Finding transparency in search

There’s a big difference between talking about ‘ improved conversion rates’ in a press release and using the same phrase in a regulatory filing. So when moneysupermarket group plc tells the London Stock Exchange that its travel vertical has improved revenue per visitor as well as revenue per transaction in 2007, the OTAs need to look at numbers as closely as travelsupermarket’s direct competitors.

Travelsupermarket.com’s 2007 numbers show big increases across its metrical board;

• visitors 37m (06: 19.7m)
• transactions 30.6m (06: 17.2m)
• click-based revenues £13.6m (06: £6.8m)
• total revenues £15m (06: £7.5m)
• revenue per visitor £0.41 (06: £0.34)
• revenue per transaction £0.43 (06: £0.40)

Looks like the millions of pounds put into TV advertising is working then! Analysts were shown a slide based on a ‘custom defined Hitwise report’ which ranked travelsupermarket as the UK’s most visited travel comparison web site in January – the key month for bookings in the UK.

So travelsupermarket.com seems in quite good shape for its new MD. Travolution Towers has learnt that there is a shortlist of three – former travel supremo Chris Nixon is overseeing the hunt and said he wanted someone with international experience at senior level. Travel or search experience – watch this space.

And what about the travel search generally? Kayak’s takeover of Sidestep at the back-end of last year showed the sector has legs when commentator such as Henry Harteveldt at Forrester pointed out that, in the US at least, travel search's market share was holding steady at 12-15% of the online travel sector.

Kayak.com had 5.72% of the UK market in Jan08, according to travelsupermarket’s Hitwise report. Sidestep, bless, had 0.94%. Kayak remember raised $196m as part of the SideStep takeover: Mobissimo is lurking with its revamped intuitive and customisable engine. SkyScanner – 11.34% of the UK market in Jan - picked up some funding of its own in November.

And with the market leader in Europe’s biggest online travel market confirming improved conversion rates and hikes in visitors and revenue per visitor, 2008 could be the year when travel search finds itself.

Martin Cowen, chief writer, Travolution

Travo weekly round-up #4

Here are the top stories by visits on the Travolution website for the week ending Friday 8 February 2008:

• TripAdvisor buys HolidayWatchdog.com
• British Airways Holidays set June 08 for DP push
• Ryanair to shut website for three days
• Travel trends for 2008 - report
• Mobissimo unveils dramatic new site

Best of the blogs:

• Reputation in a social network, from Travel Technology
• Travel writing cliches, from Travel Weekly
• Reuters CEO on the semantic web, from Reilly Radar
• Why Google is unstoppable, from ValleyWag
• Soggy, from Seth Godin

Travel Technology Show coverage:

• Live blog
• News round-up

Please post further recommendations in the comments section.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Mobissimo reckons its reached Travel 3.0

We were lucky enough to have a chat with Beatrice Tarka, founder and chief executive of meta search site Mobissimo, last week.

Anyway, we got an exclusive story about the site relaunching today (or midnight, if you're in Silicon Valley).

Tarka says its Travel 3.0 - primarily because of its customisable search and content filters.

It is actually very nice. But Travel 3.0?

Take a look and report back.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

How to bring down the back end of an airline

Interesting conversation the other day with a senior executive from a leading meta search engine.

Apparently when his company launched a few years back it sent too many leads to the American Airlines website and it "fell over" within a few hours.

Whoops.

So who was it? [Multiple choice question for you all]

1) Sidestep
2) Kayak
3) Mobissimo

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: american airlines

Online travel in 2006

2006 will perhaps be remembered as the year that the traditional travel industry woke up to the internet in a big way.

In the UK the likes of Expedia, Lastminute.com, Opodo et al have been blazing a trail for online travel agencies for years, but this year has seen those pre dot-commers realising exactly what can be achieved on the web.

Thomson, the UK multiple with a traditional bricks and mortar presence as well as aircraft and tour operating business, said it would be continuing its aggressive growth strategy that will ensure the web is its primary portal to reach consumers.

The other members of the so-called group of Big Four, such as Thomas Cook, also made a concerted effort to push their online brands.

Away from the package holiday market, other suppliers, such as British Airways, which have had an online presence for years, unveiled their own innovative new websites during the course of 2006.

Indeed the new BA.com caused quite a stir in the industry when it relaunched in November as, to all intents and purposes, it mirrored both in terms of functionality and design many of the online travel agency sites.

A string of other airlines and hotels also took the plunge and invested resources into their online businesses.

Meanwhile, Web 2.0 has moved from being something the geeky end of the internet community talked about at conferences to where some of its core principles are heralding a new age for the travel sector.

In fact, user generated content – in the form of reviews – on sites such as TripAdvisor is almost a benchmark for where a travel website should be if it just wants to scratch the surface.

The mash-up is becoming the de-facto method when trying to show some level of advanced functionality on a site.

But look beyond these already rather simple tools and there is a world of opportunity in the guise of travel social networking with sites like WAYN.com, Yahoo!’s Trip Planner and Answers, Travelpost and RealTravel.

We cannot mention 2006 without commenting on the influence of some of the key US players on the market.

On the one hand, the American owners of Lastminute.com and Ebookers is finally beginning to unravel (Ebookers relaunches in April 2007 and Ian McCaig has taken over from Brent Hoberman at Lastminute.com).

But the likes of Sidestep, Kayak and Mobissimo are expected to shake up the already burgeoning travel/meta search market. This will be a key to keep an eye area in 2007.

Finally, there is plenty to say about private equity and the role of venture capital groups in the industry.

VC-backed Travelport snapped up rival GDS Worldspan earlier this month, and just a few days later Lastminute.com and Travelocity owner Sabre Holdings was sold for a cool $3.75 billion.

Nobody is really sure as yet as to what the long-term effects will be on an industry that arguably needs stability, but in many respects is seeing large swathes being run by short-termist investors.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution