Travelblather

Many people would say that price comparison websites like say Travelsupermarket.com; skyscanner or carrentals.co.uk do customers a huge service – by allowing them to choose the cheapest deals without having to do a stack of time consuming research. At its most basic level this is absolutely the case.

But, they focus people totally and utterly on price. Mercilessly.

By exhibiting a bunch of deals side by side with virtually no branding alongside they are a brand marketer’s nightmare. (All that cash spent carefully trying to differentiate your product from a competitor’s is just stripped away and levelled down to a price with little else.) And they quickly drive customers to think about nothing but the best price. Ever found yourself thinking 'hang on we're talking about £5 difference in price here!'

Some comparison sites do add back some extras into the mix – but the ultimate aim is to smooth all the products into virtual ubiquity so that people can make swift choices between them – driven by price and nothing else.

I wonder how great they are for customers too? This really commoditised marketplace is about cutting cost rather than innovation. Everyone is effectively selling the same stuff and spending much of their energy on the supply chain – cutting costs remorselessly to be able to compete more effectively on price.

But it’s not just about price is it?

A holiday, a flight, a hire car – all of these things are about way more than just a simple product and a price. (Particularly if things go wrong!)  I think it’s time people started really thinking about customer service and what it could add back into the equation.

I look a lot at the financial services industry and laugh at the idiocy of it all at the moment. So crap, so commoditised, so tied down by regulation, so stiffled of innovation. Ironically, all the banks have to differentiate themselves with is customer service. So they try remorselessly to convince us that they are 'on our side'. And fail to deliver because they don't make real fundamental changes to the way they  do business. If you're going to do customer service you have to do it from the top to the bottom of a business and be fanatical. Not enough to trot out some old tired cliches like the banks do.

But - travel is a 'real' people business and the touch points for delighting customers on say a package holiday are myriad. Customer service should be absolutely critical. What would it cost to add proper customer service back into the mix? A price differential of say £10 onto a booking of £100? I have no idea, but if you did it the smartest possible way and used technology to do it really efficiently… how much would it really cost? And - how much harder would it be for a competitor to copy you if you did?

The internet-fueled obsession with lowest cost and lack of balls to stand out from the crowd and say in the words of certain beer brand ‘we are reassuringly expensive’ is I think slowly screwing the industry.

And you know what, price comparison sites are so DULL. Holidays should be fun, inspiring and exciting - and that includes the purchase of them. Price matters... but there should be so much more to buying a holiday.

The only brand I can think of really selling on service right now is Virgin Holidays. Can you think of others?

Would you pay more for better service or does it have little or no influence on your booking habits these days?

I've been trying to book a holiday - yes, a holiday!  For me, my long suffering wife who has been holding the fort whilst I've been galavanting around Africa researching for travel features, and for our 8 month old baby.

We just want to lie in the sun and do nothing for a week. We don't have a stack of cash to spend, but we could spare a couple of grand I guess (for everything). But we absolutely don't want to be in an all-you-can-eat-buffet place with aqua-gym in the mornings and karoake at night.

Who to go with? I haven't a clue.

Previously as a relatively adventurous traveller without a baby in tow I'd have plonked for a tour co like Exodus or Explore if I'd wanted my hand held a little but a frisson of adventure at good value. If it were me and the wife doing something a bit more relaxed, I'd have probably considered Inntravel who do lots of nice self-guided walking and cycling breaks in Europe and elsewhere. If Joseph were older I'd take the family on an Activities Abroad break - I think they offer great value holidays for adventurous families.

But a package holiday for a young family without the awfulness of packages? A package holiday for the Waitrose shopper rather than the Asda one?

I have no idea.

Who would you travel with and why? And am I right in thinking this is a niche that the market fails to cater at all well for?

Pic by flickr user Hans Pama

Google's Boutiques.com has got lots of people I work with in iCrossing's Content and Social Media team talking this week. It speaks volumes about where Google could be headed in the not too distant future.

Boutiques.com looks very slick compared to the usual Google Beta releases. It's nicely designed and features lots of great imagery showcasing all the latest high street fashion items, mixing this with celeb write ups and, crucially, an inspiration engine - called the Stylizer Quiz. The user makes a series of 'more/less' choices based on pictures of clothes and people wearing clothes (along with some more random things like cocktails - martini or margarita?). They are offered a selection of clothes that in theory they should like. Click on any of them and they're diverted to the web retailer who stocks the item and can make a purchase. As the user makes more purchases, the engine should become better at making further recommendations. Retailers pay to participate on the site. And lots of big names are there already. ASOS and Top Shop to name a couple.

Now, usually this kind of technology promises loads and delivers pretty poorly. But Boutique.com seems to work pretty well. Quite a few of my female workmates at iCrossing have tinkered with the inspiration engine and been genuinely impressed with the suggestions it offers. And, let's face it, with its huge experience of algorithms and so on, if anyone can crack a problem with this degree of complexity, it's probably Google.

What's also very interesting is that for now there is no attempt to link it up with Facebook and thus access Social Graph data as well. I'd have thought that this could be mega-useful. Friends' purchasing decisions have huge influence on our own choices. And even if that's too complex, the opportunity to automatically post to someone's wall that they just bought something using Boutiques.com seems an obvious way to grow the user base really fast. Could this be Google making an active decision to create something totally separate from Facebook? And is this then an example of a poorer user experience because of the rivalry between the two companies?

So far no one has got anywhere near making this kind of concept work in the travel sector. Lots of travel sector companies are up in arms about Google's recent purchase of ITA. ITA's software powers major booking engines like Orbitz, Kayak and Microsoft's Bing amongst many others. They are lobbying for US competition authorities to investigate the deal claiming it will give Google an unfair advantage. Google sees it differently and I'm no expert so won't offer an opinion. There's lots more about this story over on Tnooz.

But... just imagine how immensely powerful a user interface like Boutiques.com coupled with a booking engine with the inventory of ITA plugged into the back of it could be.

And. Even if that deal gets vetoed, the Boutiques.com-style user interface plugged into a load of different travel providers' inventories could, if it worked be very powerful. It's a clear statement of intent from Google I'd suggest. If it works in the fashion vertical, why not in other ones too?

Some day soon Google will enter the travel sector with a direct proposition. I wouldn't be at all surprised if we don't see it happen in 2011. Do you?

I've had several recent interesting chats with clients and potential clients of iCrossing where I work several days a week as travel editor. A number of thoughts and observations I want to share which I will post as a short series. I'd be very interested to hear what people think.

The Comparison Engine

This large company which we were talking to about content, sells flights and flight + hotel packages using a database and booking engine that's very very similar to many of its competitors. You know the kind of sites I mean: travelocity, expedia, ebookers, opodo, orbitz and so on.

The comment from their marketing manager: "we don't do content".

As far as he was concerned, content was an expense they were not prepared to afford. Something he felt added little value. All the user gets in the way of content on this site is very top level description of the kind of break they are looking for (beach holidays, city breaks etc) and hotel descriptions served up from the database.

How can a site like this, selling virtually identical products to its competitors differentiate itself without quality content?

The short answer is by getting Google to do it. Using hardcore SEO tactics to make sure they rank really well for typical big traffic holiday terms like say, holidays in Thailand or flights to New York. Add to this some serious paid search spending and banner advertising and PR you have a business.

But will it last?

Personally I was really surprised by the fact that such a big company could feel that they could sell a complex product like holidays without seeing the need to create authoritative, useful, credible content that will help people decide where to go and what to do.

But they aren't alone.

Expedia looks to have a similar viewpoint. According to the 'how to use this site page' they offer 'detailed destination content... supplied by Time Out and Wexas'.  But actually, they don't any more.  Click the 'destinations link' in the sidebar on several pages and you just get dumped back on the home page: http://www.expedia.co.uk/destinations.aspx .

Are these companies being pragmatic? Or short-sighted?

The fact that comparison engines even exist in the travel sector is interesting. It's a zero-sum game: the assumption - a piece of technology can make the right choice for you. It suggests that the product has been so stripped down and devalued that price is the only differentiator now. Nothing else matters. Comparison engines seem to be particularly powerful in travel and financial services. Oddly, two sectors where the products can be very complex. Does the very presence of companies like this in the travel sector suggest that tour operators and airlines have screwed up? They have failed to cultivate their products and their brands online enough. As a result people no longer see any difference between any of them and make their choices solely around price and nothing else?

Does the presence of comparison engines suggest the online travel sector is in poor health?

A recent press release set me thinking. It was publicising a Chartered Institute of Marketing debate titled Travel Agents - Are They Past Their Sell-By Date? The debate is on Jan 25th in London. Click the link to find out more. I plan to go and assuming I do (they have kindly offered me a press pass) I will write up my thoughts. It's a very pertinent question in my opinion.

Just as many commentators reckon the internet means the end for journalists (anyone can be a writer now there are no barriers to publication) others have painted a similarly bleak picture for high street travel agents. (Anyone can book a holiday now every travel brand known to mankind has a web page and a booking engine.)

The net is indeed challenging a lot of old business models, but I remain convinced that many of the old basic rules for business success remain. If anything some of them are more important now than ever before.

I’ve blathered plenty already about how hard it is to find the right holiday on-line. Right now hundreds of thousands of people are probably lost in the usual January maze of different travel websites promising similar things, user reviews providing hugely different opinions of the same properties and booking engines that are so slow by the time you come to check out and pay, your holiday has gone up in price. There’s still a huge and immediate need for trustworthy, appropriate advice. Let’s face it, we aren’t talking about blowing a few bucks on a £10 book from Amazon or a £2 download from iTunes.

For Brits in particular the annual holiday is one of the year’s biggest expenses. Not something you want to take risks with. You want to be sure you’re getting the right holiday for you – at the right price.

If, instead of spending literally days lost in the online holiday maze you could sit down with a travel professional who knew your budget and understood your needs – in particular the ‘softer’ stuff like who your neighbours might be if you book at a particular resort or whatever – wouldn’t you happily buy from them? And, if it saved you all that time and frustration... maybe pay a little more?

So what impact has the net had on the high street travel agent? There’s been consolidation that’s for sure – big names like Lunn Poly and Going Places have disappeared. But where’s the innovation? It all feels incredibly entrenched and backward looking. (Very much like the financial services sector – as if rebranding all the Abbey, B&B and Alliance and Leicester branches as Santander will make a scrap of difference to customers?).

Ironically, the web is driving a desire it can’t fulfil right now. The huge impact of social media has meant that customers are increasingly demanding ‘real person contact’, service that is customised to them as individuals, service that treats them as real people, not numbers on a spreadsheet. Of course, no travel website is anywhere near offering this kind of service, no matter how empowering this new technology is or how wholeheartedly a web-based travel company embraces it.

In the meantime I see opportunities on the high street.

What would the ultimate travel agency look like? For me it would offer help with the complete experience. So many internet businesses now make as much of their profit selling the ancillary stuff alongside their main product – travel agents are completely missing the (clue)train here.

So let’s focus our Travelstore 2.0 on people and activities NOT destinations! How about separate areas for Family Holidays, Student Holidays, Short Breaks, Adventure and Activity Holidays, Cruises and so on; with staff who are passionate about their market sector and really understand it. Make sure they sell a vast range of different brands of holiday – so it’s clear there’s no incentive to sell me one particular trip over another. And offer me all the other stuff that goes with holidays – guidebooks, travel magazines, backpacks, sunglasses, sunscreen, insect repellent, great books to read on the beach, music to drink my sundowner G&T to, travel insurance, airport parking, a funky bikini for my wife. And how about a playzone to keep the kids quiet whilst I’m chatting to an advisor?

Guess what? You’ll get me coming in months before I buy a holiday... I’ll end up buying guidebooks and gear and who knows what else long before I book my break. And, suddenly buying a holiday will be fun... like browsing in other retail sectors... dreaming of awesome trips to amazing places. What could be better for brightening up a dull Saturday afternoon?

Wouldn’t it be nice if buying a holiday could be inspiring?

Would this idea work in practice? Well clearly there are risks, and it requires some serious investment... but stop a moment and think about the fact that it's already happening.

There will be literally thousands of people visiting travel shows like Destinations and the Adventure Travel Show over the next month or so. (Not to mention the Ski Shows back in the autumn.) Here they will find all manner of brands offering all sorts of holidays, face to face advice, in-depth presentations, kit for sale, talks from travel presenters, gear demonstrations, photography competitions and more.

And, get this... a significant number of these customers are paying to get in!

What would your ultimate travel agent store look like? And would this concept work in practice?