Web in Travel 2010 opened on a blistering note with two teams – The Glee Team and The A Team – competing with each other to come up with the best customer insights that would drive change in travel distribution and marketing.
The Glee Team comprised Ram Badrinathan, General Manager – Asia Pacific, PhoCusWright Inc., India, Morris Sim, CEO & Co-Founder, Circos Brand Karma, Taiwan and Robbie Cooke, Managing Director & Group CEO, Wotif Group, Australia. Cheering them on is is Yeoh Siew Hoon, Editor, WIT (pictured left).
In the the A Team were Timothy Hughes, Vice President Commercial, Orbitz Worldwide and HotelCub, Blogger, BOOT – The Business of Online Travel Australia,Timothy O’Neil-Dunne, CTO, Lute Technologies, Switzerland and Brett Henry, Vice-President Marketing and Vice-President, India, Abacus International, Singapore, with Kevin May, Editor, Tnooz, UK as its cheerleader.
Acting as referee for the Cross-fire is Siva Ganeshanandan, GM, APAC, Autonomy Optimost, Singapore.
Here’s a summary of the insights offered by the panellists.
The Glee team
• Ram Badrinathan
Insight 1: Profusion of travel content, choice and distribution channels results in sub-optimal decisions
Situation:
• During the trip planning processtravellers have now access to literally millions of products (hotels, airlines), points of influence (OTA, magazines, TV, User Generated Content/UGC, blogs, articles) and experiences (destination services) globally. The result is information and choice overload that can generate paralysis in decision-making and also confusion.
Pictured right: Ram Badrinathan
Solution:
• The next wave of players will focus on efficiently and rapidly organise and present information that is contextual, personalised and relevant for the individual traveller.
• Open source travel platforms, which allow free information flow from various consumer touch points like social networking tools, supplier sites, review and mobile platforms integration. Directions in the movement of this paradigm is seen in initiatives like Tripfriends (Tripadvisor+ Facebook), Cleartrip’s Small World, Gliider
• With so many links and multi-tasking environment, exposure to content it is easier to get lost. So if something like Apple’s iAd (http://advertising.apple.com/) for example is introduced for the World Wide Web will allow the customer to return to original point of interest.
• Platforms (websites, applications on devices on iphone and Android) will be authored to bring about a balance between UGC and content created by experts and their opinions. People will look for opinions of respected individuals and authorities in every field and will balance what they say with UGC
Insight 2: Emergence of new-media content and channels such as HTML5, tablets, smartphones offering rich interactive videos, apps, location-based services. A generation of consumers is being exposed to the ongoing changes and every one is figuring out the best way to communicate information through these mediums
Situation:
• The first wave of innovation in travel over the past decade as centred around transactions, booking and planning using the PC browser tools based paradigm. It has largely been alpha numeric in its construction and approach with visual elements being incorporated over period of time.
Solution:
• The next wave of innovation in travel, particularly in emerging countries and globally, will happen in the combination of Voice, Interactive Video, Location and Touch tools.
• Intermediaries and service providers in the travel industry will have to get more savvy in engaging the traveller and learn from television on viewer engagement using audio visual medium. The companies will have to transform when bandwidth is available from becoming booking platforms to interactive rich media points of influence.
• One will have to look at creating TED Talks for Travel with transactions built in.
• In India and China, with 1.2 billion mobile users, the winner in these markets will have to develop an open source operating system and price the touch devices at affordable prices (US$100-US$200)
Insight 3: Maps will become a critical interface to access travel content
Situation:
• What started off as a means to discover one’s neighbourhood and planet has transformed into a service providing GPS/directions, 3D representation of cities, street views and UGC, such as photos and information about local places. Today’s travellers can plan their itinerary and discover places from the comfort of their homes. Also, a number of location-based services such as Foursquare and Gowala are built on the maps’ APIs.
Pictured left: Kevin May
Solution:
• Maps have evolved and further become consumer-centric courtesy location-based services like Foursquare, Gowala, SCVNGR, etc. This area could be a good revenue churner and may replace middle-men/tour operators who have commission-based relationships with areas of interests (restaurants, shopping stores, malls, etc.).
• New entrants like Microsoft’s Streetside (http://www.microsoft.com/showcase/en/us/details/64f1839f-db93-49cd-8e44-0729fec50ce7) and Apple’s acquisition of Poly9 (http://mashable.com/2010/07/14/apple-acquires-poly9/) will bring diversity and innovation in UI, applications, services and the way information is presented to the world of maps. Of course, these will also be primary mapping apps/software on the respective brands’ browsers/computers/tablets/mobile phones in the coming years.
• Robbie Cook
Insight 1: Trust is the new battleground
Situation:
• Online customers look to save money but today with rate parity they look towards tried and trusted brands.
• With the advent of social media audiences consult with each other on recommendations. Personal experiences can be spread instantly and globally, hence the positive and negative potential of peer reviews is multiplied
• PhoCusWright reports that while 46% of all Internet denizens use social networks like Twitter, the figure jumps to 60% of people who buy travel online.
• Proliferation of websites and concerns about data security also means that consumers gravitate towards established brands with a good reputation
Solution:
• Engage customers directly in two-way communication to get public feedback and build a personal relationship with consumers. The customer is powerful now, so always be ready to communicate with them regularly. Being accessible means you’re always there to listen to their needs and that you are able to respond quickly to any issues.
• Monitor what’s being said in the online space to gauge public sentiment (or lack of it) of your brand.
• Forge good relationships with online and offline media through regular communications – 3rd party endorsement is always more credible than self-recommendation.
• Always be super-transparent in all messages about your brand’s activities, offers and processes
Insight 2: It’s time to hook some long tail
Situation:
• Long tail of travel – there’s an enormous variety of travel related products that was previously thought unfeasible to distribute.
• The Internet has a global audience, and what could be niche in one single market becomes big business by accumulating over international markets.
• Research by Amadeus (The Amateur-Expert Traveller) found that travel companies’ revenue streams are becoming more evenly spread over a wider range of products, and the traditional 80/20 sales distribution curve no longer applies for 38% of respondents. Key niches that offered potential included adventure travel, religious travel and weddings.
Solution:
• Think global, act local – leverage on the Internet’s global reach to offer niche products. That way, demand gets multiplied.
• Get feedback from customers through surveys and two-way communication on what they are looking for, and tailor your products accordingly.
• Build your websites to allow for customisation as much as possible, and operate an efficient customer service team online and offline to cater to complex requests.
Insight 3: Travellers want help in aspiring to big trips
Situation:
• Over 70% of all travel planning begins online, according to The Wanderlust Report.
• While the offering of great deals will never go out of fashion, avid travellers today are looking for inspiration as well.
• Operators need to not just focus on transactions but also create attractive, informative websites.
Solution:
• Create compelling content that inspire and catalyse travel choices (e.g. AsiaWebDirect.com’s use of features such as destination guides, reviews, photography and magazine-style hotel searches).
• Collect data on customer preferences (such as destinations of interest) and tailor offerings to suit their tastes.
• The power and importance of SEO, SEM and affiliate partnerships to attract these niche markets to your content is then paramount in ensuring this is a successful strategy.
• Websites also need to prioritise usability. With so much online content Internet users are looking for simplicity. They prefer sites that help them sift through the clutter and present the most important/relevant data in a user-friendly way (e.g. AsiaWebDirect.com’s redesign, Wotif Group’s investments in usability).
Morris Sim
Content is the new royal family.
• The king, queen, prince, and princess of content are text, video, interactive, and photos. If the 2000s were about technology to level scale distribution, from this point forward the pendulum swings to content, content, and content. But it’s not only YOUR content that matters, it’s the user-generated content, led by social media that drives the agenda. And content 2.0 is not like content 1.0. The bar to content that catches consumer’s attention is higher than ever.
Creativity is the scarcest resource …
• …. but a skillset you need across all your departments. With increased supplies comes the danger of commoditization, and to stand out you need a team of creative people throughout operations who can think out of the box and innovate on the customer experience. Being able to creatively solve problems … turn lemons into lemonade if you will, is required for anyone responsible for the customer experience. On the frontline of it all is your marketing person. Hopefully, she/he is creative.
Pictured right: Morris Sim
The Internet is not the web and the web is not the internet.
• Separate the Internet – a communication protocol, from the web – a mess of mass information, dominated largely… by Google. Much of the use of the INTERNET today exists largely outside the openness of the web, and app creators and content providers (or both) have figured out how to make money on the Internet while bypassing the web (exhibit A: everything Apple has done). If your budget still treats them as the same entity — you’re missing out.
The A team
Below is a summary of the insights offered by Timothy Hughes, Timothy O’Neil-Dunne and Brett Henry.
• We are moving from a formalised monolithic business environment to a loosely coupled world where individuals can pop up new apps and where others can aggregate in an unmanaged mashup manner. The travel industry, which has had strong centric and centrally controlled business processes is struggling with this change whereas the rest of the world has adopted it. This is a fundamental change
• Suppliers are unbundling their products for a variety of reasons. Some for profit (like the airlines) but others for differentiation and based on customer need
• The emergence of the un-brand
A name or brand that has no core value yet can compete with traditional brand values. For example a Twitter hero with their 15 minutes of fame has the ability to destroy a traditional brand’s value. (Think the Guitar Guy and United Airline). Also some brands are actually becoming anti-brands. Consider Ryanair vs AirAsia. The former cares not one iota about their brand other than it screams price. The latter has a clear brand value – albeit actually quite traditional. Contrast their CEOs, the former is acerbic the latter a rock star. Both command a very high value.
• A disturbing trend is that there is now FAR TOO MUCH stuff out there
We cannot keep up with the fire hose of information and data being thrown at us. While we are suffering – we have none of the traditional anchors who are trustworthy enough to help us. There are no islands in the storm. We actually don’t trust our Facebook friends, we don’t trust our traditional brands. The emergence of an “un-trust” world is going to profoundly affect our future lives. Does this mean that Google becomes the centre of Trust – hardly – they have done a lot lately to drive less trust. Reminds me of the Bo Diddly song (I like the George Thorogood version) “Who Do You Love…”
• Business processes are now not keeping up with the technology – we can expect a certain degree of lag but we have many companies having a hard time.
Are so many of the social media side actually making it too hard particularly for smaller players to keep up? In larger organisations are there too many independent activities not being coordinated and causing more trouble than if they were left alone.
• Mobile and mobile apps becoming serious sales, marketing, brand building and customer service channel
Invest in development and or partnerships to deliver mobile apps that deliver multidimensional capabilities (not just a transactional tool, or just a content tool, or just a LBS tool but integration of multiple models relevant to your products and or target customers. Mobile app growth strengthens intermediaries, so while working on their own efforts brands should also identify the influential intermediaries that touch their customers and engage with them to play an active or preferred role in the development of the intermediaries offers. Indeed, the app vs browser argument loses sight of the contextual nature of the message. But are we just lost in so much STUFF.
• Travel marketing still living in the late 80’s (newspaper with 50 packaged tours crammed on one page, colour mailers with generic tours to Japanese cities, emails with random offers that are not relevant to me or my family).
Implement integrated customer profile system and leverage to drive targeted offers to relevant groups of travellers using email and traditional mail targeting. Build process driven follow-up on offers, track close rates and repeat. Furthermore, we are surrounded by data.
We are surrounded by customers happy to tell as more and more about their wants and desires. We have near limitless computational power. We have social media that allows us to power word of mouth and individuated messaging at the speed of light. The result – we will have a future where we can make specific and targeted recommendations of one based on the unique combination of desires, needs and interests of each individual at any moment in time. I call this EveryYou.
Pictured right: Timothy O’Neil-Dunne
• The future of search – answering the open-ended question
The whole travel inspiration funnel, circle, bow tie etc is now online. Consumers not longer want suppliers and OTA to just provide prices and timings for itineraries planned and scoped by the consumer. Instead the consumer wants some combination of experts, friends, family, crowds, technology and suppliers/OTAs to help them answer the age-old travel question, “where do I go next”.
To do this search has to change. The future of search is one that answers open-ended questions. Where we can draw together information from more than one content location (multi-destinational search) and prioritise it based on different trust or ranking metrics (multi-dimensional search). Where search brings together the answers from different existing pages (destinations), as well as different perspectives and sources (dimensions) such as the instant responses of experts, the instant responses of our sociograph and the instant responses of a searcher’s tastegraph.
• The future of connectivity – more spaghetti before we get less
The promise of online travel was untangling the travel distribution chain. OTAs would connect suppliers direct to customers. Supplier.com sites would bypass the whole industry and go straight to consumers. There would be no need for a GDS, a wholesaler, a switch and more. Instead we have seen more intermediaries appear. Whole new industries of connection and connectivity have emerged in just the last five years. Channel Managers, Meta-search providers, Travel research companies. More connectivity, more spaghetti. I believe we will see even more before we see less.
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