Travel Trade Gazette e-Commerce Articles

These articles have been written by Paul Richer as a regular e-commerce column within Travel Trade Gazette. The latest articles from 2005 come first.  Underneath these are articles dating from August 2002 back to January 2000.  These older articles reflect the fast moving pace of the time, when many were expecting wholesale change within the travel industry in the space of a few years. Much of the thinking behind the articles is still relevant, even though the pace of change has not been as fast as expected.

Will the big four's sites be worth the wait?
16 December 2005

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Will 2006 be the year when the mammoths of the travel industry really extend themselves to outrun their fleeter of foot online competitors? According to online market share figures from Hitwise UK for the month of November, Expedia and lastminute.com are in first and second spots with Thomson’s and Thomas Cook’s Web sites coming in third and sixth respectively. First Choice and MyTravel UK are in 8th and 9th places. Can any of the UK’s big four make it the top of the online travel tree or must they accept that they can simply never dominate the online marketplace in the same way that they have dominated the high street for so many years?
 

The Four T’S
14 October 2005

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As reported in last week’s TTG, at the PhoCusWright Executive Conference Europe in Paris, technology leaders such as Brent Hoberman of lastminute and David Soskin, Chief Executive of Cheapflights urged the industry to innovate with technology. Soskin also advised companies against becoming too dependent on Google, even though he admitted that Cheapflights does well on the search engines. Yet there are so many travel companies that have not yet grasped the basics of search engine marketing that, for them, it is more important to get this right before taking the next, innovative leap.
 

Get Training for the Olympics
5 August 2005

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What are you doing about the Olympics? After the excitement of last month’s winning announcement it’s really worth doing some long-term planning. 2012 may sound a long time away, but you cannot afford to sit back and relax. You really need to start working out how you are going to capitalise on this fantastic future event.

Is your brand being hijacked?
17 June 2005

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Brand hijacking seems to be taking place on the search engines and, having spoken to the victims, most are not even aware that it is happening. Some travel companies, including several tour operators, are making what seems to be blatant attempts to trade on their rivals’ brands.

New Search Engines Could be Nightmare
6 May 2005

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A new generation of Internet search tools with high powered comparison shopping capabilities threaten to hasten the trend towards commoditisation of travel products.

Letting the Genie Out of the Bottle
12 August 2002

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Is history about to repeat itself? A couple of decades ago, Thomson Holidays revolutionised the travel industry by encouraging the wholesale adoption of viewdata, the then up to the minute b2b e-commerce system. It looks as though the tour operator is about to do it again. TUI UK has announced Genie, an Internet style system already installed in 46 Lunn Poly shops, allowing staff to book directly in TUI UK’s Tracs reservation system without any use of viewdata to retrieve or send data.

Is Viewdata the Problem?
29 April 2002

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At a recent Advantage Travel Centres conference in Valencia, Jeanne Lally, Thomson Holidays Sales Manager, suggested that antiquated systems prevent operators from responding to market demands. She said: “That would be one of the things I would like to change – to have a tool that allows us to manipulate durations. But we can’t do it with viewdata.” I disagree, viewdata is not the problem. It is perfectly capable of handling varying durations or any other style of booking. 

BA – The Online Airline?
25 February 2002

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British Airways seems to be trying to become an online airline. It wants to cut out middle-men such as agents, GDSs and online travel portals. The savings in distribution costs would be enormous - about £100 million according to a recent BA press release. Can BA become an Internet airline or is it deluding itself? Today’s Internet airlines are achieving impressively high load factors and online booking penetration. (In December 2001, easyJet achieved an 82.8% load factor with 89.1% of passengers booking online, while Ryanair achieved a 78% load factor and 91% online bookings.)

Customer Relationship Management
10 January 2002

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Just when it was in danger of becoming a forgotten discipline, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has been back in the travel news over the last few weeks. It was one of the central themes at World Travel Market and, more recently, MyTravel has announced it is investing in CRM technology to, in Richard Carrick’s words, “ …. have the ability to have one-to-one relationships – the same as having 1.5 million corner shops.” 

Firing on all Channels
7 January 2002

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The early days of e-commerce were all about getting on the Web. If you were not creating waves online, all those surfers were going to go elsewhere. EMAP Online created Bargainholidays.com amongst many other travel Web sites. EMAP Online is now closed down (albeit the Bargainholidays.com site is still going strong). Thomson Holidays formed an internal grouping called Digital Travel Group (DTG), clearly aiming for the Guiness Book of Records award for the most travel Web sites owned (wholly or partially) by one travel organisation. DTG no longer exists. thomascook.com was formed as an autonomous e-commerce business unit within Thomas Cook. It is now much slimmed down and integrated into the larger Thomas Cook Retail organisation.

Will Online Travel Survive?
24 September 2001

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As we all realise, the recent tragic events in the USA are set to have serious consequences for the travel industry. Undoubtedly online travel will be affected as much as any other sector. The traditional model of an online travel business, established by organisations such as Expedia and Travelocity, is to invest heavily and recoup this investment through high volume sales. Rather like airlines, these companies have high fixed costs that need to be amortised over a high volume of sales. Will online travel companies be forced out of business as a result of dropping revenues falling as people opt to stay at home rather than travel in these uncertain times? 

Online Hijack
28 August 2001

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Is your company name and reputation being hijacked on the Internet? I received a couple of phone calls recently that made me think that this might be happening more often than you realise. The first was from an adventure tour operator. His company's name was listed (alongside all his other competitors' names) in the keyword meta-tag of a competitor's Web site. The second call was from the Managing Director of a car hire company. Another car hire company has launched a Web site using his trading name. I began to suspect that brand hijacking on the Internet is rife. 

Viewdata Faces Web Assassins
30 July 2001

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British Airways has announced that from the beginning of October it will switch off its BA Link viewdata system in favour of its new Internet-based trade booking system. Another drawing pin attempting to be a nail in the coffin of viewdata. Yet viewdata continues to survive because it is straightforward to use and provides access to so many travel reservation systems. Can it really last for much longer though?

Don't Catch a Virus
2 July 2001

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In the last month, agents have been calling us with all their problems. Well not quite all their worries and woes, the phone would never stop ringing, but their technology problems to be specific. This is because Genesys is trialling ABTA's IT Helpline. Take one travel agent that called the other day. They were pretty sure their PCs had been infected by a virus and it turned out they were, unfortunately, right.

Putting e-Travel in Context
4 June 2001

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A couple of pieces of research that landed on my desk this week reminded me that the world of e-travel is but part of a larger online universe. Both surveys confirm how much more important the online world is to travel than just about any other sector.

Airline Retail Portals
7 May 2001

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Supplier owned online retailers are making front page headlines, particularly the airline owned portals of OTP in Europe and Orbitz in the US. Agents fear that airlines could operate a cartel, supplying ultra-low rates to their own retail ventures. Are they right to be frightened or should they really be laughing as the airlines spend millions attempting to play agents at their own game?

The Well Connected Family
9 April 2001

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A recent study by ActiveMedia Research in the US shows that most small to medium, B2C e-commerce companies are operating in the black.   The research found that one third of all e-commerce firms are already profitable, with a prediction that 60% will be in the black within a year.  Good news indeed, but I wondered who might be doing all this online shopping, particularly travel?   I then realised that my own family might well be an interesting case study of online travel shopping.

Who are the New Travel Agents?
12 March 2001

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DMOs are slowly climbing the ladder of increasing booking capability. They are becoming the specialist destination travel agents of the future. They have amassed destination information databases with which very few travel agents could compete. They have established close relationships with local bed-stock providers. They have invested in comprehensive DMSs with online booking capability. I believe that they will one day prove formidable competitors to travel agents who never even realised that they posed a threat.

Creating Content
12 February 2001

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Granularity! That was one of the key messages from a recent conference I attended. The event was called Website Content Management for Travel. At first glance, this does not sound a very compelling subject, but our online population of would-be travellers have a huge thirst for information.

Predictions, Predictions
15 January 2001

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It is always interesting at this time of year to speculate on what is going to happen in the coming twelve months. I will make a few predictions and, as I place copies of all my articles on Genesys' Web site, there will be a permanent record for you to look back on to see how wrong I was.

The Death of the Brochure
4 December 2000

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How would travel agents react if tour operators stopped printing brochures? I received this email recently from Alex Bainbridge, MD of adventure tour operator, First 48 www.first48.com.  “We are the first tour operator - in the UK or USA (I have done some research) to STOP producing brochures - concentrating solely on producing a nice website.”

The New Age of Realism
6 November 2000

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We are about to enter the new age of Realism, where people will grasp the fact that perhaps the online world does have something to offer, that there is gold in the ground. They are just going to have to dig deep and work hard to yield the benefits. Of course, those who always knew this will have the last laugh.

Fluid Pricing
9 October 2000

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What would the world of travel distribution be like if all travel was fluidly priced and price movements were as transparently obvious to the consumer as they are with the financial markets? What would travel agents do? Would they be reduced in number to a few large, online brokers who could afford the technology to develop travel broking systems, taking real-time price feeds from tour operators, airlines and other travel principals?

The Mystery Shopper Strikes
11 September 2000

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My mystery shopping exercise was not very scientific and it would be dangerous to draw any firm conclusions.  However, 2 out of 3 experiences were poor and this made me feel uneasy.  It is very easy for Web site owners to be seduced by developers into operating at the frontier - the bleeding edge of technology - where the dream of technical innovation cannot be turned into reliable reality. 

b2b or not b2b, that is the Question
14 August 2000

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b2c (business to consumer) is out of fashion with much of the investment community but b2b (business to business) is another matter and many entrepreneurs are busy re-writing their business plans to reflect this. If you have a good b2b e-commerce proposition that serves an industry community you might just get the necessary funding to get your business off the ground. 

How can Travel Agents Compete Online?
17 July 2000

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You really could not blame the average travel agent for thinking that the world of the Web is nothing to do with them. It is obviously for the big boys. There is little point in spending any time or money getting involved. Wrong, wrong, wrong!  Consumers are being conditioned to use the Web to buy travel. Your loyal customers will be sitting at home on a rainy Sunday morning wanting to do business with you but they just cannot find you in the virtual High Street that is Cyberspace. 

Stamp of Approval for Travel Web Sites
19 June 2000

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One of the fascinating features of the Web is that anyone can afford to participate by developing a Web site and putting it online to the World. You can find Web sites put together by school kids that have cost them absolutely nothing. You can find Web sites put together by travel companies with £100 million e-commerce budgets. However, it was brought home to me recently that this media nirvana of the Web has a downside, one that could seriously handicap the travel industry's desire to thrive on the Web.

Airtours' E-Commerce Strategy
22 May 2000

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Central to last week's announcement by Airtours of its e-commerce strategy is the creation of mytravelco, described by them as "a global integrated travel service".   According to Airtours, mytravelco is going to pick-up on all the latest e-commerce fads. It is going to be on every electronic distribution channel you can think of, from the Internet and digital TV to 3G mobile devices. It is clicks and bricks.  It embraces the concept of "glocalisation" - think global, act local.  It will make use of the latest techniques and developments in CRM (Customer Relationship Management).  But will it achieve its goals?

The Battle of Brand
25 April 2000

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The Battle of Brand is about to begin and, by this time next year, we will see who has won the war; the established players - Thomson, Airtours, First Choice and Thomas Cook, defending the territory of their market share, or the new online players - uTravel.co.uk, bargainholidays.com, Expedia Inc. and any other number of new start-up businesses which you may not have heard of yet.

m-Commerce
3 April 2000

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So just when you are getting used to the idea of e-commerce, along comes m?commerce (short for mobile commerce). Forget the Internet and digital television, these are already passé. The real excitement as far as many technology observers are concerned is the mobile telephone. Now you may have the mistaken notion that one should use such a device to make a phone call. Think again. 

Online Travel Entrepreneurs
28 February 2000

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"Who wants to be a millionaire? We do!" So the song goes (or so it ought to). Hardly a day goes by without reading about another Internet millionaire or another Internet business with a massive share valuation far beyond its revenue stream and its profitability (or perhaps lossability, as few Internet businesses actually make money). 

Some of these new Internet businesses are concerned with travel and it's good to know that our industry is doing its bit to enrich the few. But doesn't it make you wonder, "If they can do it, why can't I?" 

Digital Television
31 January 2000

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Unless you are a techno-freak, you probably have no interest whatsoever in the difference between analogue and digital television.   Who cares if tonight’s second rate film and commercials are arriving because of wave modulation or a series of ones and noughts?   Well, if you are a travel agent you had better care because, unless you start business planning to take account of digital TV, in ten years’ time you might not have a business to plan.