Astonishment report from ITB PhoCusWright Bloggers Summit. Part 1
March 14, 2008
I want to share with you some sentences that resonate to me during the PhoCusWright conference in ITB Berlin 2008.
It’s a little bit “telegraphic post” but I think a way to make a synthesis and digesting the information overload.
Feel free to share you thoughts in the comments section.
C.Wolf - CEO PhoCusWright
Unlimited choice online
PPC and PPA are the trend
Social Media have shift the power to consumers
Lastminute
Where do you seat, in mass market or niche market, because in the middle your death !
The brand is the key
Expedia
Monetize traffic as search engine do
From OTA model to media model
How suppliers appear in the result
How they have their presentation
Charge for listing
Charge for placement
Daniel Mancini - Costa Criosière
Second Life it’s an other social media, could be a new contact center
The problem is to have manage Web 2.0 (answers questions, following conversations, human resources, time)
Tom Klein - Sabre
Online behaviours changes : meteroric rise in social media & media sharing sites
Launches www.cubeless.com (a travel social media for travel corporate users) in partnership with American Express and integrated with VirtuallyThere tool and GetThere multi GDS Booking engine
Introduce & interact with people
People + Tools + Process = the futur
Tina Fitch - EzRez
Global Reservation Systems Tomorrow: An intelligent universal network that can map the convergence of supply and demand patterns.
Attention profiling, leading to data portability
More efficient spend, more focus, more results
Issues :
data portability
Data privacy
Acceptation by users
Acceptation by keys players in the industry
My thoughts:
Privacy Controls as the Key to Data Portability
Data portability - taking your archives and friends from one site to another. Nice idea with great maketing potential. We already see something happen in other industry (Open ID, Dataportability project), why not in the travel industry?
Do you like to see a universal identity? Do you trust this vision?
Overview of Global Reservation Systems Tomorrow - Today
March 6, 2008
This is a subject that really interests me, primarily because it takes some of the new paradigms of web 2.0, social media, and user generated content and combines it with the underlying reservations model. Tina Fitch, CEO of EzRez even mentioned that bloggers were the pioneers in the space of aggregating information and providing user specific knowledge for their readers by digesting and re-interpreting information in a way that is attractive for their readers. The same holds true for the next generation of reservations systems. Ms. Fitch describes a system that aggregates data from a variety of systems and combines it with customer behaviour. This allows suppliers to better anticipate future market patterns by analyzing buying behaviour across the entire network. In order for this to be viable, the GRS would need have the following attributes:
Size - it must have a large amount of inventory.
Diversity - it must have a variety of inventory.
One area of opportunity is in the unified online profile that allows the same customer to use the same profile on a variety of supplier and OTA websites. The other opportunity is in collaboration between companies in order to allow data sharing across different areas. Is this realistic? Ms. Fitch suggests that some of this is happening now but is not yet broad enough to be all encompassing.
Will customers be intimidated by the “Big Brother” concept of having their profiles available in such an open manner? Ms. Fitch seems to think that travel is actually behind the ball on this concept. Many other e-commerce and social networking tools already utilize open profile technologies in order to support profile data. I think this is an issue of allowing customers to maintain and manage their own profile data. Like Facebook, for example, there are options for maintaining privacy, the issue is whether or not customers will adopt a profile sharing mechanism like the one being suggested. Travel, in general, however is not regarded as a particularly high trust industry. If it were, credit card processing companies would not regard it as a restricted business in the same category as gambling and adult entertainment. So consumer adoption of open profile sharing between travel companies even with opt out tools may see significant resistance.
It is a very nice notion but is it realistic to expect consumers to tell you all their preferences in order to help them make purchasing decisions. Perhaps if there is some integration and interaction with existing social networking tools, there may be some ways of getting that profile data in a way that is less intrusive and provides immediate value to the customer.
Feedback on the Blogger’s Summit
March 6, 2008
Both sessions for the workshop went very well. We had over 150 participants in the audience who were, from what I could tell, very engaged with the subject matter.
One issue that came up during the feedback session was whether or not the topics was relevant. One blogger argued that the subject matter of the workshop was not really relevant to the consumer blogger or to the consumer in general. My counter to that argument however is that the subject was originally developed for the travel industry and so it does not necessarily apply to the consumer audience. That said, I think there is a huge opportunity to open up the discussion and conversation to the consumer blogging community, this however would probably be a different conference and a different subject.
An underlying theme that arose from the discussion is that the web is chaos, it cannot be controlled or contained. In order to survive and ultimately succeed, you must be able to sail the ocean of the web. In other words, blogging and user generated is not going to disappear and certain aspects of the blogosphere will become more important while some will disappear into obscurity. The question is how travel blogging and more specific travel industry blogging will affect the industry as a whole. Most agreed that we are at the beginning of the journey and it is better to be guiding the boat then to be left in the wake.
Overall, the feedback was very positive, although there seemed to be some argument about the real value of the morning interview sessions. This was a new addition to the summit (which by the way is also new) and the feedback was appreciate. Thanks to all the bloggers who participated and we are very excited about continuing the conversation into future conferences.
YourTour’s trip engine technology: exclusif interview
March 4, 2008
Decizium team launches their “YourTour’s trip engine technology” , a new step for the mass-customization of travel packages and itineraries.
They have a stand at ITB (hall 6.1, stand 141). I suggest you contact them and make a appointment and business!
Emmanuel Guisset tell us more about Decizium and the YourTour technology.
> Emmanuel, can you tell some information about you and the Decizium team.
Well, Decizium started in 2005 after 10 years of R&D in collaboration with the Polytechnic Faculty of Mons. Last year, we received some private and public investments and since then we’ve been working on improving our technology, business development and creating a B2C website.
As far I am concerned, after receiving my international business degree, I traveled quite a lot and completed a few internships abroad until Decizium allowed me to stay in the travel world and be part of a new exciting challenge: changing the way Internet users buy travel packages.
Currently, Decizium, located in Belgium employs a young international team of 10.
>Can you give us some outline about your goals with YOUR TOUR!
We have spent years developing our YourTour system, under which it is no longer necessary for tourists to make a trade-off between a tailor-made holiday where he/she might need to wait days before obtaining a first trip proposition, and a pre-packaged offer that is not tuned to his/her wishes but that is immediately available. The system makes possible what seemed to be impossible: the mass-customization of travel packages and itineraries.
YourTour’s trip engine technology allows travel companies to go much further than the currently available packaging solutions by taking into account the appropriate on-site activities for the tourist and automatically arranging it all (transportation, accommodations and activities) in a coherent way, using multiple criteria.
This results in a comprehensive and detailed travel itinerary, accommodating the restrictions imposed by the tourist (trip duration, areas to visit, travel budget, etc.) and respecting the tourist’s compromise between the various costs (for transportation, accommodations and activities) and the appeal of the trip (quality of the activities, hotel comfort level, etc.).
In addition, we are currently developing a B2C website that will allow tourists to build and book their customized self drive trip in France in a few clicks. Indeed, we feel it was necessary to have something online to reach better the B2B market. You’ll have to wait until it’s online to learn more…
tourismuszukunft.de
February 27, 2008
This is the team of tourismuszukunft.de: Jens Oellrich and Florian Bauhuber. For more than 1 1/2 years we are blogging about the tourism branch in Germany. On the blog tourismuszukunft.de (tourism future) we are describing and commenting new trends and developments, which are important for the travel industry. Due to our jobs we try to take care about both aspects of tourism. Germany as a destination for tourists and Germany as an outgoing market with all the tour operators and travel agencies.
Florian is client manager for intermaps, that is providing web mapping services for destinations in Germany, Italy Switzerland and Austria. Jens runs his own business as a start-up and is developing a website for SME tour operators to let them promote themselves in a better way.
We both organized the tourismuscamp, which took place last month. With the help of Prof. Hopfinger from the KU-Eichstätt, a university for tourism science, we realized this un-conference in the style of the BarCamps. More than 50 participiants came to the small town of Eichstätt to talk about web trends and tourism.
We both are looking forward to the blogger summit at the ITB and to see you soon!
Detlef Meyer
February 26, 2008
I am happy that this interesting event takes place in Berlin, where I lived and worked a long time. The ITB is of course the best place to bring together a lot of Blogger from all over the world.
I am blogging since a little bit more then two years. First - to try out this new kind of communication with my customers and an interested audience. And it is all the time a walk on a thin line between news, comments and personal stories.
My core business are consulting services for tourism suppliers from outside Germany, which are interested to step into the German market. We provide all necessary services from research to marketing, PR and sales support. The days around the ITB are the busiest in the year. Harvest time!
A small department offers such services for travel technology companies too.
And so are my blogs:
Roundtrip (http://www.eastservices.de/wordpress) about destination management, marketing and news from our destinations.
It’s Travel Technology (http://traveltechnologies.blogspot.com) about travel technology news and ideas.
Written for the German audience in German. Have a look and enjoy.
Karen Bryan of Europe a la Carte
February 26, 2008
I’m Karen Bryan of Europe a la Carte a UK based travel website which focuses on European travel. I started my online travel business in 2002 as I believed that travellers were looking for something different to the traditional package holiday. Low cost airlines such as Easyjet and Ryanair were expanding fast and it was easy and cheap for consumers to book their own flights to Europe. I wanted to create a site to promote less well known destinations in Europe, in the belief that if you venture, even slightly, off the well worn tourist track, you will have a more authentic experience and get better value for money.
I planned to make money by commission on accommodation featured in my destination guides, through direct agreements with suppliers. However this model was too slow with me contacting suppliers and then getting back to the potential customer and I’d some problems with suppliers not paying commission. I decided to go down the affiliate route where although I earn less commission than with a direct supplier agreement, the potential customer can immediately check online availability and make a booking and my commission is always paid promptly.
I started a blog for my business in October 2006 . I received an email from a business studies student doing research about travel business blogs for her dissertation. This email prompted me to look into business blogging. After reading about all the benefits a blog can bring to your business I took the plunge.
It’s been a bit of balancing act writing for the blog. I always have to bear in mind that it’s a business blog but as I’m the sole author the blog is bound to be, to some extent, personal. In a small business that can be a positive thing as it makes your blog unique and more human than a blog from a large corporation. A business blog has to be an asset to your business, not just a channel of your ravings.
I try to write posts that will inform, interest and entertain readers while simultaneously promoting my business by creating brand identity, increasing brand loyalty and increasing sales. Readers will soon tire of blatant sales copy but if I invest time and effort researching and writing blog posts I need to see a return on that investment.
I love working in the travel industry but it is challenging being a small independent in such a competitive market.
Happy Hotelier - Profile
February 25, 2008
Happy Hotelier is the proud owner of a trend setting very small 3 suites hotel in The Hague, The Netherlands: Haagsche Suites which he started to develop from scratch in 2000. Haagsche Suites opened in fall 2002. He is also involved in developing and renting of various residential properties in and around The Hague. From 1978 until 2001 he has also practiced as a lawyer specialized in international taxation.
Happy Hotelier blogs about many subjects of interest to him and hopefully to his readers at Happy Hotelier.
From time to time he has published an unofficial ranking of Travel and Hospitality related Blogs (T-List) and counts over 265 bloggers.
During his past 4 years of blogging Happy Hotelier got in contact with several Hospitality and Travel related Bloggers. On several occasions he has expressed a wish to form a real Community of T-Listers. He is happy that, thanks to the efforts of several individuals and now by generous sponsorship of several companies, he is able to meet some of the individuals he “knows” already IRL (In Real Life).
Finally: He doesn’t necessarily have to be anonymous, but prefers to maintain his nick name as much as possible. If you are interested in his background, real name and many more interests, check out Happy Hotelier | About.
Thank you and Cheers!
Philip Caines’ Profile
February 20, 2008
Managing Editorhttp://tourismtide.blogspot.com
Vancouver, BC, Canada
As head of Tourism Solutions at Sentias Software Corp., Philip is currently focused on Web 2.0 solutions for Travel and Tourism SMEs, primarily in the online sales vertical. One such solution, www.Rezgo.com has empowered numerous companies to sell their travel and tourism products through their existing website as well as adding distribution capabilities through a number of partner portals. His previous work includes working with an award winning DMO, Tourism Vancouver, with the focus on improving the Visitor Services department. You can find his Tourism Industry blog at http://tourismtide.blogspot.com.
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