Engaging SME Suppliers May Not Be About Technology

I had an interesting discussion with the President of the Finnish Chapter of IFITT and a PHD student from the Basque region of Spain about engaging small travel suppliers, primarily tour and activity providers, in the use of new technologies to help manage and distribute products. I was saddened but still encouraged to hear that both were facing the same challenges in their respective countries that I have been facing here in Canada and more specifically in B.C.. In my ongoing efforts to promote Rezgo.com as a tour operator software solution to small tour and activity operators, I have encountered... Read more »

The Role of the DMO - A Lesson From VisitScotland.com

There has been a lot of discussion about the role of DMOs and how DMOs should be implementing technologies for the benefit of stakeholders. In the struggle to maintain viability and revenues, some DMOs have turned to a sales model. How does this model affect the DMO’s primary mandate to market the destination? We need look no further than VisitScotland.com to see an example of a DMO whose priority has shifted from marketing the destination to generating revenues from commissions. There are many, especially stakeholders, who are not happy with the direction that VisitScotland.com has... Read more »

Long Tail Suppliers are starting to have impact on Online Travel

PWC recently stated that suppliers are gaining ground over aggregators in the online travel marketplace. I had discussed this in context to another recent survey that said the same thing, however, what I liked about this article from Travelmole.com was the following quote: “Already there are companies offering a wider range of services unrelated to travel - theatre tickets, restaurant bookings and theme park entry for example. This can result in increased customer loyalty and higher revenues per booking for the online operator.” This quote represents a significant shift in how aggregators... Read more »

Michelle Peluso - CEO of Travelocity - Evolving the user interface

Michelle Peluso, CEO of Travelocity focused her talk on improving the user interface for consumers of travel products. The presentation was the first of an excellent series of presentations by top brand executives. Here is a summary of her presentation and my commentary from the PhoCusWright Conference 2007 in Orlando. Ms. Peluso’s opening comment was that the collective travel user interface needs be bigger and bolder, but that I believe she was referring to the need to provide more overall experience for the end consumer, rather than simply providing an interface to purchase travel products.... Read more »

MLM Travel Business vs. Affilliate Sites

Alex Bainbrigde over at Travel UCD wrote about a company called Your Travel Business (YTB.com). I had heard about this MLM travel business a few years ago when it first started and I paid it very little heed. I am quite surprised that it has managed to last this long. To my surprise it is now publicly traded and boasts over $226 Million in sales in 2006. I have to admit however, that my perspective is ofcourse that of a technologist and not that of a laymen, so my review is strictly from a technologist’s point of view. I reviewed the online booking system and I was quite surprised at... 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 »

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 »

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 »

Overcoming the Three Big Tour Operator Challenges

For a long time now, prospective travelers have had the ability to search, find and make their basic flight and hotel reservations on-line. Only recently has it been possible for these same travelers to book their destination products, such as sightseeing tours and attraction tickets on line as well. Despite this trend, however, there is still no primary distribution system; which means that most travelers have to visit many different individual websites in order to purchase their destination products. For a tour operator, one of the most important goals is to sell seats. The challenge is how... Read more »

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