According to a BT consumer survey the pink'un is the nation's favourite travel website.
Lastminute.com pipped TripAdvisor, First Choice, Rough Guides and Ryanair to the top spot.
The great thing about these kind of surveys is that they very rarely reflect traffic or usage. Let's face it, Rough Guides is a bit leftfield on this list.
And pity poor Expedia.
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
...asks an article on the BBC Online's Magazine section, regarding guidebooks - triggered by the re-launch of the famous Baedeker range.
It ponders the future of the humble travel guidebook as internet research takes over.
Simon Calder adds his two-pennies worth, saying the guide market faces huge problems, as people taking short breaks are more likely to consult the internet than buy a guide.
Make sure you take in the comments at the bottom of the piece from other readers.
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
Simon Quicke, author of the Inside Books Blog, emailed recently to draw our attention to book publishing giant Penguin and its concerns over the future of the innocent travel guidebook.
It appears that at a recent sales conference in Marbella, Penguin asked execs to consider the fate of the travel guidebook in the face of competition from the “this new thing called the interweb”, chortles Jeremy Ettinghausen on the Penguin corporate blog.
He may indeed laugh. But the threat to the traditional model is very real, and Penguin, which dsitributes the Rough Guides collection, is right to take hard look at how it approaches the travel sector in the years to come.
They are not alone either. Lonely Planet, that bastion of the backpacker guidebook, has invested heavily in its online presence, and the more upmarket Dorling Kindersley has also recently relaunched its website with podcasts, downloadable travel guides and maps.
[The DK site looks remarkably like the new travel channels belonging to the Guardian and TimesOnline - our recent "analysis"]
It is an incredibly interesting challenge for these once powerhouses of travel publishing.
It says something about the importance of the internet to travellers when high-brow guidebook publisher Dorling Kindersley finally decides to launch an online portal.
The famous DK books have been around since the early 1970s and specialise in lifestyle sectors such as its Eyewitness travel guides, plus other collections for gardening and the arts.
Early next year will see the launch of Travel.dk.com [there is a screen grab of the site], a travel portal which early indications suggest will carry pretty much the same as its rivals – such as Lonely Planet and Rough Guides: reams of content, booking facilities and reviews.
One interesting addition, similar to the recently launched Yahoo! Trip Planner, will be a facility to create customised guides for a trip, which users will be able to create on the site and then print out.
However, there is one part of the new DK site – scheduled for launch in February 2007 – that sits somewhat uneasily against the likes of Lonely Planet and Rough Guides, as well as the travel sections of the national newspaper: a member-only, paid-for area.
“For a small fee annual fee”, DK will allow users – some of which will be corporate clients – into an exclusive part of the website that will include “special discounts and features”.
It will be interesting to see how much DK will charge for this part of the site. But with a multitude of pages elsewhere – both on and offline – containing excellent travel editorial content, DK will have to come up with something very strong, or very different.
Most of the major online media brands have now abandoned paid-for or subscription content, simply because consumers are [cliché alert] just a click away from something else.
UPDATE: Hotel bookings will be handled by the excellent and particularly well suited TravelIntelligence.net. Insurance by Columbus. Flight partner has yet to be found.
DK say fees for the member-only section of the site will be £10 per year. They are also reasonably confident that paid-for content will return once more as a model for other sites , especially in the travel sector.
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
