One of the major benefits that small tourism companies have over larger competitors is that they tend to me more nimble and quick to respond to opportunities with technology. The other clear benefit is that the owner/operator or someone very close to the company can add a human face and element to the organizations social [...]
This is not really a technology post, but since I have received over a dozen comments from disgruntled individuals complaining about either Travelocity or TripAdvisor, I thought it was appropriate to write this article. At the PhoCusWright 2007 Conference in Orlando, I had the opportunity to listen to some pretty high profile speakers and CEOs [...]
Last week I was interviewed by Elaine Yong from Global TV about finding travel bargains on-line. Although the interview lasted almost an hour, the final clip was about two and half minutes. Of course, only a couple of my tips actually made it on air, so I thought I would pass on all the tips [...]
In a recent post titled “Travel Agents Finding Relevance Amidst Web 2.0” I mentioned a site called Zicasso.com. In the post I misspelled the domain and within a day I received a message from the CEO Brian Tan informing me of the error. I corrected the mistake and thanked him for his attention to detail. [...]
I read an article today on Boston.com which I found really interesting. Firstly, it confirmed something that I have been arguing for a long time, that travel agents can find relevance in the new age of on-line travel and secondly, despite what critics say, travel agents are not going to go away. The article titled [...]
It’s not very often that small travel agencies have any kind of advantage over their much larger and better funded counterparts, but when it comes to Social Media they have a distinct advantage. Small agencies whether they have one employee or many tend to be better prepared to handle personal requests and offer one on [...]
I realize I’m a day behind most of my blogging colleagues on commenting on the “Google eyeing Expedia” rumour that resulted in a subsequent rise in Expedia’s share price. For the most part I’m not a big fan of rumours, but it did get me thinking about what such a beast would look like. In [...]
An interesting article was posted by Travelmole.com today that strongly support my view that travel agents need to differentiate themselves by focusing on a niche and providing value added services. The article titled “Travel agents seek supplier support” states that: “A staggering 94% of agents who were concerned with supplier relationships and 79% of travel [...]
I recently posted the summary of the presentation by Steve Barnhart, CEO of Orbitz. One the key points presented by Mr. Barnhart is that technologies are very good at aggregating and distributing travel product and controlling costs while increasing profitability, but they are not very good at improving the customer experience. He then went on [...]
Paypal and billmelater technologies are being accepted by airlines now. Internet has been focused on low fares. Mandate is to focus on revenue and provide access to low fare information as it pertains to specific traveler requirements, for example the lowest direct fare, or the lowest first class fare, etc. Meta search and vertical search [...]
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