Travel Search Engines [Meta Search 2.0]

While travel remains the largest sector of online commerce, more an more users have moved from "looking" to "booking" on travel Web sites. The complexities of what’s on offer, as well as choices among search tools, continue to increase as well.

SEO, was a passion with me during the start of my professional career. Invariably without any second thoughts, I wanted to know more about the the developments in the Online Travel Search Engine space.

The trend is off late is being touted as the next best thing to happen to Travel Search. I happened to download this interesting report on Whether Travel Search Engines Deliver? (click the link to download) and thought that I might as well share it with you.

Although the report primarily evalutes consumer behaviour in the US with respect to Online Travel Websites and Online Search Engines - it is very evident that the rest of the world may not be too far in catching up.

Looking not so long ago, the now “old school” online travel sites (like Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity) have to compete with meta-search sites that aim to gather travel fares and hotel rates faster than it takes us to browse and query all the best online travel sites from our bookmarks to find out the cheapest prices. They are like a google for travel. They basically search for travel deals, just like google searches for content.

This generation of new travel sites is quite competitive; One could think that once they will have integrated most of the major travel players, all those aggregators will probably create (competitiveness but also) confusion to the internet customers as they won’t know which aggregators to choose (Mobissimo, Sidestep, Kayak, Yahoo, Farechase etc.) and will have to price compare the aggregators!

Apparently according to Forrester - "Metasearch sites had sold themselves to the travel industry as a panacea for its distribution ills. But this initial version of metasearch — metasearch 1.0 — quickly built a bad reputation with the industry. Airlines, in particular, were on the receiving end of unfulfilled big promises and unexpected, unbudgeted costs — from escalating polling fees to increasing demands on marketing, IT, and legal."

The good news is that the travel search firms are maturing. Increased use of cached fare data, innovative technology like mashups and AJAX, and creative solutions to help travelers search for trips help make metasearch 2.0 a more viable distribution option. It's far from perfect: Airlines remain less than pleased with fare polling costs, and some travel search engines' business models frustrate industry executives.

Online travel search engines should keep their perspectives right on track and milk the advantage of metasearch 2.0, which will combine richer, perspective-based content aggregation with greater user control and more attractive, user intuitive displays.

These services exemplify what Travel 2.0 is all about: flexibility, transparency and consumer control and consumer being the king.

Skype seeks growth through large travel company

Free internet phone call service Skype is seeking a large UK travel company, such as a global distribution system, to champion its usage and gain further momentum within the sector.

Skype UK, Ireland & Netherlands market development manager Alistair Shrimpton said he was beginning to see the software make some headway within travel but predominantly among small businesses.

"In travel I'm seeing the fringe of what we saw in the small business arena before it really boomed for us. I'm seeing small, sharp entities realising that by offering it as a way for users to contact you, you get more business.

He continued: "Travel is a key category and we need a champion – someone like a Galileo or an Amadeus. There are huge cost savings and efficiency savings to be made."

He highlighted the other benefits of using Skype such as using it to send information, pictures and videos as well as for talking and instant messaging.

"When I reserved my holiday online my wife sent me a lastminute.com URL using Skype so that I could see it, click on it and buy it. We see so many people who get to the 'buy me' button but need someone else to help make the decision."

Shrimpton added that in some areas of the world Skype was becoming a 'default' technology with customers expecting companies to provide it as a means of communication.

He also cited examples where Skype is ideal for travel such as 'Skype call me' buttons on websites for users to contact a hotel, car-hire or other travel company. Shrimpton said he was already in discussions with a number of online travel companies to use Skype call me buttons on their websites and integrate them with call-centres.

Travel-themed Skypecasts are another good application for travel, enabling people to use the technology to share ideas about a destination, he said. In the UK, Skype claims three million registered users - 8% of the potential market.

Shrimpton said: "It is small and there is a long way to go but the market is bigger than where we are today."

eBay-owned Skype registers six new users worldwide every second and claims to be already picking up 7% of international call minutes.

[Source: Travel Mole, Report by Linda Fox ]

India to become a multi-billion dollar online travel market by 2008

Ahoy!! India is agressively moving forward and the latest report by Phocuswight has more to the story.

India’s rapid economic growth and rising prosperity are fueling multiple sectors of the economy, including lifestyle products such as travel and tourism. Two drivers increased business activity (including infrastructure improvement) and rising consumption of leisure travel services are firmly in place. All sectors of travel inbound, domestic and outbound are seeing double-digit growth rates, and the online travel market is set for a major boom with several catalysts coming into play almost simultaneously.

The online travel market in India will be the most dynamic in APAC, and will experience strong growth over the next five years. Unlike in China, where only 3% of Web-initiated travel transactions were fulfilled online, 95% of such transactions will be fulfilled online as the Indian market develops.

Thus, travel will emerge as a true e-commerce play, thanks largely to the fact that online travel has few legacy systems to transition, and thus the move online has been and will be more or less fully automated.

Travelistic - A Peek into Social Travel Video Site

Voila!!! With the introduction of an exciting new project called Travelistic you can find travel specific videos.

I got an invite through Travelistic to review this exciting project, which is currently a beta version, and allows travellers to upload their video, add tags so that visitors can find videos quickly, identify the location of the video which appears on a Google Map.

Visitors can add comments, and also add the video on their own website – not only can you search by tag, but you can also search for videos by location, which is a very handy feature if your looking for a video on a specific destination.

The video pictures are crisp, very good sound, and overall I was very impressed – what I would like to see is a rating system, and counter on the number of visits / or number of sites linking to the video.

Whilst it doesn’t offer anything different than YouTube, if your looking for travel specific videos, it would be my first port of call – I’d like to see some unique features added, but it has me hooked.

If you’d like to help beta test then visit www.travelistic.com

Is it Too Early...??

Off late there have been speculations on how the Online Travel Industry is on the verge of a paradigm shift. I was reading an interesting article on the rise of the Travel Startups.

Some how it looks like too many startups in too less a time. Not to disagree with the experts, on the contrary having been through "The Dot-com Bubble-Burst" - the scenerio of todays Online Travel Industry stands to differ in most aspects.

In the first place, the terminology of a bubble does not seem to be appropriate.The era of the big travel start-ups like Expedia and Travelocity, the only two truly huge players- Orbitz was an airline backed venture at the start and today it seems to have a past.

Apparently, in the last few years traditional travel companies, especially in Europe have entered the online market and compete strongly with them. What many people consider travel start-ups, like Kayaka, FareChase, Mobissimo and the like, are not really travel companies but advertising revenue based meta search outfits.

So, to speak of a bubble in online travel is not appropriate.It might not be a bubble yet, but it’s certainly an attractive market.What each of these operators is doing is playing into the hands of smaller, more nimble, eager-to-please websites.

Air Canada Says Goodbye To ‘Legacy’ Reservation Systems

ITA Software will be helping Air Canada revamp its reservation management system to be more customer-friendly.

The airline signed an agreement with ITA Software on Sept. 13th 2006 to develop a new reservation management system that will upgrade reservations functionality, inventory control with seat availability, and check-in and airport operations modules, said Air Canada.

The complete solution will be deployed in late 2007 across the entire Air Canada network, including reservation call centers and airport locations worldwide. The reservation system presents itself as an application hosted by ITA Software and will simultaneously support the airline’s ongoing participation in the Star Alliance.

“This next generation reservation system will mark an end to airlines’ reliance on legacy systems and processes and the merchandising limitations that result from these archaic technologies,” said Jeremy Wertheimer, ITA Software’s President and CEO. [Source:TravelBizBuzz]