Travel industry website idea – tour operator matchmaking

Online travel has evolved to be significant within the industry and has evened up the marketplace for consumers – you can now find large and small travel companies willing to sell to customers direct – some based in a customer’s own country, some based in their destination country.
However I was asked a travel related question by a client a couple of [...]

Posted in Running a travel business | No Comments »

Should you change published views on the Internet?

Say you wrote something that is published on the web - and you later change your mind – should you go back and change your original thoughts – or should you leave those comments unchanged – but perhaps write a note saying that your view point has been updated?
The Opodo / Karavel affair
For example, Mario Gavira, from OnlineTravelCrunch (who [...]

Posted in Random thoughts | 2 Comments »

Rumour week – blogs and big travel companies

Travel industry blogging is looking up….. but one trend that should worry larger travel companies is the move towards “rumour blogging”.
Just this week…..
Darren from Travel Rants.com managed to uncover the sale of Holidays Uncovered to TUI UK.
Tim from The Boot has started a rumour about TUI looking to buy AsiaRooms. He is also speculating on some [...]

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Do you have royal customers? How do you handle their titles?

Imagine the scene….. as a member of a royal family (with a small R – could be a royal family from any country) – and you want to fly from London to New York. What a problem – the title dropdown (common on all travel websites) only has Mr, Mrs, Miss and maybe Dr.
For example, here is the [...]

Posted in Usability & web design | 1 Comment »

Amadeus/Opodo to sell Karavel???? What are these rumours about?

Are Amadeus / Opodo potentially selling Karavel (a French tour operator group) to Barclays Private Equity? 
These rumours have been published (today) by:

Tim Hughes – The BOOT
HotelMarketing.com
Mario Gavira – OnlineTravelCrunch

Here is how the story unfolded:
Today I got a message from someone that I don’t know – and have no way of telling whether it was a correct email address as [...]

Posted in Random thoughts | 2 Comments »

TTI – Future of Travel Distribution (London) – soundbites

Great conference today in London…. but I am afraid you either should have been there – or you will have to wait for the TTI to publish their own notes and slides etc.
However, I do have the following soundbites that I scribbled down….. (now thinking that yes to be a blogger really perhaps I do need a [...]

Posted in Random thoughts | 2 Comments »

The hotel description arms race…… is it time for a truce?

One common page within hotel booking websites is the product description page. On this page you will nearly always find:

Hotel name
Address (and perhaps even a flag on a map)
Star rating (or other company rating mechanism)
Facilities (such as gym, pool etc)
A textual description – normally a couple of paragraphs 

Here is Opodo.com’s page for example…..
 

 
Then, you may also get additional [...]

Posted in Industry analysis | 1 Comment »

easyJet SMS pre flight text messages “nice but thoughtlessly applied”

Recently it has been me getting into grief for choosing to express opinions via this blog…. but, hey, I do it in the real world as well – as those of you who know me will agree!
This time its not me but Julian Hucker from esendex who, in a recent blog entry, has called the [...]

Posted in Usability & web design | No Comments »

What is long term competitive advantage and can it exist on the web?

First some definitions…. a competitive advantage is defined as:
The benefit for consumers and/or customers which competitors may find difficult or uneconomic to replicate.
A long term competitive advantage is one that can be gained, and retained, over the long term. Sometimes this is called a sustainable competitive advantage (SCA) – but I will leave this one [...]

Posted in Industry analysis | 2 Comments »

So you won an award, huh?

This week people kept telling me about awards.
I am not sure whether to get excited or not by awards – some I respect and are worth winning – some are not. I haven’t made up my mind which are which though. Overall I am confused. Perhaps you can help by commenting below….
On the Travelocity single screen [...]

Posted in Random thoughts | 10 Comments »