Web 2.0 gobbledegook bingo

Hilarious post on the tongue-in-cheek Drama 2.0 Show, which translates well-known phrases in the modern web world.

Full post here.

But some examples of English phrases and their Web 2.0 counterparts:

Acquaintance = friend
Blogger = journalist
Copyright = injustice
Ego-maniac = A-List blogger
Rumour = news
Theft = disintermediation
Under-employed/unemployed = entrepreneur

Get the full list and play twaddle bingo at the next tech conference!

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Sense of Perspective 2.0

Or not...

Despite the apparent economic slowdown and subsequent belt tightening, some might argue monetary madness reigns supreme.

Here in the UK, agency consortium Advantage Travel Centres is the subject of much speculation about its future following rumours that Australian travel giant Stella is on the brink of a takeover of the business.

The figure banded being talked about in most sensible circles is around £8 million.

Meanwhile, some might say, over in la-la land, micro-blogging service Twitter is apparently worth $95 million (that's £47 million).

This is on the back of Kayak's purchase of Sidestep last December for around $160 million (£90 million at the time) - a move Steve Hafner recently admitted was primarily for the traffic.

So the question: is traffic worth more than structure?

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Some ITT stuff

Travolution and the rest of the TW Group will be out in force at the ITT conference in Cyprus from 9 to 12 June.

As well as the usual live blogging from Travolution, Travel Weekly and Travolution are combining forces for a dedicated TW Group ITT Blog.

The group, as official media partner, will also heading be down the TV route with interviews and analysis during the event.

Keep an eye out for three special editions of the Travolution Purple Pod podcasts, produced at the conference but available as always by adding this feed to your RSS reader or via iTunes [NB: link opens your iTunes application].

If you are attending and want to feature on the podcast, email me ahead of the event.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

The Smiths competition

Okay, not the seminal group of the 1980s, but Mr & Mrs Smith, the classy hotel guide company.

As part of major plans to up its online presence - including flight search with Kayak - it is running a competition for all you budding, amateur web designers out there.

In fact, it is looking for someone to redesign its Wordpress-based blog.

Rather than just go and pay for one like everyone does, we thought we’d give all you seriously talented, but as yet undiscovered Wordpress theme designers the chance to really get your design noticed.

Cheeky, but fair enough.

There's a typically classy prize on offer for the winner: a weekend for two at one of the high-end hotels it features on the site. Given that the company has properties around the world, this is rather a nice prize.

Remember: you're working from a low base...


...but these guys like - and have - STYLE.

Rules and entry details here.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: the smiths morrissey blog design

RIP SilverJet

From this:


To this:


...in just one month.

In late-April, SilverJet was highly commended at the Travolution Awards for its FlySilverjet.com website in the Best Airline Website category (pipped to the post by BA.com). SilverJet won the award in 2007.

The airline operated its last flight this morning.

Like its recently deceased rivals, EOS and MaxJet, most people agree it was a wonderful concept.

Many passengers and most of the journalists who flew with the airline had nothing but praise for the quality of service.

However, investors and some elements in the city were less impressed.

Tough times for all airlines...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: silverjet

Space Cadets

While Travelodge has been busily spending £1 million on a new website, rival hotel chain Premier Inn has been setting its sights on clearly bigger and more important projects.

Now we're all for innovation here at Travolution, but surely a hotel on the moon is a step too far, rather than a giant leap for the budget accommodation industry.


Premier Inn MD Patrick Dempsey says:

Given the pace of space exploration and transportation possibilities beyond earth’s atmosphere, we feel that it is now more feasible than ever to expect travel to and from the moon to become a common occurrence within the next 20-30 years.

Given that, we wanted to steal a march on our rivals and be the first hotel chain to offer people the chance to have very comfortable and affordable lunar accommodation and get the same experience of the Premier Inn brand on the moon as they do on earth.

Days Inn, Travelodge et al must be kicking themselves at missing out on such a cosmic opportunity.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: travelodge premier inn

Tripology UK?

We think this US site, Tripology, could translate to the UK quite nicely, especially in the current climate.

The site launched to consumers last year and hooks them up with travel agents who are experts in the destination or experience they're seeking.

It's quite compelling in that it's free for consumers and qualified leads for the agents so at the very least you could put your itinerary details in and see what happens.

You could easily see a big tour operator who is closing shops but wants to hang on to really good consultants putting them on to a network like this.

Alternatively, the disgruntled members of some of the independent agency consortia out there could form something similar.

Equally, an expanding homeworking agency could do something with the idea.

Hat-tip to TUI Travel's Graham Donoghue for pointing the site out.

[Ed: watch this space for other services similar to this]

Linda Fox, lead reporter, Travolution

The hotel company that never sleeps

So, here's Travelodge's new website. We had the exclusive story earlier this week

The (big) budget brand has invested £1 million in the service which now has Google Maps, destination information on the places where it has hotels and a facility, through Keith Prowse, to book theatre tickets and other events.

Why, you ask? The company gets 87% of its bookings via the channel and has been ranked number one by Hitwise for the travel and destination sector for the past two quarters. They also get 500,000 visitors a week to the site.

COO Guy Parsons says it's about not being complacent, giving consumers technology they use every day and erm, oh yes, nearly forgot, because they're opening another 4,000 rooms this year and similar numbers in the next couple of years.

The momentum is clearly there but with such aggressive growth plans it needs to stay there too!

Linda Fox, lead reporter, Travolution

Purple Pod #5 - Gapyear, Microsoft, Sky's The Limit, no Facebook!

The latest Purple Pod is now available.

Remember you can subscribe to the Purple Pod by adding this feed to your RSS reader or via iTunes [NB: link opens your iTunes application].

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Troogle returns - in Lite format

According to an article in BusinessWeek in the US, Google is considering ramping up its travel services.

The article says "the goal of Google’s travel division - aside from tapping into the $90+ billion global travel ad and sales market - is to give users a destination where they can research travel plans, read user reviews, and see user uploaded videos and photos".

This undoutbedly would be a sensible move for Google.

And, indeed, is the thinking of about as senior person in the global travel Googleplex, managing director for travel in the US, Rob Torres.

But, of course, Torres is quick to add the caveat most will be asking themselves:

It’s worth noting one thing that any future Google offering won’t have—airline fares or hotel bookings. Even Google is unwilling to try its hand at the part of the beleaguered industry’s business. The customer service investment is huge, explains Torres. Moreover, travel sites and airlines are some of Google’s largest advertisers.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: troogle businessweek

Google search trademark - Open Thread

It feels like we've reached a pivotal moment in the long running Google saga.

A new dedicated page - The Google brand name policy switch - on the main Travolution website has all the articles and blog posts over the past six weeks, plus a selection of other articles from around the web and resources for advertisers and agencies.

But now it's time for a discussion. Use the comments section to kickstart the debate.

* What has been the impact on your business so far?
* Do you support Teletext or Directline?
* Are you a 'little guy' enjoying the chance to spread your message into new channels?
* Would you join a cross-industry challenge against Google?

Or

* Why can't we just move on...?

Full coverage here.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

'The wagons are circling' [Google trademark]

A terrifyingly melodramatic quote from a source today on our latest story regarding a dramatic upping of the ante in the Google trademark saga.

More detail here, but it has emerged a group of companies - in and out of travel - could be gearing up for a joint legal action against Google.

A meeting is taking place in London today. We have found out that a group of up to ten major consumer brands are involved.

Others appear to be joining the revolution on a daily basis.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

TUI Travel design FAIL

Say some...

Hotel Blogs draws everyone's attention to the TUI Travel page on YouTube.


Thevenot, who writes Hotel Blogs, says:

For such a big company with marketing resources, I don't understand how you can fail to be more clever than that in terms of embracing social media sites like YouTube. The page even comes almost unreadable. Anyway, we all make mistake[s].

A commenter on the post has another suggestion, however:

They haven't missed the point, in fact they seem to get it more than most.

Check out almost any personal profile page on MySpace and you'll notice that they're all just as garish (if not worse). Repeating, birght backgrounds that make your text almost illegible seem to be par for the course.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Travolution Summit - panel videos!

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Extras, extras, read all about them...

Ancillary revenues got almost as much podium time at EyeForTravel’s summit this week as social media.

There’s a shift in how airlines are thinking about this – it’s more important for them to try to squeeze as much revenue out of their core business – ie flying people around – than it is to take a commission on an insurance policy.

Ryanair’s head of sales marketing and commercial revenues, Sinead Finn, told the opening session: ‘If we depended on our partners for profit, we'd be in trouble.’

Menu-based pricing for seats is driving this focus on core product ancillaries. And in three years time Ryanair wants 20% of its revenues to be from ancillaries. Other businesses could call it ‘upselling’ (extra legroom on your seat to Sharm, anyone?) but Ryanair is used to having to defend its business model, despite its constantly lowering fares, excellent punctuality figures and bumper profits.

American Airlines, the world’s largest carrier, calls it “merchandising”. In a side room on day two, its international distribution manager Cory Garner admitted that the world’s biggest airline is currently picking up more bookings through third parties than direct. It appears that merchandising its direct channel more effectively is an increasing priority.

It’s looking at “behavioural economics” for some help here. “Customers are predictably irrational,” Garner said. “How you propose an economic transaction can be more important than what you propose.”

An issue here is that not all third parties have the infrastructure in place to be able to deliver the same merchandising opportunities as a brand dotcom, and the GDSs are a bit behind the curve as well.

(This isn’t an issue for Ryanair because it doesn’t sell seats through intermediaries. easyJet, which does, factors in potential loss of ancillary revenue into its point of sale booking fee for third parties).

Ornagh Hoban from Datalex put the issue in perspective by saying that airlines are still on a learning curve when it comes to maximising ancillary revenues. Hotels however appear to be in a win-win situation. Third parties are a valuable distribution channel, both for volumes and yields. But the big gains can come from the merchandising opportunities - upgrades, breakfast, spa treatments - through the direct channel.

Martin Cowen, chief writer, Travolution

Brand bidding drama is fair to some, an abomination to others

Our latest column in Travel Weekly [penned before the latest twist]:

It would take a brave soul to write with any conviction about what will happen over the Google trademark/brand bidding issue.

Since Google made its dramatic announcement in April allowing companies to bid on the brand name of other organisations, marketers from around the industry have been reacting with a mixture of unbridled glee or absolute horror.

This unfolding drama for the travel industry has been particularly intense given that Google is such a pivotal player in digital marketing terms for small, medium and large travel companies.

Travolution’s experience of talking to many senior executives around the industry can be summarised with this simple formula: the smaller the company, the more receptive to the policy change.

There are a number of major issues at play here. Big travel firms are desperate to protect their identity.

In the chaotic world of the internet, where the ‘brand’ can easily get lost amid a sea of seemingly similar players,

Google’s sponsored links allowed companies to have a place of their own when consumers were searching for a particular company.

This, in the mind of Google (and, it is worth mentioning, at Yahoo! for many years), is unfair on other companies who should be given the opportunity to advertise to consumers.

As someone from a small travel provider, hugely supportive of Google’s move, said last week: “Consumers don’t recoil in horror when they see a billboard for Ryanair next to one for EasyJet.”

To groups of economic liberalists it would sound like a fundamentally stable and fair theory.

For those that invest huge sums of money in brand building, however, it is nothing short of an abomination.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: trademark brand name

Blog built to bring bookings

Starwood Hotels and Resorts isn’t a hotel chain, it’s a “branded lifestyle company”. It’s blog, thelobby.com, isn’t a blog, it’s a “multi-brand marketing tool”.

Brian Pratt, its VP for EMEA, told delegates at EyeForTravel that the various brands within the group were not allowed to cross-promote, and that one of the upmarket brands would never use “sale” in its promotions.

Starwood’s brands are Starwood Hotels, Aloft, Element, Four Points, Le Meridien, Sheraton, St. Regis, The Luxury Collection, W and Westin.

Thelobby.com is written by employees, as well as professional travel, culture and leisure writers. It is aimed at members of Starwood’s loyalty programme. It features ‘star pick’ properties which are on promotion to its Preferred Guests.

Talking of which, Pratt said that in a slowdown, “loyalty schemes had to prove their worth.” He wants to drive occupancy in the bad times by persuading guests to cash in the points built up during the good times.

Social media is seeing a “considerable” amount of Starwood advertising cash at the moment as the business “tries to figure out a way of using this opportunity”. But maybe it already has decided – at the end of the Q&A Pratt admitted that for the next few months at least “there are better places to spend money”.

Martin Cowen chief writer Travolution

++Big story - Teletext gets legal with Directline++

Main story here, but we have learned tonight and broken the story that Teletext Holidays has started legal proceedings against Directline Holidays over the Google trademark issue.

Short statement from Teletext, no response from Directline.

This could be the test case practically all the industry has been waiting for in recent weeks.

Messy, messy, messy.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Ever wondered how Google does its thing?

You can get some idea in a post by Udi Manber, vice president for engineering at Google Search Quality.

Manber goes into a lot of detail as to how it ranks web pages against search queries.

Works for us, thank you very much, given how well we are scoring on Google for searches for such hot topics as:

"travel google trademark" or "travel google brand name".

UPDATE: we have mysteriously dropped from top position to nowhere on both these searches!

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: google trademark

Travel 2.0 reality check

So while many were disappointed that the Google-Lastminute.com showdown didn't take place yesterday, Ian McCaig used his appearance to offer a typically heavy dose of, shall we say, balance to the Travel 2.0 hype.

The Lastminute.com boss is not known for his hyperbole, especially in the area of social media and how travel companies can engage with it.

The issue for McCaig is one of ensuring, as a travel provider, that you don't lose sight of the customer.

Given that the audience has just listened to Facebook UK supremo Blake Chandlee wax lyrical about the UK's biggest social media site, this a handy counterweight to the argument.

"This is all about customer behaviour, not websites," McCaig says.

He asks two reasonable questions:

* Is it important for your customers today that you engage with them through social media?

* Or is it a better employment of resources to drive through conventional media (SEM)?

Now some would argue that a clever mixture of the two might help travel companies target this enormous audience playing around with social networks.

But, McCaig says, and as we've been writing for a while (most recently here), consumers are not in a purchasing mindset when networking with friends over the web.

He brings up the old advertising adage: “Selling implies someone wishes to buy”.

This is not the case on a social network and interuption marketing does not work, he argues.

Most - including us - talk about STA Travel's efforts on Facebook, but the challenge for everyone else of how to use social networks continues...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: facebook lastminute

Astonishing Facebook member stats for the UK

Blake Chandlee, UK director for Facebook, used the Eye For Travel conference today to reveal some new figures about UK members.

The social networking giant has an incredible 10.5 million members in the UK.

Let that sink in for a moment...

Of those 10.5 million, 100,000 have 'travel' in their profile.

There are now six billion photographs on the site. They are "consumed", according to Chandlee, a terrifying 60 billion times a week.

And, perhaps, the most remarkable stat included in Chandlee's presentation was this: in the last 30 days, 28 million 'events' were created in the UK.

It goes without saying that being able to engage with those members is not only vital for travel companies, but a pretty dark art.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: facebook

If you're looking for trouble, you've come to the wrong place

An early plenary session this morning at Eye For Travel in London promised plenty, especially as the panel included Lastminute.com boss Ian McCaig and Google's Dan Robb - a pair who represent companies not exactly on the best of terms (no pun intended) these days.

[The latest twist in the trademark tale reveals the astonishingly high costs being paid by companies trying to reach the Google Quality Score]

But imagine the sense of disappointment amongst delegates when conference chair Paul Richer doused an early bucket of cold water of any potential fireworks when he stressed that the session - Monetising Web 2.0 - would not include discussion over trademark issue.

Boo, we say. Boo.

Thankfully the Scottish duo did try to make light of what is actually a pretty serious dispute.

Robb and McCaig are still friends on Facebook, Robb joked.

"I am now going to talk about the trademark issue for 60 to 90 minutes," smirked McCaig at the beginning of his presentation.

Shame he didn't really.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: facebook lastminute google trademark

Eye For Travel Summit - Criminal damage

Tim Sparrow from e-commerce payment company Cybersource did a good job of bringing to life the graveyard slot with a presentation about fraud.

Fast forward seven months and Travolution could share with you findings from its dedicated study into the travel sector. The paper is currently a work in a progress.

A few specifics did slip in. Sparrow said that the move to e-ticketing, as mandated by IATA with a 31 May 2008 deadline, would lead to more bookings being taken online, opening up more possibilities for fraudsters. ‘Small margins means fraud is a real profit killer,’ he warned.

Staying with airlines, he also revealed that, contrary to competition laws, a dozen airlines were “unofficially” sharing information about fraudulent activity. One regulatory objection to this is the possibility of “competitive blacklisting” – airline x could effectively give airline y a list of supposed dodgy customers who airline y would refuse to book.

Airlines forming unofficial cartels? Surely not.

Martin Cowen, chief writer, Travolution

Eye For Travel Summit: Learn direct

Ryanair is 100% committed to direct distribution. When it carries 83m passengers across in Europe in 2012, as planned, virtually all travellers will book directly at ryanair.com. If Ryanair released TTV figures, there would be some online travel giants looking very small indeed.

But Sinead Finn, head of sales and marketing for the airline, offered advice for suppliers who did want to shift inventory through third parties. Make sure you have access to all the information about your customer who is booking indirect; ensure that your intermediary isn’t undercutting you on price, and only bother if you need the business.

Cormac Whelan from Datalex suggested that suppliers should only work with third party intermediaries who have invested in their own infrastructure. “This allows you to maximise the business relationship,” he explained.

The price integrity issue is why easyJet’s cheapest fares are always on easyJet.com. This isn’t likely to change. ‘Any third party booking will incur a point of sale fee,’ stated Jerry Dunn, its distribution development manager. easyJet charges ‘an average fee of £4 per segment’ for any one else wishing to sell its seats.

Finn said she couldn’t see any reason why big brands couldn’t go 100% direct. InterContinental is as big as they get, but still sees a place for third parties. Andrew Rubinacci, VP distribution marketing, told delegates at Eye For Travel’s Distribution Summit Europe 2008 that “we see OTAs as an extension of our brand and we want to make sure we are there.”

For example, visitors to London could find out about IHG’s 20 or so properties in the city through an online agent if they weren’t on familiar terms with its brands dotcom.

IHG’s media model deal with Expedia continues to make sense, even if the commercial terms of the tie-up remain top-secret.

Martin Cowen, chief writer, Travolution

Eye For Travel Summit: Screen (scraping) tests

Interesting observations about screen scraping in the Q&A at the end of the direct vs indirect debate.

Jerry Dunn, distribution development manager for easyJet, admitted that screen scraping is “not insignificant and it's growing”(surely not TMCs?). He suggested that EZY's availability through GDSs and its own API provide an alternative, at a cost. He also said EZY is talking to “other distribution companies” to increase the choice for third parties.

Sinead Finn, head of sales and marketing for Ryanair, said that screen scraping isn’t a big part of its business. It hasn’t stopped them from trying to deny screen scrapers access, however.

Andrew Rubinacci, VP distribution marketing from IHG, admitted that hotels too are part of the screen scrapers’ reach. IHG is trying to turn them off, but does not charge third parties for authorised access in the same way as easyJet does.

Martin Cowen, chief writer, Travolution

Roll up, roll up, save your company money - complete your expenses on your mobile phone!

That's it - in one simple move the fun has been taken out of travel applications on mobile phones.

Many of you may have thought your mobile phone was a useful communication tool and, if you've got a decent one, a bit of a toy as well!

Well, slap wrists all round! Amadeus and the Association of Corporate Travel Executives have got together to conduct a survey into future mobile phone usage.

No more checking your WAYN or Facebook accounts, there are deeper, darker forces at work.

'Upwardly mobile' as the study is called informs us future use will be all about increasing our efficiency, productivity, flexibility ..... while on the move.

There's the good stuff such as checking in for your flight, reserving your hotel and using your phone as a virtual room key and then there's the dreary stuff - complete your expenses, drive up travel policy compliance and generally save your company money by improving your efficiency.

Bet you can't wait!

No need to panic yet - the study shows that while 80% of travel managers recognise the role of mobile devices in improving the travel experience very few have taken any further action.

Linda Fox, lead reporter, Travolution

Hands up who will give the government details of every trip they go on?

Hmmm. Not many...

The UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office has created a new online service - called Locate - to encourage people to register with them about where they are going every time they travel abroad.

Use our new Locate service to tell us where you’re travelling to so our embassy and crisis staff can provide better assistance in an emergency such as a tsunami or terrorist attack.

The idea behind it is obviously to give reassurance to friends and families back home that in the event of a incident, government officials will be able to help track victims more easily.

A potential problem is whether citizens will be moved enough to send details of the whereabouts to the state in the first place.

Given that there is enough fear of the Big Brother culture in the UK as it is, it seems unlikely that this will get the traction officials are be hoping for.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Travo at EyeForTravel

The Travolution team will descend on Islington tomorrow for the annual EyeForTravel London conference.

We will be live blogging throughout and recording the next episode of the Purple Pod at the show.

Feel free to get in touch beforehand to arrange a meeting, otherwise we'll see you there.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Ryanair does a Craigslist

Plenty of coverage on news sites and blogs last week as Ryanair press released news that it is launching a new product, Ryanairvillas.com.

In short, it's a classified advertising portal. The system allows users to upload ads for their own properties to a microsite, add photos and detail product information, etc.

But there are a few things about this:

The launch shows – once again – that airlines are seeing plenty of opportunity in bringing in new elements to add to the core flight portal.

[If it turns out something like this, for example, British Airways will resemble something closer to an online travel agency]

Ryanair has product deals with Isango (for destination activities) and, of course, its well-publicised product functionality courtesy of Expedia.

Not wanting to be left out of the game, EasyJet recently signed a similar destination services deal with Viator.

But a user-controlled listings service is a very significant move indeed. And a smart one for Ryanair.

Why? Well, in theory, responsibility for the content and control of the ads rests with the user, pretty much removing Ryanair from the picture entirely apart from an initial check when the listing in posted.

Furthermore, a call into Web Reservations International, the Dublin-based company powering the Ryanairvillas system, reveals that Ryanair has definite plans to develop the platform.

Indeed, there are huge opportunities for cross-selling once the system is up and running, in terms of promotions and advertising.

And, at some point in the future, it is more than likely that live Ryanair fares and availability will be streamed alongside the ads.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: ryanair easyjet expedia

Future growth in display, not search

Or so says, Tim Brown, managing director of Blue Lithium EU.

The forecast came during a forum on ad networks at the AOP this week.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: PPC display advertising AOP

The (infamous) CEO interview with Steve Hafner at the Travolution Summit - hello TravelSupermarket

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Seven days to paint an aeroplane

OpenSkies, the new British Airways-backed airline flying between continental Europe and North America, is gearing up for its launch in June with a blog and various bits and pieces, such as a call for "innovators".

The buzz also includes a bit of viral marketing on YouTube, with this time-lapse video taken during a respray job of one its Boeing 757.

And a brush-busting 282 litres of paint!



Almost 17,000 views so far...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: openskies british airways BA paint

Big two offer little (dot)comment

Europe’s two largest leisure travel operators, TUI Travel plc and Thomas Cook Group, both issued their half-year results this week. Reading through the numbers one would imagine that the internet doesn’t exist.

Listening to the calls with analysts, one would imagine the internet doesn’t exist.

And calling their financial PRs to ask for some more colour about their online business, one would imagine that the internet (to say nothing of Travolution!) doesn’t exist.

So what did we find out? For TUI Travel, online accounts for about 35% of its UK mainstream business. ‘It’s building, but it has slowed,’ said chief exec Peter Long. Requests for more details were met with a polite ‘it’s not the sort of information we give out’ response.

The UK is a mature market for both travel and online so a slowing in growth while volumes increase is no surprise. TUI has been reducing capacity on its loss-making seat-only operations. Fewer seats will lead to fewer web bookings.

So where is the growth coming from? Mass-market price-led fly and flop short-haul packages, or exclusive upmarket Holiday Villages/Sensatori products? Thomson.co.uk or firstchoice.co.uk?And what about the web side of its separately reported specialist and activity units?

Its consumer-facing dotcoms are doing well enough. Laterooms lifted its bed nights booked by 146% to 994K while hotelopia was 18% up at 1.3m.

A technical hitch prevented questions from being asked on Thomas Cook’s call with the trade press. “Thomas Cook is still on target to achieve 35% of group sales online in the 09/10 financial year,’ it said after the event, repeating comments made earlier this year. “In the year to end-Oct07 online accounted for 13%.”

Hopefully there might be some more details when the big two’s full year results come out at the end of the year. Travolution isn’t reading anything too sinister into their muted response this week, but it hasn’t stopped us from idly speculating on how important the internet is to Europe’s two biggest travel companies.

Martin Cowen, chief writer, Travolution

Friday competition - Spot the difference

An outrageously cynical member of the industry emails to suggest the creatives at Lastminute.com (or its ad agency) might not be as innovative as people think.

Many of you will recall the video we posted yesterday of the pink'un's "first" viral TV ad.

The similarities between it and this effort earlier this year by ImprovEverywhere are purely coincidental, of course.



Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: improveverywhere lastminute viral ad

Calling all travel start-ups

Travolution has an exciting project planned for the autumn of 2008 and we are looking for start-ups in the travel sector.

Details will be revealed in the coming weeks - but if you are running a new company or have an idea kicking around the brain matter, then we want to hear from you.

Email me directly.
Send a message via Facebook.
Twitter Travolution.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: start-up travel start-up

Sing when you're winning

Apparently this is Lastminute.com's first viral ad, according to Brand Republic.



Although, of course, there is this ad from a few years back, which just happened to find its way onto YouTube after never seeing the light of day in the real world of TV advertising.

Had viral written all over it...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: lastminute youtube

All inclusive holidays popular in a weak economy

Guest blog post from Robin Goad, research director at Hitwise UK:

The combination of a weakening economy, falling house prices and a rising cost of living thanks to inflation mean that many British consumers are looking for ways to cut their expenditure.

Add in the impact of a strong Euro (although not Dollar), and it seems likely that one area facing a cutback in consumer spending will be travel. One interesting trend we have noticed which indicates that this may be the case is an increase in searches for ‘all inclusive holidays’.

As you can see from that chart below, the amount of traffic that travel websites are receiving from this price-sensitive / budget-conscious search term has increased by 24% compared with last year.

The table below illustrates the top 10 search terms containing the phrase ‘all inclusive holidays’, and it is noticeable that people searching for such packages are more concerned with the 'all inclusive' element than with where they want to actually go.

Six of the top 10 search terms don’t mention a location at all, whereas - by way of comparison - nine of the top 10 searches containing the term ‘cheap flights’ over the same period include a destination.

Another thing that jumps out is the low success rate for the term ‘all inclusive family holidays’. Almost two fifths of people searching for this term don’t find a relevant result in a search engine that they a happy to click through to, highlighting a potentially lucrative area for SEO or paid search activity.

As you can see, the people currently looking for location specific all inclusive deals are choosing warmer sunshine destinations around the Mediterranean and Red Sea: Spain, Egypt, and Turkey.

This leads me on to another hypothesis: as money is tight and the strong Euro means that European destinations are becoming more expensive, will we see a decline in travel to Europe and bumper year for domestic tourism?

Throw in 10 days of lovely sunny weather, and it seems likely that UK holiday bookings will be up this year.

Not so fast. I heard a representative from TUI (which owns Thomson Holidays) on the Today programme the other morning claiming that overseas bookings from the UK were up - and the company’s financial release bears this out.

Back to the Hitwise data and the news also isn’t great. As you can see from the chart below, the amount of traffic that searches for both ‘uk holidays’ and ‘british holidays’ send to travel websites is on the decline.

Maybe a few more weeks of good weather and some first hand experience of the strong Euro will help reverse this trend?

We’ll keep and eye on this and report back with any changes.

Robin Goad, research director, Hitwise UK

Read more of Goad's posts

Will enthusiasm for travel apps be the same on MySpace?

For very obvious reasons TripAdvisor is to push its three enormously successful Facebook applications onto rival social network MySpace. We got the story this morning.

The trio of apps - Cities I’ve Visited, Local Picks and the frighteningly addictive Traveler IQ Challenge - have attracted six million downloads over the last year, which is impressive.


But we are pondering a few things:

• Is the drive for apps slowing down?
• Many people are members of both social networks, so would it be unlikely (odd, even) if the same user dowloaded the app again for MySpace?
• What is the longevity of a travel app?
  

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: myspace facebook tripadvisor apps

New Purple Pod - social, carbon, trips and bookables

Latest episode out now, featuring WAYN, Tamar, Bookable Holidays and TripSay on The Sky's The Limit.




Remember you can subscribe to the Purple Pod by adding this feed to your RSS reader or via iTunes [NB: link opens your iTunes application].

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: purple pod WAYN

More twists and turns in Google saga

Google is protecting its position - in the face of legal threats from travel companies against it and between one another.

A short but very interesting statement we obtained this morning speaks volumes.

Information from Thomas Cook [contained in the same article] revealed that it is also attempting to crack down on activity against its brand name and those of its myriad of subsidaries.

The issue is such a hot one that a bit of keyword analysis at our end has shown that upstream search traffic to the main Travolution website is being boosted by a number of phrases such as "google trademark travel", "google brand name travel" and - astonishingly - "google PPC travel".

There are many senior figures who are preparing to dig in for a major battle with either Google or rival travel companies. This will run and run...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Travel mag publishes edition with (almost) 100 per cent user generated content

This will send a shiver down the spine of many old school editors but Budget Travel, a glossy travel mag in the US, has decided to commemorate its birthday by producing the entire edition with contributions from readers.

All copy and photography was sent in by loyal fans - bar its regular Deals section, which staffers wrote.

Editor Erik Torkells admitted an "extraordinary amount" of editing was needed to knock it all into shape and the whole exercise was not cheap at all.

The opposite of TripAdvisor, then.

Foliomag.com has more details and an interview with the editor.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: budget travel

Still no word on a sale then

Interesting profile piece in the Telegraph today on WAYN.

Good to read co-founder Peter Ward's frankness over the company's switch away from a pure subscription model, as we reported last June.

I don't regret what we did with subscription. Yes, we could have become the next Bebo or Facebook had we not charged from the beginning, but equally we were looking at it from the point of view that we had to make money because we did not have the capital and we were looking at it very much as a business.

And, once again, despite being pressed on the issue, there's still nothing to say about a potential sale.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags:

Sneak preview

It's still in testing and a few weeks away from launch but we thought you might like a sneak preview of travel.co.uk - the OTA/price comparison hybird.

Here is the home page with flexible search options and the results comparison page enabling consumers to see what they're getting with each holiday.

As per our story earlier today managing director Ray Mason is bullishly estimating it will be among the top 1o travel sites around the close of the year.

Linda Fox, lead reporter, Travolution

Bloggers reunited - in the real world

Many of you will know of The BOOT, a great blog from Australia written by Tim Hughes.

Hughes has been in London for a few weeks on business (he wears a senior HotelClub hat during the day) and invited UK bloggers to an unofficial meet-up last night.

Here he is (on the right) with Guillaume Thevenot of Hotel Blogs. Any questions regarding the flyer Thevenot is holding should be directed to Hotel Blogs. :-)


Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: travel blog

What ThomasCook.com can do better

According to E-Consultancy.com.

Full analysis on the main site, but summarised:

• Avoid returning no results for holiday searches
• Provide some user reviews and feedback
• Load my search results faster
• Don't surprise me with hidden charges
• Allow users to save their previous searches
• Provide a contact number during the booking process
• Don't display unavailable flights
• Provide more useful information on airports/destinations
• Improve the calendar
• More flexible search options

Interesting piece. We've got in touch with TC to see what they think of the article.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: thomas cook e-consultancy

First official legal threat in travel over trademark bidding

To end a pretty turbulent week in the world of Google pay-per-click, Teletext issued a statement last night threatening any company with legal action if it bids on the word "teletext".

As far as we are aware this is the first legal challenge made public by any travel company in the UK.

You can see who is still bidding on the word "teletext" by clicking here. At least one major travel company pulled its ad less than an hour after the threat being issued, so it worked.

It brings to a close one of the most bizarre weeks in recent memory for search marketers as companies have been forced to decide whether to bid against rivals and protect their brand name by throwing money into the system to ensure their own ads are not out-bid.

Or sit tight and see how the market reacts...

But throw another spanner in the works in the form of supposed "gentleman's agreements" (we revealed this a few weeks back), which some believe may be contravening competition laws, and the issue starts getting very messy indeed.

An email last night from one chief executive summed up the week and the feeling of many pretty well:

"Lawyers will get rich, Google will get richer - a pain for us all. Big brands will defend, little ones will exploit - a mess."

Our prediction is that the ease with which Google made the switch in the US in 2004 will not be replicated so smoothly here in the UK.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: trademark PPC

Caption Competition - sarcasm recommended

Rough Guides is in PR overload as it pushes its new guidebook to England.

Press release blurb:

...in a country where “queuing remains a national pastime” the Rough Guide says there’s one thing that unites the nation: “their sense of humour”.

“The English are devoted to sarcasm on a gigantic scale.”

Well let's see how devoted we are - and readers in other countries, of course - to the lowest form of wit (but the highest form of humour) with a caption to go alongside this picture of Kayak co-founder and CEO, Steve Hafner, at the Travolution Summit a few weeks back.


Entries via the comments button. A prize for the best one...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: rough guide hafner kayak england caption competition

Scoble lays into travel sites - advises Google to go vertical

Just came across this post from the blogmeister Robert Scoble. Sorry for the delay.

It was written on the 2 May, before Microsoft backed away from its attempt to buy Yahoo!, and goes into some detail about how bored he is about a potential deal and why Microsoft is full of - for want of a better word - luddites, etc, etc.

Google gets a bit of a poke in the ribs, too.

He uses travel as a prime example, pointing to the Google Travel page. A poor directory page effort circa in terms of style to 1999.

He asks:

Does that page help? Not really. No video. No cool people telling you about interesting places. No personality. No branding. No interesting Web services.

The big brand travel sites aren't any better, he continues.

There's then follows a bit of hand wringing about what Microsoft may or may not do with its purchase of Farecast.

But there are two key and rather tantalising paragraphs:

I find that Google listens a lot more than Yahoo or Microsoft does. Google has left billions of dollars on the table that it will go after over the next year, if they are as smart as I think they are.

Google: take the money off the table — build great niche search sites around topics like travel, wine, parenting, housing, automobiles, etc. You have a year to do it before Microsoft can even START to figure out where you’re weak.

It's a fascinating article and raises some of the fundamental questions about where Google, search, vertical search and travel search in particular may head next. Read it.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: scobleizer robert scoble troogle

Are social network advertisers barking up the wrong tree?

Our latest column in Travel Weekly:

For many people in the industry there remains a big question mark over the value of using social networks to reach potential consumers.

At Travolution we have been unashamedly guilty of talking up the benefits of throwing increasingly scant resources at sites such as Facebook, MySpace and others in order to spread the marketing of a brand into these hugely popular new areas.

It is becoming clear to some marketers that traditional online advertising is not as rewarding – in terms of solid leads – as many would have expected, given the enormous volume of people using social networks.

One marketer said to us recently: “People use social networks to talk to each other, not buy products.”

This is a dilemma for travel brands and travel per se is one of the most experiential products.

Consumers appear very comfortable with using a social network to talk about their holidays – the planning process and, most importantly, what happened in resort.

Some travel brands – STA Travel in particular – have capitalised on this by creating simple applications within a Facebook page for people to visit, rather than traditional advertising slots.

Nevertheless, a new report by digital marketing agency Tamar suggests travel brands are still missing out on the goodwill factor often associated with a holiday.

There is a “great deal of consumer support” on social networks for travel brands, but only a few have registered their presence there.

But the most interesting fact to emerge from the study is this: brands that have tried to embrace social networks have a massive 59% more unofficial supporter groups than those with no presence.

It seems that just acknowledging the existence of social networks and creating some kind of presence is a good start.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Because pilots have nothing better to do

...technology lights up terminal floors and allows pilots and passengers alike to actively interact and have an entertaining and fun experience with featured brands and interactive games, all while waiting for their plane to take-off.

PILOTS?!?


Anyway, a new interactive system from Reactrix Systems for US airports.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

And so it begins - brand bidding on Google...

Deals done behind the scenes to not bid on one another's brand terms might be easy to discover if you have the time to check all the major travel brands via a Google keyword search.

For those not party to such agreements, welcome to the PPC bun-fight [click on an image for more detail]:








Those with good memories will recall a pledge by Cheapflights last week not to bid on the brand names of its advertisers.


UPDATE: It has emerged that the inclusion of Cheapflights, as seen above, is a by-product of how this policy change may be seen in the industry, according to Cheapflights, which is understandably keen to stress that its pledge still stands.

What the company is doing is bidding on the keyword "airways" and thus why Cheapflights appears against searches for "British Airways".

This afternoon, the company has run a negative match against "british airways" so it no longer appears.

As someone mentioned in a meeting this afternoon: there will be almost universal confusion in the first few weeks as companies decide which words to bid on or brands to bid against.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: trademark PPC brand name

The (conference networking) world moves in mysterious ways

Bruce Poon Tip of GAP Adventures and James Dunford-Wood from Worldreviewer both appeared on-stage at the Travolution Summit a few weeks back.

By amazing coincidence the pair announced a partnership within a week of the event to run GAP's products through the Worldreviewer site.

Surely the wheels of new business cannot work that quickly?

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Webby Awards agree with Travo judges

Looks like a clean sweep for Kayak in recent weeks.

The meta search engine has won a coveted Webby Award in the US, just a fortnight after scooping a Travolution Award.

Kayak landed the People's Voice award and flight prediction site Farecast won the main Webby in the travel category.

An American roadtrip series from the New York Times won in the travel category for online video. Discovering Cross-Cultural Solutions Brazil scooped the People's Voice prize.

[Valleywag has a typically cutting piece of analysis regarding the Webbys. NB: no money changes hands at the Travo awards]

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: farecast kayak webby

Yahoo! employees might actually be glad the Microsoft deal has fallen through

Would you want this man as your CEO? Microsoft supremo Steve Ballmer.



Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: microsoft yahoo steve ballmer

Leading travel stocks after a third of 2008

[UPDATE at bottom of post]

Some interesting stats...

Expedia: started 2008 on $0.31 a share. Now $0.25. -19%

British Airways: started 2008 on £3.09 a share. Now £2.48. -19%

EasyJet: started 2008 on £6.13 a share. Now £3.24. -47%

MoneySupermarket (owner of TravelSupermarket): started 2008 on £1.40 a share. Now £1.14. -19%

Orbitz Worldwide: started 2008 on $8.50. Now $8.78. +3%

Priceline: started 2008 on $1.15 a share. Now $1.26. +10%

Ryanair: Started 2008 on Euro 0.39 a share. Now Euro 0.30. -23%

SilverJet: started 2008 on £0.48 a share. Now £0.15. -69%

Thomas Cook: started 2008 on £2.82 a share. Now £2.66. -7%

TUI Travel: started 2008 on £2.94 a share. Now £2.41. -18%

Travelzest: started 2008 on £1.01 a share. Now £1.02. +1%

Travelzoo: started 2008 on $0.14 a share. Now $0.11. -21%

UPDATE:

Sam I Am asks in the comments about the market conditions as a whole.

FTSE 100: started 2008 on 6456. Now 6215. -4%

NASDAQ: started 2008 on 2652. Now 2464. -7%

So one might say that the Orbitz and Priceline in the US - and not Expedia - are bucking the trend, while airlines in the UK are seeing a decline in share price worse than the overall market decrease.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution