Travolution Summit - panel videos!

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

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

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

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

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

Travolution Summit coverage

There is a fair bit of stuff kicking about on the web from the Travolution Summit and Awards last week.

• David Soskin on the Howzat Media Blog.
• James Lohan on the Mr & Mrs Smith Blog.
• James Dunford-Wood on the Worldreviewer Blog and his personal blog.
• Log cabins or a holiday to Spain? [Musings]
• Travel Rants wins blogger award [Travel Rants]
• Google pay to play model [EyeForTravel]
• Price dispersion [Musings]

From Travel Mole [needs registration]:

• Hoberman and the risk
• Lastminute.com and the Google trademark
• Youtube and travel marketing strategy
• Soundbites
• No brand loyalty in travel

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

British Airways gets the X-Factor

The British Airways boys at last week's Travolution Summit premiered a project they are working on with Microsoft.

The audible gasps from some parts of the room when the demo was shown by Carsten Willert and Chris Carmichael indicated that this is A Major Thing for BA and the industry in general.



The company is going beyond selling a single product to creating "experiences". Of course BA has an advantage because of its breadth of product and the soon-to-be-launched dynamic packaging capability.

Nevertheless, it's a big deal. And the fact that an airline has done it is nothing short of extraordinary - bar Expedia's Insprioscope, which of the UK OTAs are heading in this direction.?

But at least the floodgates will probably now open.

"If I was an OTA I'd be shi**ting myself," said one attendee.

Here are some screengrabs from the demo.




Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: british airways BA microsoft silverlight x-factor

Specially positioned, dangerously

Kuoni UK's MD Nick Hughes has admitted that his business has one foot in the middle-ground between scale and niche.

This is where businesses die in any mature market, according to lastminute.com's Ian McCaig. He admits that his opinions about scale and niche are 'even more entrenched' since he talked about them at last year's Summit.

But Kuoni is moving upmarket, offering customers the tailor-made high-service travel experiences 'that they expect from us'. This high service offer will require a multi-channel approach. He admits that while there is 'significant upside potential' to Kuoni's level of internet bookings - currently in the teens - it is finite. 'High ticket value leads to a different customer behaviours,' he suggests. 'It's essential to be multi-channel for where we want to be.'

After just over a year in the business, the thing that Jones has found most surprising is that the 'specialist players are not extracting the margins they should.' Does that mean an admission of a shortcoming in Kuoni's yield management, or an awareness that specialists need to be more specialised to get the margins.

I wonder what he'll be saying when Peter Rothwell has settled into the Kuoni CEO role?

Martin Cowen, chief writer, Travolution

Quotoid #12

Lastminute CEO Ian McCaig is still feeling a little upset despite an hour of therapy at lunchtime he tells us.

"I don't know if there is anyone from Google left in the room but it's lastminute.com from a trademark perspective. Sorry, I know that's cheap, well, certainly cheaper than protecting my trademark on Google."

Quotoid #11

Yen Lee, president, Uptake (formerly Kango)

When asked about differences between the US and Europe:

"What's surprised me is that when there are so many really strong brands in Europe, we've spent 80% of today talking about price. People don't go to Barcelona because it's cheap. They go because of what they can do there. Think more about the experience, rather than the cost."

The Search Gap

Some good insight from Gareth Williams of Skyscanner on what's wrong with search in the travel sector.

What Williams terms as the 'gap' in search appears when you enter something like a flight number and what you get back is nonsense.

It is a problem that needs solving and is something that is holding the industry back.

"Travel desperately needs a solution to getting flight information and a number of other areas . One of the reasons that search gap exists is search technology for travel is really difficult. It lags behind other sectors," said Williams.

He goes on to say that if Google solves the problem there is the incentive of huge margins and it will make for a more efficient experience for consumers.

Over the course of today's Travolution conference we have heard a lot about different sectors of the industry taking each other on - kayak attacking tripadvisor and google - and now it seems Skyscanner is gearing up to also take on Google with its answer to much improved flight information.

Meanwhile, we have Thomson Holidays considering less reliance on the search giant.

It's that recurring theme of what do we do about Google?

Linda Fox, lead reporter, Travolution

Quotoid #10

Bruce Poon Tip, CEO of G.A.P Adventures

[context - one its ships had to be evacuated late last year when it hit an iceberg in Antarctica]

"We handled the situation as it happened quite well. The negative publicity only started when customers returned home and the lawyers and insurance companies got involved."

Run, Google, run...

Steve Hafner, CEO and co-founder of kayak.com, talks to Philip Wolf, giving a level of insight into his business which would have the corporate PRs of a listed company looking nervously at their Sarbanes-Oxley compliance notes.

Kayak is on the verge of launching a travel-specific vertical ad network, giving Google a run for its money. Hafner suggested this would happen 'within 45 days'.

Kayak bought Sidestep for $175m, essentially to get the audience. But Sidestep's travelpost.com will become Kayak's user review site, giving tripadvisor a run for its money.

Kayak will get the range of European hotel inventory through agency partners, supplier partners and, interestingly, 'hooking into a GDS', giving the bedbanks a run for their money.

Kayak employs 58 people - 32 in technology, the balance in the commercial teams. Travelocity has 10,000. Hafner says: 'We're all web sites, so that's where we all should be innovating, but they haven't changed theirs much in the past ten years, despite their massive human capital.'

Metasearch will work in Europe because of online penetration levels and supplier fragmentation. While there are more metasearch in Europe than the US, Hafner 'isn't too impressed with their technology'.

Kayak is the suppliers' friend - it can offer better conversions than Google, while its ad network will be cheaper than Google.

Martin Cowen, chief writer, Travolution

Quotoid #9

Steve Hafner, co-founder and CEO of Kayak:

"The morsels that we would find tasty would be technologies, teams or audiences."

Quotoid #8

Mike Saul, corporate director, Hospitality and Leisure, Barclays Commercial Bank

"A large part of the banks' due diligence [into the Thomas Cook/MyTravel and First Choice/TUI Travel deals] was 'integration risk' - how effectively will each business' culture fit in with its new partner."

Quotoid #7

Brent Hoberman, founder lastminute.com and now founder mydeco.com on integration problems:

"Make your smartest technical guys do the most boring jobs - they will find a way to automate it!"

Quotoid #6

Brent Hoberman, executive chairman, mydeco.com.

"Return on investment is the enemy of innovation"

Searching for a new ROI metric

'Return on investment' for advertising on social networks needs to be measured differently from other media, says the second panel of the day.

Vibeagent.com's CEO Adam Healey admits that not many of us will have heard of his three-month old business, but he's holding his own next to the slightly-better-known Yahoo and Google.

He says that its Facebook application JetSetter, which tracks how many miles you've travelled, is now the 'third largest driver of traffic to the site [after Yahoo! and Google] and it's free traffic'. Quite a strong ROI then.

In response to a question from the floor, Healey suggested that the ROI for advertising on social network needs to factor in the importance of friendships. 'Leveraging the existing relationship between people is more powerful for marketers than general search,' he said.

Google's Rob Torres adds that businesses advertising on social networks 'need to be sure of what thay are majoring on'. Many travel advertisers are applying old school direct response measurements to new media campaigns.

Martin Cowen, chief writer, Travolution

That pesky trademark issue!

It seems that Google trademark issue that is creating heartache this side of the pond went down smoothly when it happened in the US four years ago.

Or, so Google's Rob Torries would have us believe!

He plays it down massively and even invites us to talk to some of the big brands in the US to see how it worked out for them.

And, yet he warns of big change for everyone.

Lastminute's chief executive Ian McCaig makes an emotional plea for some explanation of the move.

"There is an awful lot of disappointment, hurt and pain - not only in what you are doing but how it has been done."

McCaig predicts it will cost his business a seven figure sum in Euros a year!

Addressing Torres, McCaig says: "Your own trademark you defend with passion and vigour so we feel a strong compulsion to do the same."

And, Torres reponse is that he 'hopes' it won't cost as much as that and that it's all about relevancy and getting rid of the rogue ads that clutter the service.

Linda Fox, lead reporter, Travolution

Quotoid #5

Robert Torres, Google, MD of Advertising and Marketing, North American Travel Sector:

"20% of all Google searches now originate from an iGoogle page"

Quotoid #4

Yen Lee, co-founder and president, UpTake

'Consumers use the web to search for travel, but search doesn't work for social media'.