Laffitte Conseil

First-time users, the future growth engine for online travel in Asia

In the United States, online travel sites are fighting to take over consumers from competitors. In Asia, the race is on to capture the interest of the first-time user and build up some brand loyalty to sites.

Online travel in the Asia-Pacific region is likely to experience explosive growth the rest of the decade. From 2006 to 2010, India is expected to grow at 271.6 percent annually, while Vietnam’s online travel sector is forecast to expand 202 percent and China’s and Indonesia’s in the 70 to 83 percent range. (The biggest markets in revenue terms outside of Japan are India at US$300 million and China at US$200 million.) The U.S. online travel business, by contrast, will grow 17 percent on an annual basis during the same time.

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Le dénicheur de voyages à bas prix Travelzoo débarque en France

Spécialiste des bons plans voyages, l'américain Travelzoo a lancé son service il y a deux mois en France. Le Groupe compte 11 millions d'abonnés dans le monde, dont déjà 100.000 à sa newsletter en France.

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"Internet est notre premier canal de réservation depuis le début de l'année"

Présent sur Internet depuis un peu moins longtemps que les voyagistes, l'hôtellerie a, depuis, largement compensé son retard. Pour Best Western France, le Web représente plus de 40 % de son chiffre d'affaires. Son directeur général revient sur les modalités de cette croissance.

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Online `booking stress` may fuel a travel agent resurgence

A recent SideStep survey of 1744 UK adults, found that 50% of people consider booking travel online to be ‘stressful’. The biggest contributing factors were; too many options, anxiety over sourcing the best deal, researching  destinations and finding the time to do the research.

Take heed global travel suppliers hurrying to drive customers to online portals, and aspiring to cut out the middle man. Presumably the percentage experiencing ‘booking stress’ will only grow, as more suppliers opt for the direct sales model and push their online offerings.

Could booking stress play a key role in re-establishing the traditional high street travel retailer as a preferred booking method, rather than online direct?

Across Europe companies are investing massive amounts in online marketing, hoping to capture some of the estimated €46.8 billion spent in Europe purchasing travel online this year (EyeforTravel Research). But the stress element could cause the pendulum to swing back in favour of traditional travel agencies, rendering increasingly cluttered and competitive online sales channels redundant.

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Voyages : que représentent les achats en ligne ?

n 2006, le volume d'affaires des réservations de voyages sur le Net a progressé de 35 % en France, atteignant 4,2 milliards d'euros selon Benchmark Group. Les ventes en ligne ont ainsi continué à progresser et représentent désormais plus de 10 % du marché touristique (voyages, transport, hôtellerie).

Six mois plus tard, à l’approche de l’été, quel est le comportement d’achat des internautes ? Réservent-ils massivement en ligne ou mixent-ils les canaux de distribution ? Quels types de prestation achètent-ils le plus facilement sur Internet ? Le Web joue-t-il un rôle de prescripteur ? Et quels sont les sites de voyages les plus visités ?

Le point en chiffres avec le baromètre Fevad-Médiamétrie//NetRatings.

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A blue AirAsia enters Vietnam

AirAsia in Vietnam, set to take flight in July next year, will tap on the huge potential of Vietnam's population base of 84 million and the country's proximity to China, said group executive officer Dato' Tony Fernandes.

The Malaysian low cost carrier celebrated the country's 50th year of independence on August 31 by inking a deal with Vietnam's state-owned corporation, Shipbuilding Industry Group (Vinashin), to set up the new frills-free carrier.

The new frills-free carrier, to be known as Vina AirAsia in Vietnam, is expected to be operational in July 2008.

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Only 22% trust advice from travel companies

Online travel sites can no long rely on market growth to boost sales and must optimise their customer experience to secure travel bookings.

That's the view of the boss of a digital consultancy which commissioned a survey showing that 85% of people plan to research or book online in the next 12 months and 40% of respondents did not to visit a travel agent in the last two years.

The study revealed that 67% of online British holidaymakers intend to conduct most or all of their travel planning online next year, while only 4% will avoid the internet for travel purposes in the next 12 months with 11% unsure.

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Top 10 Challenging Questions to Ask Your Internet Marketing Vendor

Important considerations before hiring an Internet marketing company in hospitality

The Internet has become the main distribution channel in hospitality—over 2/3 of all hotel bookings in the US will be directly influenced by the Internet this year.  Understandably, Internet marketing has become a priority for many hoteliers who are shifting advertising dollars to the online world from traditional media and GDS advertising.  This rush forward may have come at a cost to hoteliers who rely on professional marketers to sort out this dynamic and highly complicated landscape of Internet marketing. This article is not about avoiding snake oil salesmen and Internet hucksters – those should be self evident – it’s about asking the tough questions when evaluating Internet marketers who will be in charge of managing your most important revenue channel.

Background

Online advertising set a new record of $4.9 billion for the first quarter of 2007, an increase above the record breaking $4.8 billion for the final quarter of 2006, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC).  Travel is repeatedly cited as one of the fastest growing revenue generating categories online. According to PhoCusWright, 60% of all travel in North America will be sold over the Internet in 2008. With such a growth in online revenues, how prepared is your online marketing vendor in managing the online budget and growing your direct online distribution strategy?

Everyone Wants a Slice of the Pie

Old-fashioned advertising agencies, interactive agencies, website designers, booking engine vendors, SEO firms, website hosting and maintenance companies, even PR firms have all proclaimed themselves to be Internet marketing gurus in hospitality. Web design shops that are facing stiff competition have moved toward Internet marketing. Online booking engine vendors have expanded their repertoire into Internet marketing. Web masters, computer programmers, and outsourced firms from overseas are drawn toward the world of online marketing in hospitality.

The mix of new comers and old companies who now do “all things Internet” has resulted in a lot of over-promising, under-delivering, burnt hotel budgets, and increasingly frustrated hotel owners and operators. This is not an issue of competition. It is about core competencies, quality and credibility which affect the hospitality industry as a whole.

Too often HeBS inherits damaged clients whose budgets and online efforts were destroyed by self-proclaimed experts, or by firms who have no business playing in the online hotel marketing arena.

So, the next time your PR agency, booking engine vendor or in-room Internet access provider offers to manage your search marketing, be cautious and do your research.

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Trippert: A Blogger for Travel Experts

Travel blogging is becoming popular with both those documenting their travels and those who want to sample foreign countries before they set off. Newcomer Trippert, based in Palo Alto, doesn’t want to be a totally open travel blog platform: instead, they’re focused on users offering expert travel guides, with more focus on timeless content than the passing observations of travel bloggers.

Tagging makes articles easier to find, and profile pages aggregate your articles in reverse chronological order: it’s essentially a blog. Users can also write articles together in a wiki format. For us geeks: RSS feeds of a writer’s posts.

Trippert is a nice effort, and should do fine from both search traffic and direct navigation. What it lacks right now is an incentive system - like revenue sharing - and the critical mass to make the community compelling. For a fuller review of the sites in this space, see our Travel Hacking article.

Online Travel Planning Popularity Varies

A third of US Internet users now research and book travel online, according to the Conference Board and TNS' "Consumer Internet Barometer" study. The report covered US households and was conducted in the second quarter of 2007.

Two in 10 consumers used the Internet more this year than last to research travel arrangements, and 18% increased their online bookings. At the same time, nearly a quarter of respondents said they used the Internet less than they did last year for making travel arrangements.

Despite this flux in usage, about a fifth of US Internet users researched their travel online and booked offline in the second quarter of 2007.

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