...would you associate Travelocity with baked beans? Well, groovy marketing people in Australia seem to think so after pushing the Zuji-Travelocity brand onto tins of baked beans.
David Soskin, chief executive of Cheapflights, steps down.
Chris Nixon, managing director of TravelSupermarket, steps down.
Brent Hoberman, chief executive of Lastminute.com, steps down.
All loved being entrepreneurs. At least two weren't so keen on the numbers game, prefering to innovate and be in "start-up" mode.
Makes you think...
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
Tom Klein, again, makes a frank admission.
During the discussion, the Sabre man says the GDSs - and Sabre in particular - didn't see the meta search market for what it is worth back in the late-1990s.
And really should've got involved in setting them up themselves.
Wow! This is quite a startling thing to suggest...
Discuss!
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
Tom Klein is group president of Sabre Travel Network and Sabre Airline Solutions – giving him control of the GDS and its small but growing business supplying various systems to various airlines.
But how long will B2B be a separate silo? Klein said at one point that ‘GDSs need to get into Web2.0’. He said that one hotel was currently running a campaign on MySpace using Sabre’s B2B hotel marketing brand SynXis.
Similarly, the airline solutions team is working on tools to help airlines drive even more ancillary revenues on their brand dotcom by tapping into the fact that 'one traveller can have seven different buying behaviours'.
There is a service crisis in the US airline sector. [Only the US?] He said that Sabre needs ‘a different type of access’ from the airlines in order to help the airlines sort out service issues.
It has recently launched cubeless, a social network for corporate travellers which will integrated into GetThere and which American Express, the world’s largest business travel company – will use.
The morphing of B2B solutions into consumer tools is already happening, and vice versa. There will be more to come – Sabre isn’t the only travel technology company thinking along these lines.
Martin Cowen, chief writer, Travolution
Tom Klein, group president for Sabre Travel Network/Sabre Airlines Solutions, puts his hands up and admits failure...
...over the company's ill-fated Planet Sabre project fromt the late-1990s, dubbed "the world’s first full-featured GUI travel booking tool" - a passenger or customer network of sorts.
Fellow panelist Edward Spiers from Anite tries to be nice and suggests "it was jsut ahead of its time".
Klein just shakes his head and says, no, we got it wrong.
We've found this old screen shot:
But can anyone remember it?
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
So, it seems 2008 is the year for Travelocity to move to a common technology platform for its online brands - lastminute, travelocity, reisefeber....
The company says it has set itself milestones over the coming months to achieve the migration.
We bet it has!
Orbitz Worldwide had many a false-start last year when it was going through a similar project with its ebookers brand.
They could send the handbook over to Sabre although somehow we think that's unlikely.
Besides, Sabre chief innovator, Dr Ben Vinod, tells us it is all going well and 'rapidly.'
He talks about the potential for exploiting 'synergies', which in this case means enabling all of the brands to use the same solutions such as Travelocity's 'experience finder.'
Whatever angle you look at it from - it makes for exciting times ahead!
Linda Fox, lead reporter. Travolution
With airline surcharges flying all over the place at the moment Sabre's current approach is interesting.
The distribution giant says its agency customers want access to content but not at any price.
Sabre is supporting the traditional model of airlines paying a booking fee to the GDS and the GDS paying an incentive to travel agents.
Curious that a couple of years ago when airlines were beginning to hold content to ransom the GDS was willing to consider all avenues and called on agents to meet it half way.
Fast forward to 2008 and what do you do when your customers' customers - the travellers - wants access to the content? Especially at a time when costs are being scrutinised.
And, what to do when customers - agency or corporate - put in place direct connections with those evil surcharging airlines.
Of the general market Sabre's Martin Cowley said he couldn't predict further than six months at the moment.
"Anyone who does is flying a kite quite frankly."
Difficult though when you are having to renegotiate multiple year deals with European airlines.
So, will Sabre have to drop its stance in a matter of weeks or months or will taking the moral high ground pay off?
Who needs who more?
Linda Fox, lead reporter, Travolution
Guest blogger post from Colin Lewis, head of sales and marketing at Aer Arann:
The way low-cost airlines view of the GDS as a distribution method is currently changing.
Over the last year we’ve seen a number of airlines such as Jetblue, Jetstar Asia and Valuair signing distribution deals with GDSs.
The most recent sees Easyjet’s announcement a few weeks back of its new distribution deals with both Amadeus and Galileo. Whilst some airlines have slammed this decision, I think it’s important not to miss the point here.
A large percentage of business travel bookings are driven through a corporate travel agent in order that businesses can effectively track their budgets as part of a larger controlled fiscal process.
As a result, to ignore corporate travel agents as a source of new business would be a mistake for most airlines.
The bottom line is – if you want to sell to business travellers, you need to participate in GDS’s.
Most of the business is incremental – Aer Arann receives 90% of their business via direct internet bookings, and this has not changed with greater GDS participation. Business travellers are also higher yield
I can’t help but consider that the strong response elicited by other low-cost airlines may have been in a bid to achieve column inches.
It is noticeable that once low cost airlines evolve and became more sophisticated, they start distributing on the GDS to reach newer, higher yield market – and what airline does not want higher yield?
There is no doubt that the GDS and the corporate travel agent are an essential part of our distribution system, and long may that continue.
Colin Lewis, head of sales and marketing, Aer Arann
Lastminute.com is currently looking for a new marketing director for the UK.
The pink giant of the online travel agency world is clearly seeking a person of high calibre, thus its advertisement in the Sunday Times last weekend and now online.
The ad says:
"Must be able to combine rigour of off-line communications with the pioneering spirit of digital, and work with a sizeable team and budget."Sounds like a nice job.
"Will be given autonomy, a chance to make a difference and the opportunity to progress to UK Managing Director."Surely some mistake?
In April this year we ran a post featuring a bizarre video ad which had been produced for Lastminute.com.
Understandably the post sparked a few comments.
Yesterday the producer of the ad, Matt Huntley, got in touch to let us know what happened:
I wrote, directed and co-produced this ad. There was no involvement from Lastminute.com whatsoever.Kevin May, editor, Travolution
It was funded by me for my showreel, it could have been for any travel company but at the time Lastminute.com weren't doing TV commercials.
We presented it to their marketing deparment in the hope of selling it (more for the exposure than the money) but they didn't seem very interested (more perplexed!)
Shame as it has proven really popular. But what the hell do I know?!
The European Commission gave the thumbs-up last week to an extraordinary deal between two of the giants of the GDS world, Amadeus and Sabre.
The pair are launching Moneydirect, a rather clever payment "solution" for travel providers and needed the EC to clear any competition issues.
There is plenty of detail to follow on this but there is one crucial question (apart from the name of the business, which sounds more akin to a financial services price comparison site):
What about Travelport (Galileo and Worldspan's parent organisation)?
Amadeus-Sabre say they want this to be the start of an industry standard solution for payments. But the other half the GDS sector feels indifferent, has ideas of its own or is biding its time to see whether Moneydirect works.
[The system has been up and running successfully in Australia and New Zealand]
During a briefing last week, Moneydirect chief operating officer Laurent Chartier (from the Amadeus camp) pointed us to some comments from Jeff Clark (Travelport), who said the project was a "good idea" and "positive for all parties".
However Chartier would not say how negotiations had gone so far with Travelport. Indeed there is a board of directors for the new company, which is staffed with Amadeus and Sabre execs.
Either way the development is a very good one for an industry, many execs behind the scenes admit, beset with old systems which are not up to the task of handling high volumes and coordintating multi-distribution platforms.
Let's just see how long it takes Worldspan-Galileo to join the club.
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
Technorati tags: worldspan moneydirect sabre amadeus galileo travelport GDS
Chief executive Ian McCaig and co have been quiet of late, apart from an appearance at the Travolution Summit in April.
But a number of significant developments across the Lastminute.com group have been officially announced this week.
First of all the flagship consumer product, Lastminute.com, has a new "intutive booking engine", called Judith, named after the omnipresent holiday girl of the 1970s and 1980s, Judith Chalmers.
[Read the Travolution article, Web Adds Human Touch, about OTAs and their quest to personalise the online experience, from our June edition]
But more interestingly was McCaig's announcement yesterday regarding a fundamental restructuring of the group.
Out goes the existing - rather haphazard - collection of various divisions, replaced with a US-style split into two businesses covering B2B (which will have two branches) and B2C.
Each division will be run by a vice president:
Brent Hoberman and Martha Lane Fox, founders of Lastminute.com, have launched a new venture - a pseudo social networking site for DIY enthusiasts called MyDeco.com.
The Sunday Times story on the launch of MyDeco.com says Hoberman has raised £5 million in capital for the project and will take the executive chairman position, with Lane Fox a non-executive director.
So the dynamic duo are back on the scene. [The pair were named amongst our Influential Ten list last September, a poll to recognise the movers and shakers of the past ten years in the online travel industry]
In true Hoberman style, an email said:
"Lots of good learnings from travel can be applied :-)"Kevin May, editor, Travolution
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
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
"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
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
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."Kevin May, editor, Travolution
"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."
British Airways has signed a three-year inventory distribution deal with Sabre TravelNetwork which will give the GDS's travel agent subscribers access to all of BA's fares. The inventory will be available to all Sabre connected-travel agents worldwide.
The new Sabre opt-in program guarantees travel agents in the UK and Ireland, through adjusted financial terms with Sabre, full access to the current BA content, including the complete range of published fares the airline sells through its own web site, any third-party website, and its own reservation offices.
Opt-in schemes, whereby agents pay a portion of the GDS fee in exchange for full access to content, are nothing new. The concept was madely widely known back in 2004, when BA was re-negotiating its previous GDS contracts. Sabre says this is the first time, however, that it has offered agents an "opt-in" programme.
BA reached a similar agreement with the Galileo distribution system a little more than two weeks ago, but not with its soon-to-be sister company, Worldpsan.
Amadeus, which is not typically a lagger, also has yet to secure a deal with Britain's flag carrier.
Now I'm not trying to start any rumours here or anything, but maybe, just maybe, the companies' failure thus far to reach an agreement is not actually BA's fault.
You see, since BA's previous GDS contracts expired on 28 February, the airline has been paying a handsome GDS "rack rate". Maybe the likes of Amadeus and Worldspan figure there's no harm in milking BA for a little while longer--you know, just till the end of the month.
Let's see what Friday brings....
Tricia Holly Davis, chief writer, Travolution
[Updates at the bottom of the post]
All hell is breaking loose this morning as the rather predictable merger between TUI and First Choice is absorbed by the travel and mainstream business media.
The deal will see the pair, to be known as TUI Travel, eventually listed on the London Stock Exchange and responsible for around 27 million customers a year.
Here are the numbers:
"Expedia, Travelport and Travelocity are the new competition. The more business we can get online, the more we can drive down our cost of acquisition."Kevin May, editor, Travolution
