Follow-up to Thomas Cook web review

A few months back, E-Consultancy posted a pretty downbeat review of the Thomas Cook website.

The timing of the review couldn't have been worse as Thomas Cook was in the middle of making some major changes to the site.

Anyway, E-Consultancy has taken another look at the new site and re-posted.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

What ThomasCook.com can do better

According to E-Consultancy.com.

Full analysis on the main site, but summarised:

• Avoid returning no results for holiday searches
• Provide some user reviews and feedback
• Load my search results faster
• Don't surprise me with hidden charges
• Allow users to save their previous searches
• Provide a contact number during the booking process
• Don't display unavailable flights
• Provide more useful information on airports/destinations
• Improve the calendar
• More flexible search options

Interesting piece. We've got in touch with TC to see what they think of the article.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: thomas cook e-consultancy

End of the line for above the line and below the line and through the line

Or something.

Excellent post on E-Consultancy.com outlining what will be the demise of decades of thinking when it comes to advertising and reach and targeting and process.

Let's not obsess about that line any more. Let's think instead about the line between acquisition and retention.

I think this is a much more meaningful line, and the crossover point is the moment of 'conversion'.

Wonderfully put.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Dot-com's are not safe from economic downturns

Quite brilliant article on the E-Consultancy website, explaining in some depth why the internet's favourite upstarts (Facebook, Twitter, Slide, Digg and the like) should not be smug about surviving a slump in the global economy.

The industry’s optimism stems from a belief that many of today’s hottest concepts either are recession-resistant or are developing moneysaving products that may have even more appeal during an economic downturn.

Full article: "Why the internet economy is not immune from recession"

This issue is equally relevant for the online travel sector, where the 'start-up' is in overdrive yet many have yet to realise their potential commercially, meaning potential backers may be nervous about investing.

This in turn poses an interesting dilemma: if 'start-ups' are less likely to succeed if investors shy away where will the innovation come?

Many believe real innovation comes from start-ups because the big players are too busy being, er, big.Kevin May, editor, Travolution

E-Bore-ometer

Looking for things to do before Christmas?

Worried that you might send the relatives to sleep over Christmas dinner with tales of widgets, start-ups and, er, blogging.

Try the E-Consultancy E-Bore-ometer test.

I scored 40%. There's still hope for me - and the relatives - yet.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

The end of the subscription model

Or so it would seem.

Web users "prefer ads to charges".

There are plenty of travel websites out there who must be thinking their so-called exclusive content, hidden behind a subscription wall, needs to be unleashed on users.

Good for SEO, too.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Tips on improving the checkout process

Good article on the excellent E-Consultancy website about the dreaded booking process - and how ecommerce sites can (try to) reduce the number of drop-outs.

A full report - Online Retail Checkout - can be bought here.

In short:

• Make the process clear and appear simple
• Enclose the checkout process
• Make the process navigable without loss of information
• Reinforce trust in the checkout process

Food for thought for the travel industry.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: checkout

Avis and its blogging strategy

Interesting interview on E-Consultancy with Xavier Vallee, UK head of marketing for car hire giant Avis, about the WeTryHarder blog.

Vallee goes into a fair amount of detail about why the company launched a blog, its policy on comment moderation ("We don't filter negative comments - just spam" - which is encouraging, if its true 100% of the time), and costs.

The WeTryHarder blog was shortlisted at the Travolution Awards 2007 in the Best Use of Social Media category. It was eventually beaten by the STA Travel Travel Blogs.

Full interview with Vallee here.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: avis blog car

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

Travel loves affiliate marketing

So says a new report from E-Consultancy, which reveals the eight biggest sectors for affiliates, topped by the travel and flights sector.

• Travel/flights (30%)
• Entertainment/music (27%)
• Electrical goods (24%), computer/laptops etc (24%)
• Gifts/gadgets (22%), books (22%)
• Fashion/clothes (21%)
• Financial services (19%) and mobile phones (19%)

Some interesting titbits of information about affiliates across the internet:

• Only 15% of affiliates are signed up with just one network...
• ...but two-thirds are signed up with three networks or more
• Half of all affiliates promote to ten advertisers or less
• "Google is damaging the affiliate marketing industry", 34% agree, 26% disagree
• Over half say "spyware is a major problem", with only 13% disagreeing

Get the full report here

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

The Web 2.0 test

Think you know about Web 2.0? And does your knowledge match the experts at E-Consultancy?

The web-based analysts for the world of electronic marketing have produced a game to test your wits about all things Web 2.0.

It takes just five minutes to complete.

CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE TEST

Thanks to Chris Lake at E-Consultancy.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution