'We're here to stay', insists Travelocity boss

Travelocity managing director Ned Booth has insisted the brand will continue to play a pivotal role in the lastminute group despite a reduction in its marketing budget and intense speculation surrounding its future.
Booth told Travolution the online agency will receive a war chest of "several million pounds" and will relaunch in the new year with functionality and product enhancements.
But he admitted the investment had been scaled back on previous years.
Defending the move, Booth claimed the recent high-profile Alan Wicker TV advertising campaign has done its job in raising the Travelocity profile.
"Brand awareness has risen from 30% to 80% over the past 18 months which clearly is a marked improvement," said Booth. "We will of course continue to invest in the brand but it has been pulled back."
He declined to reveal how much the budget had been cut, adding the 2006 investment would be "under five million but more than one."
"We’ll be in newspapers and on transport but last year was driven by our TV presence and you won’t see that next year," said Booth. "But we will have an opportunity to go back and request additional funds if we experience good results."
Underpinning Travelocity’s development in the new year will be a drive to cross sell to customers using lastminute product, said Booth.
With the majority of Travelocity bookings for flights, Booth said it was time to broaden the product range.
"We now have the technology which allows us to access lastminute’s city breaks and package content," said Booth. "For example, we have fantastic global product but are not very strong in the Med. But lastminute own Medhotels.com so we can access that product. We are also bringing in Eurostar.
"Our goal is to corner the package business and cross sell a range of products to our customers."
Booth denied it would cannibalise lastminute’s business.
"The cross over of customers has been much smaller than we anticipated," he claimed, emphasising lastminute’s lifestyle focus.
Booth added that since a soft launch of the site earlier this month, package sales have doubled. He declined to reveal numbers.

Kuoni delays new web launch

Kuoni has put back the launch of its multi-destination web platform until the new year to enable the operator to test the online product.
Senior e-business manager Matt Rooke said a slight delay in finalising its long haul programmes was responsible. It will now launch its US dynamic packaging technology on January 9 with its Australia product going live a week later.
"We had wanted it to be operational for the start of the peak booking period but the product is still being set up and it hasn’t given us time to test the technology," said Rooke. "The programmes will go on sale offline early next week and online within the first two weeks of January."
The technology will enable customers to book complex, round-the-world itineraries.

First Choice looks online in move to control distribution

A quarter of First Choice’s mainstream summer holidays were booked online in 2005 as the group continued to invest in its web platforms.
The operator said further investment would follow as increasing numbers of customers shop online.
"This is consumer driven. We are not force-feeding anything," chief executive Peter Long said.
Unveiling year-end record profits of £114 million, Long said the number of holidays booked online climbed from 15% in 2004 to 25% this year with further growth expected in 2006. Web business now matches that generated by First Choice’s high street retail network.
The operator said the online arena will help it drive 75% of sales through controlled distribution within three years.
"Since we launched our online site, firstchoice.co.uk, three years ago the percentage of sales which have been distributed through this channel have doubled annually," the company said. "Whilst this rate of growth will clearly slow, we are confident we will achieve our target of 75% through controlled channels by 2008."
The operator said it would invest around £8 million in 2006 to ensure the website is "sufficiently flexible" to meet customer requirements and to handle "ever increasing traffic."
In its specialist holidays division, First Choice said the majority of sites are now fully transactional, although only 10% of holidays in the sector were booked online in 2004 – of which 6% came via the UK.
"That is partly because Internet penetration is not as wide in other parts of Europe as it is in the UK," said Long. He said more resources will be ploughed into marketing online channels.
Meanwhile, the operator’s online accommodation platform, which includes Hotelbeds, Bedsonline and Hotelopia, doubled bednight bookings in 2005/06.
With hotelbeds.com, which allows tour operators to buy stock online, it said a "key imperative" is to deliver xml links to the top 300 tour operator accounts by the end of 2006.
"We are currently a third of the way through this project," the company said.
It described bedsonline, which provides accommodation, car hire and excursions to 5,000 travel agents, as a high-growth business "because it provides travel agents facing a rapidly changing competitive environment with an opportunity to meet the ever more demanding needs of the independent traveller."
Consumer site hotelopia meanwhile has seen "significant growth."
First Choice warned that the division will experience flat margins but increased revenue growth this year as it makes continued investment in marketing the brands.

Igluski in dynamic tie-up with easyjet

Online ski retailer Igluski.com has entered into a strategic partnership with Easyjet in a move designed to tap into the independent ski market.
The deal will see the launch of a new website, easyJet4ski.com, allowing consumers to dynamically package flights on the low cost carrier with accommodation, transfers and other add-on products.
The site will offer 54,000 beds in 250 resorts in France, Italy, Switzerland and Germany.
In a move that the partnership grandly claimed will "revolutionise the ski market", 25% of the accommodation will be available for short breaks and weekends.
Easyjet commercial director Saad Hammad said it will end the strict seven and 14-night formula currently on the market.
"For years Easyjet has been developing the flexible DIY ski holiday market," he explained. "However most hotels have been stuck in the traditional and restrictive Saturday to Saturday, seven night stay. The accommodation providers now recognise the potential of flexible stays and midweek travel and the new website will facilitate this change and help lead this trend."
Iglusi.com managing director Richard Downs described the site as a "major breakthrough" for the independent skier.
"We believe it will lead to a massive increase in the number of people packaging their own ski holiday," he said.
The site will also detail transfer times from the nearest airport.

Cheapflights hits pay-per-click landmark

Cheapflights.co.uk has broken the £1 barrier in its pay per click advertising as the cost of online marketing continues to rise.
Chief executive David Soskin said a call centre from a "traditional industry player" has stumped up £1 per lead for a month. He described the cost as a "landmark."
It will guarantee the unnamed company top listing on cheapflights’ website.
"They are a very effective call centre at cross selling," said Soskin. "It’s hard for agents to make money. To survive it’s important to sell hotels, insurance and car hire in addition to flights."
Cheapflights operates a two-tier pricing system with sponsored premium listings - which ensure a top listing on the page - generally costing between 40p and 60p per click with standard rates charged at 23p.
"We get huge volumes of traffic and have very good conversions rates so companies want to work with us," said Soskin.
He declined to reveal what the conversion success is, adding it was tough getting accurate information from advertisers.
"They are worried that if they tell me their conversions from cheapflights, the price per click would go up," said Soskin.
He added: "Obviously, the holy grail for travel companies is for people to go direct to their websites and not have to pay companies like cheapflights. But this is the real world. It just isn’t going to happen."
Meanwhile, the site has just completed a revamp with standard listings now in departure date order and with a reference number for customers to quote to advertisers. A ‘book-by’ date has also been added.
"Previously it was a bit random and contained industry jargon which may have baffled some consumers," said Soskin. "We want customers to have a good experience on the site."

Opodo continues move away from airline roots

Opodo will embark on a high-profile marketing strategy next year as it strives to shed its image as an air-dominated online agency.
UK country manager Neil Mott admitted shifting its perception as a flight-only specialist remained one of the major challenges facing the company. But he stressed it was making progress.
Mott said the aim was also to raise the brand identity and, critically, to ensure it was in the "consideration mindset" of online shoppers.
The comments followed research from Trip-Vision and PricewaterhouseCoopers which showed public awareness of Opodo is lagging well behind its online rivals.
Whereas Opodo has 25% awareness, lastminute hovers around 70%, Expedia 60% and ebookers 40%.
Mott conceded admitted more needs to be done.
"We need to raise the awareness but you can’t forget that lastminute launched in 1998 and were the darlings of the dot com boom," said Mott. "We didn’t launch until 2002 so were late to market.
"And lastminute’s brand recognition won’t get much higher than it is now. But we will generate gross sales of one billion euros (£680 million) this year so clearly some people know and understand us."
Key to Opodo’s future strategy is to distance itself from its airline roots, said Mott. Set-up by nine airlines, flight sales generated 95% of its business.
"But it’s now 65% and we will continue to invest in non-air content in coming years," he told Travolution. "You’ll see us treating air as what I call the milk in the supermarket. People know they sell milk, like they know we sell air.
"Next year we will have significant investment in offline and online marketing telling people we do packages and hotels. We also have our own product and are launching a dynamic packaging system in the new year."
Mott stressed however that it was not about "outspending" rivals.
"It’s about being in the consideration mindset of the customer," he explained. "There is little brand loyalty. People shop around and search between four and six websites. We need to be in that mix."
Mott added that it is attempting to build a degree of loyalty through Opodo Special Hotels – properties that are personally recommended by the agency.