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?
Here or There - Are we there yet?
March 12, 2008
The PhoCusWright@ITB Bloggers summit gave bloggers exclusive press time with a number of travel industry executives. Hugo Burge, Vice-Chairman & Head of International at CheapFlights was one of the presenters at the bloggers briefings. He was talking about a new ‘experience inspiration’ tool that he is working on as a side project, Here or There.
This new site is focused on travel experience sharing as opposed to travel transportation and accommodation selling. This reminds me of the 4 steps that Joe Buhler identified (Dream, Learn, Plan, Go) in my Expert Interview, and it is good to see more focus on the dream stage in travel preparation.
His site monetizes itself with ‘targeted’ Google ads, and currently does not send any referrals to travel suppliers. Hugo believes that “Pay per click is the new commission.” It is hard to argue with his success, but with many sites starting to combine all of the steps in the travel planning process (Isango sort of comes to mind) and with the never ending increase in niche and fragmented communities, it seems like a challenge to force people to utilize even more sites and tools, when there is the potential to facilitate the entire booking process in one site.
If Hugo was to add some top level tabs that isolate the various steps in the booking process, giving each a distinctive look and feel, I am sure that customers would be receptive to take all of their dreaming into the next step towards booking their trip. What do you think?
Originally posted at: http://tourismtide.blogspot.com/2008/03/here-or-there-are-we-there-yet.html
A big thank you to the T List organisers and PhoCusWright
March 12, 2008
I wanted to say thanks very much for all the effort that went into organising the bloggers summit and to the sponsors. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet up with fellow bloggers and discuss a variety of topics. It was fascinating for me to attend the Success in Travel E-Business and listen the speakers ranging from CEOs in high profile companies to new start ups.
Will easyJetHolidays be a hit with customers?
March 10, 2008
After listening to the presentation by John Kohlsaat from easyJet I wondered if easyJet’s foray into selling holidays will be a success with customers. I try to look at things from the consumer perspective. I’d done some research in October 2007 for my blog and found that prices for accommodation and car hire booked on the easyJet site were considerably higher, compared to shopping around.
On my return flight from Berlin with Easyjet, I glanced through the in flight magazine and was dismayed by the easyJetHoliday three page spread advert. One page described the tale of woe of a couple who’d put together their own holiday, spending all evening looking for hotels which caused the computer to crash twice, then discovered that the flight price they’d seen earlier had increased and to cover this increase had to book accommodation in a cheaper, less desirable locale. However the second couple who booked it all on easyJet saved time and money.
I’m not convinced the second couple saved money booking with easyJet. That couple may have been the ones comprising on location as easyJet has an exclusive accommodation partner Hotelopia., so is unlikely to offer the full range of available hotels. As for price, a price comparison site such as HotelsCombined searches more than 30 suppliers so is far more likely to find the lowest price. As for the time factor, yes it would be quicker just to book everything with easyJet. However using a price comparison site doesn’t take long.
But it states in the easyJet ad that they guarantee the lowest price. Cast your eyes to line 4 where it states that the guarantee doesn’t cover flights and hotels booked separately. So why are easyJet bothering to mention the guarantee in the context of an advert where the first couple book the elements separately, so they wouldn’t even be covered by the guarantee?
Are easyJet relying on customer inertia i.e. customers can’t be bothered to look at other sites and believe that a low cost airline must also offer low price accommodation? Are customers reassured by the lowest price guarantee?
It seems to me that easyJet should consider some type of accommodation price comparison tool on their site to reassure customers that they are getting the best deal and widest choice of accommodation, rather than a list of hotel options from their exclusive partner. Although easyJet might not make such a high commission per booking by ditching the exclusive partner they could end up with higher overall revenue if a higher percentage of customers book their accommodation through the easyJet site, which is more likely to occur if customers are reassured that they are getting the lowest price and widest choice of accommodation on the easyJet site.
My slippery late start at the ITB
March 9, 2008
When I arrived in Berlin the day before the start of the Travel Bloggers Summit at the Berlin Travel Fair, I discovered that there was a public transport strike starting the next day. The S Bahn, city trains. were still running but there were no buses, trams or underground. Fortunately my hostel was right next to an S Bahn station. I had visions of a nightmare crowded journey to the fairground but I had a seat and the train wasn’t that busy. So far so good.
My admission pass to the Fair had not arrived in the mail, so I’d been told to pick it up at Hall 7. There was a Fair entrance a few minutes walk from the S Bahn station but they wouldn’t let me in there as I’d no pass. I was advised to walk round the perimeter of the fair ground to reach Hall 7. It had snowed earlier that morning and this snow had been compacted into ice on the pavements by this stage. Luckily I had on sensible boots but I can’t imagine that half mile walk in high heels.
I arrived at Hall 7 already late for the first session and there was no pass waiting for me, so I’d to wait another 15 minutes until this was sorted out. Then I couldn’t find the room in which the meeting was being held. I arrived one hour late feeling pretty harassed which must explain the expression on my face at the session. Thanks to Vicky of Highland Business Research for capturing that moment! Vicky, you could have chosen a more flattering picture of me. Prize for best caption of why I look so hacked off, it’s been suggested that I was gutted because I’d just heard that Darren of Travel Rants missed his flight.
Passions stirred at the CEO briefing
I was one of the lucky ones, two attendees had experienced a bumpy landing on the Air Berlin flight from London that morning, others had booked accommodation a distance from a S Bahn station.
However a prize for the Happy Hotelier who was the first to arrive and locate the meeting room.
Thoughts on the PhoCusWright Bloggers Summit and Conference @ ITB
March 8, 2008
As I’m getting ready to go back home tomorrow, I have had some time to look back and try to summarize the experience of attending the Bloggers Summit and the PhoCusWright Conference @ ITB (as well as ITB itself). The Bloggers Summit brought together several eTourism bloggers from various parts of the world. Unfortunately, the sessions were so busy and bloggers’ schedules in some cases were so tight that I did not have time to meet all the bloggers who attended. However, I did have time to chat at various times with Stephen Joyce of (T4 Tourism Technology Trends) and Phil Caines (Tourism Tide) from Rezgo and get their opinion on my social network Canadamigos (they both liked the potential). I also met Guido Van Den Elshout (Happy Hotelier) in person for the first time and enjoyed our conversations very much. Guido is avery likable guy and very active industry blogger. His blog Happy Hotelier is a very interesting and eclectic collection of post on various eTourism and Tourism topics. Check out his list of Unusual Hotels. I did have a chance to say hello to Jens Thraenhart who has been very busy since leaving his post at the Canadian Tourism Commission (Tourism Internet Marketing) and I also met, for the first time in person, Kevin May from the UK the editor of the excellent eTourism and tourism technology mag Travolution and blogger of the blog by the same name. I highly recommend the magazine to any tourism business interested in maximizing eTourism opportunities. During the couple of days of the event I also chatted a bit with Yeoh Siew Hoon (The Transit Cafe) from Singapore, Claude Benard (Les Explorers) from France, Vicky Brock and Stephen Budd (Tracking Tourism) from Scotland. I barely said hello to Joe Buhler (Travel Marketing in the Age of WEB 2.0 & Beyond) and I met a young blogger Abbas Nokhasteh ( Openvizor) from the UK.
To summarize the conference is a challenge, but I can try. Most of the presentations and talks focused on the technology that drives the revolution that has been taking place in the travel industry worldwide. However, questions arise as to whether companies are making use of the right technologies for the right purpose and whether they are using available technologies correctly. On the user side, as Philip Wolf, CEO of PhoCusWright, mentioned on his remarks to the bloggers during the Bloggers Summit: “consumers took control and went from looking for the cheapest trip (Web 1.0) to looking for the perfect trip (Web 2.0).” This phenomenon disrupted the industry with the advent of social media. February’s Travolution Magazine (Issue 14.0) is dedicated to the User Experience asserting that content is not king anymore, but rather User Experience is. This makes a lot of sense from the travellers’ pont of view. The User Experience is King may summarize the subtext of all the presentations, whether it was about the Reservation System of Tomorrow Today, the Hotelier’s Perspective, Journalists or Bloggers, the OTA’s perspective or about the new eTravel startups (five minutes of fame). Having said all this and listened to all the presentations one must not forget that there is still some ways to go in the space to achieve the perfect user experience. In closing, a key thing for companies to remember, to paraphrase Philip Wolfe, is that “winners will focus on customer preservation rather than on business model preservation.”
See you in Hollywood
Jaime
Second Life - Life for Tourism?
March 6, 2008
Marketing Travel In Second Life
Daniele Mancini, corporate E-Business Director, Costa Crociere S.p.A. had a great presentation at PhoCusWright. He opened my eyes to the level of large corporate web 2.0 marketing.
Costa is a massive cruise supplier, they have 18 ships and 11 more being built. They are pioneers (for a large company anyways) in utilizing online marketing to connect with their consumers. Their b2c marketing efforts included blogs, Youtube contests, online community interaction, and a Second Life presence including owning property and cruise ships.
This post focuses on their Second Life efforts. Costa utilized this new world in an innovative way, they reproduced a press conference and ship launch within Second Life and paired it with a real world launch, fireworks and all.
Their Second Life developments included:
B2C
- Offer a virtual experience for residents
- evnets
- contests
B2B
- Training for travel agents
- Lesson for 15 minutes
- Guided tour of the shop
Kevin May, editor of Travolution had the insight to ask “So ow many people attended the launch?” There was not a quantitative answer, but Daniele claimed that Second Life “offers good value for advertising” when compared to traditional media. Daniele then stated that he has changed his Secondlife marketing efforts from B2C to strictly B2B. This hardly seems like there was a good ROI if they have canceled their B2C campaign all together.
Gregory Turley, CEO of CarTrawler.com was discussing this online marketing phenomenon with me; we both agreed that the people who invest much time in Secondlife, are probably not likely to be interested in the Travel Industry. I pointed out that most of the people that are integrated in a Second Life may be more interested in technology and have less of an interest in real world experiences, but maybe I am wrong. What do you think? Have you found that Second Life offers a good return on your marketing investment?
Competition is all around you
March 6, 2008
I’ve written before on the landscape of OTA and media companies which is getting more competitive everyday. But also the field of touroperators, airlines and hotelchains is getting more competive. At the PhocusWright conference at ITB John Kohlsaat, 
General Manager for Germany, Central Europe, Baltic and Denmark, of easyJet Airline Company made some comments on that matter. Easyjet, which is the 4th largest airline, is moving ahead fast. From flight only, they have added hotels, transfers and travel services to their offering. This will cause great problems for touroperators. They don’t own the capacity and will have to add value to it, to be profitable. The website that Easyjet uses for this is Easyjetholidays.com. It sees it as a revolution to the package holiday market. As customers are booking more and more direct at airlines and hotelchain websites and are being able to add other travel offerings to it, touroperators should be aware. Future will tell how fierce and bloody this battle will be.
In a few hours I will be heading back to the Netherland. The conference has been very interesting. The bloggers summit as well, great meeting all the bloggers 
from around the world. ITB was big, colourfull
and with great hotdogs!
Perfect storm predicted for travel
March 6, 2008
Maybe it was the unexpected snow. Or perhaps the transport strike. But when Philip Wolf, CEO of travel industry analyst firm PhoCusWright, addressed the bloggers summit at ITB Berlin yesterday, he was putting his neck on the line and predicting big storms on the travel industry horizon.
A perfect storm in fact.
Not the kind featuring a wet George Clooney in a fishingboat, but a convergence of three separate stands of online behaviour and technology that look set to impact travel purchase both dramatically and profoundly.
Philip is predicting a perfect storm of search, shop and buy.
But what does he mean?
“A perfect storm is born when several events occur simultaneously which if occurring separately would be far less powerful. What we’ve identified is that the advance of search technology, online shopping and buying will lead to a whole technological revolution.
What are these converging fronts? Well people can now find needle in haystack online. Additionally, in a longtail environment of unlimited travel choice online, it can also be economically viable to be the niche seller of a needle in haystack.
Social media have also shifted power to consumer. There is now a closer blurring of search, shop and buy. The process of conversing about travel, watching travel images and video, reading user reviews and sharing knowledge drives the sale process. It inspires travel decisions and influences the purchase specifics. In his presentation this morning, Tom Klein, Group President of Sabre Travel Network used the unattributed statistic that 75% of shoppers spend more on online travel after consulting reviews.
What does this perfect storm mean for travel and tourism businesses? Philip explains that:
“Unlike the metrological kind, this digital kind of perfect storm provides perfect opportunity. That will be provided to travel companies that exploit new technology and the momentum and they stop worrying about business model preservation. When you concentrate on trying to preserve business models instead of preserving customers, sometimes really scary things can happen.”
He predicts that as with earlier industry transformations, there will be new agents of change, new winners and losers. That maybe the new generation of online travel firms that ousted the establishment a decade ago, will themselves then be ousted by if they fail to respond to converging customer needs.
Philip adds that in these times of upheaval, it is more important than ever before to trust your instruments and consult your intelligence, but that the stage remains set to exploit opportunity everywhere.
Good news for researchers and industry analysts then 
?
Long tail or ghettos? First Day Thoughts from PhoCusWright@ITB Berlin
March 6, 2008
Post Summary
Does increased choice, perversly, decrease choice? Does the Long Tail indulge our preconceived desires to the exclusion of chance, serendipity and, more importantly, having a really great travel experience?
Can the long tail narrow choice instead of enhancing it?
When I’m not following trends in tourism, I’m a keen follower of UK politics and, even more geekishly, American politics . In this capacity, I regulalry listen to the interviews on the www.bloggingheads.tv as this is an excellent environment in which ideas can be nurtured, discussed, grown or discarded between two knowledgable people in a time frame that allows the debate to mature.
Usually, my politics and tourism interests don’t collide but this excerpt in a recent post made my ears prick up.
The speaker is Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago Law School who, in terms of the public political dialogue, wonders whether the internet communities are all their cracked up to be. His argument can be paraphrased that, in terms of politic discourse, people tend to congregate with like-minded people who then reinforce their views (and indeed often make them more extreme). This effect is known as the ‘echo chamber’ and it has the effect of making the participants hear what they only want to hear or, in other cases, to work them up into a righteous frenzy that previously didn’t exist.
But Cass sees value in experiences that go beyond the categories imposed by such closed groups as these experiences give an individual both competing views of the world as well as delivering insight into things that they might not previously considered. One example he uses is that of a traditional newspaper where, although you might only be interested in sport, the chances are that you will also read about politics, regional affairs etc - things beyond your narrow interest. He also uses the (borrowed) metaphor of walking through a city, seeing something you have never encountered before and thinking, “Hey, that looks cool, I would like to do that!”
Essentially, Cass is saying that serendipity is a good thing and your life is less without it.
So…what the heck has this to do with tourism?
Well, it made me wonder whether blindly serving the tourism ‘long tail’ niches could be the equivalent of the narrow interest groups where you get exactly what you want…and then miss out something you really would have enjoyed because it has simply been filtered from your view. In other words, we become so niche and exact in our demands for experiences that we miss out on the fuzzy elements that can make a trip really enjoyable.
I don’t have a definitive answer to whether this is the case but I thought I would look for clues at ITB in Berlin and the PhocusWright summit. From what I’ve seen so far, my fear that tourism could be getting too fixated on answering every known traveller’s desire (and in doing so are leaving no room for the enjoyable other serendipitous experiences) is something that some industry leaders are keen to avoid. At the bloggers press meeting this morning, we were given the chance to interview Hugo Burge of hereorthere.com. One of the key aspects of the hereorthere.com seems to be a desire to ‘inspire’ travellers at a stage when they have not yet selected the destination or the form that their travel might take - an area of the travel purchasing process Hugo believes has so far been underserved online. Which to my mind leaves open the possibility that even in a niche environment, potential travel bookers can be exposed to ideas that they might not originally have sought.
I suppose what I am moving toward here is the need for ’slightly imperfect’ information flows for customers that can give them clues about what there is on offer beyond their intended search parameters but which are not so wild as to be meaningless. Amazon.com of course do it in their recommendations lists (”Readers who bought this also bought this…”) and their ability to serve up interesting but not-quite-right recommendations can sometimes lead to more profitable avenues of exploration and enagagement.
Like Mr Rumsfeld said, their are ‘unknown knowns’ and tapping into the potential of a persons full spectrum of travel desires (however seemingly unknown they may be to that individual) is, I believe, key in a really excellent holiday experience.
Lets see what the other participants at the conference tomorrow have to say about this…!
Event Sponsors
Global Sponsors
