Every face tells a story

Thankfully the headline is not a reference to the, er, classic Cliff Richard single from 1997, but describes quite nicely the results of the Oban Multilingual 'Face of Global Search' survey.

Following the release today of the survey looking at online travel search habits, Greig Holbrook, director of Oban Multilingual, has also penned some analysis of the results:

What the results clearly show is that travel search is a very culturally diverse activity and that search plays a huge part in both the research and purchase of holidays for global travellers.

The growth in Chinese on the web has been phenomenal and reflects the fact that over 900 million people on the web don't speak English (around 70%).

Ninety-nine percent of those people who took part in the research indicated that they have booked travel online at some point. This once again reflects the fact that globally, people are becoming increasingly familiar with booking their travel online.

This means that suppliers not only need to cater from them in their own language but also, as much as possible, allow them to buy successfully from the site. This means the sites need to be very well localised to reflect all search and online purchase behaviours.

Chinese travel searchers don't seem to want to use Google, often preferring their own engines like Baidu much more. With the huge increase in Chinese searchers actually buying online in 2006-2007, it makes more sense than ever to make sure that optimisation for China is focused on local search engines.

It is not surprising that travellers going to different place are looking for different web features. International travel searchers are becoming more specific in their online behaviours so that in addition to multilingual web optimisation, global social media optimisation also needs to take place. In this context, a site properly optimised social media that is visible to a variety of cultures will prosper.

The finding that those who look for multilingual websites tend to avoid Google reflects the fact that international searchers are increasingly demanding good quality multilingual sites which are visible in their own search engines and not simply on Google, as Google is very often not the preferred engine or method for sourcing travel bookings.

In terms of Spanish people travelling to the UK, we have already found that travel sites often fail to provide good optimisation in Spanish for visitors who are seeking to visit the UK.

Spanish people may use some English phrases to search or they may use Spanish, but very few travel sites provide them with the experience they need so they are often forced to use English sites.

There is a great opportunity for travel companies to tap into the demand for travel from Spanish searchers; both for holidays within Spain and for travelling elsewhere like the UK.

Greig Holbrook, director, Oban Multilingual

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

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

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

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