Travel & Tourism Technology Trends

In 1999 I had an opportunity to work with a variety of best of breed e-commerce products for a large retailer in the U.S. midwest.  One of the products I worked with was NetPerceptions.  The software was developed out of a research program at the University of Minnesota in 1992 and is based on the concept of “collaborative filtering”.  Essentially the software analyzes patterns in purchase history and then makes recommendations based on what other people buy.  This software is the basis of Amazon.com’s Read more [...]

Continue Reading

In the retail supply chain you have manufacturers who make products, distributors/wholesalers who ship and distribute the products, and retailers who sell the products to end consumers.  At each level there is a mark-up that affects the overall retail price of the product starting with a known cost price.  The retailer, for example, will generally price their products about 40-60% above their cost.  Each link in the chain orders product from the link before and stocks the physical inventory in Read more [...]

Continue Reading

Packaged goods in traditional retail have a very different meaning to packaged goods in the travel space.  In retail, a packaged product is a product that is sold in a “package”, ie. a box or a blister pack (literally packaged).  In travel, a packaged product is one that is a combination of two separate products packaged together, for example a hotel room and a concert ticket.  Then there is dynamic packaging, the concept of being able to pick and purchase multiple products together in one transaction.  Read more [...]

Continue Reading

Joe Buhler sent me a link to a New York Times article titled “Worst Part of a Trip May be Booking It”.  The article describes how frustrating the on-line booking experience can be for many consumers and how far behind the travel industry seems to be in comparison to other e-commerce sectors.  We continued the conversation along with William Bakker from Tourism BC about what needs to be done to improve the on-line booking experience. Having developed e-commerce systems for both tourism and for Read more [...]

Continue Reading

Before you can run, you must first learn to walk.  You’ve all heard this many times in your lifetime.  Although the saying is overused, it is used because it is true.  Although the saying can be applied to travel product distribution,  in many cases the players are not even crawling yet.  The challenge with any travel product distribution is that it is, unlike tangible goods, an information exchange rather than a physical product exchange.  It is also a global market involving multiple currencies, Read more [...]

Continue Reading

Google released their latest labs project called “City Tours” last week.  I was quick to jump on the bandwagon and take a look, but I resisted from posting right away because I wanted to think a little more deeply about the implications of the application.  Let’s not forget that Google is a powerhouse and, if they wanted to, develop and release ANY travel application they want in any vertical.  With a single mouse click they could probably brush Kayak, Fly.com, Bing.com, or anyone else off the Read more [...]

Continue Reading

One of my favorite things about speaking at conferences and seminars around the World is what I learn while I’m there.  I often find that I learn just as much being at these confernences as the attendees learn from me.  One such experience was at the Creative Lapland Seminar in Rovaniemi, Finland.  The theme of the seminar this year was “The Best Show Cases in the Experience Economy Focused on Tourism”.  My contribution was to talk about the philosophies behind the creation of Rezgo.com and to Read more [...]

Continue Reading

I was recently informed that Rezgo.com has been included in the latest version of the Australian Tourism Data Warehouse Tourism E-Kit.  This is exciting news because I really like the concept of the Tourism E-Kit and the way that it is put together.  I would gather that most tourism businesses outside of Australia have never heard of the Tourism E-Kit, but it is a resource that applies to tourism businesses in all corners of the World. The Tourism E-Kit covers a variety of subjects from the basics Read more [...]

Continue Reading

One of the most powerful aspects about tourism is that it is an industry that everyone in a destination can participate in.  Whether they know it or not, everyone from the local bus driver to the hot dog vendor on the corner is contributing or benefiting from the tourism industry.  In a mature market like Vancouver, most businesses recognize that they are part of the tourism equation and most have found a way to participate.  The local tourism board, Tourism Vancouver, has a very strong marketing Read more [...]

Continue Reading

Earlier in the week I asked the following question on Twitter: Question: Who owns customer data? Supplier, Agency, Customer. I would like your thoughts on this? The discussion first came up at the Enter 2009 Conference in Amsterdam where I argued that we, as an industry, need to spend less time hording customer data and more effort in developing a mechanism for sharing customer information in a more efficient way and for the benefit of the customer.  The question on Twitter resulted in quite a bit Read more [...]

Continue Reading