Keeping Travel Agents Relevant

You probably remember the song, “Video Killed the Radio Star”. Well, travel 2.0 is trying to kill the travel agent. Review all the new travel websites whether they are social networking sites, hotel review sites, fare comparison sites, dynamic packaging sites, or large OTA sites, all of them have one primary thing in common; they promote self-service travel which effectively renders the travel agent useless. So what can travel agents and smaller travel agencies do to increase their value to the consuming public? One answer is to for agents to find their niche and share their knowledge.... Read more »

Web Reservations International and Boo.com

In a previous post I mentioned a survey by Boo.com which prompted me to do a little more of my ow research into Boo.com and it’s parent company Web Reservations International. From what I can find through the WebResInt.com website, the company provides reservation services for 50,000 + accommodations providers around the world. Their business model is very interesting because they’re primary goal is to provide a non-gds distribution network for providers of all sizes including the small and independent providers. Needless to say, I am all for this type of network because it serves... Read more »

TripAdvisor launches social networking

I originally posted this item on my personal blog but I think it is more appropriate on this one since it is more travel technology oriented. A recent survey by boo.com found that over 70% of travelers who use the Internet for research depend on peer to peer reviews and recommendations. It is not surprising then that TripAdvisor is following suit and adding a social networking to their site. I would like to have seen them integrate more closely with Facebook or LinkedIn in order to leverage existing technology instead of adding yet another social networking site to the mix, but I understand... Read more »

Travel Agents can increase trust by sharing

In a recent article on Travelmole.com, a survey of online travel buyers stated: “Ninety per cent of consumers questioned for online travel site boo.com said their pre-holiday research online was accurate and only 13% of people surveyed trusted travel agents and brochures above online reviews.” Source: http://www.travelmole.com/stories/1119102.php?mpnlog=1 With this waning level of trust in travel agents, how can agents (both online and offline) increase the level of trust that buyers have in them and subsequently increase the likelihood that a customer will purchase from them? One... Read more »

Two Years Later, Are Web Booking Engines Delivering ROI

The online travel space in Canada is very different then the U.S. In Canada, for example, vacation packages are readily available for distribution through travel agencies thanks to companies like Softvoyage and Accovia. These packages are supplied by large tour operators like Sunquest, Air Canada Vacations, Contiki, and others who use the Softvoyage or Accovia back office systems to manage their inventory. In the U.S. packages are generally dynamically created during the online booking process by combining scheduled fares and hotels using engines like Expedia’s or Travelocity’s... Read more »

More on AdCenter and Long Tail Advertising

Further to my comments about Adcenter, relying on MSN and Live profile information for the purposes of targeting advertising seems unreliable to me. Perhaps Microsoft is hoping that the majority of users who sign up for online systems like MSN, Hotmail, and Live will enter their true profile information when signing up. If the majority of users knew that their profile information was being used to target advertising to them more effectively I doubt that the average user would be inclined to enter true profile information. Besides email service, which you can get through Gmail or a number of... Read more »

Marketing Travel and the effect of the Long Tail

With the release of Microsoft’s Digital Advertising Solution and their less than subtle focus on online travel, the question is… how will the long tail of travel affect how travel products are sold online and will traditional pay per click work? Conversation with consumers ad from Microsoft Travel Case study for Microsoft AdCenter It appears that this new advertising network is based on information in millions of MSN and Windows Live profiles and so the effectiveness of the advertising is limited only to Live Search. Given that Microsoft is still only 10% of the search engine market... Read more »

The Updated T-List

Thanks to Happy Hotelier for updating me on the latest T-List. Here it is again. T-List » A Luxury Travel Blog » aaron dalrymple » Adirondack Base Camp » ADV Italia » Air France Mexico - Weblog » Albert Barra » Apple Core Hotels » Aviación Digital » Bitácora de viajes » Blog de gestión turística » Blog de Viajes » Blog on Travel » BlogsdeTurismo.com » BootBlog » Brief Blog » BuhlerWorks by Joe Buhler » CampingCoop.org » de viaje a Brasil » Desde el Río Paraná a Tierra del Fuego » Despegar » Diario del Viajero » DondeViajar.es » Dot tourism » Dutto Relaciones Públicas »... Read more »

The Problem with Closed Travel Technologies

Here is an excerpt from a Wikipedia entry about Sabre Holdings which clearly illustrates the inherent problems with a closed distribution system such as the GDSs. The original is available on Wikipedia. In 1981 a study[1] by American Airlines found that travel agents selected the flight appearing on the first line more than half the time. 92 percent of the time, the selected flight was on the first screen. This provided a huge incentive for American to manipulate their ranking formula, or even corrupt the search algorithm outright, to favor American flights. American eventually did just that... Read more »

The Triumverate of Travel

As a research exercise for our sales and business development team, I asked the questions: 1. What are the currently available GDS companies? 2. Where did they come from? 3. What websites do they own? The resulting answers, for many us who are familiar to the travel industry, are not altogether surprising. To a general consumer or to someone who is new to the sector, however, the results of the research are probably quite startling. Here is what we discovered. There are five GDS companies, they are: Worldspan - Formed in 1990 by Delta Airlines, NWA, and TWA. Now owned by Cendant (Travelport). Sabre... Read more »

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