Travel Agents Finding Relevance Amidst Web 2.0

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 “With help from the Web, travel agents regain relevance” points out that there are new web 2.0 sites that are being developed that are helping travelers connect with specialized travel agents.  The reason being that many travelers (23% according to Forrester Research)... Read more »

Small Travel Agencies have advantage in Social Media

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 one service.  Large agencies, especially OTAs, are generally more focused on volume and, although many have excellent customer service, their smaller margins and focus on the bottom line mean that personal interaction in social media needs to have a clear and measurable... Read more »

The Value of Travel Agents - Unique Products & Value Add Services

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 agents concerned with profit margins said they already had or were planning to expand their product offerings in order to mitigate those concerns. Many were including medical, green, cultural and events tourism packages... Read more »

The Value of Travel Agents - Customer Service

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 to say that we, as an industry, should be focusing our efforts on using technologies to improve customer service. I emphatically agree with this point of view and yet I ask the question, why bother? Can technology really be used as a good substitute... 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 »

FlightCentre buys Liberty Travel and Adds 193 more stores

I realize this isn’t really technology related, but this news item came to me directly from Sean Sutherland, VP of E-Commerce at FlightCentre. By purchasing Liberty Travel, FlightCentre has just made the U.S. it’s largest market outside of Australia. This brings a tremendous amount of brand recognition for FlightCentre in the U.S. and also increases the profile of the flightcentre.com website in North America. Looking forward we see the baby boomers, who are also predominantly non-web users, retiring and becoming more mobile. This generation of wealthy people will be looking for... Read more »

Shocking comments from Airline Exec. about Travel Agents

In a recent article about Easyjet’s agreements with Amadeus and Galileo, Ryanair’s communication head, Peter Sharrard referred to travel agents as “parasites” and “rip-off middlemen”. As a direct to consumer supplier, I can understand why Sharrard would consider agents as an expensive intermediary but to alienate them by referring to them in a derogatory fashion doesn’t make any sense at all. There was a time in the early nineties when Canadian air carriers did the same direct to consumer sales tactics by cutting out the agents. What they found was that... 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 »

Only One in Four Top Canadian Travel Sites Support Carbon Offsetting

Today is blog action day, a day when thousands of blogs from around the world, including this one, are posting articles about environmental sustainability. I first discovered this on Kevin May’s Travolution blog. On his post he compared the top five U.K. travel sites and reviewed their environmental policies. Of the top five, only one Easyjet has incorporated carbon offsetting directly into the checkout process. Of the remaining four, only one, Lastminute.com allows customers to offset carbon using a seperate carbon calculator.So, in keeping with Kevin’s analysis, I went online... Read more »

Top 10 Search Engine Marketing Strategies for Travel Marketers

By Scott MacGregor Director of Marketing and Client Services Search Intelligence Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is now a serious marketing consideration for travel marketers with three-fifths of all online travel shoppers reporting that they rely on search engines as their research and planning resource (source: PhoCusWright). Clearly, search engine visibility can be a major determinant for online success. There is a great deal of good information written on the subject of search marketing, however little focuses on some of the more unique characteristics of travel and even less specifically for... Read more »

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