Leading travel stocks after a third of 2008

[UPDATE at bottom of post]

Some interesting stats...

Expedia: started 2008 on $0.31 a share. Now $0.25. -19%

British Airways: started 2008 on £3.09 a share. Now £2.48. -19%

EasyJet: started 2008 on £6.13 a share. Now £3.24. -47%

MoneySupermarket (owner of TravelSupermarket): started 2008 on £1.40 a share. Now £1.14. -19%

Orbitz Worldwide: started 2008 on $8.50. Now $8.78. +3%

Priceline: started 2008 on $1.15 a share. Now $1.26. +10%

Ryanair: Started 2008 on Euro 0.39 a share. Now Euro 0.30. -23%

SilverJet: started 2008 on £0.48 a share. Now £0.15. -69%

Thomas Cook: started 2008 on £2.82 a share. Now £2.66. -7%

TUI Travel: started 2008 on £2.94 a share. Now £2.41. -18%

Travelzest: started 2008 on £1.01 a share. Now £1.02. +1%

Travelzoo: started 2008 on $0.14 a share. Now $0.11. -21%

UPDATE:

Sam I Am asks in the comments about the market conditions as a whole.

FTSE 100: started 2008 on 6456. Now 6215. -4%

NASDAQ: started 2008 on 2652. Now 2464. -7%

So one might say that the Orbitz and Priceline in the US - and not Expedia - are bucking the trend, while airlines in the UK are seeing a decline in share price worse than the overall market decrease.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Housekeeping Q4 07

One of those periodic posts to keep readers up to date.

We are at the ABTA Convention this week, hosting two masterclasses with Peter of Hilton of Click with Technology and Nishma Robb of Travelzest.

Martin Couzins from Travel Weekly will be helping out with the chairing.

Mel Carson from Microsoft will join me on the mainstage on Thursday morning for a keynote, entitled "Riding The Wave".

10am on Thursday - don't miss it.

The December and final edition of 2007 of Travolution magazine is due out in two weeks. To ensure you receive a copy you can sign up for free - but be quick. Our twice-weekly enews bulletin is available free.

And Facebook members can join the Travolution group.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

World of niches - cheap ads for the time being

More material for the Long Tail of Travel project.

Chris Mottershead, boss of Travelzest, speaking yesterday after unveiling the company's new report into Niche Travel, said generic keywords such as "beach", "holiday" or "ski" have become so expensive they are no longer financially viable for bucket and spade holiday providers.

The answer is to focus on niche keywords in pay-per-click advertising as they are (for the moment) cheaper and, crucially, are more likely to convert to a booking.

Interestingly this is in contrast to comments by Martin Dinham from Neutralize in our lead feature in April - How Far Can Travel's Long Tail Extend?. In the article we wrote:

"There is no actual ‘history’ for the thousands of phrases that make up the Long Tail for PPC schedules, Dinham argues, leading to search engines such as Google to ask for a “nominal fee” for bids.

"'Google is actually cutting off the Long Tail in order to get people to bid on higher value search terms,' Dinham says. 'This leads the advertiser to invest in higher volume phrases – so search engine optimisation is actually the better way of accessing the longer tail.'"

So while the industry is being urged to go "Long Tail" with its online search engine marketing, the reality is that already the likes of Google, looking behind what Dinham suggests, have realised a shift into Long tail bidding may in fact impact on its high value keywords.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

[Exclusive extracts and analysis of Travelzest's Niche Travel Report will be featured in the June edition of Travolution]

Technorati tags: long tail long tail of travel travel economics

Weekend Caption Competititon # 5

So here's Carol Dray, ex-Thomas Cooker and once of the Lastminute.com parish, and this week installed at Travelzest, with a mystery companion at last week's Travolution@WTM after-show cocktail party.

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