A Good Friday to take stock of 2007

Time flies fast, the saying goes, but the first quarter of 2007 appears to have raced by quicker than you can say "Big Four into Big Three into Big Two".

Without doubt the biggest story to hit the travel industry so far this year has been the consolidation between the traditional travel providers - Thomas Cook and MyTravel shocking many people back in February when they announced their merger, followed by TUI and First Choice a few weeks back when they decided to get in on the act.

Our analysis of the TUI-First Choice deal merger provoked some strong reactions, but we stand by it all. The US players MUST be watching the situation here in Europe very closely.

The deals came shortly after we published an interview with Ian McCaig, chief executive of Lastminute.com, who spoke of a widening gap in the European industry between those that have the power to negotiate on high volume deals with suppliers and, basically, those that do not.

The smaller companies will find themselves forced into "going niche", as someone else put it to us shortly after McCaig's comments.

Meanwhile much attention - admittedly a lot from us - has been given to the British Airways content distribution negotiations with the four big GDSs.

So far Worldspan, Galileo and Sabre Travel Network have re-signed, with Amadeus remaining.

Tricia Holly Davis has been following the event closely for months, breaking a number of key developments during the negotiations, including the news that BA was playing "rack-rate" to GDSs after talks failed to bring about a solution before the original 28 February deadline.

Amazingly, while all the above events have been going on, Expedia has managed to keep itself almost out of the news entirely for almost half a year now, such has been the focus of attention on the shenenigans across the traditional market.

But the OTA suddenly finds itself in a unique position: it is one very few big travel companies, certainly in the US, not owned by private equity; and it is still the dominant player in many markets.

Rumours abound, however, Expedia will feature much more heavily in headlines in the remaining three quarters of 2007.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

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