Perspective again please

Plenty and rather mixed coverage around the web today regarding the second anniversary edition of the Hitwise-IMRG Hotshops list.

The quarterly report of the top 50 UK online retailers is a handy benchmark of whose flying or dying in the online world, albeit from a share of overall web traffic rather than individual performance.

So what did the May 2008 report reveal, compared to that of May 2006?

There are currently eleven travel brands amongst the top 50 – a list topped unsurprisingly every quarter since it began by Amazon.co.uk.

TravelMole led with how Thomson Holidays is creeping up on easyJet as the most popular travel brand in the UK, while E-Tid said ‘Travel companies lose web presence’. [both require registration]

The report indicated that almost all the leading travel brands – with the exception of Thomson – had seen in a decline in position since the report began two years ago:

EasyJet – 8 to 10
Expedia – 7 to 12
Ryanair – 9 to 14
Lastminute.com – 12 to 17
BA – 11 to 19
Thomas Cook – 18 to 25
First Choice – 20 to 29

Quite a number of travel brands have dropped off the list:

MyTravel (for obvious reasons)
BMIBaby
XL.com
FlyBe
Jet2
InterContinental Hotels
Monarch Airlines
Opodo

The only newcomer in travel:

TravelRepublic

The apparent slump in the performance of travel websites led the Financial Times to headline with ‘Airlines lose web customers’. Lose?

What the FT failed to do is explain in detail why this has happened.

A call to Hitwise’s Robin Goad, co-author of the list, confirms the obvious: travel was an early adopter of e-commerce and consumers, likewise, felt comfortable with booking via the web, thus why so travel sites commanded a large share of the top 50.

In the past two years, however, other retailers have emerged – some traditional offliners, others created to service existing markets but purely online – and have attracted new users.

So while growth in online travel bookings may be slowing compared to other industry verticals, it is by no means declining.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: hitwise IMRG hotshops retail

Travolution Summit - panel videos!

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Birds wear scarves and goggles in new Opodo ad

In the good 'old days Opodo used to spend a sizeable amount of money on offline advertising - but has been pretty quiet of late.

But with the launch of its new AirTools product, Opodo has let the creatives types loose once again.

An enormous ad campaign is set to start shortly, both offline and online. Here's some of the work going into the UK's national press.


Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: opodo

People love using Wikipedia for information about travel companies

Wikipedia has created a tool which reveals the number of searches carried out for any keyword.

It's interesting in the context of the sheer number of times people are looking for information on individual travel companies.

Obviously one thing to ponder here is the extent to which consumers (let us assume it's primarily consumers for now) will go to learn more about a company.

Is this a question of uncertainty on the part of potential customers? Or the web just showing that if information is there, people will want to find it.

Anyway, here is a sample showing the number of Wikipedia searches in February 2008 for various travel related companies.

British Airways - 230,694
Eurostar - 23,980
Expedia - 21,323
Orbitz - 10,627
Virgin Atlantic - 10,194
Thomas Cook - 8,742
Lastminute.com - 1,273
Ebookers - 968
Opodo - 834
Kuoni - 24

One remarkable thing about this is that Google was searched 334,841 times - just 100,000 more than BA.

And now you can play around with the tool at the heart's content.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Hat-tip: Travelvine [side project of Darren Cronian of Travel-Rants] for flagging this up.

Technorati tags: wikipedia wikitravel wiki encyclopedia

PhoCusWright@ITB 08 - Tazon (almost) answers The Opodo Question

We get a question in to Jose Antonio Tazon, president and chief executive of Amadeus:

Would Amadeus consider selling Opodo for the right price? Indeed, what is Opodo worth?

Whenever the future of OTAs comes up, so does this question...

Typically, Tazon answers it, but doesn't answer it.

We have been aprroached several times.

We tell them: 'Let us work a little bit more with it and then we'll talk about selling.'

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

PhoCusWright@ITB 08 - Tab sick

Audience question:

Will the current - and very traditional - menu options on homepages disappear over time?

Alan Josephs from Ebookers says: "I'm sick of the tabs!"

Well said, Sir.


This leads nicely to a brief discussion about the search process on an OTA.

It's static, formulaic - old hat, in fact.

Philip Wolf then introduces the intriguing Starwood search initiative: Four Points.

Worth a look.

The future of online travel search? A move in the right direction...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

PhoCusWright@ITB: Five alive to challenges ahead

PhoCusWright@ITB's opening session saw five leading dotcoms put on the spot when asked about the challenges ahead.

Ebookers.com MD Alan Josephs and Opodo's CEO Ignacio Marcos both expressed concerns about technology. Josephs said that the challenge was getting the new innovations to market before rivals: Martos expressed concerns, for hotel supply at least, that supplier systems were still limiting the inventory available to the consumer.

Expedia and lastminute.com appear more confident in their own systems. Expedia Germany boss Jens-Uwe Parkitny talked about monetizing the traffic as a challenge (see other post). Ian McCaig talked about the challenge of maintaining a relationship with people who had been using the site for ten years at the same time as attracting new users in new segments.

The least famous of the five on the podium was Javier Pérez-Tenessa, founder and CEO of eDreams. This OTA might not have a great presence in the UK, yet, but London/US-based private equity firm TA Associates backed a £100m+ leveraged buy-out of the business in October 06.

Perez-Tenessa is also looking at the challenge of getting suppliers to pay for what is effectively ‘free branding on the site' (cf – media model post). But despite the challenges, Perez-Tenessa was quite optimistic, about his business and the sector. ‘Growth will be strong without doing much’.

Maybe for a business strong in markets with relatively low internet penetration; not so sure whether his four co-panellists think the same.

Martin Cowen, chief writer, Travolution

PhoCusWright@ITB 08 - Media model issues

There is no doubt that last year's announcement about Expedia's media model deal with InterContinental is THE hot topic.

The opening session of the day sees PhoCusWright's Philip Wolf ask a panel of the great and the good of the OTA world - Alan Josephs (Ebookers), Ignacio Josephs (Opodo), Ian McCaig (Lastminute.com), Jens-Uwe Parkitny (Expedia Germany) and Javier Perez-Tenessa (EDreams) - about their challenges/opportunities.

Uwe-Parkitny, understandably, says the shift from a merchant-intermediary system to a media model is a big opportunity.

Expedia is going down this route because there is a lot of money online that can be grabbed.

And, of course, it allows an agency like Expedia to monetise the people that are simply using it as a search engine.

McCaig: the blended model strategically provides a different dynamic. You have to be careful, he adds, about how it affects the brand.

The other panelists:

Josephs: No, we do not support it at the moment. And sceptical.

Perez-Tenessa: You can generate other revenues from the site.

No time for an answer from Martos.

Shame...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Travo weekly round-up #3

Here are the top stories by visits on the Travolution website for the week ending Friday 1 February 2008.

• Opodo profits to trigger investment in site.
• Sky picks Expedia-TripAdvisor for white label deal.
• Telegraph reviews travel search business.
• Cheapflights will not be rushed into float decision.
• WAYN approach over sale - but not by AOL.

Best of the blogs:

• Google Suggest, from Les Exploers.
• 10 questions for tour operators, from Musings.
• Microsoft-Yahoo dino deal, from Buzzmachine.
• Facebook apps on any site, from TechCrunch.
• SEO millionaire, from SearchEngineWatch.

Please post and further recommendations in the comments section.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

++Opodo turns a profit++

Hot off the press: online travel agency Opodo has today turned a profit for the first time in nearly six years.

Understandably the company is making a lot of noise about this achievement and chief executive Ignacio Martos has literally just got a flight from Spain to talk to meedja about it.

We have some interesting comments from Martos which we'll publish very soon, but here are the top line stats for 2007 in today's announcement:

• Profits of Euro 6.6 million.
• Sales bringing in Euro 1.3 billion.
• Double-digit growth expected in 2008.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Online travel agencies are the new toilet cleaners

Interesting conversations yesterday with the boss of a new-ish online travel outfit and, later, with a senior figure in the digital marketing community.

Big question marks over the role of online travel agencies.

But this remark is in an interesting, if rather bizarre, one:

OTAs pretty much created this industry - but they are no longer growing. Suppliers are now driving the innovation and user experience. Before, everyone else was standing around cleaning the toilets, but it has corrected itself because of the power of the internet.

I suspect Messrs McCaig, Halpin, Martos, Josephs and Furner will disagree.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: lastminute expedia opodo ebookers travelrepublic online travel agency

OnlineTravelCrunch pulled by its owner?

After the Whistleblowing 2.0 post last week, we have been keeping an eye of whether Opodo employee Mario Gariva would resurrect his blogging activities on OnlineTravelCrunch.

It appears not.

Opodo insisted today Gariva had not been told to pull the blog off the web and he therefore must have done so voluntarily.

I wonder why...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: opodo whistleblower karavel

Leaky Opodo - Whistleblowing 2.0

Everyone was getting rather excited a few days back as rumours started to circulate of a sale of the French tour operator Karavel by its owner Opodo.

The source of the rumour was Online Travel Crunch.

Opodo duly confirmed the deal yesterday.

What most people at the time didn't realise as the rumourmill turned is that the owner of the Online Travel Crunch is one Mario Gavira.

Alex Bainbridge had some ideas - but a quick call to Opodo (shock, horror: the old fashioned method) soon revealed Gavira's identity. He is an account manager in France for Opodo!

UPDATE: Online Travel Crunch is mysteriously offline as of Saturday 29 September. Wonder why...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: opodo whistleblower karavel

It must be very distressing not being cool anymore

This time last year Opodo was celebrating after learning it had been named one of the coolest brands in the UK.

But reaching such, er, heady heights means there is often only one way to go, according to the 2007 CoolBrands survey, and that's downwards.

In fact, such has been Opodo's dramatic fall from grace that rival online travel agecncy Expedia is now deemed cooler and Opodo didn't even manage to get on the "qualifying" group.

Say what you like about the methodology behind the CoolBrands and SuperBrands scheme (Bebo and MySpace qualified, Facebook didn't), but its PR is fantastic and the national press lap it up reproduce the results every year.

Other travel catgeory winners included:

Virgin Atlantic (general)
Babington House & The Cow Shed (hotels)
Japan (destination)

The top 20 cool brands included Amazon, YouTube, Google and Ebay.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: opodo expedia superbrands coolbrands

The Joy of SEO

Search engine optimisation can be a fickle business at times. Indeed, travel companies up and down the land are known to agonise long into the night about where they appear on that Official Gateway to Instant Traffic, Google.

Digital marketing agencies are appointed; months are spent on designing Google-friendly landing pages; complicated keyword folksonomies are created – all in the hope that the consumer will chance upon seeing an entry in natural search listings for a company, product or destination.

And then some upstart comes along and shows them how it’s done, without any special investment.

Type “flight search engine” into Google and appearing in first place, as you might expect, is a high profile meta search engine – Skyscanner, in this case.

But what is this? In second place is that pesky Travel-Rants consumer blog.

In fact, the US version of Sidestep, IfYouSki, GooFlight and VisitBritain are the only pureplay "flight search engines" to appear on the first page.

So, well done to Mr Cronian of Travel-Rants – a developer by day with a passion for travel, writing his blog purely as a hobby.

The message here is simple: good content – or content deemed important by others on the web – can be as valuable as any investment in a digital marketing strategy.

NB: If anyone doubts whether “flight search engine” is a phrase in demand (it not being destination specific, for example), just check out the number of companies bidding against it in Google’s pay-per-click listings.

TravelSupermarket, Travelzoo, Opodo, Ebookers, Airline-Network, Kayak, SkyScanner (again), DialAFlight, Expedia and Travelocity obviously consider it worth paying money for every click.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: search engine SEO pay-per-click natural search

Tony Blair on holiday - Opodo sends daftest press release of 2007

PING! Email arrives with a fantastically opportunistic publicity effort from Opodo.

Following the "transition of power" from the prime minister Tony Blair to Gordon Brown last week and "after ten years at the top, there is no denying that the Blair family could do with a well-earned holiday".

[Perhaps Opodo have already forgotten about the controversial and luxurious Blair holidays with Silvio Berlusconi, Cliff Richard and Robin Gibb?]

If this press release was meant to be funny, then it did the job. If not...oh dear.

Produced only to plug travel deals on its site, Opodo has recommended some holidays the Blairs might be interested in. Highlights include:

• "Hobbies and pastimes have been the last thing on the premier's mind" during his ten years, so he might want to consider a cooking course in Tuscany, giving Cherie a "well-earned break from the kitchen". And selling flats.
• The Blair "administration" was also concerned with third world poverty, so a "meaningful travel option" to Sri Lanka to volunteer might also tempt him. Perhaps it's too early for Make Poverty History cultural holidays?

Strange that there were no holidays recommended for the Middle East.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: tony blair blairs cherie blair

Kuoni vs Opodo

Interesting that while Opodo has recently regionalised its business, after spending years running everything from a single point, Kuoni has today gone the other way, scrapping country-based operations for three separate divisions based on market products.

The new divisions are: SBD Style ("brand and service-driven products"), SBD Smart ("vacations that primarily offer outstanding value for money") and SBD Destinations ("local land arrangements").

UK managing director Sue Biggs has left Kuoni as part of the shake-up. Quite a turn of events as just four days ago Biggs could be heard welcoming CV Travel to the portfolio following its acquisition by Kuoni UK.

It seems that the industry is in such an uncertain state that major brands, such as Kuoni and Opodo, are still willing to radically overhaul their business models just at the point when most companies and their staff would be looking for stability.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: kuoni opodo

How much for Opodo?

Ignacio Martos, in an exclusive interview with Travolution this week, set out Opodo's strategy for the next few years.

Alongside plans to launch in other markets - outside of Europe - in 2008, the refreshingly free-speaking Martos said this to a question concerning rumours about Opodo being offloaded by majority shareholder Amadeus:

"We are always up for sale."

Martos laughed when we offered him £100 million for the company.

So how much, then, realistically?

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: opodo

Travel Survey Day #2

Another one: Travel websites represent 14 of the Top 50 retail websites in the UK, according to the IMRG/Hitwise Hot Shops survey for May 2007.

Leading the field are Amazon.co.uk, Tesco.com, Argos, Play.com and Amazon.com in the top 5 positions.

But positions six to ten are dominated by travel brands:

Expedia.co.uk (6)
EasyJet (8)
Ryanair (9)
BA.com (10)

Elsewhere in the Top 50:

Thomson Holidays (11)
Lastminute.com (15)
First Choice (20)
Thomas Cook (25)
MyTravel (27)
ThomsonFly.com (28)
Travelodge (30)
BMIBaby (33)
FlyBe.com (37)
Jet2.com (39)

Remarkably only two travel brands have lost their position in the Top 50 since the survey started in May 2006:

XL.com and Opodo.

No sign of Ebookers since the survey started.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: web traffic hitwise shopping retail

Opodo: The Golden Years

There was a time when Opodo was going to brush aside all before it.

Below is the promotional video for the company's launch, back in 2001.

Look out for Esteban Walther (now of the Google parish) at 3m 01s, during a segment when a string of people from the company tell a mystery interviewer how fantastic Opodo will be.

"We intend to become the market leader in Europe in three years", says one gentleman in the clip.

Who are these people? Where are they now? Apologies, clip was made when our editorial team were reporting on non-travel issues in Washington DC or London's East End.



Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: opodo