Travel Marketing in the Age of Web 2.0 & Beyond

Getting high with Richard Branson: Virgin America's virgin flight

this post on Boing Boing is a ringing endorsement of the latest airline entrant in the U.S. market.

When was the last time we've read raving reviews like this about an airline? There seems to be something special about them that touches the geeks and it goes beyond the interactive gizmos in the seat back.

Tags: airlines, virgin atlantic

User generated comments: Travel brands most at risk

as this study by Tamar, a UK based interactive agency shows. The stakes are certainly high, especially for suppliers. It's not surprising that consumers should react this way, after all a travel purchase is often a higher expense and more importantly the product can't be tried before consumption, unlike a TV, camera or DVD player. If you read a negative review of those, you can always visit a local store and get a first hand opinion and try the product out. Not possible with your one week hotel stay. All the more reason to get involved in the conversation about you in the marketplace.

Tags: usergenerate content, travel 2.0, social web

I take them with a grain of salt

studies like this one claiming that  Online travel research continues to outpace booking. I'm not knocking the Conference Board which has a pretty good research track record but it's not really surprising news that online travel growth rates are slowing. It's an obvious sign of a maturing industry. What is more significant to me is that there seems to be a stagnating level of innovation in online travel that has an effect on how travelers evaluate the overall experience. Most OTA sites are offering a very similar user interface and pretty much standardized set of features. Of course, there are new alternatives to the major sites appearing on the scene but most of them don't have the recognition by the public at large and don't show up high on any rankings so far. The result is that the general traveling public is basing the evaluation of their experience on what is offered to them by the market leaders, OTAs or major suppliers. These travel services providers are challenged to innovate or acquire some of the new players that are starting to offer an improved user experience. As I've claimed previously, it comes down to a truly amazing one-stop experience with a seamless integration of all phases of DREAM - LEARN - PLAN - GO to get the industry to the next level. Where is the iPhone of travel - A truly innovative approach to easily research, plan and book a vacation on a fully integrated, real-time basis?

Tags: travel2.0, online travel, vacation, dynamic packaging,

Expodition

is a site that appeals to the iPod generation, which today is just about anybody.

It is based on the premise that a lot of information collected prior to a trip is not really easily available during it. This is where Expodition comes in. The site offers useful information from different sources as PSS - yes, not RSS - files that can be downloaded and then synched with the iPod. The information is then readily available when needed during the trip.

It's a useful tool. In my opinion it would become even more useful if the information in text format could be presented in a Google Map mashup. That would make it really cool. Another combination would be to add podcasts to the library. I enjoyed one of these during my recent Dublin stay as reported in an earlier post.

But overall this is a good effort to make stuff available in portable format to be used when needed.

expodition.com - local information viewed on your iPod

technorati tags:travel2.0

Imagine

How easy this mobile tool makes it for travelers to blog instantly during a trip with photos and all. Simply amazing.

One more Travel 2.0 tool.

Are Wikis the Best Format For Travel Guides?

Wikia, a for-profit offshoot of Wikipedia, will announce the launch of a free, editable “worldwide guide of places to go and things to do” on Monday, called World Wikia. The content is very light for now, although for an example of how this might look down the road see their deep content on Roman churches. They will also announce a number of partnerships with commercial publishers to open-source their content and get it up on Wikia. Smartertravel.com and hostelsclub.com are two of the initial partners being announced. Another partner, Vacapedia, will provide access to their vacation rental database.

Travel is a big category - if Wikia can pull off a large number of page views they’ll make good money on high CPC contextual ads, their primary revenue source. I also like that they are getting into vacation rentals. Allowing users to post and find properties, leave reviews, etc., all for free, is a good competitive disruption.

I imagine demand will quickly develop for a downloadable version of individual cities (or the whole travel section) for mobile devices - something that’s been available for wikipedia for some time.

Our previous posts on Wikia are here. The site has over 1,500 “wikia” and 30,000 registered users.

Wikia

Tags: wikis, wiki, wikipedia, techcrunch, web2.0, web_2.0

technorati tags:travel2.0, Web2.0

Travel 2.0

C2C Is New Travel Buzz Word

That might well be the case, but the trend is clearly visible. Customers are taking control.  They are enabled like never before and it's more than blogs, it's mashups, vertical search, social networking and all the manifestations of Web 2.0, or the Next Net as it is also called.

It comes as no real surprise that these developments would affect travel. It has long been the largest vertical on the web and lends itself to the application of many of the technology developments mentioned earlier. You can blog about cars or DVD players but you're still not able to build your own, but you can build your own trip.

Of course, this opens up new options for indpendent travel agents by becoming enablers an facilitators, although my own guess is that the majority of those adopting Travel 2.0 will be independent travelers that are in a self design mode. Fascinating to observe how this develops.

technorati tags:travel2.0, mashups, blogs, vacation, packages, web2.0

Guess they overpaid!

Cendant to take $1 bln charge for Travelport sale

Cendant said on Tuesday it expects to record a non-cash impairment charge of more than $1 billion during the second quarter of 2006 related to the sale of Travelport, its travel services division.

and that's the penalty for buying assets at overvalued prices and then not integrating them fast and determined enough to get the benefit of those often touted synergies from these acquisitions. Ever so often they're just not there.

technorati tags:cendant

Caveat emptor....

Too many CIOs fail to ride Web 2.0 wave

Riding on the coattails of Web 2.0 technology are vendors who want your business -- and they're trying all sorts of tactics to get it. But experts warn: Stay away from vendors that promise a Web nirvana in a box.

As always, buyer beware of false 2.0 claims.....

technorati tags:web2.0

That's the target audience online travel intermediaries want and need to satisfy

Branded travel sites not living up to potential?

If they want to continue their growth and more importantly profitable growth, this is exactly the audience they need to attract and establish a relationship based on brand trust. All the major online players have live customer support and need to stress that added value to this group of potential customers vs. lowest price, a no win proposition. With new technology developments allowing more complex travel to be transacted more easily online and in a customer friendly manner, the need for phone intervention should diminish over time with a positive effect on margins. Let's remember, we're still in the black rotary phone stage of web development with much more coming onstream that will again transform the way travel is researched, planned and purchased. Travel 2.0 is happening fast and customers are increasingly taking control keeping everyone in the industry on their toes.

technorati tags:travel2.0, vacation, leisure, packages