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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
I finally found a site that mentions both travel and web 2.0 in the same article: “In the world of travel, disparate data from direct sources, travel agents and intermediaries made it nearly impossible to find the best price or options for an itinerary. Sites like Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz transformed that forever (and sites [...]
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