TravelBizBuzz

Group travelers naturally take well to tools "like forums, profiles and photo sharing, that help them network and collaborate," Scott Harness, co-founder/CEO of GroupTravelPlanet tells TDR, noting that social networking is not a new concept to group travelers. But what is a new concept on the traditional group travel scene is social networking that connects not friends and families, but a group of strangers.

New players: That’s where sites like TripUp (formerly TripMates), TravelTogether and even the travel section of popular new seniors’ social networking site, Eons.com, come in.

Emerging trend? The split between companies that cater to existing groups and those that foster new group formation is becoming clearer as the traditional sites get more established and startups creep into the space. The question is: Can group travel sites serve both audiences effectively — or must they specialize?

Get the answers to that question in the TDR article "Group Travel Players Wrestle With The Non-Traditional Group." For your free copy, e-mail me.

-- Kimberly Gilbert, Managing Editor, Travel Distribution Report

Posted by TDR at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We’ve been talking about the blurring line between corporate and leisure travel for some time now. But the amount of recent attention on the so-called “unmanaged” set of business travelers, those that sort of fall right in that blur, is astounding.

Examples: Both Orbitz and Expedia have recently unveiled sites specifically aimed at serving unmanaged business travelers (that’s in addition to their regular corporate travel sites). But this somewhat undefined animal can be hard to serve. Here’s how two companies are doing it:

VIEW #1: Think Leisure, Play The Price-Sensitive Card: Unmanaged business travelers typically come from small companies — which often means small budgets. “People sometimes assume that business spend during travel doesn’t matter because the company is paying for it, but a large percentage of these folks are either managing their own budgets or they’re small business owners, so they do care a lot about the value they’re getting,” says Orbitz Worldwide CMO, Randy Wagner. Orbitz’ strategy is to offer the customer the same types of prices they would see when booking leisure travel. “We’ve heard qualitatively that some people don’t like to self-identify as businesses because they’re concerned somehow that they would get a different set of prices,” Wagner tells TDR.

VIEW #2: Think Corporate, Don’t Rule Out Extra Services: When GetThere seeks out potential managed business travel clients, “we do keep an eye on functionality that would bring an unmanaged traveler more readily into a managed program, and that means bringing corporate functionality with a leisure twist to it,” confirms Bev Heinritz, GM for GetThere and senior VP for Sabre Travel Network. Some companies aren’t as strict about their employees following policy, or they will let a segment of their travelers book on low-cost carriers, Heinritz points out. But that doesn’t mean companies with small travel budgets aren’t interested in having employees follow travel policies, Heinritz says. In fact, more and more companies are concerned about security and risk management, which is often “a trigger point for putting a structured program in place,” she says.

You can read more industry analysis of the opportunity unmanaged biz travel offers in the TDR article “Unmanaged Business Travelers — And Their $15B Revenue Stream — Prove A Hot Pick.” Get your free copy by writing to me.

-- Kimberly Gilbert, Managing Editor, Travel Distribution Report

Posted by TDR at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hot spots south of the border, like Mexico, are smoldering with opportunity, especially now that they’ve been touched with the LCCs’ magic wand.

What’s changed: Latin America’s middle class is assuming more discretionary income and can now travel for the first time by plane, says Worldspan’s Mike Parks. “The carriers themselves will tell you that they’re carrying a lot of first-time travelers,” adds Parks, who is senior VP of Latin America. And increasingly, those carriers are LCCs like Mexicana Airlines’ spin-off, Click Mexicana.

Room for a middleman: While more of the population is logging on, the reality is that many Latin Americans don’t have easy access to the Internet. However, they “do have easy access to the travel agency on the corner,” Parks tells TDR. So between the target audience and the LCCs who’d prefer to deal direct, there’s plenty of room for players to get in there and connect the dots. For example, Worldspan recently jumped on a distribution agreement with Mexican LCC Alma de Mexico.

Bottom line: Early moves into the industry by LCCs and GDSs spell opportunity for other players in the distribution chain to smooth out the travel buying and selling process.

Want to more in-depth information about what’s moving and shaking in Latin America? Read the TDR article “Latin American Market Reveals LCC Niche, Distribution Players Jump In.” Get your free copy by writing to me.

-- Kimberly Gilbert, Managing Editor, Travel Distribution Report

Posted by TDR at 01:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, you know this already. But it bears repeating because it's not just consumers who like search engines, especially Google -- it's travelers.

So, despite innovative travel sites (and we at TDR know there are lots of you using cool things like fancy filters and search-by-map features), the general search engine is still winning the popularity contest by a long shot.

Recent stats from Hitwise show that over 30 percent of travel industry-related website traffic comes from search engines (data measured in July 2007), an increase of 13.5 percent over the amount of traffic coming from engines in July 2006. What's more, 20 percent of travel industry web traffic comes from Google, specifically. Now that's a BFF worth having!

Looking for more clues to search engine success? Check out TDR article "Take Your SEM Energies Beyond Keywords -- And Win Big In Conversions." Get your free copy by writing to me.

-- Kimberly Gilbert, Managing Editor, Travel Distribution Report

Posted by TDR at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ever since these two kids eyed each other from across the room, we’ve wondered what they would look like out on the town together. Now we know.

Global travel technology provider Travelport announced today that its newly acquired Worldspan global distribution system (GDS) will join its existing Galileo GDS business, enabling Worldspan users to access Gullivers Travel Associates (GTA) hotel inventory.

Key details: Worldspan and GTA, also a Travelport subsidiary, announced a new four-year distribution agreement today that will bring GTA's hotel inventory into the Worldspan GDS. Thus, Worldspan has become the first GDS to intergrate GTA content into the primary agent display, said VP Kathy Fitzpatrick in a statement.

The partnership will add GTA properties, along with its retail rates, to the Worldspan “Hotel Select” global shopping and booking system that travel agencies and corporations use. Worldspan will use its XML data exchange technology to create a real-time interface between GTA's internal reservations system and the Worldspan GDS.

Big plans: Later this year, Worldspan intends to have its “Hotel Source” distribute GTA content to global points of sale, providing travel buyers with real-time property availability, rates, rules and immediate confirmations directly from GTA's internal system.

-- Scott Walker, Editor, Travel Distribution Report

Posted by TDR at 01:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)