Trip advisor said 80% of all hotels listed on TripAdvisor are viewed every single day

What’s next…….

OTA’s , Social Travel Networks, Travel Meta Search Engines will consolidate

Advertising for travel companies will be much more targeted with companies predicting the buying patterns of people using data gathered from users using the consolidated websites and giving them the option of either putting them in touch or booking with the travel companies. Either way earning a fee of some kind

And then……

Travel companies will acquire their distribution channels to secure distribution

Who is going to make the next move? Here are some random suggestions……..

Expedia will buy or build a true travel social network in US / EU to supplement their portfolio – WAYN?
TUI will make a bold move and buy/merge/be bought by Priceline or Expedia within the next 3 years to be the first mega vertical travel company.
Opodo will change their model to include referral fees following Expedia and will be bought by Thomas Cook (who are not as strong online in flights)
Meta search engines will consolidate - Cheapflights could be bought by Travelsupermarket
Teletext will spun out from the media group and be bought by a company that has the technology and money but needing their travel advertising relationships
Skyscanner.net will be bought by Priceline Europe for it's neat technology and broaden it's offering.

Video Adverts, Travel and Blinkx

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Whiting) — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 14:47:00 +0000

Further to my look into video advertising and distribution opportunities for travel, Blinkx have recently launched a video advertising platform called AdHoc. Blinkx is listed on AIM.

Blinkx's self explanatory description in their own words:

"Make money every time you share a video on your blog, website or social networking profile. Sound good to you? It's easy to do! Our clever technology matches relevant, in-video text ads to any video. Whenever someone clicks on an ad in your video, you make half the cash! "

To make get these revenue generating videos, you very simply sign up to Blinkx AdHoc, give them you PayPal email address, search for a video you want and then paste the code into your website / blog. It takes literally minutes.

I have found a couple of different examples in travel, the first being an video clip by MyTravel with advertising from Thomas Cook. The second being travel technology by Revelex promoting their cruise product (couldn't find any matching ads!).

If you start a video you should see the advertising at the top of the video. It is a bit small and although it isn't as obtrusive as TV adverts which take up the whole screen and pack them in back to back, it took me a while to notice that they are there. I think the advertising bit needs a little work. The concept is there and this will go through some evolutions to get optimised.

What are the opportunities?

The Travel Company - It is a a clever way of promoting travel and I predict that we are going to see a real explosion of travel companies using the online video medium to promote their products. Video is a natural medium for a customer to get an insight into the product that they are buying and generally is self explanatory every time. I can see both generic and the travel companies own destination and hotel videos being advertised on by travel companies of brands and offers that relate to the destination or hotel that they are looking at. The Blinkx technology apparently is contextual enough to enable this just like keywords in Google. According to Blinkx, it has a better contextual match than Google.

The Technology Company - I am not so sure about the travel technology promotion and whether it inspires confidence or just comes across amateurish - who knows maybe this is the turning point where we do away with the salesperson and leave it to the IT team to market and sell the products!

Social Travel Applications on Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Whiting) — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 19:42:00 +0000

Looking further into the social travel applications on Facebook, as of the 3rd November there are 215 in total ranging from trip reviews to visitor guides. [note: in 3 days there have been a further 12 travel applications added!]

Roughtly 50% of the applications are provided by companies 50% by individuals.

There are only a few travel companies with applications, the most prominent being STA Travel which seem to be embracing all types of web2.0 with open arms.

STA Travel - Student Travel

Charterflights - Flights

Hostelbook - Hostel Booking

Visitopia - General Travel Tickets

There are a real pletora of social/comparison/media travel companies with applications:

Usage of Travel Applications

In terms of the number of users that are using these applications TripAdvisor is ranked in second place is terms of daily usage with 110,850 active users per day. There are not many sites with this number with SideStep in 9th place with only 3,390 per day. WAYN is sitting at a lowly 184th place with only 3 active users a day!

Within the last 3 days there have been a further 12 travel applications added, which just goes to show the speed in which this is being adopted.

For full stats go to http://www.edwhiting.com/facebook or sign up to Facebook and have a look at the applications on there.

Facebook Facebook Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Whiting) — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 14:58:00 +0000

I attended another excellent Travolution conference yesterday covering new distribution channels in the online travel industry.

One of the key messages that came out of the conference was social networking - as reported today by Travolution - Social networking brings travel its greatest challenge

Almost all of the presentations that I sat through spoke about Facebook, not just as a mention but several precious minutes about it. It was really not that long ago (only 12 months) that it was Google Google Google and now so much has changed.

It just shows how frequently the distribution channels are changing and I suspect that they could get even quicker. Some of these distribution channels will be in and out of fashion like clothing brands and colours. I am not suggesting Google or Facebook have had their day though, but more that a travel company will have to watch and learn to harness the opportunities then immediately look again for the next thing.

The way technology is going, it is becoming easier and easier to get something new online service going. There are API's everywhere, developing is becoming easier and more people wanting to give it a go. This combination is fuelling this explosion in ideas and distribution opportunities. Most won't make it big, but some will.

If you look at Facebook, there are 215 Travel applications which you can add to your profile. the types of applications have been obviously designed to suit the social nature of Facebook, such as mapping your travels and sharing with friends, weather reports and even bargain charter flight prices. The applications have been produced mainly by individuals having a go, but there is an increasing number of companies producing applications from the travel space.

I predict that in 6 months time that number will be 500+ and most will be dominated by companies having a go at harnessing the mammoth audience that Facebook has. I think though that we will quickly find that it may not be as powerful as everyone thinks

In 12 months time it will be interesting to see which company takes the next mantle, it may be Google again with their new OpenSocial or could be others such as Travelistic which focus on travel videos!

Who knows, however being technically flexible is always important and there is a quote from Charles Darwin - "In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment". (you had to be there!)

PayPal Accepted in Travel

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Whiting) — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 07:30:00 +0000

Like other blogs and media in travel I also received a press release from PayPal regarding FlyMonarch allowing their customers to pay via PayPal. There has been some coverage in the Travel online space:

Travolution – FlyMonarch.com adopts PayPal system
Musings on Travel eCommerce - eBay travel rumour - Paypal and flyMonarch.com

I enquired further from Neil Gregory representing PayPal and it would seem that PayPal is starting to get a foot hold in the travel industry, especially airlines.

Neil said, "FlyMonarch is the 5th airline globally to accept PayPal. The other websites are…..United Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Midwest Airlines and US Airways".

I can see PayPal taking hold across travel. There is a growing number of people that have a PayPal account (15 million in the UK!) and don't see a reason why it isn't going to become a standard a payment option for purchasing travel.

I don’t think it makes much of a difference if PayPal is owned by eBay, PayPal is now accepted as a payment type in many websites and services and is not just restricted to eBay.

UK's Top 50 Powerful in Online Travel by Wealth!

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Whiting) — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 07:52:00 +0000

Travolution this month created a list of the UK's top 50 most powerful people in online Travel.

I have put a different spin on the same list.....Wealth!

Not everyone is interested in being wealthy (well that is what they say!), but I most are. I have categorising the published list of people in Travolution by estimating thier wealth potential in thier current roles. Note: I have ignored whether they have already had wealth from previous positions from other companies.

Any alterations please send in a comment!

Already Seriously Weathly
Michael O’Leary, chief executive, Ryanair
Stelios Haji-Ioannou, chairman, EasyGroup

Potential to be Wealthy
Alex Saint, managing director, Dealchecker
Chris Loughlin, executive vice-president Europe, Travelzoo
Chris Nixon, managing director, Travelsupermarket
David Soskin, chief executive, Cheapflights
Greg Turley, co-founder and chief executive, CarTrawler
Hugo Burge, vice-chairman and head of international, Cheapflights
Moshe Rafiah, chief executive, Travelfusion
Paul Evans, chief executive, LowCost Group
Paul Furner, managing director, Travel Republic
Peter Ward/Jerome Touze, co-founders, WAYN.com
Steve Endacott, chief executive, On Holiday Group
Terry Fisher, managing director, Gold Medal Travel Group
Gareth Williams, chief executive, Skyscanner

Potential to Make a Good Deal of Money
Andrew Botterill, chief executive, Global Travel Group
Dermot Halpin, president EMEA, Expedia
Graham Donoghue, new media director, TUI Travel
Marc Charron, European managing director, TripAdvisor
Adrian Currie, corporate development director and chief financial officer, Booking.com

Will Earn a Good Whack
Adrian Watts, sales and distribution director, TheTrainline
Alan Josephs, managing director, Ebookers
Alison Wightman, head of marketing and systems, Virgin Atlantic
Alistair Rowland, director of distribution, Co-Operative Travel
Andrew Laurie, managing director, UK Stella Travel Services Group
Andy Tidy, e-commerce director, Thomas Cook
Carl Burrows, commercial director, Medhotels
Carsten Willert, head of BA.com, British Airways
Celia Pronto, marketing director, STA Travel
Chris Roe, general manager, e-commerce, Virgin Holidays
Daniele Mancini, e-business director, Costa Cruises
David Roche, senior vice-president EMEA, Expedia
Gordon Wilson, chief executive and president, Galileo/Worldspan
Graham Nichols, vice-president and general manager, Europe, Middle East, Asia and Africa, Worldspan
Guy Parsons, chief operating officer, Travelodge
Ian McCaig, chief executive, Lastminute.com
Ignacio Martos, chief executive, Opodo
Kenny Boyle, director of commercial and marketing services, VisitBritain
Martin Cowley, senior vice-president, EMEA, Sabre Travel Group
Matt Cheevers, managing director, Teletext Holidays
Nick Mercer, commercial director, Eurostar
Richard Firminger, regional sales director, Northern Europe, Yahoo! Search Marketing
Richard Mintern, group chief information officer, The Monarch Travel Group
Robin Frewer, head of travel UK, Google
Russell Gould, director of e-commerce, Thomas Cook UK and Ireland
Stephane Durand, UK and Ireland Managing Director, Amadeus
Stephen Palmer, chief executive, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Lonely Planet
Stuart Nassos, UK and Ireland managing director, Holiday Autos
Tim Davis, senior vice-president for commercial development and information systems, Hilton Corporation
Tim Frankcom, general manager, Europe, Yahoo! Travel

Video Adverts for Travel?

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Whiting) — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 13:20:00 +0000

I can’t remember the recent report off the top of my head but it said that richer media on the accommodation or holiday is what the public want as part of their travel buying decision process.

Google have now launched formally video adverts through their hugely popular AdSense service as reported by Search Engine Land.
Holidays that feature on most travel companies’ websites today are lucky to have a low-res grainy picture of the accommodation and a handful of the most lucrative .accommodations have some form of rich media, either a 360 degree image or video
Two large travel companies have a TV channel (Thomas Cook / Thomson) which is full of video clips and footage.
The large travel companies today advertise on TV – Expedia, Hilton, Thomas Cook, Thomson etc….

So is the travel industry ready to take advantage of the video advert medium that it here today?

Well the cost of broadcasting through AdSense will be significantly cheaper and measurable than an advert on TV. The costs of producing the video advert probably won’t be much cheaper as putting together the footage, the creative and the production of the video will probably have to be the same quality as a TV advert. In saying that however, some types of adverts could be done on a shoe string.

It will be obvious that it will be adopted by the big guys as they are willing to invest in getting this right, just like they do on TV.

The area that I can see a real opportunity is for some of the specialist tour operators, producing really stylish adverts with the same quality and style that they do with their brochures and websites.

Types of companies that should adopt the video adverts are Elegant Resorts and Classic Collection

Watch this space!

Who’s Next to Acquire Distribution?

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Whiting) — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 12:48:00 +0000

As predicted there would be more Travel Companies securing online distribution by acquisition. TUI recently acquired Holidays Uncovered.

Travolution September 2007
TUI Travel snaps up Holidays Uncovered

We saw this coming.........

Travolution June 2006
Ed Whiting - How much would you pay for eSP?

Travel Remark September 2007
Travel 2.0 vs Search Engines – Where is your Travel traffic going to come from?
(At the time that I wrote this blog entry I didn’t realise that this deal was underway).

The question that I have now is whose next?

You could say that some have already happened without realising it…..First Choice (before the merger with TUI) acquired Laterooms.com to secure distribution. Travelzest Plc acquired Holiday.co.uk and Flight.co.uk as a portal to all it’s brands.

Here are a few likely candidates to be acquired……

Skyscanner.net
Global Travel Market / Asia Travel Market / Aus Travel Market
Holiday Watchdog
Cheapflights.co.uk
Travelrepublic.co.uk
Travelistic.com
Henoo aka TravelSearchResults
Teletext Holidays....maybe one day?
CarTrawler
Travelsupermarket.com

And here are a few likely acquirers…….

TUI – there will be more
Thomascook PLC – when they have finalised thier merger
Cosmos – will refocus on distribution next year
Lastminite.com/Travelocity – don’t have a social network
Priceline Europe

This list could be quite big!

Travel 2.0 vs Search Engines – Where is your Travel traffic going to come from?

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Whiting) — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 09:18:00 +0000

With the emergence of Travel 2.0 services and the current reliance on Search Engines for traffic it is becoming interesting on where a Travel Seller should focus their effort and whether Travel 2.0 services are going to be more effective than the generic Search Engine.

There have been recently some interesting articles relating to this topic which emphasise the interest in this area and most are saying that the Travel 2.0 applications are and are going to be more effective than a generic search engine.

Hotel Marketing: UK searches favor travel 19th September 2007
Britons online are most likely to be searching for travel deals, social networks or reference information through sites like Wikipedia and Yahoo! Answers, says Nielsen//NetRatings.

Hotel Marketing: The role of search engines in a Travel 2.0 world 17th September 2007
Will online travel consumers abandon Google as a travel planning and research tool and shift their attention to Web 2.0 sites such as TripAdvisor.com and social networks like YouTube.com?

Travolution: Consumers of all ages seeking advice and tips from review websites 20th September 2007
The power of independent travel review websites is finally being realised as consumers increasingly turn to them for advice and tips about products and services.

I have tried to work out whether the generic Search Engine is more effective than a Travel 2.0 service. The actual effectiveness is quite hard to measure as most travel companies keep conversion ratios and cost per acquisition under wraps, however there is a way using Hitwise to work out the where the main traffic each of the top travel websites comes from.

The view that I gained from Hitwise was that on average across the Top 50 Travel Sellers in the UK the source of website traffic 40% come from Search Engines and 6.9% from Travel 2.0 services. This across the Top 50 Travel Sellers has been relatively consistent over the past 12 months. For all definitions see bottom of page.

Based on the average across the Top 50 Travel Sellers and consistency of the sources of traffic 40% and the growth of the Travel 2.0 services such as Travelsupermarket it would suggest that these services are not at the moment going to overtake the Search Engine.

When I look into the detail of some of the larger Travel Sellers mostly the percentages are exactly the same, but in a few it is very different and those Travel Sellers must be adopting an alternative approach.

The first being Expedia which on their Hitwise Clickstream is seeing a steady decline in Search Engine traffic and an increase in Travel 2.0, so for the month of August 2007 the percentages were 31% Search Engines and 10% Travel 2.0.

The second is Opodo.co.uk which has over the past 12 months had a decline and increase in the Search Engine to end up back at 25% and a huge increase in Travel 2.0 from 16% to 14%.

The sources between Expedia and Opodo’s Travel 2.0 traffic are different, Expedia relying on Trip Advisor and Opodo on Cheapflights and Travelsupermarket. Interestingly Expedia own Trip Advisor.

It could be said that it was a real clever move that Expedia Inc. bought Trip Advisor I guess as security for future distribution and probably more cost effective distribution. Opodo on the other hand are probably trying to buy market share which will cost them or that they know something that all the other Top 50 Travel Sellers don't know about.

Which Travel Seller will buy which Travel 2.0 next!

=============================================================
Definitions:

The Top 50 Travel Sellers are defined by Hitwise traffic rankings and include Travel Agents, Online Travel Agents, Tour Operators and Flight Consolidators.

To define a Search Engine, I am going on the base of a generic sector independent search such as Google, Yahoo, Windows Live, AOL, Dogpile, Orange and Ask. There are 40 Search Engines used to gain the % figures above.

To define a Travel 2.0 service, I am categorising travel specific media, travel social, aggregator services and meta search services. Examples include Trip Advisor, Teletext, Cheapflights, Travelsupermarket, Kelkoo Travel, Yahoo Travel, Travel Mail and Holiday Watchdog. There are 26 Travel 2.0 services in total.

Both the Search Engine and Travel 2.0 categorises used cover the most of the traffic which a top 50 Travel Seller is getting.

What type of Travel Company Creates Holidays / Vacations?

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Whiting) — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 13:04:00 +0000

Tour Operators - Yes
Low Cost Carriers (LCC) - Yes
Scheduled Airlines - Yes
Travel Agents - Yes
Online Travel Agents - Yes
Flight Consolidators - Yes
Bed Banks - Yes

This hasn’t always been the case…. 10 years ago it would have been only Tour Operators.

We can confirm that the LCC are now firmly in the game of selling holidays with EasyJet recently launching their online dynamic packaging system and Jet2 launching Jet2Holidays with a joint venture with Steve Endicott. Other Examples: XL.com

British Airways as a Scheduled Airline has been providing holidays for quite some time as a separate brand BA Holidays, however it seems now that most airlines offer the ability to sell holidays. Other Examples: Qantas, Air NZ, American Airlines, Emirates Airlines

We can confirm that there are many Travel Agents with and ATOL licence and are putting together their own holidays. Examples: Thomas Cook, Hays Travel, Direct Line Holidays, Global Travel, TravelRepublic

We can confirm that Online Travel Agents are providing holidays with Expedia, Travelocity and eBookers all providing the facility to build your own holiday online and also all hold an ATOL licence. Other Examples: Lastminute.com, Orbitz, Opodo

We can confirm traditional Flight Consolidators such as Airline Network, aka Gold Medal sell holidays and hold an ATOL licence. Other Examples: Dialaflight, Trailfinders, Travelmood

We can confirm that most Bed Banks have been acquired by travel businesses that sell holidays or have been already part of a business that sells holidays. Examples: Med Hotels/Lastminute.com, Somewhere2Stay/Cosmos, LateRooms/FirstChoice,

Does this mean now that we could categorise Tour Operators, Airlines, Travel Agents, Online Travel Agents, Flight Consolidators, Bed Banks into one thing a Travel Seller?

This is a true confirmation of the travel industry change. This is taken from a UK slant but I know is not far off a global picture, especially where air travel is a component of the holiday.

There are underneath differences between each Travel Seller, as some companies own the airlines, some have their own hotels or commitment and some purely virtual based on no commitment and commercial deals.

The one thing that you can be sure of though is that the consumer won’t know this, so when they are looking to go on holiday / vacation it may be confusing, but "boy, do they have a choice!"

Travel Technology Systems - Are they really all the same?

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Whiting) — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 15:28:00 +0000

As you can imagine being the eCommerce Director of Comtec (a leading travel technology company) that we keep an eye on the competition, and that is exactly what I do. But what is interesting if you look at the product of the key top travel technology providers, you will see that they on a quick glance they say they do the same thing.

All say they integrate into multiple external suppliers, hold inventory, multi-channel etc…. and have good diagrams on their websites to highlight this.

I know though that underneath the covers they don’t, all are slightly different with functionality moulded over the years by their customers.

There is one common trait through them all though, and that is that the architecture structure of every system looks the same (well similar).

The common parts of the architecture consist of the following 3 layers…..

Selling System Layer

Business Rules Layer

Aggregation Layer

All call their layers something different, but they all do the same thing as described above, so don’t get too confused when looking at the various products diagrams and say they haven’t got an “Business Rules Layer”

It is encouraging in some way that all the major providers are doing something similar and I would say technically logical.

Some examples….

Datalex OpenJawComtecAnite

The key thing though as I mentioned above, is that under the bonnet, deep in the engine functionality they definitely don’t all do the same thing, and so when looking for a technology product/partner you need to make sure you do lift the bonnet and do a full MOT.

Second Look @ Second Life

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Whiting) — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 02:10:00 +0000

Recently I noticed that the number of people subscribed to Second Life had grown enormously in the last 5 months and I thought it was time that I had another look.

As it happends, it is not all that it seems....and thus why I thought that it would be good to write this up for anyone that is looking to use Second Life as an eCommerce distribution channel for the Travel industry.

Published Figures:

Our Travel.co.uk Second Life presence does not at the moment drive traffic to the main website Travel.co.uk and the major brands that have have invested in Second Life such as STA Travel, IBM, Microsoft, Playboy, The Weather Channel, Nisson are only clocking up 10,000 weekly visits between them all - see Tateru's Mixed Reality Headcount for more details.

This is supported in articles that I have read in .Net (Sep Issue) titled "Lonely Planet" and Wired (Aug Issue) "Second Life - don't believe the hype".

Frank Rose from Wired based on published figures in June said, "According to Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life, the numbers of avatars created by distinct individuals was closer to 4million. Of those 1 million had logged on in the last 30 days, and barely a third of that total had bothered to drop by in the previous week."

If I have got my figures right, in July 2007 there was 12.5m Linden$ = 46K US$ traded/spent in Second Life. (Linden $ is the local currency in Second Life and the exchange rate is 266L$ to 1 US$). Since 2006 there have been $7m US dollars worth of transactions. These numbers are not huge, compared with the millions that are spent online every day online.

IBM still seems upbeat with a press release on the 23rd August 2007 stating that they are going to invest more; "IBM sales representatives in Singapore, Malaysia and Australia will from Thursday staff the company's virtual Business Center in Second Life".

There are now other online virtual worlds emerging such as Entropia Universe which I have tried, however still much in its infancy, with the download size and clunky software probably will stay in it's infancy.

Second Life accounced at the beginning of the year that is going to make it's technology open source with continued commitment to building the Second Life Grid as an open, extensible platform for development, rather than a closed proprietary system. This I guess is trying to follow the Facebook trend of allowing developers to create many applications that can be used with Facebook and thus embedding itself into ever user.

All in all, I think that Second Life is a very interesting medium, it has some really interactive 3D meeting/communication methods which I'm sure will used/copied by some of the 2D social market applications such as Facebook, MySpace or LinkedIn. I think that time will tell, but I have a feeling that probably Second Life will in time become Second Best.

Where are your Customers Online….?

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Whiting) — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 15:28:00 +0000

You may wonder where all your potential customers are online and how to attract them to your travel website. Well on Alexa you can see the top 500 websites in the world based on traffic.

World Top 20 WebSites

1. Yahoo!
2. Microsoft Network (MSN)
3. Google
4. YouTube
5. Windows Live
6. Myspace
7. Baidu.com
8. Orkut
9. Wikipedia
10. Facebook
11. Hi5
12. http://www.qq.com
13. Rapidshare.com
14. Blogger.com
15. Megaupload
16. Friendster
17. www.sina.com.cn
18. Microsoft Corporation
19. Fotolog.com
20. EBay

There were quite a few websites that I haven't really heard of and I bet you haven't either, albeit that this is a list of the worlds top websites, when you then have a look at the UK's top websites it is interesting also however most I know. The Internet Movie Database, AutoTrader and Gumtree are the suprising ones to be in the top20.

UK Top 20 Websites

1. Google UK
2. Yahoo!
3. Facebook
4. Google
5. Microsoft Network (MSN)
6. EBay UK
7. BBC Newsline Ticker
8. Myspace
9. YouTube
10. Windows Live
11. Bebo.com
12. Wikipedia
13. Amazon.co.uk
14. Blogger.com
15. The Internet Movie Database
16. Microsoft Corporation
17. Flickr
18. AutoTrader
19. Gumtree
20. Orange

Most of these websites sell advertising space but how many today do you deal with?

One further note on all of these, is that despite "travel" being a popular activiy on the internet, there is not one travel specific website in either the World or UK top 20. You can see however a list of the top travel websites on Alexa.

Alexia, I must admit is an excellent FREE service allowing you to see traffic information on most of the top websites in the world. Here you can find the fast growth and get a feel for where you could/should be looking to promote your website online.

The Blended Travel Search

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Whiting) — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:27:00 +0000

As dynamic packaging is getting more established and the technology round it maturing it is interesting to see how it is being sold along side the traditional package.

So that we are all on the same page, let me outline the difference between a Dynamic Package and a Package Holiday.

Dynamic Package combines and prices the components (flight + hotel) from various sources real time or near real time.

Package Holidays are created and priced in advance and sold as a single component. Typically based on accommodation and flight committed allocations.

There are many travel companies selling both package holidays and dynamic packages online. This is correct for online travel agents, traditional tour operators selling direct and traditional travel agents. Most are selling both so that they offer the customer choice, however there are probably differing underlying motives in every case.

To gain a view about what is happening I have taken the top 10 travel websites (as defined by Hitwise UK agencies category, and marked whether they have a blended search, Dynamic Packages and Package Holidays.

My definition of a Blended search is where there is one search form for Holidays and the results displayed include both Dynamic Packages and Package Holidays. There are some cases where the website has offered both a single holiday search and separate Dynamic Packages and Package Holidays searches.

Summary of what the top travel websites doing in the UK around blended search:

Expedia.co.uk:	NoBlend	DP	PH
Thomson Holidays:	Blend	DP	PH
Lastminute.com:	NoBlend	DP	PH
First Choice:	NoBlend		PH
MyTravel:	NoBlend		PH
Thomas Cook Holidays:	Blend	DP	PH
Travel Republic:	NoBlend	DP
ebookers UK:	NoBlend	DP
Opodo UK:	NoBlend	DP	PH
On The Beach:	NoBlend	DP

Blended Search = Blend
Dynamic Packages = DP
Package Holidays = PH

As you can see out of these top 10, only 2 websites feature a Blended Search, 8 sell Dynamic Packages and 7 sell Package Holidays.

One of the most interesting points from this, is that 8 out of the top 10 websites all have Dynamic Packaging. The 2 that don’t have Dynamic Packaging, MyTravel and First Choice businesses have recently merged with Thomas Cook and Thomson respectively and so probably wont be long before we see it.

Do Users Care?
The main thing about a Blended Search is that I believe customers don’t care whether it is a Dynamic Package or a Package Holiday, they are more interested in the price and what they get for their money e.g. hotel facilities and location.

Why Blend?
One of the reasons for blending is that users don’t care, however it also makes the website simpler and the customer is able to compare similar products side by side so that they can convince themselves that they are making the right choice. Without blending the customer will have to dart around the website to try and compare all travel options next to each other.

Blending Tours and Other Travel Types
I have described blending Dynamic Packages and Package Holidays; however there is other product that warrants blending. Examples are Tours, Tailor Made Holidays and Fly Drives….there will be more.

Pricing and Protection
The one thing that is noticed is that when blending it is important that the user knows what each holiday consists of so that they know they are comparing like for like when they see a price. Examples of such things are transfers, in flight meals and taxes, which all can add significant additional costs to the holiday. The customer should also know whether they are protected or not with all the product, however with most of the top travel companies it would appear that most are bonding the Dynamic Packages as they would a Package Holiday.

Technology
There are now quite a few technology providers saying they can do this e.g. Traveltek and Comtec, however the devil is in the detail with each one and the product that it is being blended. Comtec powers the Thomas Cook blended search and Thomson Holidays I believe has been developed in-house. One issue that I know Comtec has overcome is the speed difference between a dynamic package search and a package holiday search. The Dynamic Package search tends to be the slowest if it relies on external sources of product such as bedbanks – it is as quick as the slowest bedbank connection. Caching Dynamic Packages like Package Holidays is the solution to ensure fast results.

Will the Blended search become the norm?
This is only applicable to those that sell more than one travel type, however I would say the answer is yes. It is too important for the customer to see all options in one screen for the destination that they are looking at, albeit getting to the destination by plane, rail, car or ferry.

Yahoo Pipes – 2.0 Plumbing!

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Whiting) — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 07:56:00 +0000

• Tool for combining multiple web 2.0 information/feeds
• Simple to use
• Sharing information with others
• Copyright Issues with publishing other RSS feeds?
• Distribution for Travel?
• Too much information to digest?
• One I created earlier which combines several travel eCommerce related blogs into one feed. Travel eCommerce

• Only if plugging in multiple suppliers was as simple as this for search, quote and book!
• http://pipes.yahoo.com