RIP: Panorama, Manos, Aspro, Escapades sites

According to reports, Thomas Cook will be closing the websites of specalist operator brands Panorama, Manos, Aspro and Escapades this week.

They were acquired by Thomas Cook as part of the merger with Mytravel, but a decision has been made to to bring the online presence of the operators into the main thomascook.com site.

Users will be re-directed automatically.

So here is your latest chance to see them before they are consigned to Web Heaven/Room 101:

 

  

 

  

 

May they rest in peace...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Perspective again please

Plenty and rather mixed coverage around the web today regarding the second anniversary edition of the Hitwise-IMRG Hotshops list.

The quarterly report of the top 50 UK online retailers is a handy benchmark of whose flying or dying in the online world, albeit from a share of overall web traffic rather than individual performance.

So what did the May 2008 report reveal, compared to that of May 2006?

There are currently eleven travel brands amongst the top 50 – a list topped unsurprisingly every quarter since it began by Amazon.co.uk.

TravelMole led with how Thomson Holidays is creeping up on easyJet as the most popular travel brand in the UK, while E-Tid said ‘Travel companies lose web presence’. [both require registration]

The report indicated that almost all the leading travel brands – with the exception of Thomson – had seen in a decline in position since the report began two years ago:

EasyJet – 8 to 10
Expedia – 7 to 12
Ryanair – 9 to 14
Lastminute.com – 12 to 17
BA – 11 to 19
Thomas Cook – 18 to 25
First Choice – 20 to 29

Quite a number of travel brands have dropped off the list:

MyTravel (for obvious reasons)
BMIBaby
XL.com
FlyBe
Jet2
InterContinental Hotels
Monarch Airlines
Opodo

The only newcomer in travel:

TravelRepublic

The apparent slump in the performance of travel websites led the Financial Times to headline with ‘Airlines lose web customers’. Lose?

What the FT failed to do is explain in detail why this has happened.

A call to Hitwise’s Robin Goad, co-author of the list, confirms the obvious: travel was an early adopter of e-commerce and consumers, likewise, felt comfortable with booking via the web, thus why so travel sites commanded a large share of the top 50.

In the past two years, however, other retailers have emerged – some traditional offliners, others created to service existing markets but purely online – and have attracted new users.

So while growth in online travel bookings may be slowing compared to other industry verticals, it is by no means declining.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: hitwise IMRG hotshops retail

Thomson's magic 500

That's actually 500% more money channelled into online advertising (display) in 2007 than in the previous 12 months.

The figures from Nielsen Media Research [here on Brand Republic - registration required] reveal Thomson spent £4.6 million in 2007, a figure which accounts for 26% of its overall adspend and puts it in 17th position overall in the UK.

[Obviously PPC keyword spend is not included in any of these figures]

Other travel firms featuring in the top 100 UK spenders include:

• 32: British Airways - £2.7 million - up 47% (9% of total)
• 40: Expedia - £2.1 million - up 53% (14% of total)
• 52: Travelzoo - £1.6 million - up 662% (100% of total)
• 54: Lastminute.com - £1.6 million - up 124% (26% of total)
• 73: P&O Ferries - £1.2 million - up 88% (34% of total)
• 76: MyTravel - £1.2 million - up 279% (30% of total)
• 87: EasyGroup - £1.1 million - up 2000% (98% of total) Yes, up 2000%
• 88: Eurotunnel - £1 million - up 26% (52% of total)
• 95: Hotels.com - £992K - down 20% (26% of total)

The overall highest spenders in the UK are Personal Loan Express (£28.5 million), Ebay (£19.8 million) and BSkyB (£15.8 million).

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: marketing adpsend

Lifting the lid on Thomas Cook

Thomas Cook has been quiet for a while so we were excited at the prospect of catching up on all things online.

Russell Gould has been in the e-commerce director chair for not quite a year and has already brought many a Mytravel experience to Cooks.

Thomascook.com has been revamped and relaunched focusing on four customer segments:

• Those that know exactly what they want
• Those that are browsing for deals
• Those that are just browsing to see what's around
• Those who don't have a clue what they want

Like the work MyTravel has carried out on its sites in the past three years it was a three-stage approach focused on getting basics right in order to improve conversion. The stages were -improving the search and booking technology, navigation and design and the content.

The new Cook's site also moved to the three column approach with deals on the left, inspiration in the middle and the search function on the right.

In short, everything is slicker, speedier and much more thought out.

Surprisingly, prior to this project Thomas Cook redesigns had been based on opinions!

As always, Cooks are tightlipped when it comes to numbers so Russell couldn't say much but the following suggests he is pleased:

Since going live we have had record day on record day. When we did this for MyTravel, on each of four projects we saw in excess of 15% improvement in conversion. Thomas Cook has been greater than that.

Linda Fox, lead reporter, Travolution

Say Hello to new ways of meeting

Our latest column for Travel Weekly, with some more predictions:

The travel industry has finally accepted its fate: that it needs to embrace as many distribution channels as possible to reach the modern consumer.

This shift in thinking will be put into practice by many travel companies in 2008, with equal emphasis given to offline and online interaction.

But what else can we expect this year?

Expedia’s announcement in November last year that it would adopt what it calls a “media model” (cost-per-click for referrals) for its partnership with the InterContinental Hotel Group set tongues wagging across the online sector.

Not only did it signal the return of IHG to Expedia after a high-profile bust-up in 2004, but it triggered discussions about how the online travel agency model will develop.

The industry is divided as to the logic behind Expedia’s decision to effectively become a metasearch engine for that particular client.

Rival OTAs and suppliers will be watching this relationship closely – and expect an escalation of the model by Expedia to others if it works.

A significant change to the OTA business model has repercussions throughout the online travel industry.

Meanwhile, this year should also see whether the (often wild) enthusiasm for social networks by consumers is going to stay or simply disappear before you can say “MyTravel, remember that?”.

If social networks continue to grow then it is critical travel companies try to reach consumers in these new channels.

With only 300 or so travel-related applications on Facebook, for example, including TripAdvisor, Sidestep and, more recently, Youtravel, there is certainly plenty of room still for innovation.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Pivotal moments of 2007 for online travel

The holiday season approaches - 2008 beckons...

We want to collect the opinions of the travel industry in order to compile a list of the biggest news stories and most important developments of 2007.

We will add ALL entries made via the comments section into the main post. Also, feel free to copy this post onto your own blog or site and re-post it with your suggestions. A worthwhile Meme to end the year.

The list begins:

• Thomas Cook-MyTravel merger (Travolution) - the start of a new shape for the European travel industry.
• MoneySupermarket-TravelSupermarket floatation (TravelRemark)
• Avis launching a blog (Avis)
  
• DoSomethingDifferent making their content available to OTAs (DoSomethingDifferent)
  

Good luck and thanks in advance...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: 2007 review online travel 2008

What to do with MyTravel.com

New Media Age today reports how Thomas Cook will redesign its main website in March next year.

Makes sense - especially with news that it will essentially merge its Thomas Cook TV and the website platforms so 17,000 hours of footage can be streamed online.

Exciting times...

However. What will it do with MyTravel.com? The site always performed pretty well in terms of traffic and has a page rank of 4 [same as the Travolution blog!].


But now in the shiny PLC world of Thomas Cook Group, MyTravel doesn't really exist.

What would you do?

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: thomas cook mytravel

Thomas Cook Group integration problems

There was a bit of chatter yesterday at the Travolution Conference regarding some problems Thomas Cook is having with the integration of some elements of MyTravel's content and functionality - and some details are now beginning to emerge.

The Register reckons the MyTravelLite.com website is down and has been for most of the week.

Since the story was first posted just after midnight this morning, a holding page on MyTravelLite.com is now directing users to the main MyTravel website as all flights are now sold there.

This has apparently been the case since 28 October - until earlier today a message said "essential maintenance to our booking process" had led to the curtailment of service until further notice. A ever so slight change of words there.

Our information said the migration of flight booking data from MyTravel onto the Thomas Cook platform was supposed to take a few weeks, but the two systems would run concurrently.

At some point on Sunday night the system fell over, which led the MyTravelLite site to lose its booking functionality, and therefore why the whole thing was pulled down.

Thomas Cook said this week:

"All websites were taken down from 8pm on the Saturday evening until the following Monday morning, whilst the essential planned maintenance was carried out to shift to one reservation system.

"A holding page was put in place explaining the maintenance and timings to customers. Note that these changes impact all sales channels and not only our websites.

"A series of planned tasks had to be under-taken to complete this process and full end to end testing was completed. Unfortunately some of these tasks took a little longer than originally anticipated and as a result the holding page with appropriate links on MyTravellite.com website was not replaced. All continuing core websites went live again on Monday as planned."

[Alex Bainbridge offers his usual offbeat analysis of the situation - in fact, it's so offbeat there isn't any actual analysis at all, he just slams the travel press for not reporting it sooner. Fair point. I've offered our excuses on his post]

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: thomas cook mytravel

TUI Travel sharewatch

TUI Travel officially came into being today.

For those with their heads buried in the sand since early this year, TUI Travel is the trading name of the recently merged First Choice and holiday division of the German TUI AG group.

The new PLC is listed as of this morning on the London Stock Exchange.

See the Yahoo Finance ticker for TUI Travel.

So the old Big Four are now the Big Two. Hogwash.

Listen to anyone with any clout in the industry and they will admit that the "Big Two" is a bit of a fallacy. There are many other "big" travel providers around these days.

The sooner the industry wakes up to the new world the better. Thankfully this is finally happening.

Meanwhile, over on the Yahoo Finance page for Thomas Cook PLC shares, EasyJet has found itself in a rather nice position today with a banner ad for its latest sale. Three cheers for online advertising...


Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: thomas cook tui travel shares

Job losses are bad - but so is being unrealistic

Nobody would really say they were surprised when they heard today that the new Thomas Cook Group is planning to close 150 shops and a number of offices, potentially putting up to 2,800 jobs in the firing line.

Perhaps the figure is somewhat higher than expected but the strategy is hardly a leftfield move from Manny and co.

Unfortunately mergers always lead to business functions from existing companies being combined.

Couple this with the obvious pressure on existing High Street agencies belonging to Thomas Cook and MyTravel from the internet and the old model was clearly unsustainable.

Let's hope TCG make good on their promise to "redeploy" agents into other areas of the newly formed business.

What staff representatives - in this case the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association - must ensure is that pressure is put on TCG to re-train as many of the affected staff as possible so their undoubted knowledge can be used elsewhere in the business.

To lose that many highly skilled people would be disastrous for TCG - and for the employees themselves and towns such as Rochdale.

A TSSA spokesman on the Telegraph website this evening said:

"This is terrible news for Rochdale and the North West and will also be bad news for consumers across the UK, for it will mean less choice in the high street when it comes to holiday bookings."

The spokesman is absolutely correct about the impact on regions where many jobs could be lost, but some might suggest that is where the argument ends.

It is because consumers are finding there is enormous choice on the internet for holiday products that Thomas Cook, MyTravel, Thomson and First Choice have been steadily closing shops anyway.

NB: There is also a healthy independent travel agency sector in the UK.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: merger job

That first joint Thomas Cook-MyTravel press conference in full

Shocking behaviour...



Only kidding...

It's actually a promotion for MyTravel's create-your-ad competition running on YouTube.

More videos here on MyTravel's YouTube page, PimpMyTravel.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Hat-tip: Travel Weekly Blog

Technorati tags: thomas cook merger mytravel pimp travel

...meanwhile, over at Thomson

Thomas Cook Group arch rival Thomson - soon to be TUI Travel, once its proposed merger with First Choice kicks in - held a press conference in London this morning to unveil its annual Online Booking Report.

Some scene-stealing stats were rolled out by its new media director, Graham Donoghue:

• 60% of passengers are now booked online
• Hitwise data shows it is the second most visited site in the UK during 2007 - behind Expedia, ahead of Lastminute.com
• Running 1 million keywords on Google [someone said a few months it wanted 3 million, but Google advised against it]
• 500,000 videos viewed every week

A PDF from the press conference and 22MB Powerpoint presentation are available. [Travel Weekly story]

Meanwhile, TripAdvisor has spent far less time negotiating with Thomson than it has with sister company Expedia, over a deal to share user generated reviews. It took around ten weeks for the pair to come to an agreement and TripAdvisor reviews on Thomson.co.uk will be seen from September this year.

By the time TripAdvisor reviews are made available on the Expedia UK website, at least 18 months will have passed since the online travel agency publicly said it wanted to run user generated content from TripAdvisor on its site.

We're reminded of the phrase: You can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: thomson tripadvisor hotel review online sales

Thomas Cook Group sharewatch

Busy day for travel types in the UK.

The long-running merger between Thomas Cook and MyTravel reaches a climax today with the shares for the Thomas Cook Group listed on the London Stock Exchange this morning.

Go to the Yahoo! Finance share screen for the Thomas Cook Group.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: thomas cook stock prices

Mystery company tried to buy Thomas Cook last year

Interesting session at the ITT Conference with Manny Fontenla-Novoa.

Full post on our ITT Conference blog here.

He mentions a mysterious "another company" that apparently came in with an offer for Thomas Cook in the summer of 2006. Shareholders turned it down. Who could it be?

[Our apologies for the incorrect link yesterday. All correct now]

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Travel Survey Day #2

Another one: Travel websites represent 14 of the Top 50 retail websites in the UK, according to the IMRG/Hitwise Hot Shops survey for May 2007.

Leading the field are Amazon.co.uk, Tesco.com, Argos, Play.com and Amazon.com in the top 5 positions.

But positions six to ten are dominated by travel brands:

Expedia.co.uk (6)
EasyJet (8)
Ryanair (9)
BA.com (10)

Elsewhere in the Top 50:

Thomson Holidays (11)
Lastminute.com (15)
First Choice (20)
Thomas Cook (25)
MyTravel (27)
ThomsonFly.com (28)
Travelodge (30)
BMIBaby (33)
FlyBe.com (37)
Jet2.com (39)

Remarkably only two travel brands have lost their position in the Top 50 since the survey started in May 2006:

XL.com and Opodo.

No sign of Ebookers since the survey started.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: web traffic hitwise shopping retail

Travolution@E4T - FirstChoice to relaunch, but why?

UK multiple FirstChoice is planning to relaunch its website in November this year, despite the company being just weeks away from a merger with TUI.

Dermot Blastland, FirstChoice managing director, told delegates as much during a session on "Scale vs Specialisation".

As well as the usual relaunch spiel, Blastland said the new site will be designed to cater for those still lacking the confidence with online booking of travel products.

If rumours are to be believed, practically every travel website in the land will have seen some kind of makeover by the end of the year - so what is so special about FirstChoice?

The fact that the company is forging ahead with plans to relaunch the site despite being on the verge of joining forces with Thomson - which, as readers will know, has a very strong online presence - indicates a number of things:

• FirstChoice is worried it will not get a green light for its merger. Possible, but unlikely.
• FirstChoice offline brand is strong and they don't want to lose it completely.
• FirstChoice online brand is strong for SEO and it would be suicidal to cut of traffic.

This is all very intriguing...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: merger

Travolution@Triton - Mergers ahoy

The Triton conference is being completely overshadowed by what was just industry gossip yesterday and is hard news today that the UK travel consortium is considering a merger.

This is big news.

The trio of companies that make up Triton – Advantage Travel Centres, Global Travel Group and Worldchoice – are in active talks and have, there is no doubt about it, Big Plans.

We have ambitions to be “one of the top three groups,” says George Begg, chairman of Global Travel Group and an advisor to Triton.

Big Four to Big Two to Big Three perhaps…

In simple terms, the mergers elsewhere in the industry (Thomas Cook-MyTravel and Thomson-FirstChoice) have forced Triton’s hand.

The plans, which are being discussed by the Triton board but are clearly well advanced, will see Triton become a multiple, using stock (air and hotels), tour operating (holidays) and distribution (shops, call centres and the web).

Begg reckons the difference between a potential Triton powerhouse (“virtual vertical integration,” he calls it) and the other giants will be distribution controlling supply, rather than the other way round.

The Long Tail in action...

To top it all off, there are plans for a floatation in three years time to raise £20 million in capital to assist in what are clearly ambitious growth plans.

From a corporate perspective, a fellow hack and I have already been speculating as to who will take the top job.

John McEwan (boss of Advantage Travel Centres) and Andrew Botterill (CEO of Global Travel Group and a Travolution board member) would – most suspect – be vying for the top job.

Begg finished outlining the merger plans. A quick Q&A gleaned nothing (understandably the Triton board are trying to remain pretty tight lipped).

Cue a quick rush to the doors for coffee break and discussions that will clearly dominate the weekend.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: triton

Thomas Cook-MyTravel deal being overshadowed by something bigger

Just as EU regulators were rubber-stamping the Thomas Cook-MyTravel merger this afternoon, news reports sprung up all over the web about a potential deal between Microsoft and Yahoo!.

Oh, those two...

To say this would be the deal of the century would something be an understatement, affecting any company using the web.

Here's the report on the New York Post website, which broke the story under the headline "Bill's hard drive". And Mashable's analysis.

The BBC says the deal could have a value of $50 billion.

Back to the TC-MT merger. The likelihood of the Thomson-First Choice deal not being given the green light - especially after the pair agreed to offload some Irish businesses earlier today - is now very small.

As Travolution has said a number of times, deals between the Big Four were always likely to happen. What has shocked many people has been the timing.

Consolidation within the next year to 18 months - most people would have said yes. Time moves quickly.

Fuelled by the rapid rate of change in the industry and the need to get a grip on stock and route strategy, 2007 will probably be remembered as the year the "traditional" end of the industry woke up.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: microsoft-yahoo takeover

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

The 'most important year for years' - two years early

Lots of "years" there...

But those were the words used by one of the most senior people in the travel industry this week when, during a private dicussion, he described the reasons behind events of the past few months.

There is no doubting that what has happened, for example, with the planned mergers between four of the leading travel players in the UK, is a pivotal moment in how the industry is reacting to the new world of digital consumerism.

But did we all expect the consolidation, which is essentially a move to protect businesses and consumer revenue in the face of competition from the pure web players, to have kicked in so quickly, and with such enthusiasm?

Would we have second-guessed the current machinations just 12 months ago? Probably not...

What is clear, our confidant says, is that the REAL impact of the web and the hugely empowered consumer is probably knocking at the front door of travel perhaps two years earlier than expected.

The leading players are now moving quickly to ensure they are not staring at a worrying bottom line in just 24 months time.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution