It looks a lot like a win for The Traditional, with face-to-face taking 38%. But there are a couple of questions I think are worth pondering:
1. Can the logic of market share tell us much here?
'Prefer' has clear implications if you're talking about something close to a win-lose scenario (e.g. Coke vs Pepsi).
But what does it mean to say you 'prefer' to sit down and talk about a holiday than, say, pop some photos on flickr? I prefer it too, but I still do both.
There are broad implications to be drawn about the volume of people who engage in each activity, but they're obvious - face-to-face is so firmly baked into everyday life as to be virtually unavoidable.
2. Are the categories themselves airtight?
What if - as I did last week - I post photos on Facebook, then talk my parents through the gallery next time I visit them? Face-to-face or social networking?
]]>Look out for:
> A look at how the three GDSs match up
> Mobile's rise to prominence
> 10 technologies to watch this year
We're also running a gadget competition with Traveltek. Guess which useless, gimmicky gadget we've got to give away and you could win a not-so-useless Apple iPad.
This edition reflects Travolution's recent media partnership with the Travel Technology Europe show, which inspired much of the content.
Lee Hayhurst, Travolution editor
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Says NMA:The verdict:
]]>"Clearly influenced by Google online aesthetics and usability, Zugu beta provides a pretty good user experience, albeit a search layer above travel providers, so you are at Opodo or BA or others mercy once you select an option.
Search and results speeds are good and everything loads double fast, but will it do so under load?
Sorting options are also very good and the site makes good use of Web 2.0 interface design while keeping everything well organised and uncluttered.
Main gripe is that once I viewed details of a chosen flight the 'select' or 'book now' button wasn't where I expected it to be.
While I quite liked the name, I found the brand mark typographically mean and spiky. I'd be more generous, warm and cuddly.
The lime livery is what one American client once termed 'monkey-vomit green', but I like it."
Here's a snippet:
"In the past year, eBay has seen its holiday and travel category grow significantly in response to consumer demand for new ways to book a holiday. As a consequence, the travel industry needs to change the way it works.
Many retailers have opened up to the world of online but not explored its full potential. eBay has proved that retailers can have great success and benefit from incremental sales to their existing channels.
Travel retailers must now look at harnessing the web beyond their existing offering to reach new online shoppers."
A general call to arms? Or does it translate as "swallow your fears and work with us"?
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The Q3 results today tipped the airline to end the year with a profit of €275m (£240m). In the sector's weakest quarter - October to December - it slashed losses to €11m. I wonder what BA will report when its third quarter results come out on Friday.
For a Travolution audience, the key metric is one that Ryanair doesn't even bother mentioning anymore - all of their business is transacted online at www.ryanair.com. Traffic figures for the site must be phenomenal - especially as all of its passengers also have to visit ryanair.com to check in online.
That's 66 million passengers - call them online customers - this year. I imagine there are very few online travel agents who gets 66m hits a year, never mind 66m bookers. And if things go according to plan, there will be 85m Ryanair passengers in Europe by 2012.
Ryanair.com effectively has a "total transaction value" of €2.4bn for the first nine months of the year, with €1.9bn from seats and €0.5bn from ancillaries.
Ancillaries is a great catch-all phrase which includes checked baggage fees, card charges, as well as the revenues earned for the partnerships it has in place with car hire providers, hotel providers, travel insurance suppliers etc. There is even a dedicated cruise channel on the site.
Unluckily, Ryanair does not break out the ancillary revenues in any way, declining when asked to give Travolution even a top line indication. So we'll never know how many cruise bookings Costa Cruises secures via its deal with Ryanair, nor the terms of that deal.
Most people think that Expedia Inc invented the media model for travel sites, but Ryanair is also pretty good at monetizing its traffic. It's a pity we'll never find out exactly how good.
Martin Cowen
]]>Ebookers has designed the site to be incredibly simple, but that verges on obligatory when producing pages for mobile browsers.
That said, it would be interesting to know how it performs on various different handsets - whether it's simple enough to be user-friendly on my clunky N95 as well as a web-friendly iPhone.
So if anyone has road-tested it, drop a note in the comments section...
Homepage
Search pages
Results pages
Apparently the site recently featured an amazing deal on flights to Tel Aviv from "mom and pop" agency Moses Travel.
The deal proved so popular that Cheapflights had to call the agency to check it was happy with the number of incoming leads. And it was - it had filled its flights and planned to put on another.
Ecsery says the move by operators to reduce capacity has boosted demand for deals in the DIY market, adding that airlines' often complex pricing structures were also pushing consumers to shop around.
A couple more quotes on that subject that we didn't use in today's news story:
"The awareness among the consumer that they have to be careful with their money will not go away for a good five years."
...and...
"Price is still so important, and yet it has never been cheaper to fly than now. Sometimes people do not end up booking at the cheaper price but when it is advertised it's like moths to a light."
Lee Hayhurst
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The sixth season of Lost premieres in the US on Tuesday, so speculation that this is a bit of viral marketing seems reasonable.
Commenter KristoferA has another theory, though:
"Probably a countermeasure against screenscrapers"
Wonder much Kayak users who want a real Sydney-LAX flight will enjoy being Lostrolled - hopefully Lost lore is widepsread enough for them to see it coming...
]]>Many travel companies have struggled under the sheer volume of customer enquiries and travellers have been left disillusioned after receiving little or no information.
So what can we learn from this situation as, sure as night follows day, it will happen again.
The common theme of travellers' complaints was not necessarily that they were frustrated about the weather or any other specific delay but that there was, in many cases, almost a complete lack of information.
There was very much the feeling from travellers that once the travel company has my money it is not that bothered.
My personal experience is an example of this. Just before Christmas, I was stuck on the M20 on the way to the airport for four hours in the snow.
Firstly, I didn't see a single gritting lorry - sorry, I digress.
More importantly, I had no information about my flight apart from the fact that I heard snippets on the radio that the major airports were closed or running a skeleton service.
It was early in the morning, so I could not contact my travel company as their office was closed and the airline number was permanently engaged.
So there I was, stuck on a motorway with three young kids, no idea whether I was going to miss my flight or even whether it was worth struggling to continue my journey if everything was closed.
Perhaps irrationally, I was getting increasingly angry with everyone. I was angry with the Airline for not letting me know what was going on.
I was also angry with my travel company as they were not around.
They said when I booked the holiday that I should book with them as they would look after me and that they differentiate themselves by their good customer service.
But where were they when I wanted them? I presume great customer service meant that they would look after me if an issue occurred during the hours of 9am to 5.30pm GMT.
I will have to remember that when I am in Australia next year.
As I was sitting in my car on the motorway, watching an impromptu English vs France lorry driver snowball fight in the outside lane, I was thinking even my children's schools provide information updates on any disruption or trip, and out of school hours.
I also remembered that I get a text confirmation from my dentist and doctor and I even receive text confirmation with car details from local taxi firms.
It has even just been reported that one Taxi firm is now texting a picture of their driver with this confirmation to the booker for security.
However, in travel, a company can send me to the other side of the world but not ensure that they can effectively communicate with me or in fact other travellers, especially in larger numbers.
It was especially frustrating for me as I knew that mobile travel systems are in place already with broadcast functionality, have a very low cost of entry and have also had great customer feedback.
I will not book with the same company again and I wonder how many customers who experience equally frustrating situations will decide to book with a company that will keep them informed?
In addition to this, from our experience at Travel Buddy, travellers are willing to pay for such a service.
Adam Winterflood is managing director at Travel Buddy, a text alert information provider for the travel industry
]]>Tim Russell was the host with the most as a handful of wise travel tech hacks (plus a newcomer - me) met for a post new year, new year soiree at a Spanish restaurant in central London.
Coincidentally hours earlier Amadeus had announced a board restructuring which will see chief exec David Jones leave in 12 months, probably having seen through a much anticipated IPO.
A philosophical, and very upbeat, Russell was sure he will leave Amadeus in safe hands because the firm has so many talented people coming through the ranks - the next generation.
Amadeus, he told us, is always looking to innovate and find new ways to add value to its commercial partners' businesses - you know the game's up the moment you're asked what's coming up next and you have no answer.
There are those in the industry who would argue with his assertion that there is a growing acceptance that GDSs have a 'symbiotic' relationship with the partner airlines they offer distribution to.
Apparently Amadeus has a presence in more countries than Coca Cola, a seemingly astonishing fact if, like me, you've travelled to some pretty far flung places and yet still managed to get your fix of the fizzy brown stuff.
Figures point to a decreasing proportion of airline business coming through the GDSs, although received wisdom suggests the latest round of contract negotiations with the likes of BA proved to me much less fraught - the UK flag carrier is not in a position to be quite as bullish as in previous negotiations.
It might be true that the likes of BA can distribute in a market like the UK just as efficiently itself, but it relies on GDSs for its vital global reach, so it can do business in exotic markets from Bangalore to Burkina Faso to Buenos Aires.
Russell is confident even an airline as aggressively opposed to third party distribution as Ryanair will come round eventually to realise the added value GDSs can offer.
Is Russell right when he says a system built by one company for 50 airlines to distribute through is always going to be better than a system built by one company to distribute just one company's inventory?
If he is that raises the question of scale and whether the three main global GDS players have a Tesco-like grip on the market.
Certainly they do not seem overly concerned with new entrants and would-be challengers to their crown, their size meaning they can cope with the eye-watering complexity of keeping the world on the move.
All of which led the conversation to another sector in which there's also a three-way battle for dominance (and at this point it's only fair to credit a certain former Travolution editor with this particular line of questioning).
Amadeus, Travelport (Galileo/Worldspan), Sabre. Which is the Apple, which the Microsoft and which the Google of the GDS world, and which one does Russell say Amadeus is most like?
There came a typical politician's answer: all three.
Initially it was more Google, as a late entrant on the scene. Then it went into an Apple phase with the focus on design. And latterly it has been demonstrating more ''Microsoftic' tendencies due to its leading presence in some markets.
If you're into these sort of comparisons this week PhoCusWright produced a first major piece of research on the three leading GDSs, so do read our report by Travolution's Martin Cowan on its findings.
Lee Hayhurst
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