Richest in travel

The annual Sunday Times Rich List (all 1,000 of them) has been published.

Clearly the hotel industry is the way to go. And whoever said Duncan Cameron and Simon Nixon (of Money/TravelSupermarket fame) are not sitting on a goldmine...

Those trousering it in the travel and web-related sectors include:

• Sir Richard Branson (Virgin) - £3.1 billion
• Nadhmi Auchi (General Mediteranean) - £2.6 billion
• Lord Paul and family (Contemporary Hotels) – £1.5 billion
• Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou and family (Easy Group) - £1.3 billion
• Naresh Goyal (Jet Airways) – £512 million
• Duncan Cameron (MoneySupermarket and TravelSupermarket) – £480 million
• Simon Nixon (MoneySupermarket and TravelSupermarket) – £480 million
• Sir Rocco Forte and family (Rocco Forte Hotels) – £450 million
• Jasminder Singh and family (Radisson Edwardian Hotels) – £350 million
• Geoffrey Kent (Abercrombie & Kent) – £253 million
• Michael Gooley (TrailFinders) – £240 million
• Surinder Arora and family (Arora Group Hotels) - £225 million
• Andrew Davis (Von Essen Hotels) – £210 million
• Harpal Matharu (Globalgrange Hotels) – £207 million
• David Babai (Gullivers Travel Associates) – £200 million
• Peter Harris and family (Bourne Leisure) – £195 million
• Sir Michael Bishop (BMI) – £185 million
• John Cook and family (Bourne Leisure) – £180 million
• Sir Bernard Schreier and family (Danubius Hotels) – £174 million
• Michael and Xochi (Bebo) – £150 million
• Ian McGlinn (Hotel du Vin) – £146 million
• Nick Denton (First Tuesday/Moreover Technologies) – £140 million
• David Crossland and family (Airtours) – £124 million
• Jamie Moffatt and family (A T Mays) – £108 million
• David Seymour and family (Pomme d’Or) – £100 million
• Edward Faith and family (Gullivers Travel Associates) – £100 million
• Uzi Kattan (Gullivers Travel Associates) – £100 million
• Rahul and Rita Sharma (Worldwide Journeys) – £99 million
• Peter Stephens (Lotus Group) – £93 million
• Walduck Family (Imperial London Hotels) – £92 million
• Philip Meeson (Jet2) – £90 million
• Lord Daresbury and Greenall family (De Vere Hotels) – £85 million
• Maurice Segal (Modern Hotel/Expotel) – £80 million
• Giuseppe Pecorelli (Exclusive Hotels) – £78 million
• John Marston (ex-hotelier) – £76 million
• Dinesh Dhamija (Ebookers) – £75 million
• John Boyle (Direct Holidays) – £75 million
• Gulshan and Asif Bhatia (Hilton Paddington/Hyatt Regency Birmingham) – £70 million
• Tej and Bobby Dhillon (Dhillon Hotels) – £70 million

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Travolution Summit presentations

...are now available.

As well as our news coverage and links to pictures, blog and videoblog.

All available on the Travolution website.

Presentations:

• John Bray - Looking for meaning: Future of search and web businesses (PhoCusWright)
• Mel Carson - 3D image of the world (MSN).
  
• Stephen Palmer - Social networking and search debate (Lonely Planet)
• Peter Ward - Social networking and search debate (WAYN.com)
• Glen Drury - Social networking and search debate (Yahoo!)
• Andrew Bradford - presentation to come (AOL)
• Graham Donoghue - We are not in control (TUI)
• Katherine Gershon - Delivering best experience online and in the air (SilverJet)
• Francois Abiven and Emilie Labidoire - Why virtual worlds matter to travel (Reperes)

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Travel pros ponder 2007 and beyond

Here is the VideoBlog from the Travolution Summit this week.

Our thanks to Holidaynet.com for filming the event and producing the VideoBlog.



Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: video professionals future of travel

Flickr photos from Summit and Awards

We have uploaded a selection of the photos from the Travolution Summit and Awards onto Flickr.com:

Summit

Awards

In the Travolution set, you can also see photography from previous conferences, Travolution board meetings, and the ITT conference in Oman.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

British Airways had an online vision...in 1978

Simon Calder, travel editor of The Independent and our presenter at the Travolution Awards on Tuesday night, signed off the evening with a prophetic quote from BA, back in the 1970s.

Ross Stainton, the airline's chief executive, writing in its Annual Report in 1978, said:

"We shall need separate, very simple check-in facilities for discount passengers, and the fare will entitle them only to a straightforward end-to-end journey with no stopovers.

"I can envisage do-it-yourself reservations where the prospective passenger consults a TV display to see what is available and at what price, and then makes his own booking entry into the computer.

"Ticket issue, at least for simple journeys, may be a matter of pushing a credit-card into a slot and getting back a pre-printed ticket, probably incorporating a boarding card, with a passenger seat number printed on it."

And here we are, 30 years on...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: british airways 1970s

Naked ambition

Some very pleasing feedback from both our events on Tuesday.

However, this one stood out:

Dear Kevin,

Thanks for a great night last night!

I am so impressed that you posted the winners at 01.10. But in doing that you missed a totally naked lady walking around the street! I was outside chatting with ****** from ****** and she walked past completely starkers like she was out for a casual stroll! Bizarre!

We have been assured this was not a reveller from the awards. And, despite our attendees supposedly being tech-savvy, nobody managed to capture the incident with their mobile phone cameras. Not exactly Best Use of Technology, we would argue...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Travolution Awards - Winners

The winners of the Travolution Awards have been unveiled at a ceremony in London:

ADVERTISING AWARDS

Best Use of Online Advertising

• Love Creative for STA Travel
• Harvest Digital for Cruise Thomas Cook
• Harvest Digital for Cheapflights
• KitCatt Nohr for Virgin Holidays
• Agency.com for BA.com

WINNER: Love Creative for STA Travel

Best Use of Affiliate Advertising

• The Dedicated Partnership for UKSeries.com
• Affilinet for Paramount Hotels
• Buy.at for LateRooms

WINNER: Buy.at for LateRooms

Best Use of CRM

• CreatorMail for Thomson
• Lastminute.com (in-house)

WINNER: CreatorMail for Thomson


MARKETING & INNOVATION AWARDS

Best Use of Social Media

• Jumeirah Hotels – The JCast
• TravellersPoint maps
• STA Travel Blogs
• EnjoyEngland/Yahoo! Answers
• Avis WeTryHarder Blog
• Select World Travel Blog

WINNER: STA Travel Blogs

Best Agency for Search Engine Optimisation

• Neutralize for Justtheflight.co.uk
• Spannerworks for SN Brussels Airlines
• Tamar for National Car Rental
• Greenlight for Monarch Airlines
• BigMouthMedia for Superbreak

WINNER: Neutralize for Justtheflight.co.uk

Best Agency for Website Design

• Adams Creative for TravelOwl.co.uk
• Designate Communications for Wales In Style
• Five By Five for Island Cruises and Club 18-30
• Netizen Digital for various
• Fortune Cookie for Kuoni UK
• Nucleus for various

WINNER: Designate Communications for Wales In Style

TRAVEL AGENT AWARDS

Best Travel Agent Website

• RailChoice
• Travel Designers
• Isango.com
• STA Travel
• Expedia.co.uk
• WhyDontYou.com
• TravelRepublic
• PackYourBags.com
• Expedia Corporate Travel

HIGHLY COMMENDED: STA Travel
WINNER: Expedia.co.uk

Best Use of Technology

• DirectLine Holidays
• Door2Tour.com
• Comtec
• Dolphin Dynamics
• Touch Clarity

WINNER: Touch Clarity

TOUR OPERATOR AWARDS

Best Tour Operator Website

• Leger Holidays
• Thomson
• VisitBattlefields.com
• Voyages Jules Verne
• Sunisle.co.uk
• Kuoni.co.uk
• VillaPlus
• OnTheGoTours.com
• DirectSki.com
• ErnaLow.co.uk

WINNER: Voyages Jules Verne

Best Use of Technology

• Adventure Company/Netizen Digital
• Kuoni

WINNER: Adventure Company/Netizen Digital

SUPPLIER AWARDS

Best Hotel Website

• Paramount-Hotels.co.uk
• Jumeirah.com
• BestWestern.co.uk
• Hyatt.com
• Sheraton.com
• VonEssenHotels.co.uk

WINNER: Paramount-Hotels.co.uk

Best Airline Website

• FlySilverjet.com
• BA.com
• FlyBMI.com
• ThomsonFly.com
• VirginAtlantic.com

HIGHLY COMMENDED: BA.com
WINNER: FlySilverJet.com

Best Travel Insurance Website

• GoTravelInsurance.co.uk
• JourneysTravel.co.uk/InsureMore.co.uk
• 1StopTravelInsurance.co.uk

WINNER: GoTravelInsurance.co.uk

Best Car Hire Website

• USRentacar.co.uk
• TaxiTransfers.co.uk
• HolidayAutos.co.uk
• Avis.co.uk

WINNER: HolidayAutos.co.uk

TRAVEL INFORMATION AWARDS

Best Travel Portal

• TravellersPoint.com
• TravelGator.com
• WalesInStyle.com
• WAYN.com
• EnjoyEngland.com
• TripAdvisor.co.uk
• Viator.com
• Yahoo.co.uk/Travel

WINNER: TripAdvisor.co.uk

Best Meta Search/Price Comparison Website

• Kinkaa.com
• Australia Travel Market
• Cheapflights.co.uk
• Sidestep.com
• TravelSupermarket.com
• Kelkoo Travel

WINNER: TravelSupermarket.com

Best Use of Technology

• Teletext Holidays Linguabot
• IfYouSki.com
• Cheapflights.co.uk Partner Portal
• Icelolly.com TV
• Online Travel Brochures

WINNER: IfYouSki.com

TRAVOLUTION SM@RT AGENT OF THE YEAR

• Mann Link Travel
• Sunmaster
• Coachtrips.com
• Select World Travel
• C&B Maddocks Travel
• Travelcare

WINNER: Coachtrips.com

NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR

• Isango.com
• TravelZoo UK
• Sidestep UK

WINNER: SideStep UK

ONLINE TRAVEL BRAND OF THE YEAR

Shortlist to be decided from winners of Best Travel Agent Website, Best Tour Operator Website, Best Airline Website, Best Hotel Website, Best Car Hire Website, Best Travel Portal and Best Meta Search/Price Comparison Website categories.

WINNER: Expedia.co.uk

TRAVOLUTION ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Brent Hoberman

Further details and comments from the judges are available on the Travolution website.

Travolution Summit--Can the mainstream market serve the new market?

Ian McCaig, chief executive of Lastminute.com, rounded off the Travolution Summit by highlighting the importance of social media to the future success and failure of online travel companies.

"I guarantee you that if you go to university campuses today the relevance of YouTube, Wayn.com, Facebook, etc. is not diminishing.

You need to think about how you can monetise this group and identify what their disposable income is and how you can get a piece of that," said McCaig.

But, he warned, "You must be a credible player. "The instant you stop being credible, you're dead. It's over."

What about serving the traditional market? What of those Baby Boomers with bucket loads of disposable cash and leisure time who don't book online?

Can travel providers service both traditional and new travel generations, or will they need to make a choice?

This is the challenge of the mass-market player.

"The key is choice. You need to think about where you will be positioned in the marketplace and where you believe you can win," said McCaig.

"Those with the deepest understanding of customers and, equally important, a focus on the areas of the market they serve, will form the successful vanguard of the online travel industry."

Tricia Holly Davis, chief writer, Travolution

Travolution Summit--Second Life: Oiks, stoners & huge possibilities

Will Second Life impact the online travel market?

That is the question Ed Whiting, product and marketing director of Comtec, tried to answer during his recent tour of the fledgling virtural world-- an experience he shared much to the amusement of Travolution Summit delegates.

Known in Second Life as Ned Kidd, Whiting (a real world cycling enthusiast) biked his way around various islands (built by Dell), befriended a builder who helped him construct his Second Life operation, and went on a short break to Italy with Travolution publisher Simon Ferguson (aka Stepen Wolf Voss).

Among other lessons Whiting learned were that Second Life builders are just as annoying as real life ones; Italian avatars don't like English avatars; oiks abound; and marijuana is abundant (Like Brixton???).

What Whiting didn't learn is whether Second Life will in fact impact the online travel space and, if so, what will the impact be?

"Will Second Life help our business?...I'm not sure. But there are a lot of people out there so it's worth finding out."

Tricia Holly Davis, chief writer, Travolution

Travolution Summit-Artificial intelligence coming to a computer near you

Anyone who has ever seen Terminator or iRobot will agree that the prospect of artificial intelligence can be quite scary.

But far from the pages of science fiction, artificial intelligence is actually already here...and it's getting smarter.

After delivering an extremely insightful presentation on the power of the Internet (dubbed the Fifth Estate), and its affect on companies' R&D and risk assessment, Andrew Bradford, head of operational planning at AOL, suggested that next significant shift of power (the Sixth Estate) may be held by smart computers.

"Imagine what will happen if someone creates a widget to firewall brands," Bradford pondered.

Taking that concept a step further, one could imagine a smart computer which actually thinks for users and cherry picks brand information based on individual consumers' purchasing and search behaviour.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Tricia Holly Davis, chief writer, Travolution

Travolutuion Summit-Wayn, meet Mr White

Wayn.com is to offer its services on a white label basis to travel providers, according to the company's co-founder Peter Ward.

(Expect he'll be getting just a teenie bit of attention the rest of the day.)

But that's not all that's new with Wayn.

Ward said the site is also doing away with it's £1.99, 12-month subscription service, so interaction will be free, as well as content.

There will likely be a fee for high level of customisation and access to premium content.

Presumably, the premium for new services and costs of its white labelling will replace a chunk of the revenues Wayn currently receives from its subscriber base.

Wayn is also planning to roll out a Wayn.com branded MasterCard this year.

You could almost see the campaign..."There are some friends you can't buy, for everything else..."

Tricia Holly Davis, chief writer, Travolution

Travolution Summit-Wayn for Prime Minister

Eight million member strong social networking site Wayn.com seems to be expanding on a geopolitical scale.

Peter Ward, co-founder of Wayn, says the recent success of its “Make a Difference” campaign to end dolphin slaughter in Japan has had a direct impact on the company’s future strategy.


Wayn, in conjunction with its marine charity partner, secured thousands of signatures to the campaign and is subsequently making a presentation to the Japanese embassy in July.

“This experience had impacted our whole strategy. We now realise that we can help our members and serve their specific needs and interests.”

With a growth rate of 10,000 members per day, that makes Wayn one hell of a lobbying force.

Hello Number 10?????

Tricia Holly Davis, chief writer, Travolution

Travolution Summit-Today hotels, tomorrow the world

TripAdvisor is set to take over the world…well, sort of.

John Bray, senior strategist from US-based technology research firm PhoCusWright, challenged the Travolution Summit audience to predict if TripAdvisor can do in other sectors of the travel industry (eg destinations) what it has done for hotels…or, if newcomers like Wayn.com will lead the next generation user-review space.

Apparently, TripAdvisor will retain its lead, according to roughly 80% of delegates (and no, they’re not all from Expedia).

Hmmm...

Surely Peter Ward, the founder of Wayn, will have something to say about that when he takes the stage later today.

Stay tuned...

Tricia Holly Davis, chief writer, Travolution

Travolution Summit-Personalisation not a priority for Ebookers

Alan Josephs, managing director of Ebookers.com told Travolution Summit delegates that the online world is a lot like the old anecdote about two friends running from a bear in the forest:

You don’t need to run faster than the bear…you need to run faster than your friend.

Ouch!

(And here I thought Josephs was such a nice guy.)

“So, which company is Ebookers outrunning then?” asked Travolution’s editor Kevin May.

“We’re running very, very fast,” is about all Josephs would say (quite understandably, given their rather delicate current circumstances).

What Josephs would reveal is that Ebookers’ immediate strategy is about getting the most fundamental functions right.

“I disagree that advanced personalisation will move the needle for online travel agents in next couple of years,” Josephs told delegates.

The fact is that great deals still move the needle faster than great content and advanced capabilities like high-level personalisation don’t come in the top 50 on Ebookers’ to-do list, said Josephs.

“The reality is that we have a long way to go to get to something that advanced. It’s more about easily showing them the price for flexible dates and giving them a map to see their inside of their hotel, how close the beach is, etc.

“It sound like simple stuff, but it’s a long list of simple stuff and I think this is where the focus needs to be.”

Tricia Holly Davis, chief writer, Travolution

Travolution Summit-What’s cooler than discovering kryptonite?

When I awoke this morning to the news that scientists had actually found kryptonite (I always knew it was real), I really thought it was bad timing for the Travolution Summit.

I mean, despite all the interesting topics on the conference agenda, surely none of them could be as interesting as the discovery of kryptonite, right?

Thankfully, I was wrong. The Summit has only just begun and already I have heard about one of the coolest pieces of technology to come along for a long time.

That is the Photosynth technology which takes photos and stitches them together, allowing people to search for information about photos in a search engine without having to use any words.

The technology also stitches together photos together that are taken from different angles so you can zoom in and out and see where the pictures were taken in relation to one another.

Technology development is also underway to allow people to build their own “synths” and share with friends, Mel Carson, adCenter’s community manager, Microsoft Europe, told Travolution delegates.

The brains behind Photosynth envisage a day when you spark up your laptop and there’s a picture of the world, and hovering over the world are all the pictures people have taken. You can then “dive in” and get satellite and get 3D imagery and view your photos with everyone else’s around the globe.

New mobile technology will complement the Photosynth wizardry. “One day you can walk out of your house, zoom down the street and see how close the nearest Starbucks is,” said Carson.

Of course, this technology presents a world of opportunity for advertisers.

The big question posed by Carson: Will this technology enhance the experience for online travel industry?

Travolution delegates’ answer….99.9% yes!

Tricia Holly Davis, chief writer, Travolution

Google and online travel agencies

Excellent guest post on the Boot blog asks an interesting question about Google's move into pay-per-action advertising and its impact on online travel agencies.

Michael Potts, founder and director of E-Interactive, reckons OTAs will come under pressure simply because hotels, airlines et al will have a cheaper route to market. He says:

"A move into the affiliate marketing space does pose a greater threat to OTA's as Google provides an even better distribution opportunity for travel suppliers desperate to avoid the high levels of commission payment to online distributors like Expedia (Expedia "normally" charges hoteliers 25% commission on the sale price for the right to place product there.)

"And once travel suppliers are all hooked on Google it really is time that the OTA's sat up and took some serious notice."

It's an interesting theory, perhaps made all lthe more intriguing with Google's recent purchase of DoubleClick.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Summit, Awards, blogging, videoblog

Big day ahead of us tomorrow. Our third conference takes places in London at the Landmark Hotel, followed by the first Travolution Awards during the evening.

A final few delegates passes are available for the Summit (get one now); the invitation-only Awards night is now sold out.

We will be blogging live from the conference as per usual. Check here for regular updates.

And, in a first for the UK travel industry, we will have a VideoBlog at the Summit to capture the opinions of delegates and speakers.

This service has been kindly provided by HolidayNet.com.

We will post the results on YouTube at the end of the week.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Froogle grows up - new opportunities for travel?

Google relaunched its five-year-old Froogle tool this week, with the far more official sounding name Google Product Search.

[Google announcement]

Clearly Google has decided that there is more mileage in the product (unlike it's Answers tool, which it dumped last year after the storming success of Yahoo Answers), and there could - only could, at this stage - be some interesting developments for travel brands.

It will be interesting to see whether a reinvigorated Froogle Google Product Search will now become more attractive to the sector.

At present there is plenty of travel content available to consumers, uploaded by advertisers onto the Google Base system. It consists mainly of hotel rooms.

What GPS does have is completely unbiased results. Companies do not pay for inclusion via Base - it is, some might argue, the perfect price comparison site.

The enhanced is integrating the search giant's other great hope for the future - Google Checkout.

But at this stage, given the sheer quantity of travel content available on meta search engines, it seems remarkable that consumers would see Froogle as a viable alternative.

Let's see how things go...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: froogle google base google checkout meta search

A travel blogger learns a lesson the hard way

A week or so back the Travel Rants consumer blog posted an article criticising a UK-based online travel company called On The Beach.

Travolution followed the story purely to discover how travel companies are being forced to react to the blogosphere and the web in general when consumers use the internet to air their complaints.

It has since emerged that Travel Rants made an error in its identification of the company named.

This has caused a fair amount of embarrassment to Travel Rants editor Darren Cronian. He has posted a public apology by way of redress to On The Beach.

Due to the enormity of the mistake on behalf of Travel Rants, and the way in which the problem spiralled out of control, principly by using the comments section on our original post as a means to communicate, we have now removed some of the responses for legal reasons.

Travolution is pleased to see Cronian and On The Beach have got to the bottom of the issue.

We have also amended some elements of the original post.

Lesson #1 for budding consumer bloggers out there: accuracy.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

The Long Tail of Travel

The April edition of Travolution is now available.

To build on some of the excellent articles in the issue, we've decided to launch our own community project.

This is not a clean-up-the-school-playing-fields type initiative [there are so few left to tidy up!], but something we hope to develop to become an excellent resource for one of the most hotly debated topics to emerge in recent years - The Long Tail. And, more specifically, The Long Tail of Travel.

Our cover story for the April edition tackles the basics: what is it?; views from a marketing agency and a product owner; how long can the tail get?

We are keen to expand project this to include:

• Data that supports/criticises the theory
• Opinions of others in the industry
• Academic ideas
• Economic analysis

The community aspect of this project is that we hope, over time, to have a body of excellent work created by you, the industry.

See more at the Long Tail of Travel page on the Travolution website.

Anyone with ideas, articles, links to other work, can email us or leave comments here on the blog.

Remember: we want you all to get involved.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: long tail long tail of travel travel economics

Click fraud on the rise...

Click Forensics, Inc. , a self-described independent analysis company, today released industry pay-per-click (PPC) fraud figures for the first quarter 2007.

The results are not good.

The Click Fraud Index , as it is aptly named, found that the overall industry average click fraud rate was 14.8% for Q1 2007 versus 13.7% for the same period a year ago.

The average click fraud rate of PPC advertisements appearing on search engine content networks was 21.9%, versus 19.2% last year.

The industry average click fraud rate for high-priced search terms (defined as those costing more than $2) was 22.2%, up from 20.9%.

“It appears that click fraud perpetrators are becoming more sophisticated even as search providers step up their efforts to fight click fraud,” said Tom Cuthbert, president and CEO of Click Forensics, Inc. “Click fraud seems to be following a similar path as other online fraud schemes such as spam and phishing - the problem is growing as fraudsters fine tune their methods.”

(It's always a few bad apples who have to ruin things for the rest of us.)

If you've not already read the most recent issue of Travolution cover-to-cover (and I know most of you good boys and girls have), check out "The Dark Side of Search" article, penned by our newest contributor, Adam Woods, for an in-depth discussion on this increasingly worrying topic.

Tricia Holly Davis, chief writer, Travolution

Technorati tags: fraud hijacking

Who are The Yahoo Two?

Apparently there are only two people on the entire planet that know how the new Yahoo! Panama quality index works.

So says Richard Firminger, regional sales director Yahoo! Search Marketing, who spoke about Yahoo!'s new flagship advertising platform to a group of online travel types this morning at a breakfast seminar in London.

The quality index is arguably the best and most important part of the new Panama platform [although we're not supposed to call it Panama!] - a new process to rank sites and allow for a better bidding system.

But Firminger says that the way the system works is such a closely guarded secret that not even senior people in the company know its detail. Yes, just two people...

One of them works in the search department [thankfully] at Yahoo!'s Sunnyvale headquarters in California, Firminger told the bemused audience at the Latitude/PureGenie-sponsored event.

Firminger was clearly in a secretive mood. When explaining that future search results may be displayed using elements from other Yahoo! products such as Answers, Flickr, Maps, etc, he said: "That's not for you, Mr Travolution." Clearly our reputation proceeds us.

Shame his comments have been reported elsewhere already.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: yahoo flickr yahoo two

Holiday videos coming to a phone near you

It should be quite evident by now that the concepts of social media and shared content are not trends which will fizzle out like the latest high street fad.

Rather, sites like YouTube are increasingly important to travel providers, and those which successfully embrace such technologies only stand to gain loyal customers.

That said, the recent announcement from electronics manufacturing giant Sharp Corp about the development of a new type of LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) panel, which will allow people to view streaming video on mobile phones and other handheld devices, should be treated with much fanfare.

The new panels boast a wide viewing angle of 176 degrees and a high-speed response time of eight milliseconds (three times as fast as conventional panels).

They are also supposedly cheaper to produce than their high-tech equivalents, so can appeal to the mass-market.

If the news does not move you to animated levels of excitement, it should at least pique your curiosity as to what this means for the social-media driven online travel industry.

Camera and phone manufacturers are increasingly incorporating a video function into their products. Users in turn can upload videos of their holiday on to sites like YouTube.

The finer technology of the sort Sharp has created (and no doubt many of its competitors are producing) only adds momentum to social media "trend", opening new points of access to millions of consumers.

The use of mobiles to explore and purchase travel and to share travel experiences may not be omnipresent yet, but we're getting there.

Tricia Holly Davis, chief writer, Travolution

Technorati tags: sharp hotel video LCD

Pass me the cookies - but please do not delete

US online measurement company ComScore sent an out an interesting press release yesterday which questions the use of cookie-based data to determine the number of unique visitors to individual websites.

[Cookies are what Wikipedia calls "parcels of text" sent by a browser to authenticate and track users]

Apparently 31% of US internet users clear first-party cookies - those sent direct from websites - out of their systems every month, meaning that if a site uses the number of cookies it sends out as a basis to work out traffic levels it might actually be over-cooking the figures - slightly.

Interesting...

There's more: the sample size for the study was 400,000 home PCs and the average number of cookies each had for a single site was 2.5.

ComScore says:

"This indicates that website server logs that count unique cookies to measure unique visitors are likely to be exaggerating the size of the site’s audience by a factor as high as 2.5, or an overstatement of 150 percent." That suddenly sounds like rather a lot...

For third party cookies, those which are often sent via advertisers on a website, the figure is even higher at 2.6 per user.

Would be intrigued to learn if any travel sites are still using this method to establish their traffic figures.

[Full release here]

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: web statistics comscore cookies

If only all hotel review websites did this

We wrote an article about this super-whizzy hotel review website, called SuperTour.com, last April.

Buried in the depths of YouTube, we found a video demonstration of the site - and it is really rather good.



Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: video hotel review youtube

Google suddenly has an awful lot of power

Google has snapped up DoubleClick, the ad and affiliate network, for a £1.6 billion.

Reports all over the web such as here and here suggest Microsoft and Yahoo! were also in the hunt for DoubleClick.

So the world's biggest search advertising provider has just teamed up with one of the world's biggest affiliate networks.

That is one hell of a squeeze on the online advertising market. Significant implications for the travel sector. I can think of at least one travel company that will now be putting almost 80% of its online marketing budget into Google's coffers.

Also puts Google's purchase of YouTube for £800 million (albeit with stock) into context.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: google doubleclick affiliate marketing

Combating travel bloggers with silence

[UPDATE: post ammended followed the discovery that the original complaint on the Travel-Rants blog was made in error]

Some blogs and message boards will happily act as unofficial watchdogs for travel consumers.

Indeed word-of-mouth communication about how awful a brand might be has been replaced by the ability to distribute polemics easily across the internet.

But is being fair and balanced necessary by this new breed of online commentators? One would assume it is important to organisations like a business media brand like Travolution, where getting all sides to a story - especially when that story is rather controversial - is critical.

So we came across a post on Travel-Rants yesterday, where its editor Darren Cronian takes on a North of England-based online travel provider known as OnTheBeachHolidays.com, after his uncle had a bad experience with it.

Our reaction was to ask what response the company had given when offered the opportunity to comment.

Cronian reported back that he had been unable to reach them at the time of writing his piece.

Some of the comments that have been made against his post have been reasonably strong and negative. Links provided to a forum thread elsewhere about the company reveal even more apparent problems with its customer service.

As far as Travolution is concerned, forum posters and bloggers in particular have an increasingly strong position to influence consumers by building or destroying the reputation of a travel brand.

Whether they should ensure they contact the companies to get their side of the story is an interesting one - and a debate for the multitude of blogs out there that blog about blogging. Ugh.

[UPDATE: Travel Rants has since admitted it made a mistake in identifying On The Beach. Its public apology]

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: blog customer service journalism watchdog

Wilfing - sounds rude and over two-thirds of us are doing it

Apparently 69% of UK online consumers are easily distracted when using the web - meaning we are now all to be known as Wilfers (What Was I looking For?).

Worse still for employers and close family and friends, we are spending two full days a month Wilfing about on the web.

The reason for this is that there is now such an abundance of content on the web that we are distracted from using it for its original purpose, like working or booking a holiday.

The research, put together by MoneySupermarket.com, owner of TravelSupermarket.com, in conjunction with YouGov, reckons once we hit the age of 55 we are less inclined to Wilf than the under 25s.

A "TV motivator and life coach" chap drafted in to issue some pearls of wisdom on the press release says:

"Set yourself a specific surfing goal and time limit to keep on track. Set pop-up blockers on your PC to save you being distracted.

"And when you’re buying things online, think about using online services that will trawl the net for you and allow you to get off the computer and on with your life.”

This post took two days to write...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: WILF computer life coach

What did the travel company say to the PR company?

"I am not worried about press coverage anymore. Just send people to my website."

Sign of the times...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: public relations newspaper

Splogger update

There is nothing like pointing out an apparent injustice to the rest of the internet community and then seeing quick results.

A post over the weekend about E-Travel News, which has been duplicating our content, generated some interesting responses, with offers of advice pouring in and one reader actually reporting the site to Google.

A strongly worded email to the site's administrator yesterday yielded an immediate response.

E-Travel News has changed its "scripting" to stop the RSS feed automatically populating the site's homepage with pour blog posts. The existing duplicated content will be removed within the next 28 days.

While it was highly amusing to see a Travolution Blog post on the E-Travel News homepage with headline criticising the site, content duplicatipon is a serious issue.

Our thanks to those who offered tips with how to combat the problem.

This is probably the most thorough and useful explanation:

What to do when someone steals your content via the Lorelle on Wordpress blog.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: splog google blogs

Updating our RSS reader feeds

Been tidying up the travel blogs section in our Google Reader today. Here are the current blogs Travolution takes a feed from:

Hotel Blogs
Radaron
Social Media on the Fly
The BOOT
Travel and Web 2.0
Travel Rants
Travel Technology
Travel Weekly Blog
Web 2.0 Travel Tools

And for comedy value:

TripAdvisor Blog

These are probably the main sites from the recent T-List Meme that Travolution readers would be most interested in.

[The T-List seems to have almost come to an end in recent weeks, but it grew to become an epic piece of linking. Does anyone have the definitive list?]

UPDATE: Full T-List. [Hat tip to Travel-Rants for the link]

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: blogs meme google

Lastminute.com ad spiked before hitting the airwaves

Not sure about this TV ad for Lastminute.com, apparently filmed in London in 2005.

It was supposedly only a test commercial, but I imagine someone thought better of it [probably just as Travelocity was about to buy the company!]



Maybe it will be resurrected if viral marketing picks it up again...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: lastminute.com execution electric chair

TripAdvisor has a MySpace page

Well, not exactly, but the gloriously sarcastic "Owl", who writes the very funny official TripAdvisor blog, does have a MySpace page.

Travolution is glad to say it has been accepted as one of the Snarky Owl's "friends".

[Travolution's MySpace page needs some love and attention]

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: tripadvisor myspace

How to spot a Splog - E-Travel News is one

A fellow blogger brought to our attention the existence of a online travel spam blog, known as E-Travel News [i'm not linking to it], which is basically lifting all of the Travolution Blog's content.

Splogs are growing rapidly and are a pain in the backside as they duplicate content (bad for the Google Juice) and, generally, look and feel like they were put together by people not remotely interested in providing a good online experience.

Technorati, according to a report on E-Consultancy.com, was apparently tracking 11,000 new splogs a day in December 2006.

[Wikipedia entry on Splogs]

While we are happy for other sites to reproduce snippets of what we write about, simply pulling content verbatim out of an RSS feed and sticking on a site is just lazy.

I wrote to the "administrative contact" for E-Travel news, Chad Horstman, last week to suggest rather than publishing everything we do perhaps he might want to run the first few lines with a link to the rest of the story on just a few selected posts.

Of course this was very naive on our part, but I wanted to see how far diplomacy in the world of splogging can actually go - if at all.

Readers will not be surprised to learn that Horstman has not replied and has not taken on board our request. [Insert expletive here]

It then struck me that it will be interesting to see how selective E-Travel News is, or whether it is a completely automated system. Thus the headline on this post...

I will post a screen grab later on if our post criticising E-Travel News makes it onto their front page. Perhaps I'll be crucified by other bloggers for actually drawing attention to the splogger in the first place, but we'll see...

UPDATE: Right on cue, E-Travel News has run the feed, including headline. Silly boy.


You've got to laugh...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: splog google blogs

A Good Friday to take stock of 2007

Time flies fast, the saying goes, but the first quarter of 2007 appears to have raced by quicker than you can say "Big Four into Big Three into Big Two".

Without doubt the biggest story to hit the travel industry so far this year has been the consolidation between the traditional travel providers - Thomas Cook and MyTravel shocking many people back in February when they announced their merger, followed by TUI and First Choice a few weeks back when they decided to get in on the act.

Our analysis of the TUI-First Choice deal merger provoked some strong reactions, but we stand by it all. The US players MUST be watching the situation here in Europe very closely.

The deals came shortly after we published an interview with Ian McCaig, chief executive of Lastminute.com, who spoke of a widening gap in the European industry between those that have the power to negotiate on high volume deals with suppliers and, basically, those that do not.

The smaller companies will find themselves forced into "going niche", as someone else put it to us shortly after McCaig's comments.

Meanwhile much attention - admittedly a lot from us - has been given to the British Airways content distribution negotiations with the four big GDSs.

So far Worldspan, Galileo and Sabre Travel Network have re-signed, with Amadeus remaining.

Tricia Holly Davis has been following the event closely for months, breaking a number of key developments during the negotiations, including the news that BA was playing "rack-rate" to GDSs after talks failed to bring about a solution before the original 28 February deadline.

Amazingly, while all the above events have been going on, Expedia has managed to keep itself almost out of the news entirely for almost half a year now, such has been the focus of attention on the shenenigans across the traditional market.

But the OTA suddenly finds itself in a unique position: it is one very few big travel companies, certainly in the US, not owned by private equity; and it is still the dominant player in many markets.

Rumours abound, however, Expedia will feature much more heavily in headlines in the remaining three quarters of 2007.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: expedia british airways online travel

CRM for beginners #94

Beware:

Away from the laptop for just 12 hours or so and the UK government has sent me an astonishing 45 press releases.

Travmedia.com, a UK-based PR bulletin board for the travel industry, has sent 25 emails this week.

Our system here tells me 36 "junk messages" have been blocked since Monday.

Wading through the mountain of electronic communications every day is becoming an increasingly tiresome task.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: press release

Reinvention and what a load of...baloney

A couple of blog posts floating around regarding the recent E-Marketing report into online travel: US Online Travel - The Threat of Commoditization.

Teddie Cowell on Search Engine War points to where Jeffrey Grau, a senior analyst and co-author of the report, claims "industry players must be willing to reinvent themselves to keep up with consumer, technology and competitive forces".

"I couldn't agree more," says Cowell.

Meanwhile, Tim Hughes on The Boot, says the bit in some pre-report puff, which focuses on a supposed slowing down of growth in the US online market, is "BALONEY". Haven't heard that word for years, Tim, but a great one all the same...

"Just a press release from a research org to generate buzz around their research. The key to the story is not that the US online travel market is either slowing in its growth or that there is a risk of commoditization of travel - the true story is that this year online travel will be more than 50% of the market. The story is not about the pain in online travel but the pain in offline."

Well said, Sir.

For those unlucky enough to be working over the weekend, we'll be posting. For everyone else, enjoy the long holiday weekend.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: online travel

Google's petulant child

Google could be forgiven for thinking that its YouTube subsidiary is more headache than the $1.6 billion (£810 million) price tag was worth.

Since purchasing the world's most-popular video-sharing site late last year, Google has found itself embroiled in a sticky copyright scrap with Viacom, where it faces $1 billion in damages for the alleged unauthorised use of Viacom programmes on YouTube.

YouTube more recently has found itself in trouble in the Kingdom of Thailand.

Thailand apparently banned YouTube after a user posted a 44-second video featuring unfavourable images of the country's King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

Google, true to its zero-tolerance for evil censorship bullies (China aside, of course), reportedly refused to remove the clip, according to a Wednesday report on Bloomberg, the business wire service.

But someone in the Google/YouTube empire has apparently had a change of heart. Travolution found the clip in question but, when we tried to access it, we were told it had been removed by the user.

This is not the first time YouTubers have been naughty. In January the company reportedly removed a video of a Merrill Lynch banker having sex on a beach (not the drink, the real thing) after a Brazilian judge threatened to ban the site until the clip was removed.

One can only imagine what compromising "bunny" videos could be coming our way this weekend...

Tricia Holly Davis, chief writer, Travolution

Technorati tags: google youtube thailand

Should the industry really ban affiliate sites?

The Travel-Rants blog, one of the most popular UK travel blogs, which has a reasonable amount of clout with online consumers and, increasingly, the UK national press, today calls for a ban on affiliate travel sites.

Darren Cronian, the blog's editor, complains that entire websites are being created based on affiliate schemes and are often passing themselves off as holiday websites.

The issue is made all the more confusing, he suggests, by the inclusion of ABTA and ATOL certificates on websites, perhaps leading consumers to believe that they would be protected by one of the schemes.

In some respects, Cronian has a strong argument. He is, as ever, championing the humble consumer as they increasingly shift their travel buying behaviour online.

"Travel companies should be made responsible for monitoring sites using its affiliate programs to ensure that these sites aren’t being created to trick the travel consumer into thinking that they are using a site of an established and bonded travel company."

The use of bonding/protection logos to hoodwink consumers is, of couse, something that should be addressed.

However where Cronian's argument perhaps falls down is in his plea to scrap websites which are using affiliate programmes to make money.

Indeed, banning certain websites per se is a thorny issue. The internet has become a fantastic platform for publishing information and creating new business ideas - such as affiliate programmes.

To argue for a ban on affiliate travel websites just because they do not appear to conform to the norm isn't really in keeping with free-spirited nature of the development of the web.

"What some individuals are doing through [sic] is creating complete holiday websites." So what...

Should we ban blogs just because we don't agree with what they say? Of course not...

The beauty of the web and the way people use it is that in many ways it is self-policing.

Consumers will realise a site is a dud eventually, whether it is a commerce site, media outlet or blog, social networking site or information portal.

NB: It is worth noting that, putting Cronian's valid protection issue to one side, travel companies enjoy the benefits of the affiliate marketing industry more than most consumers probably realise.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

GDS deregulation debate rears its head again

"Open Letters" always sound very dramatic - but the message in this particular letter is one that pops up from time to time and is doing the rounds elsewhere.

The European Commission is once again soliciting comments from the industry regarding deregulation of the GDSs.

The debate has not changed: one side says all airline owernship in Amadeus must be divested before full deregulation is allowed, lest the threat of biased disaplay, as indicated in the letter below.

The other side claims biased display is not a reality and cites several reasons, as outlined continuously over the year.

Anyway...

Dear editor,

The travel industry is one of continual evolution and change. Keeping up with the events that can fundamentally affect our business from day to day is a challenge. However, there is one issue that I would like to bring to your attention, as it could impact our industry and change the way many of us do business.

Recently, the European Commission (EC) began soliciting public comment on possible revisions to the Code of Conduct for Computerized Reservation Systems (CRS), also known as global distribution systems (GDS), and will accept comments through the 27th of April.

The last round of discussions and debate on the subject of CRS deregulation took place in 2004. Arguments focused on the "Brattle Report," which was commissioned by the EC from the Brattle Group in October of 2003 to provide an objective point of view on the regulatory environment around CRSs in Europe and to make concrete recommendations with regards to total or partial deregulation. (The 15-page executive summary is well worth the read.) The EC ultimately postponed decision-making. However, the current public consultation means it is again time to act.

It is not my objective to promulgate a particular point of view. I wish simply to call your attention to some of the fundamental questions that have been asked in the past and for which the EC will need to provide answers via a legislative decision that could take place later this year.

When an airline has ownership in a CRS, should this raise competitive concerns for consumers, business travelers and their companies? If the playing field in Europe risks being biased in favor of CRS-owning airlines and their distribution channels, would access to full content be impacted?

If the content in the CRSs is not available on an equal basis and is, in addition, fragmented across several distribution channels, how would this affect efficiency and the cost of distribution, as well as travel?

As a consumer and an actor in the travel industry, I would encourage you to take advantage of this unique opportunity and make your opinion known to the EC by no later than the 27 of April at one of the following addresses:

European Commission
Directorate-General for Energy and Transport
Office DM24 5/98
B-1049 Brussels, Belgium

tren-consultation-crs@ec.europa.eu

For further information on this important issue, please visit C-fare.org

Richard Lovell, chief operating officer, EMEA and Latin America, Carlson Wagonlit Travel

And that left Amadeus

Another day, another GDS signs with British Airways to renew its content distribution deal.

Looking forward to an early Easter egg is Worldspan, which became the third GDS to end what appears to have been reasonably fraught negotitations in recent months between all four leading players and the UK's flag carrier.

So just Amadeus remains without a deal, with Galileo [which, it must be remembered, could be merging with Worldspan in a few months anyway, subject to regulatory approval in the US] and Sabre Travel Network already enjoying their new relationship with BA.

So another signing before the crucial magical April 10 deadline looks a likely bet. Although there could yet be another twist to what has been a pretty captivating process so far.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Google has high expectations of its users

Perhaps Google is taking the green debate a little too seriously.

In fact, the search engine giant doesn't expect consumers to fly from New York to London at all. Here is what Google Maps suggests as a mode of transport users should consider:

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Hat-tip to Data Mining Blog

Google and flight alerts for mobiles

Our scribe in the USA, Dennis Schaal, has turned up an interesting nugget of news whilst doing his day job for Travel Weekly US.

Consumers can now send a SMS text message to Google to retrieve flight information "within seconds".

Passengers simply whizz over the name of the airline and flight number. Google will kindly reply with the current status of the flight.

Built in conjunction with Flightstats.com, the service only covers flights departing or arriving in the US - for the time being.

Full story [needs registration]

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

EXCLUSIVE - Travolution to create GDS

In years to come industry commentators will remember where they were the day Travolution announced its intention to move into the GDS space by teaming up with start-up Lirpaloof.com.

So here's a bit of a heads-up...

After at least six months in the planning, under the guise of arranging the finer details of our forthcoming Awards and Summit, Travolution publishing director Simon Ferguson and I have been in top-level discussions with Lirpaloof.com to launch what we believe could be the first serious challenge to the stranglehold of the major GDSs.

Much has been made of the so-called mini or Smart-GDSs, but Travolution-Lirpaloof.com's plan, known as Project Baba, will revolutionise the process further.

The partnership will draw on the skills of both companies: Travolution will be able to work with its vast array of contacts within the airline industry to negotiate favourable distribution rates for fares.

Lirpaloof.com will use its superior technology, developed initially for the Blackberry market, to run the complex hardware and software required to take on the likes of Sabre, Amadeus, Worldspan and Galileo.

A statement to be issued tomorrow to the wires from Simon and myself will say:

"We are delighted to be working with Lirpaloof.com. Combining the power of these two very different organisations - one a cutting edge player in media, the other a market-leader in handheld technologies - will send shivers down the spines of the existing GDSs."

"We can reassure readers our position as a publisher of magazines, our blog and website for the travel trade will not compromised by this partnership. We go through phases every week when at least one of the current GDSs falls out with us, so at least this will be official."

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Read more about Lirpaloof.com.

Some other amazing news.