Main story here, but we have learned tonight and broken the story that Teletext Holidays has started legal proceedings against Directline Holidays over the Google trademark issue.
Short statement from Teletext, no response from Directline.
This could be the test case practically all the industry has been waiting for in recent weeks.
Messy, messy, messy.
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
Google is protecting its position - in the face of legal threats from travel companies against it and between one another.
A short but very interesting statement we obtained this morning speaks volumes.
Information from Thomas Cook [contained in the same article] revealed that it is also attempting to crack down on activity against its brand name and those of its myriad of subsidaries.
The issue is such a hot one that a bit of keyword analysis at our end has shown that upstream search traffic to the main Travolution website is being boosted by a number of phrases such as "google trademark travel", "google brand name travel" and - astonishingly - "google PPC travel".
There are many senior figures who are preparing to dig in for a major battle with either Google or rival travel companies. This will run and run...
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
To end a pretty turbulent week in the world of Google pay-per-click, Teletext issued a statement last night threatening any company with legal action if it bids on the word "teletext".
As far as we are aware this is the first legal challenge made public by any travel company in the UK.
You can see who is still bidding on the word "teletext" by clicking here. At least one major travel company pulled its ad less than an hour after the threat being issued, so it worked.
It brings to a close one of the most bizarre weeks in recent memory for search marketers as companies have been forced to decide whether to bid against rivals and protect their brand name by throwing money into the system to ensure their own ads are not out-bid.
Or sit tight and see how the market reacts...
But throw another spanner in the works in the form of supposed "gentleman's agreements" (we revealed this a few weeks back), which some believe may be contravening competition laws, and the issue starts getting very messy indeed.
An email last night from one chief executive summed up the week and the feeling of many pretty well:
"Lawyers will get rich, Google will get richer - a pain for us all. Big brands will defend, little ones will exploit - a mess."Our prediction is that the ease with which Google made the switch in the US in 2004 will not be replicated so smoothly here in the UK.
Good news for all those who can't get enough of Travolution - our podcasts launch this week.
Our new regular 20 minutes or so of commentary and discussion about the online travel industry kicks off with Matt Cheevers of Teletext Holidays and Bruce Rosard from PhoCusWright as we consider the new media model for travel and the importance of bloggers to the industry.
So you can either listen to it here or at our Podomatic page [we're working on the artwork, okay!]. A catologue of previous shows will be held at the Podomatic page.
Better still, you should be able to subscribe to The Purple Pod from iTunes in the next few days. You'll be updated automatically every time we produce a new episode.
Click here to get your own player.
Enjoy. Feedback is always helpful. Commercial opportunities available, too. Contact me directly.
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
Technorati tags: purple pod podcast itunes teletext phocuswright
So what about Teletext Holidays and its move into new territory?
After years as a travel deals publisher, Daily Mail-owned Teletext will effectively become a tour operator cum travel agency cum media portal through ThisIsTravel.
All things to all people, perhaps.
What this actually shows is a distinct move towards a more consumer-led, all-round effort to reach – and, most importantly, fulfil – a wider marketplace.
Previous fulfilment partner OTC’s loss is Traveltek’s gain, in many respects, as the Glasgow-based travel technology firm will provide all back-end systems for the new ThisIsTravel platform.
We have said for quite a while that the traditional media houses in the UK are the sleeping giants of online travel.
This is not hyperbole. There is nothing to stop the media companies from attempting to provide a fuller service when it comes to travel deals.
Now this does not automatically mean that the Guardian, Times, Telegraph et al will suddenly start becoming OTAs or tour operators but a slow shift in how potentially they may start to think they can serve their customers better.
Travolution Holidays anyone??
[We jest]
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
Technorati tags: newspaper teletext holiday
Thomson is understandably chuffed to pieces after overtaking Expedia in the first few weeks of January in the Hitwise online agency rankings.
Being able to say "We are the #1 online travel agency in the UK", or similar, on promotional material goes a long way. Not that Thomson has used it in that way yet.
But the scene at the top of the pile changes often.
The top ten for the week ending 13 January went like this:
Those progressive types at travel technology company Click With Technology sent out a press release a few days ago with news of how they are using Facebook to conduct consumer surveys for some of their clients, such as Hays Travel, On Holiday Group, Cruise.co.uk, Holidaytaxis and Teletext Holidays.
Not wanting them to take all the glory for being progressive and, er, thinking-outside-the-box, we thought we'd launch our own series of polls - the results of which we will share each week.
We asked 200 London-based Facebook members the following question:Where Do You Go To Find Out About Travel Deals?
The poll took less than 24 hours to complete and we do not know the individuals that took part.
Here are the results:
Is the holiday home rental market perhaps seeing a bit of a renaissance? It just may well be so if the activity of the past few weeks is anything to go by.
Yesterday the Daily Mail & General Trust, owners of Associated Newspapers, which publishes the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and the London Evening Standard, splashed out £3 million to buy a 50% stake in Villarenters.com, a web resource for private holiday home owners.
Where a few years back the likes of DMGT and Trinity Mirror, owner of the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror, crawled over one another snap up recruitment websites, it seems travel could be the next area of focus.
“The acquisition of Villarenters.com adds to Teletext’s portfolio of online and TV travel businesses and continues the group’s strategy of increasing its presence in the online travel advertising sector,” DMGT said yesterday.
So what is it about holiday rental sites? There is a general feeling that the quality of a high number of holiday rental sites – follow this thread on Travel-Rants recently – is on the negative side of mediocre.
Texas-based site HomeAway invested heavily in Holiday-Rentals.co.uk last year and is now beefing up the search capability of the non-US sites.
And now Teletext Holidays, the division of DMGT that will run Villarenters.com, has got its hands on 10,000 properties.
What this will undoubtedly mean is that, with the backing and resources of big name media and travel companies, holiday rental sites could improve dramatically in terms of quality and functionality.
There is an equally valid argument, however, that if larger operations start to dominate the market, the smaller, independent companies that have created successful rental sites and survived on a combination of their wits and innovation, could find life far more competitive and subsequently struggle to surive. Which would be a shame...
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
Teletext Holidays might be basking in the enthusiasm from consumers for its recently launched Linguabot tool, but it turns out “Jodie” is also striking a chord with consumers for reasons other than those related to travel.
Word reaches us that the attractive [of course] assistant, as well as helping users unravel their travel woes on the website, has been asked out on a number of dates and even had to deal with a tricky proposal of marriage.
The trick with a Linguabot, essentially, is to ensure he/she expands their knowledge and quality of responses by the types of questions it receives and the answers it gives.
The mind boggles of the impact Jodie's popularity might have in the future!
Q: What is the easiest way to get from Central London to Paris.
A: Catch the Eurostar from Waterloo; meet me on platform 17, with flowers; whisk me away for the weekend.
Erm... We jest. It is, in fact, a very innovative tool and is pretty useful...
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
Seems like the mainstream press has woken up in the last few weeks to the impact of the internet on the travel industry.
This weekend the BBC’s FastTrack show, a consumer slot on BBC News 24 and BBC World, spoke to Teletextholidays and the Guardian’s travel offshoot I’ve Been There to gauge opinion.
The piece began with a walk down memory lane, with viewers treated to the sight of the old – though still in action for those avoiding Red Button digital technology – Teletext pages with hundreds of travel deals, all to the accompaniment of jolly end-of-the-pier organ music.
Those were the days…
FastTrack reporter Simon Hancock – who rang us a few weeks ago to get some background material for the show – then took viewers on a whirlwind tour of the online travel market over the last ten years, featuring Expedia, Lastminute.com, Thomson and the like.
And then, just two hours after Sunday morning’s repeat, BBC News 24 had a news item on very much the same subject.
Brilliant! Sunday morning at home feels like weekdays at work!
After some amusing archive footage of those early holidays around the Mediterranean, the piece went on to analyse the effect of the internet on the package tour market.
In 2002 around 40 million travel products were sold and around half were traditional package holidays. Fast forward to 2005 and the number of trips has increased by 10% to 44 million, which is good news for all the industry, but the share of packages has dropped to 42%.
Simon Vincent from online travel agent Opodo told viewers one of the reasons for consumer enthusiasm for booking travel on the web is that they are not tied to the opening hours of traditional travel agents.
Meanwhile back in the studio, travel hack Karen Benyon mounted a spirited defence of the High Street agent by claiming it has been “proven” that cheaper prices are not necessarily always found on the web.
It is can only be a good thing that the issues affecting the travel industry are finally being aired in front of everyday consumers.
And the ‘onliners’ of the industry are finally getting some recognition.
In the Times a few weeks back Cath Urquhart produced her 50 People to Know in Travel.
Paul Evans (Lowcost Holiday Group), John Hatt (Cheapflights), Andy Phillips (Active Hotels) and Martha Lane Fox (Lastminute.com) were all featured.
Not sure how easy the notoriously elusive Hatt will be for consumers to track down - and what about poor old Brent Hoberman, Lane-Fox’s co-founder? Minor points...
[See our own list of the pioneers of online travel, The Influential Ten]
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
