Yahoo to get up close and personal

Some good blog fodder from today's Yahoo 2009 preview with developments centred on relevancy, open internet and social media.

What does it mean? The search giant is taking those cornerstones and applying them across its new homepage, search, mobile and mail.

The result is consumers being able to aggregate search, mail, social networking sites and anything else targeted and relevant to them in one place.

The new homepage (currently in beta) enables users to plug in applications such as eBay and flickr from a library. Search developments include much richer, relevant results as well as anticipating what consumers are trying to find. The search service is also being opened up so developers and other companies can use it within their sites. And mobile developments include quicker access from the phone's menu and providing users with relevant answers and valuable information.

The thinking behind the developments is the consumer quest for 'return on attention' - a higher return on the time we invest - here's wikipedia says.

Yahoo research shows 68% of us feel it is getting more difficult to to balance life and work, 89% of us have information fatigue syndrome and 63% are worried that if we switch off we will miss something.

So, according to Yahoo Europe marketing man Kristof Fahy the search giant has to continue to do the basics really well and think about new areas such as personalisation, relevance, being open...

The developments look slick so watch this space as releases are slated for end of the year/early next year.

Linda Fox, lead reporter, Travolution

Going, going, gone!

It seems JetBlue Airways is to auction a whole load of flights (300 to be exact) as well as six package holidays on eBay.

The airline claims it is the first to sell flights and packages via the service. We're not sure about that - Singapore Airlines did it for the first A380 superjumbo flight, although it was for charity.

Lots of other travel companies have tried shifting holidays through eBay - Thomson, easyCruise to name a couple.

Thomson even had a sort of shop on the service.

And, a couple of years ago there was some anecdotal evidence of reasonable margins from selling distressed inventory through eBay.

So, why hasn't the travel industry adopted it more fully?

Thoughts please.

Linda Fox, lead reporter, Travolution

Going, going, gone through the roof

Now that 20m people in the UK have a Paypal account, how long will it be before more travel dotcoms will allow transactions through the eBay-owned payment provider?

Less than six months ago Flymonarch.com signed up; PayPal’s web site also lists UK short break specialist Superbreak and online ticket exchange Viagogo. But that’s about it.

The benefits of paying for travel using PayPal are limited. But if online travel is about choice and service, shouldn’t it be an option? There are 20m online shoppers in the UK who might like to try.

Alex Bainbridge blogged at the time of the Flymonarch announcement about this. He also speculated about whether there was something going on with flymonarch and eBay travel.

eBay Travel? Whatever happened to that one?

Martin Cowen, chief writer, Travolution

Who will be the next outsider to make a bold move in travel?

our latest column in Travel Weekly:

For much of its history, the fate of the industry was guided by those who lived and breathed ‘travel’ for most of their professional careers.

An ambitious rep or counter clerk in an agency could rise through the ranks of a company or sector to become a key figure in shaping how the business developed.

Relationships – for ours is, perhaps more than any other, a ‘people’ industry – were an important catalyst in securing deals.

This is still the case, of course, but the web has enabled people with no previous interest or experience in the travel industry to swoop in with a big idea and make a success of it.

This is good news for the existing travel industry. Competition from outsiders with a fresh prospective can only be a positive thing.

In the past few years a number of supposed outsiders have made their mark on the web in a big way.

Travelsupermarket.com, Skyscanner.net and WAYN.com, for example, are all led by people with little or no experience in running travel businesses – but are doing an excellent job.

And, lest we forget, Expedia was created pretty much as a side project by that well known tech firm Microsoft.

The point to all this is that disruptive influences from outside the normal confines of a sector should be watched carefully, rather than shunned as ‘not one of us’ or ignored.

Something we are often asked is what outsiders are likely to emerge as big players within the travel industry in the coming months or years.

This is difficult to determine, such is the pace at which this industry develops, but from personal experience, there is one organisation we at Travolution feel has the opportunity to make a huge impact.

After spending countless hours browsing the web last June trying to find a holiday, Family May settled on one from a rather unlikely source.

Watch out for eBay.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

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

Ebay sale was a nice move for Singapore Airlines

The first seats for the inaugural flight of the Sinagpore Airlines Airbus A380 have now been sold on Ebay.

We covered the story a week or so ago.

The BBC reports today that the airline has flogged two tickets for a mammoth £50,000 - a first class seat would ordinarily sell for around £1,700 each.

In quite a nice touch for Singapore Airlines, which clearly could have made a packet from the sale, any money raised through sales on Ebay will go to two childrens' hospitals in Sydney, Australia, and Medecins sans Frontieres.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: ebay singapore airbus a380 singapore airlines

Singapore going for the Ebay route

We have been saying for a few months that Ebay will become a force in travel.

Singapore Airlines has clearly been listening and has launched what it calls an "unprecedented event".
The South-East Asian carrier will be auctioning tickets for the maiden flight of its brand new Airbus A380 on Ebay from Monday 27 August.

Starting prices for the first trip - Singapore to Sydney and back again on 25-26 October - start at a modest $3.80 for economy seats, $38 for business class, and $380 for "suites".

No Buy It Now for this auction!

We will track some of the tickets to see how much they sell for once the auction is complete.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: ebay singapore airbus a380 singapore airlines

What do Brand Lists say about the travel industry?

One of the most prestigious and well respected brand ranking surveys has released its collection for 2007 .

The Interbrand-BusinessWeek survey of Best Global Brands eclipses other efforts such as the Superbrands-run list [it is, er, puzzling how Eurostar makes a list of "Superbrands" but Google doesn't].

Topping the list are the usual suspects - the giants of the consumer world including Coca-Cola, Microsoft, IBM, GE, Nokia, Toyota, Intel, McDonald's, Disney and Mercedes-Benz.

[Full list available as a PDF. Nice slideshow, too]

Google makes the top 20 for the first time; Ebay is in 48th position; Yahoo! gets a respectable 55th; Amazon in 62nd.

And the highest travel brand? Hertz, in a lowly 100th position.

Should we be appalled/suprised/worried by this?

Well, if you are in charge of marketing or branding for Expedia or some of the biggest airlines in the world (British Airways, American Airlines et al) you might be a tad disappointed to not make the lower reaches of the 100.

But the reality is this: travel companies will have to go a long, long way before they can gain any of the brand power associated with the giants of the FMCG, tech, entertainment and car industries.

This is unlikely to change, some might suggest. Commoditisation has damaged brands.

At the moment the web does a fantastic job of diluting a travel product into its simplest form, and in this order of priority for the consumer: price, availability, and perhaps brand.

Until travel companies reverse this trend, they will not challenge anyone in the top 100.

Of course, the flipside to all this list nonsense might be that the theories associated with the Long Tail of Travel mean branding shouldn't really matter for the sector. Go niche, diversify from the mass market.

But those brand managers at some of the biggest travel companies in the world will probably be seething that a car hire company (a reputable one, we hasten to add) is still ranking higher than them.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: interbrand business week brand marketing

eBay scams

A problem eBay may face when it embarks on its full-scale assault on the travel market is one of trust.

Nothing to do with the online auction giant itself, of course, but on the BBC website today is an interesting story of a 45 year old woman's conviction for theft, by selling a string of fake package holidays to the tune of £42,000.

One unfortunate chap lost £9,000!

Julie Flood admitted the 27 offences, which took place between November 2004 and March 2005, and will be sentenced in August.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: ebay travel scam