22 July 2008 ~ Comments

Forecast for November – A Perfect Storm

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The theme for this PhoCusWright 2008 is “The Perfect Storm: Search, Shop, Buy.”  The potential for discussion around this theme is intriguing because I think there is a lot of opportunity to show how online travel is blurring the entire process and how some opportunities are clearly being lost because of a lack of consolidation between these distinct travel purchase steps.

In my opinion there are actually four distinct steps in the travel planning process:

  • Dream – This is a visionary step where the traveler dreams about where they might want to go based on their unique travel style and lifestyle preferences.  The dream stage doesn’t necessarily identify specific destinations but rather builds a concept of an ideal holiday in the mind of the traveler.  This dream vacation or holiday becomes the basis for the next step of the travel purchase lifecycle, which is “The Plan”.
  • Plan – The planning step takes the criteria derived from the dream step and puts some specific physical constraints on them.  These physical contraints generally don’t include budget but do include best times of year to go, seasonal considerations, access to specific attractions and events or activities.  This step usually involves a considerable amount of research and may include travel guides (both online and offline), blogs, review sites, dmo sites, Wikitravel, World66, and other third party resources.  The traveler will generally be planning an itinerary at this step including things they would like to do or see on their holiday, how long they would like to go, and where they want to go based on their dream.
  • Shop/Buy – The shopping step is the first dose of reality in the lifecycle and is also where the bulk of travel abandonment happens.  I don’t have specific research to back up this claim, but I can extrapolate, based on anecdotal research that this is the case.  The shopping step aligns the true costs of the holiday against the planned expectations.  This is also where, if the traveler is willing, the most amount of compromise will happen.  For example, the traveler wants to go to Australia to rock climb Ayers Rock but discovers that airfare is going to cost 10 times more than if they travel to Smith Rock in Oregan which has superb rock climbing.  The question then becomes, is it the rock climbing or Australia that is the primary driver of this dream holiday.  The subsequent decision to purchase airfare to Oregon or to Australia will be based on the traveler’s own prioirties.
  • Reminice – The Reminice step is post travel and involves the sharing of the traveler’s experience with others.  This reminice step is becoming more and more important in the travel lifecycle because studies have shown that travelers rely on first person reviews and experience when during the planning and shopping steps.  More and more sites on the web, primarily travel communities are dedicated to facilitating the reminice step and are now starting to include some planning and shopping aspects to their communities in order to monetize this important and increasingly relevant step in the travel purchase lifecycle.

One key issue I have identified over the last couple of years is the disconnect between the steps.  Many new technologies have come down the pipe that help with either one or two of the steps, but for the most part, all three steps are not addressed in one application.  Over the next few posts I will take a look at some sites that addressing the steps in their own way.

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Booking Engines Long Tail of Travel Social Media Travel 2.0 Trends
  • Very well put Stephen. I couldn't agree more. Back in '99 when we built the original MySwitzerland.com site we based it on the concept of what we then called Dream - Learn - Plan - Go which is very similar to your description. As this was way before social media and social networking the last point of reminisce was not included. Today, we certainly would do so as it is indeed a very important link in the chain and the one that connects, if you will, the end with the beginning, or the past trip with future ones.

    The disconnect between the various elements is definitely one that is responsible for what is often described today by online travelers a disappointing, frustrating and too much time consuming process. My own take on this is that if dreaming and preparing ones next vacation wasn't such a basically fun thing to do, a fair number of people - especially time starved ones, and who is not time starved! - would abandon the web to do the task, especially when it comes to a major multi-destination long distance trip, and go back to have a travel agent do it for them.

    The industry is challenged to offer up a much improved overall, smart one-stop experience along the entire chain to move online travel to the next level. It will be interesting to see who rises to the challenge and what tech tools will be developed to make it a reality.
  • Thanks Joe. I remember the conversation we had about MySwitzerland.com at the Canada-e-connect conference in Vancouver last year. It will be interesting to see whether traditional agents recognize the value add opportunity they have to engage potential customers by helping with the full process, perhaps even using online tools. With the baby boomers wanting full service, we may begin to see a shift towards online tools as a way for traditional agents to service their clients more effeciently.
  • The traditional travel agents still in business today are very much using online tools to assist their clients. Companies like Performance Media Group have built their entire business model around serving independent, often home based agents with both print publications and a diverse web presence including ModernAgent.com

    The original idea of the first wave of OTAs, of course, was to provide travelers with a tool allowing them to book their own trip and eliminate the need for relying on a travel agent this has made Travelocity, Expedia, Orbitz huge companies but still mainly focused on selling air and hotel and a pretty much pre-packaged vacation product.

    What the perfect storm describes is what we tried to provide with EuroVacations.com in 2000, a website that starts at the Dream stage and provides an integrated tool all the way to the Go - or booking phase while at the same time allowing the traveler to self-design and assemble their own trip with multiple components.

    Unfortunately the online travel audience wasn't ready for this kind of website, except for the few who didn't leave immediately from the home page because it didn't ask for a departure city / date and destination, which is still the basic approach, one that no longer satisfies consumer demand.

    Now, eight years later the pundits are starting to catch up. It's about time they do!
  • Hi Stephen,

    Thanks for sharing The Four Stages of Travel Planning.

    I like to think in terms of where the various stages taking place, and how I can engage travel dreamers in the places where they are.

    If I think of the online content that would engage a traveler in stage 1 and 4, I imagine photo galleries, blog posts and videos.

    When I think of stage 2, I imagine someone comparing four or five sites that offer a similar travel experience, with slightly different options...

    And it would seem to me that stage 3 takes place at the kitchen table over the morning coffee.

    I've recently found that you can vastly improve your effectiveness in Stage 1 and Stage 4 by establishing an active presence on the biggest photo and video sharing sites like Flickr and YouTube.

    In addition, you can greatly improve your conversions in Stage 2 by gaining social recognition on Travel Review sites like TripAdvisor, Mapness and TravelPost.

    Cheers, and all the best in YOUR tourism marketing!

    Doug
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