What are you? Airline or flight portal? Trusted source of info or entertainment?

The discussion over on Travel Rants about user generated content is still active.
One point that needs breaking into a new discussion is what are Trip Advisor?
Couple of choices

A website with trusted reviews that consumers flock to in order to assist with product evaluation as part of their purchase decision
“Dream content” – ideal for “pre trip” surfing [...]

Posted in Industry analysis | No Comments »

UGC vs expert agent vs local – which is most credible for travel knowledge?

Although trip planning websites are increasingly popular they are not everyone’s cup of tea. Darren from Travel Rants has said they are starting to bore him. [See post and discussion]. This got me thinking as to why trip planning websites aren’t interesting enough for Darren and what we can do about it. Perhaps it is [...]

Posted in Random thoughts | 5 Comments »

Black is the new black (for an airline website)

Two new airline website launches this week have caught my attention. First we have FlyBmi (London Heathrow’s second largest airline). Secondly we have JetRepublic (who have just placed an order for 110 new Learjets…. blimey)

http://www.jetrepublic.com/ - and launch report on the BBC website
http://www.flybmi.com/ - and launch report on the Travolution website

What interests me about these sites is [...]

Posted in Usability & web design | 8 Comments »

Screen scraping – the technology suppliers perspective

Good discussion last night at the Travolution question time about screen scraping. Yeah I know many people are not that excited by this discussion – but you are not a travel technology provider. Others just want the discussion to end so they can continue “breaking the law” without having to feel too guilty about it.
Anyway, part [...]

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Google have saved the niche B2C travel industry (in my opinion)

One theme that came up at yesterdays TTI conference (London) was Google. Yeah I know we are always talking about Google – but get used to it – they are important (indeed critically important) to the thriving niche B2C travel industry.
Zero % profit margins
One argument goes that the increasing advertising inflation on Google (20% year on year [...]

Posted in Running a travel business | 2 Comments »

Running a personality led travel website

Lets generalise for a bit. Small businesses tend to be “personality led” while larger ones tend to be dominated by the bland brand (which will be distinct to the staff who work there).
One of the ongoing discussions with travel websites is how to demonstrate the expertise and knowledge that the individuals have in a travel [...]

Posted in Random thoughts | 7 Comments »

Latest discussion topics on SFBO about running a travel business

Some of you may have heard about SFBO – Small Fish Big Ocean – already. It is a global community for small tour operators and niche travel agents that we run.
Visit Small Fish Big Ocean
Here are some of the latest discussions…… come and join in!

Peter wants to discuss how best to work with strategic partners in [...]

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Itinerary bookmarking sites should link to reservation systems

One new travel website functionality theme is the itinerary bookmarking site. You know the ones – you hop around a site (or around a collection of sites) adding events, accommodation, attractions into a single itinerary on a day by day basis. These itineraries can then be shared between friends, printed out, bragged about on your blog [...]

Posted in Random thoughts | 3 Comments »

Showing who else is travelling with you in the booking engine

Travolution reports that Kuoni are shutting down Shoestring [See report].
Shoestring is a niche tour operator selling tours to Africa, Central/Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. The tours look well positioned in a market that I know well (I have previously been MD of a tour operator selling the Middle East / Asia).
I won’t get [...]

Posted in Usability & web design | No Comments »

Hotels.com and their new hotel search tool… affiliate cookie chaos!

Hotels.com have launched a new hotel search tool that they call “Hotel visualiser” (from VisualDNA)
It isn’t too bad a tool – although I am not that excited about it. The premise is that you choose images that reflect the kind of hotel you want – for example you have to click on one of these images:
 

 
The problem, [...]

Posted in Interesting websites | No Comments »