Travolution Autumn Conf: David Soskin on personalisation and technology

Some notes from David Soskin's speech, which focused on how (whether) technology can deliver personalisation in travel.

- Amazon does personalisation better than anyone in the travel sphere (top of David's recommended books list, apparently, are something about Pushkin and a book about Ryanair)

- Travel is difficult to personalise because consumers want different things based on when they're travelling, who with and whether for business or leisure, not to mention unpredictable variables like the weather

- Search is 'not nearly good enough' in travel

- Predicitons for 2015: search will improve hugely; mobile content will take off, reviews in particular; traditional media will continue to decline; social networks will continue to evolve as users and technology become more sophisticated

- Cheapflights has drafted in a US expert to focus solely on personalising newsletters, and continues to invest in social networking through Howzat Media

Nathan Midgley