Initially unveiled with unusually little fanfare (for Google, compared to, say, Wave, Buzz et al) in December last year, Schemer is the search giant’s attempt to make the process easier for finding things to do at a destination.

And while Schemer hasn’t particularly set the world alight in terms of profile, it is still running as a service (unlike fellow activity platform RAVN, which passed away this week).

So perhaps now is the time for Schemer to arguably find its natural home – as a service with its own mobile application.

Google says the new application will help recommend “stuff” to people based on the time of day, weather, location, etc, as well as being able to keep track of a user’s previous activities and plans for things to do in the future.

Of course the entire thing is integrated into Google Plus, allowing users to populate and get information via the network and then collate on the device.

It is, however, not a completely Google brand-dominated affair – the app is available for both iPhone and Android devices.

What Schemer arguably brings, on the hand, is the potential for a large volume of ideas and recommendations given that it is tapping into Google Plus, which despite its detractors still probably has plenty more users than many of the other Schemer-esque services kicking about.

But, equally, simply having Google backing the system gives Schemer a leg-up with exposure and branding to new users.

Google will be no doubt by hoping Schemer isn’t eventually greeted with the same kind of cold shoulder as aforementioned Buzz and Wave.

Nevertheless, Schemer on a mobile is yet another piece in the jigsaw of Google’s continued deep dive into not only planning (SEO, PPC, Flight Search, Hotel Finder et al) but also the fun bits of travel – the stuff consumers do when they actually get there.

This latest development also goes to the heart of perhaps where some believe travel planning and the discovery of experiences is heading, where ideas for what to do in a destination are based on a consumer’s motivation rather than what they are inspired by.

Here is a clip:

The company carried out research across 21 countries and more than 8,500 consumers to find price was weighted above destination for many when it comes to choosing a beach holiday.

The 2012 Expedia Beach Report shows 75% of Brits and 71% of French rank estimated price of total vacation above other factors including weather, water and sand quality and suitability for families.

Expedia says beach holidays are an ‘area of growth’ and it plans to use data from the research as well as existing customer data to improve the experience and get customers to the information they want more quickly.

The OTA is also looking at putting reviews to better use so that customers can quickly identify like-minded people.

The online travel agent revamped its ski pages in January alongside a Snow Companion application on Facebook. At the time, Expedia said the app was the first of a number of socially designed services it plans to launch.

No date was given for the relaunch of the beach holidays pages.

The 2012 Expedia Beach Report was conducted by Harris Interactive.

• Complete overhaul for road trip planning platform Cost2Drive as it also celebrates passing the one million user mark for the first time. The new site includes a string of new features such as multi-point routing for car users, integration with TripAdvisor for reviews, popular destination information, per-person calculation for each trip and integration with Google Maps Enterprise. NB: [TLabs Showcase - Cost2Drive and TLabs Reprise].

• Transatlantic collaboration with Conferma and US Bank partnering for manual billing and reconciliation of expenses alternative via electronic payments. Using the Conferma system, US Bank will create virtual account numbers to track individual travel bookings for its customers. The single-use accounts can identify and track bookings from reservation through final settlement and auditing.

• Orient Express has made its first foray into the tablet world with the launch of an iPad application. The service includes insider tips, videos and maps to give users a feel for the experience across the luxury brand’s hotels, trains and cruises. The app provides ideas according to segments such as family travel, masterclasses and celebrations.

• April’s wet weather has boosted online travel bookings according to the latest figures from IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index which show a 20% sales increase year-on-year. Overall £5.7 billion was spent online in April, a 10% increase year-on-year while sales via mobile increased 353% .

The acquisition (value undisclosed) was made via a new company called Webdibular and sees Brown reunited with his brother Phil, himself a former web developer at Sunshine, who will work part-time on the project in the interim.

Holiday Truth is primarily a member community where consumers post questions and reviews of travel products and services. It currently has around 130,000 reviews on the system (many are old, Brown admits) but a lively and interactive forum.

Brown says the company plans to completely overhaul the entire site and rebrand it in the coming months, with holiday reviews the area earmarked for the biggest growth potential.

Review forums are nothing new to Brown, of course – he and his former Sunshine founders were previously owners of the Holiday Watchdog review site which they sold in February 2008 to TripAdvisor for an undisclosed fee.

Perhaps not impressed with how the review marketplace has evolved since then, Brown says:

“Whats our USP? Don’t be a TripAdvisor clone like most of the other hotel review websites. This is all about bringing those holiday reviews back to an independent site.”

It turns out that Sunshine has eyed Holiday Truth previously.

Its new managing director Chris Clarkson says:

“”We’re delighted Chris has acquired Holiday Truth. We even tried in the past to discuss acquiring the site when he was still at Sunshine.co.uk, so for someone with a travel agency background, like Chris, it’s an untapped goldmine with tremendous potential.”

NB: Door opening image via Shutterstock.

Jetstar managed take the coveted position with a 12.5% increase in its market share from its previous position, as Qantas lost 5.5% of its own.

Third place Virgin Australia also suffered a drop, too, seeing its market share by just over 1%.

Most popular travel websites in Australia for the week ending May 12 2012:

Agency

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Webjet Australia	www.webjet.com.au	12.17%	1
2	Wotif.com	www.wotif.com	11.79%	2
3	Expedia Australia	www.expedia.com.au	9.64%	3
4	Flight Centre	www.flightcentre.com.au	8.07%	4
5	Lastminute.com.au	www.lastminute.com.au	4.70%	5
6	Best Flights	www.bestflights.com.au	3.14%	6
7	Jetabroad	www.jetabroad.com	2.25%	7
8	ZUJI Australia	www.zuji.com	2.13%	8
9	Kayak	www.kayak.com	1.86%	10
10	travel.com.au	www.travel.com.au	1.85%	9

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	TripAdvisor - Australia	www.tripadvisor.com.au	6.90%	1
2	Booking.com	www.booking.com	5.95%	3
3	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.com	4.33%	4
4	Stayz	www.stayz.com.au	3.06%	5
5	HotelClub	www.hotelclub.com	1.69%	9
6	Agoda Australia	www.agoda.com.au	1.69%	6
7	Hotels.com	www.hotels.com	1.46%	7
8	Lonely Planet	www.lonelyplanet.com	1.40%	10
9	Totaltravel.com	www.totaltravel.com	1.35%	8
10	Visit New South Wales	www.visitnsw.com.au	1.27%	-

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Jetstar	www.jetstar.com	30.53%	2
2	Qantas	www.qantas.com.au	19.13%	1
3	Virgin Australia	www.virginaustralia.com	15.71%	3
4	AirAsia	www.airasia.com	3.63%	4
5	Tiger Airways	www.tigerairways.com	3.43%	5
6	Emirates	www.emirates.com	2.50%	6
7	Singapore Airlines	www.singaporeair.com	2.21%	7
8	Malaysia Airlines	www.malaysiaairlines.com	1.92%	8
9	FlyScoot.com	www.flyscoot.com	1.91%	-
10	Air New Zealand - Australia	www.airnz.com.au	1.21%	9

Search Terms

Rank	Search Term	Percentage of Clicks	Percentage Paid	Percentage Organic	Previous Position
1	jetstar	2.32%	0.53%	99.47%	2
2	google maps	1.64%	0.00%	100.00%	1
3	webjet	1.00%	0.18%	99.82%	3
4	qantas	0.85%	18.26%	81.74%	4
5	maps	0.69%	0.00%	100.00%	5
6	flight centre	0.58%	45.15%	54.85%	6
7	wotif	0.55%	1.46%	98.54%	7
8	virgin blue	0.45%	5.13%	94.87%	-
9	jetstar australia	0.37%	0.36%	99.64%	-
10	virgin	0.37%	1.29%	98.71%	-

NB: Data courtesy of Experian Hitwise

NB2: Image via Shutterstock.

The investment of $2.5 million comes as the company launches the service in the UK after successfully extending the service in seven countries including France, Spain and Italy.

The capital comes from Brent Hoberman’s PROFounders (which also counts Active Hotels founder Andy Phillipps on its investment team), SoftTechVC and Ballpark Ventures.

SoftTech has invested in the likes of Seesmic, Mashery and Fotopedia, while PROFounders has pumped money into travel brands such as GetYourGuide, CruiseWise, Roomorama and OneFineStay.

The service work similar to that of the HotelTonight platform in the US, allowing users of its mobile applications (iPhone and Android) to find and book same-day hotel deals via their handsets.

Blink only picks four and five star properties and is now featuring hotels in around 40 cities across Europe.

The company claims to have worked with 500 properties on the continent so far and its apps have been downloaded 170,000 times in its launch market of Spain.

Not FlyerTalk, but FlyerBalk, and the domain is apparently available.

Word comes that Southwest Airlines has added e-Miles as a partner in Southwest Rapid Rewards.

What this means is that members of Southwest’s frequent flyer program now have a new option for earning miles — watching and responding to advertisements.

Now, to be sure, enrolling in e-Miles is a voluntary so no one is forcing Southwest passengers to subject themselves to more advertising.

And, with airfares rising, you have to earn your rewards miles somehow.

In fact, Southwest says every time you earn 500 e-miles, you can redeem them for 500 Rapid Rewards points.

When you enroll in the e-Miles program, you indicate your interests and preferences, and fill in demographic data. You get a personal homepage and then select the ads on the homepage which you wish to view.

Participating advertisers include the likes of Groupon, iTunes, Nordstrom, Adobe Systems, Johnson & Johnson, Walmart and The Walt Disney Co.

e-Miles members view the ads they desire to see and then click to the advertisers’ website to engage with the company and answer questions.

e-Miles says its members “enjoy reading and responding to advertisers’ marketing messages and offers, while being rewarded for their time.”

Can you imagine the joy?

For advertisers, this becomes targeting on steroids.

More than 300 data points are given up when users enroll, e-Miles says

e-Miles says the average household income of members is $100,000, 94% are college-educated and 75% are homeowners. There is a 50-50 split of the sexes, e-Miles says.

One software-maker got “1,400 B2B decision-makers” to download its new software and notched a 25% engagement rate, e-Miles says.

This type of program isn’t entirely new for Southwest Rapid Rewards.

In 2011, Southwest’s frequent flyer program partnered with Research Now through the airline’s relationship with e-Miles’ parent company, e-Rewards.

With Research Now, Southwest Rapid Rewards members earn points by participating in market research studies and “sharing their opinions,” Research Now says.

FlyerBalk anyone?

Or, to put it differently, can Kayak, racecar-like, maneuver and engage in some drafting as the Facebook engine laps the field?

Where there’s smoke there’s usually fire and CNBC provided some kindling late yesterday with a report that Kayak’s IPO roadshow could get under way after the Facebook dust has settled, perhaps following Memorial Day, which is May 28.

The report says Kayak could raise $150 million at a valuation of more than $1 billion.

With some $195 million in venture capital and private equity funding from investors including Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners, General Catalyst Partners and Oak Investment Partners, among others, hitting the $1 billion valuation has long been a magic number for Kayak.

However, CNBC’s estimate of $150 million to be raised may be open to question since the travel metasearch company and its bankers haven’t set the IPO stock price and number of shares to be offered yet.

In addition, the timing of the kickoff of Kayak’s roadshow could still be up for debate. It’s not out of the question that it could begin as early as next week, with one school of thought holding that it isn’t necessary to let Facebook’s IPO debut percolate for awhile before getting out there and letting potential investors in Kayak’s IPO taste what’s brewing.

What’s clear is that any tech IPO that’s been waiting in the wings — and Kayak’s IPO has been on hold since November 2010 —  didn’t want to take its show on the road while Facebook was making the rounds and hogging all the attention in recent days.

With Kayak’s first quarter revenue and EBITDA climbing 39% and 61%, respectively, it hopes to tell a growth story to investors, who undoubtedly will still be asking Kayak questions about its ongoing reliance on airfare shopping and pricing technology from Google’s ITA Software.

Kayak declined to comment on its IPO.

A declaration of war such as that of John Guscic, managing director of Australian online booking platform Webjet, cannot be any clearer:

“The supplier does not have a monopoly on price. We price our hotels as we see fit. We sell at a price I determine.”

Accordingly the headline on Travel Trends for this pithy saying is: “Webjet says it will dictate hotel pricing, not suppliers.”

One cannot point out the hotel businesses’ own weaknesses regarding distribution more clearly than that.

If you’re thinking you do not really give a damn about some hotel room leftovers chute Down Under, then go ahead and type in your city name on Webjet.

On the web the competition is just a quick click away. By no means is this about some single provider, running wild in the remote global network. The affiliate system of the major hotel booking portals is the real challenge.

And it’s a controversial situation, making many hoteliers extremely angry.

All major online travel agents provide such affiliate programs. They enable destinations, tour operators, transportation companies, review sites, travel communities and many more to offer a hotel booking tool with the look and feel of their own website.

Some enrich their hotel rates and availability with the affiliate offer. Up to half of the commissions earned from the hotels by the booking portals are handed over to its affiliates.

Their number is just as vast as their business models are heterogeneous. HRS alone has over 6,000 affiliates and Booking.com has over 5,000 of such distribution partners.

As a consequence, the hotel hardly has any knowledge, let alone control, over their online distribution channels.

If, for example, a hotel found out that the OTA Z aggressively applied Google AdWords to its hotel name and also garnished these with SEO-optimized exotic top level domains, it can still hardly prevent it to be – although unwanted – bookable through this portal.

Even if the hotel should succeed in having an OTA contractor A remove it from OTA Z, the OTA’s next affiliate agreement with OTA partner B comes into effect and the hotel remains exposed to the unfair advertising practices of the Z.

A hotel cannot stay away from all online booking portals for this reason.

But usually this market adjustment already fails because the hotel does not even become aware of the affiliate’s operations, let alone take sufficient influence to selectively withdraw its commodity.

For this reason, during the general assembly of our European umbrella organization HOTREC a few weeks back we advocated that the previous “20 vertices of fair conduct of hotel booking portals” are expanded with following element:

The hotel should be notified of all of its contractors across all sales channels and potential affiliates and the hotel should be given the opportunity to make adjustments either at the time of conclusion of contract or afterwards.

This affront to the market comes not only from the sphere of the affiliates – the state of the problem is more complex.

It happens on a recurrent basis that tour operator rates, without having been bundled into a complete travel package, are freely available on the Internet as “rooms only” prices.

By way of these interfaces and via metasearch engines, the internet rate structure is leading to an economically absurd result.

Here, too, hoteliers must make sure they secure at least the same contractual rights to intervene as they do with their affiliates.

In the German Hotel Association’s updated terms and conditions for cooperation with travel agencies, we therefore propose the following clause:

“The agreed prices are valid only in conjunction with other services, offered to the end-customer in a bundled service package. They may not be offered to the end-customer or third parties as a single price for a simple overnight stay (non-packages) through distribution channels (especially online). The tour operator is obliged to subject all his other partners and mediators to this clause as well.”

We will see if it works…

NB: This is a guest article by Markus Luthe, CEO of the German Hotel Association.

NB2: Pool image via Shutterstock.

This set covers May to July 2012, taken on the first week of May (all rates are in US dollars for two adults for a one-night stay).

Three star [click for larger image]:

Four star [click for larger image]:

Five star [click for larger image]:

NB: RateGain specializes in competitive price intelligence and rate shopping solutionas for hotels, online travel companies and airlines. It currently tracks more than one billion hotel rates every month across countries in US, Europe, Middle East, Asia and Latin America.

NB2: The above data is indicative in nature and RateGain can’t be held liable for its accuracy or usefulness for any purpose.

NB3: Paris hotel image via Shutterstock.

Step forward Instadash, a dashboard application created to help Instagram users access and manage their photos on the web (iPad app is on its way).

Nothing staggering there but the fact that it was created in just 12 hours during a hack event in Stockholm last week is impressive.

Developers Arno Smit, a founder of fundedbyme, and Magnus Johansson of Appcorn wanted to create a mash-up of Pinterest and Instagram using the Django framework.

For travel specifically, Instadash allows you to search for images on a particular location, shows where they have been taken via Google Maps and collates other photos on that destination from Instagram.

Smit sees massive potential for travel in sites like Instagram:

“The travel industry can create inspiration boards and really use them to inspire and use social media marketing to get people interested.”

The app allows users to pull their images into a newsfeed, view them in a larger format, see how many others have viewed them and who has commented and view other popular images.

Tweaks are ongoing such as the ability to like an image directly from the main viewer and Dropbox integration.

Air France gained 1% market share over the period as EasyJet lost around 3.75%. Fellow low cost carrier Ryanair lost 0.25% in third place.

Most popular travel websites in France for the week ending April 28 2012:

Agencies

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Voyages-sncf.com	www.voyages-sncf.com	16.45%	1
2	eDreams France	www.edreams.fr	5.52%	2
3	Voyage Priv‚	www.voyage-prive.com	4.96%	3
4	Promovacances.com	www.promovacances.com	4.05%	4
5	GoVoyages.com	www.govoyages.com	3.76%	5
6	Jetcost.com	www.jetcost.com	3.45%	6
7	Marmara	www.marmara.com	3.02%	-
8	opodo France - Billet d'avion	billetavion.opodo.fr	2.96%	9
9	BravoFly France	www.bravofly.fr	2.77%	10
10	lastminute.com France	www.fr.lastminute.com	2.74%	7

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	ViaMichelin France	www.viamichelin.fr	16.21%	1
2	Booking.com	www.booking.com	8.83%	2
3	TripAdvisor France	www.tripadvisor.fr	4.62%	3
4	Abritel	www.abritel.fr	2.72%	4
5	Routard.com	www.routard.com	2.71%	5
6	Gralon	www.gralon.net	2.60%	6
7	Groupon Voyages	voyages.groupon.fr	2.10%	8
8	Communes.com	www.communes.com	2.00%	7
9	Homelidays.com	www.homelidays.com	1.87%	9
10	Hotels.com - FR	fr.hotels.com	1.62%	-

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Air France - France	www.airfrance.fr	22.12%	2
2	easyJet.com	www.easyjet.com	19.18%	1
3	Ryanair	www.ryanair.com	17.19%	3
4	Vueling Airlines	www.vueling.com	3.10%	6
5	KLM Royal Dutch Airlines	www.klm.com	3.07%	4
6	Emirates	www.emirates.com	2.95%	5
7	Corsairfly	www.corsairfly.com	2.42%	7
8	Lufthansa	www.lufthansa.com	2.27%	8
9	Royal Air Maroc	www.royalairmaroc.com	1.92%	-
10	GP Air France	gp.airfrance.fr	1.89%	10

NB: Data courtesy of Experian Hitwise

NB2: Image via Shutterstock.

Earlier this year I made a booking for a small, independent property called Eshu in Cape Coast, Ghana.

We reserved through HostelBookers, which sent us confirmation and took a deposit. Two days before hitting the road we called to confirm.

And after trying several mobile numbers we finally reached the owner, who said, “It is closed,” and hung up.

He meant closed for good. Some digging turned up a reference to the closure in Time Out‘s 2011-12 Accra guide, published in summer 2011.

Taking into account the lead time on a glossy, perfect-bound yearbook, that indicates the property had been out of commission for well over six months at time of booking.

Of course, this is an anomaly. But it’s an anomaly in the sense of being unlikely, not unnatural.

HostelBookers official Giovanna Gentile says:

“We work in the same way as any other OTA, which means that properties add available rooms to our system and we offer these rooms to our customers. This is a system that works really well 99.5% of the time.”

When a hotel gives up the ghost, there’s a strong expectation that it will inform the OTA, as per HostelBookers’ terms and conditions.

Again, that’s par for the course: Karen Galles, senior director of market management at Expedia Lodging Partner Services, says:

“In the case of a closure, hotels are encouraged to advise Expedia as soon as possible.”

But what if they don’t?

Here the problems presented by West Africa’s tech infrastructure are exacerbated by a relative lack of experience in ecommerce or emarketing relationships.

HostelBookers only entered the region in 2008, and Google only began really pushing its marketing suite this year.

On the subject of sourcing and maintaining content, Celia Casadome, director of market management for Expedia, says:

“The lack of tech infrastructure and in some cases lack of training is definitely an issue. Expedia is happy to collaborate with local tourism authorities in seminars and trainings, and we have done this in Gambia, Senegal and Ghana.”

But whether government-level seminars trickle down to the budget sector is moot, and it’s there that closures and ownership changes are more common.

Here in Ghana the little guys are feeling the pinch even more than usual as the steady depreciation of the Cedi drives up the price of goods.

And there’s also the expat factor: hostels popular with the European and US leisure market are often set up by former travellers or volunteers with little or no hospitality experience, who eventually move on or return home.

Traveller favourite Green Turtle, a glorious hidden spot on the west coast, is currently on the market so its owners can repatriate to the UK.

Even if OTAs get this end of the market on board, as HostelBookers has to an extent, there are plenty of cracks through which a relationship can slip, potentially taking bookings and trust with it.

Monitoring strategies on the OTA side offer a degree of security, but again there are fault lines specific to developing markets.

HostelBookers’ content team investigates flagged properties based on “a variety of signals” that include user reviews and the property’s own extranet usage, but West Africa is a low sales priority with low volumes – fewer than 500 bookings a year for the whole region.

That means UGC feedback is limited, and the process of investigating is in any case labour-intensive. “Considering the amount of properties we have it is very laborious, and sometimes properties [like Eshu] slip through,” says Gentile.

Mark Essien, founder of Nigeria’s Hotels.com.ng, points out that the highly competitive, mobile-focused communications market can make that process even more difficult.

“Quite apart from the change in ownership, another pressing problem is that hotels change their mobile numbers. It becomes quite difficult to get in contact with them if the data you’ve collected is old.”

Cheap pay-as-you-go SIMs are the rule, and switching to an operator with a better tariff or service is commonplace – Nigeria’s Glo launched in Ghana earlier this month with about 1.5 million pre-registered users, all of whom will be on new numbers.

Operating in the middle and upper market insulates you from these problems to some extent.

Expedia sold 40,000 West African room nights in 2011, with around 40% of that in Ghana. It focuses mainly on top-end hotels and business-friendly guesthouses in Accra, though some of the latter are still small, independent operations.

Growth figures are tasty – those 40,000 sales are an increase of 150% on 2010 – and it’s tempting to link them both to Expedia’s own outreach efforts and to Ghana’s nascent oil boom, putting them in a similar context to Virgin’s increased Heathrow-Kotoka frequency and the Kempinski set to open in 2013.

If it’s a case of caveat emptor further down, you could simply throw up your hands and argue it was ever thus.

But if developing markets bring out the risks inherent in selling low-end properties through an international OTA model, does that hand a measure of advantage to local or specialised players?

Hotels.com.ng’s Essien thinks so, arguing that lower labour costs and smaller scale make it possible to verify each booking manually:

“In China, bookings [for budget hotels] are usually verified by phone. This is possible because of the cheap labour there. We’re copying that model: we don’t actually tell you that you’ve booked till this is confirmed from the hotel.

“The bigger sites with huge booking volumes do not have that luxury. And even if they did, their call centres would not be willing to try calling 15 times if the call does not go through – which is something that, very frankly, is required in Africa.”

The punchline? With Eshu scuppered, we spent an extra few nights at Ko-Sa, a Dutch-run beach lodge near Elmina that pulls in relatively wealthy expats as well as backpackers.

Its en-suite huts sell out months in advance thanks to stellar word of mouth. So far it isn’t doing any online distribution at all.

The market is tiny, but it may not be quite as small as it looks from European HQs.

NB: This is a guest article by Nathan Midgley, a freelance writer and web editor based in Accra, Ghana.

More recent updates first:

Wednesday 17 May 2012:

• Amadeus and OAG agree deal to provide enhanced data for airline schedules. Under the agreement, OAG will supply Amadeus with a daily feed of schedule data files, a service aimed at providing travel websites, retail agents and travel management companies with accurate information as to the state of flights and bookings worldwide.
• Travelport unites with Nor1 for distribution and revenue partnership. The deals sees hotels on the Nor1 eStandby Upgrade platform pushed into services operated by Travelport. Offers on eStandby Upgrade will be available through itinerary emails and Travelport’s ViewTrip system. “Participating properties confirm the pay-for-upgrade requests guests make at check-in and are able to instantly boost their bottom line revenue on top of their existing reservations,” Travelport says.
• KDS heralds killer application for business travel
• How to unlock Big Data to make it big in value for the travel industry
• Dear Hoteliers, Please finally become more business minded. All the best, The Industry x

Tuesday 15 May 2012:

• New vice president unveiled for Sabre Travel Network in Western Europe. Based in London, Stephane Aita will report to Harald Eisenaecher, vice president EMEA for Sabre Travel Network when he takes up the role from June 1 2012. Aita was most recently global services director EMEA for Oracle and has held senior positions at Sun Microsystems and Alcetel. He also previously co-founded mobile and VOIP tech company Yfone.
• THack returns to London – time for developers to show off their ideas and creativity in travel
• Room Key founders share spotlight in Travelocity white-label deal
• Mapping out the customer journey for booking trips using marketing and time travel
• Survey: US adults doing mobile check-ins more than doubled
• Wright Express acquires UK prepaid solutions provider
• Cheapflights bans clumsy mobile handoffs

Friday 11 May 2012:

• Travelport gives leg-up to Wild Discovery. The Lebanon-based travel retailer has used Galileo Web Services to launch its MouseTrotter service, its new online search and booking platform. The site uses the Galileo GDS for content in a wider bid to compliment Wild Discovery’s existing offline agency branches with its first presence on the web.
• Travelport gets more global in Asia and Africa
• Sabre Hospitality brings all services under new hotel platform, device responsive tech in pipeline
• Travelport first quarter 2012 results – at-a-glance summary
• Amadeus and Expedia — typical dating relationship
• Amadeus first quarter 2012 results – at-a-glance summary
• TravelSky continues hotel outreach with Pegasus and Starwood connection
• What do mobile business travellers want?

Monday 7 May 2012:

• Travelport secures partnership with TheTrainLine. The deal allows Travelport Universal API-connected travel agencies to search and book rail product from the UK provided by TheTrainLine, as well as working together to allow other agents to access content on standard desktops. TheTrainLine is also looking to target new customers in North America and Australasia.
• Cost and value of hotel marketing [INFOGRAPHIC]
• Travelport renews long technology and distribution partnership with Your Travel Center. The agreement with the Tzell Leaders Network-owned agency gives it access to Travelport GDS content including flights, hotels, car hire and cruise via both the Apollo and Worldspan platforms.
• Yapta targets corporate travel with fare-savings tool

Friday 4 May 2012:

• Upgrade by Sabre in the Red Workspace to give agents in the UK and Ireland better tools for selling car hire to customers. The development is in two parts: an agent can calculate the total cost of a car rental and up to four added extras, such as navigational equipment and seats for young children, when booking with Sixt; agents also booking Sixt or Europcar will now be able to calculate how much money they make from a booking with participating suppliers.
• Abacus secures distribution deal to give its agents access to AirAsia Philippines fares and inventory. The carrier is a joint venture between AirAsia International and a group of Filipino Investors. It launched its first flights out of Pampanga in March 2012 with two domestic routes to Davao and Kalibo.
• Local is the new black in travel search
• When merchandising is no longer a slippery slope for ski operator
• How TripAdvisor off-shoot Tingo could change travel AND retail forever
• Amadeus secures two launch agencies for m-Power mobile travel app

Thursday 3 May 2012:

• Kuoni and Travelport renew long-term distribution agreement. The tour operator will continue to Travelport as its GDS provider as well as integrating the new Universal API into what it calls “specific areas” of the business. The agent Galileo Desktop upgrade, Smartpoint App, is also included in the partnership covering a number of countries in Europe and Asia.
• Warning: Big Data in travel and why People Not From These Parts could win
• Travelport continues distribution sweep-up and buys Galileo Southern Africa
• HP and airlines implement automated global tax feed
• Mobile wake-up call for airlines

Tuesday 1 May 2012:

• The Travelport Developer Network is now open for users in the Middle East. Originally launched in November 2011, independent software developers are invited to join as part of a wider initiative to create new platforms, applications and services for travel agencies in the region.
• Sabre Travel Network is looking for entries to its first developer competition on the Sabre Red workspace. The best ten entries from startups, individual developers and established companies will be able to showcase their idea at the Sabre Red Appy show in Las Vegas in early-June. Each will vie for a cash price.
• Dnata will be the first agency in the Middle East to join the Travelport Universal API programme. The company will be able to aggregate content and other travel services from multiple providers through a single connection and interface.
• Irish agents now have the opportunity to book cruise trips via a new service from Travelport called Cruise Net. The tool, developed in conjunction with Scotland-based TravelTek, allows agents to search and book trips, find port and ship information including images, as well as access real-time negotiated rates from cruise operators.
• Google repositions Hotel Finder atop organic search results
• Shocking news: A la carte travel shopping is good for consumers
• The future of in-flight entertainment
• OpenJaw launches first customer on t-Retail platform

Previous GDS updates:

• GDS news from Travelport, Amadeus, Sabre, Abacus – April 2012
• GDS news from Travelport, Amadeus, Sabre, Abacus – March 2012
• GDS news from Travelport, Amadeus, Sabre, Abacus – February 2012
• GDS news from Travelport, Amadeus, Sabre, Abacus – January 2012
• GDS news from Travelport, Amadeus, Sabre, Abacus – December 2011
• GDS news from Travelport, Amadeus, Sabre, Abacus – November 2011
• GDS news from Travelport, Amadeus, Sabre, Abacus – October 2011
• GDS news from Travelport, Amadeus, Sabre, Abacus – September 2011
• GDS news: Travelport, Amadeus, Sabre, Abacus – August 2011
• GDS news: Travelport, Amadeus, Sabre, Abacus – July 2011
• Travelport, Amadeus, Sabre, Abacus briefs – June 2011
• Travelport, Amadeus, Sabre, Abacus briefs – May 2011
• Travelport, Amadeus, Sabre, Abacus briefs – April 2011
• Travelport, Amadeus, Sabre, Abacus briefs – March 2011
• Travelport, Amadeus, Sabre, Abacus briefs – February 2011
• Travelport, Amadeus, Sabre, Abacus briefs – January 2011
• Travelport, Amadeus, Sabre, Abacus briefs – December 2010
• GDS Bitesize – January 2010 to November 2010

NB: Globe technology image via Shutterstock.

Market leader Expedia dropped 1.5%, WebJet 1%, House of Travel almost 0.5% and Wotif also around 0.5%.

Most popular travel websites in New Zealand for the week ending April 28 2012:

Agencies

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Expedia.co.nz	www.expedia.co.nz	12.21%	1
2	Webjet New Zealand	www.webjet.co.nz	9.56%	2
3	House of Travel	www.houseoftravel.co.nz	8.82%	3
4	Wotif.com	www.wotif.com	7.83%	4
5	Flight Centre New Zealand	www.flightcentre.co.nz	6.88%	5
6	Kayak	www.kayak.com	4.95%	7
7	Jet Abroad - NZ	www.jetabroad.co.nz	3.19%	6
8	Orbitz	www.orbitz.com	2.51%	8
9	Go.qq.com	go.qq.com	1.67%	9
10	Agoda.co.nz	www.agoda.co.nz	1.57%	-

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.com	8.11%	1
2	Booking.com	www.booking.com	6.03%	2
3	Yahoo!xtra - Travel	nz.totaltravel.yahoo.com	5.26%	4
4	stuff.co.nz - Travel	www.stuff.co.nz/travel	3.66%	3
5	HolidayHouses.co.nz	www.holidayhouses.co.nz	2.72%	6
6	Book A Bach	www.bookabach.co.nz	1.95%	8
7	AA New Zealand Travel Guide	www.aatravel.co.nz	1.87%	7
8	Fishing and Hunting New Zealand	www.fishnhunt.co.nz	1.80%	9
9	Jasons Travel Media	www.jasons.co.nz	1.75%	10
10	Travelbug	www.travelbug.co.nz	1.65%	-

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Air New Zealand	www.airnz.co.nz	37.44%	1
2	Air New Zealand - grabaseat	www.grabaseat.co.nz	24.73%	2
3	Jetstar	www.jetstar.com	11.37%	3
4	My Air New Zealand	www.myairnz.co.nz	4.56%	4
5	Qantas	www.qantas.com.au	3.45%	5
6	Virgin Australia	www.virginaustralia.com	2.90%	6
7	Emirates	www.emirates.com	2.42%	7
8	Singapore Airlines	www.singaporeair.com	1.69%	8
9	AirAsia	www.airasia.com	1.33%	9
10	Malaysia Airlines	www.malaysiaairlines.com	0.81%	10

NB: Data courtesy of Experian Hitwise

NB2: Image via rook76/Shutterstock

Whether or not you believe that Gogobot is “the world’s leading source of trusted travel advice,” as its public relations material boasts, its member base is indeed growing.

Some eight months since Gogobot took the stage as Facebook launched new Open Graph integrations, Gogobot’s ranks have jumped 60% to more than 1 million registered users, says Travis Katz, Gogobot CEO, although he adds that the Facebook buzz wasn’t a major driver.

The growth has been spurred “largely by users inviting their friends,” Katz says.

“Overall, the close partnership we have with Facebook has been very valuable for us — we have an open line of communication with them and work closely with them in developing and refining new features,” Katz says.

In other notches on its belt, Gogobot claims that a new user signs up every 15 seconds and that 5 million locales have been shared on its platform so far.

With more modest numbers, and in a shared Gogobot location on the other side of the world, Travelzoo Australia saw its newsletter subscriber base grow 20% over the last year to 700,000, the company says.

Travelzoo Australia has a licensing deal with Travelzoo and is part of a private, separate company, Travelzoo Asia Pacific.

Travelzoo Australia says its implementation of Local Deals  in April 2011 helped boost the newsletter sign-ups.

So what happened in the intervening 12 months?

Are you making money yet?

Sure. We are a travel company first who is trying to leverage the benefits of technology as opposed to a tech company trying to leverage travel.

We have our own products and have sold over 65,000 seats to date. This calendar year alone we should take 60,000 passengers so we have money coming in.

What has been the biggest problem – building the product/service or marketing it to consumers/travel industry?

We are really happy with the product the customer ends up with. Over 95% of travellers say they will travel again and recommend us to friends so we have great validation on the end product.

We are so confident in the actual travel experience that we guarantee it for the customer. The way we convey ourselves to direct customers we are probably less happy with. Our site was brought together in a quick to market kind of way.

We have a slick CMS and a great in-house affiliate system but the user experience of those coming to our site and the fact our site doesn’t yet conform to mobile or tablet views is an issue we are aware of and are addressing.

Biggest assumption in the business plan that was wrong?

Having an API = getting lots of great sales.

Our experience to date is that those capable of taking our API, by and large don’t have the customer base to make sales at volume and those that can’t take an API into their own systems and instead send word document templates that they then manually load into their system, in general make great sales (the tour industry is generally lagging when it comes to best practice online distribution).

We thought introducing new online distribution tools would be a big hit ….but it just isn’t at this stage.

We set up for low admin and the business hasn’t panned out that way which of course slows everything else down.

Is your current customer base as predicted?

Pretty much. We’ve got some surprising cut through into some markets we hadn’t anticipated like the middle class in the Philippines and Indonesia and is a nice surprise. Locals travelling on tours, particularly in the States, have also probably been more successful than we had anticipated.

Did you achieve your 12 month goals? If not, why not?

We have very aggressive goals so we didn’t hit them all but the ones with the greatest weight such as passengers travelled, we hit.

Has the problem you were trying to solve changed?

Not really. The day tour market is still really fragmented. More and more, aggregators are filling those gaps but there is still no other brand that is out there offering the fun, uniqueness, consistency and experience we have, across a wide geographical reach.

Which startup that has launched in the past 12 months did you think “Ah, wish we had done that!”?

New Europe is in many ways the elephant in the room in the day tour/activities business. They are probably over 12 months old but came onto our radar in the past 12 months as we penetrated into Europe.

I don’t “wish we had done that” but I love the pure innovation of thought that has created a new business model and from what we can see, a new economy in the activity sector.

They seem to be getting $5-$20 out of people who used to just walk around by themselves. I’d love to sit in a room where someone pitched the idea of giving their product away for free and revenue model of getting your staff to pay to come to work!

If you could go back in time and tell yourself one thing, what would it be?

I think we all have things we spend way too much time and effort on that never get where you hoped they would get to.

I’d like to email my past self that list, although you learn something in every one of those instances so it’s never a total bust.

NB: Tnooz launched TLab Showcase in March 2010, a dedicated channel to give startups in the travel, tourism and hospitality sector an opportunity to explain their vision, company background and strategy to a wider audience.

As well as publishing an elevator pitch-type questionnaire for each business, Tnooz committed to following up with each startup after 12 months or so to see how well (or not) each performed.

NB2: TLabs Showcase is part of the wider TLabs project from Tnooz.

Under admittedly different and less-dramatic circumstances, HomeAway is facing its own crisis of confidence, although the victims — renters and vacation rental property owners — have not attracted protracted media attention.

HomeAway, which owns such sites as HomeAway.com, VRBO, VacationRentals.com and 32 others around the world, has acknowledged that customers and vacation rental owners advertising on its sites have been targeted in a phishing scam since 2011 that may affect $1 million in transactions in 2012 alone.

In response, HomeAway has issued fraud alerts, established a Security Center, offered new insurance products to protect against Internet fraud, posted warnings on its sites about phishing and is working on creating a HomeAway Secure Communication system.

But, HomeAway regularly declines to compensate victims, arguing that it has no liability because HomeAway sites themselves have not been breached.

After all, HomeAway is merely “like the classified ad in the newspaper,” according to one VRBO email to a phishing victim:

 So please understand that the reason we are unable to accept liability in this situation is because the security of an individual’s email address is simply not within our control. Regarding your concern with contacting relevant authorities, please understand … that our site is merely a venue for advertisements much like the classified ad in the newspaper.

Instead, HomeAway argues, cybercriminals, sometimes posing as renters, compromised the email accounts of property owners, and therefore renters should contact the property owners about compensation and should contact local law enforcement authorities, as well.

But now the fraud victims — both renters and property owners — are getting more vocal and demanding that HomeAway take responsibility and provide compensation.

Some 32 renters and property owners are now members of a closed Facebook group, Victims of HomeAway/VRBO + gmail scam, and they are comparing notes and demanding that HomeAway take action.

Marina, a New York City resident who spearheaded the Facebook group, lost $1,700 when she wired the money in mid-November to a London bank account belonging to a scammer. (The phisher told her that the owner of the Florida property lives in the UK.)

A loyal VRBO customer who still uses the site today, despite being victimized last year, Marina had been trying to book a stay last December in the Florida Keys. She filled out the form to contact the property owner’s email through VRBO and got an email reply from a phisher who had apparently compromised the real owner’s email account.

“We had an email exchange for several days negotiating the date and the price,” Marino wrote to VRBO about the fraudster. “They even called me and discussed this rental property over the phone.”

Marina wired the $1,700 — unwittingly to the scammer — to the bank in the UK after receiving a rental agreement which included the Carefree Rental Guarantee by HomeAway logo.

About 11 days later, when she hadn’t heard anything from the property owner, Marina called the phone number displayed on the property owner’s VRBO listing.

“The person on the other side [of the phone converation] told me that he is the real owner and that he never heard about me and never signed any rental agreement with me,” Marina wrote.

Marina eventually took her vacation after the real property owner agreed to let her rent the vacation home at a discounted rate — but she had to pay $700 in addition to the $1,700 that went to the phisher.

As is their habit, VRBO sent Marina a sympathetic-sounding letter, expressing understanding of her frustration, but reminding her that VRBO believes it has no liability in the matter and that it is the property owners’ “responsibility to safeguard their own email address.”

Marina wrote to VRBO:

As a reputable public company, please take action and address the security loophole in your website workflow; put security alerts on your websites [HomeAway has subsequently done so]; change the email domain for renters’ inquiries; change the communication workflow between property owners and renters that would prevent creating automated filters for all inquiries… This scam can totally blow up and damage your reputation.

Speaking this week about the November incident, Marina recalls the pain.

“When it happens, you feel so abused,” Marina said.

Jen, a Connecticut resident, had a somewhat similar experience in March 2012 when she was trying to rent a vacation home in Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. She concedes there may have been phishing warnings on HomeAway by then, but she was too busy to notice them.

Jen filled in the contact forms on HomeAway.com, sending inquiries to several properties. She received several phone call responses, but didn’t want to spend hours chatting on the phone to rent a property for a long-weekend getaway when she just had a few questions.

For the property Jen eventually decided on, she received an email from the true owner and one from a scammer and “chose the wrong email to respond to,” she said.

The property she wanted to rent had great reviews, earning her trust, and Jen faxed a contract and wired $1,255 to the phisher. The bank account turned out to be outside the US, although there was nothing to indicate that in the instructions, she said.

When Jen called the real owner about instructions to enter the property, the owner had no idea who she was.

HomeAway removed the listing, sent a fraud alert and reinserted the listing within a few days, with the owner using a rental agency as the contact, Jen says.

Jen says she had some dialogue with HomeAway, but never received any compensation and was informed that her case was “closed.”

Carl Shepherd, HomeAway co-founder and chief strategy and development officer, says most homeowners and property managers still prefer to communicate with guests by direct email, but “while we’ve become very successful  at preventing criminals from posting fake listings on our sites, the theft of the owner’s email password via phishing has become a problem in the past six months not only on HomeAway websites, but also on those of our competitors.”

With its acknowledgement of the phishing campaign, HomeAway finds itself in the position of constructing a new system to safeguard guest-homeowner communications while still arguing that it is not legally liable for guest and property owner losses due to phishing.

Incidentally, property owners can be phishing victims, too, in that their emails get taken over and bookings that would have come to them get hijacked.

In a blog post, here’s how HomeAway describes the new HomeAway Secure Communication system that it hopes to have in place by the second half of 2012:

This proposed system is similar to sites you may use, like Facebook, LinkedIn and others, where authentication is required by both parties before they can connect. On these sites, once two parties have decided to “trust” each other, they can converse via email. But until trust is established, they CAN still communicate keeping key elements of their identity protected.

HomeAway makes much of the fact that it estimates phishing incidents impacted just .1% of HomeAway’s transactions during the first three months of 2012.

Thus, if the victims’ losses are so tiny to a company that recorded $230 million in revenue in 2011, then why not compensate them? Shepherd answers:

This is not a question of the size of the amount. As you can appreciate, there are choices we make every day in order to balance the needs of customers against our fiduciary responsibility as public company.  However, even though we aren’t legally liable for any losses incurred by a traveler when the owner’s email account is phished, we choose to provide support in some cases when we believe doing so will help the two victims of phishing find a satisfactory resolution.

HomeAway’s standard response to phishing incidents is to advise property owners and guests to resolve their issues on their own, and HomeAway won’t say whether it has compensated any victims.

“We won’t comment on the specifics of any particular case, but the facts and circumstances of all cases vary, so the outcomes vary, as well,” Shepherd says.

Meanwhile, Marina says while there are only a few dozen verified victims who have been accepted into the Facebook group, many others have emailed her after she posted a comment online about her incident. She said some haven’t joined the group because they don’t speak English, don’t use Facebook or don’t know about the group.

The vacation rental phishing victims in the Facebook group point out that they are not aware of any recent court test of HomeAway’s contention that it  has no liability for the recent incidents, and there is some talk about starting litigation.

One member of the group argues that HomeAway won’t take responsibility “unless you come at them with a lawyer.”

Apart from that, Marina makes the moral argument, as well.

“If they are saying it was such a small percent, then why not compensate people,” Marina says. “These are your customers.”

Air Canada added 3.5% market share to its tally last week as WestJet dropped away with a 2% decline of its own.

Most popular travel websites in Canada for the week ending April 28 2012:

Agency

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Expedia Canada	www.expedia.ca	15.96%	1
2	Flight Network	www.flightnetwork.com	5.92%	2
3	Hotwire	www.hotwire.com	3.36%	3
4	www.cheapoair.ca	www.cheapoair.ca	3.35%	9
5	Red Tag Vacations	www.redtag.ca	3.32%	4
6	Tripcentral.ca	www.tripcentral.ca	2.75%	6
7	itravel2000	www.itravel2000.com	2.56%	7
8	Kayak	www.kayak.com	2.44%	-
9	Travelzoo Canada	www.travelzoo.com/ca	2.39%	5
10	Travelocity Canada	www.travelocity.ca	2.39%	-

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	TripAdvisor Canada	www.tripadvisor.ca	7.10%	1
2	Booking.com	www.booking.com	6.48%	2
3	Hotels.com	www.hotels.com	3.35%	3
4	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.com	2.90%	4
5	TripAdvisor France	www.tripadvisor.fr	1.99%	5
6	City of Toronto	www.toronto.ca	1.80%	8
7	Princess Cruises	www.princess.com	1.62%	6
8	InterContinental Hotels Group	www.ichotelsgroup.com	1.54%	7
9	Marriott International	www.marriott.com	1.29%	-
10	Canada's Wonderland	www.canadaswonderland.com	1.25%	-

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Air Canada	www.aircanada.ca	31.13%	1
2	WestJet	www.westjet.com	23.56%	2
3	Air Transat	www.airtransat.com	5.61%	3
4	Allegiant Air	www.allegiantair.com	3.00%	4
5	Porter	www.flyporter.com	2.67%	5
6	United Airlines	www.united.com	2.57%	8
7	Delta Air Lines	www.delta.com	2.36%	7
8	acaeronet.aircanada.ca	acaeronet.aircanada.ca	2.34%	6
9	Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air	www.alaskaair.com	1.89%	9
10	Air Canada Employee Travel Site	travel.aircanada.com	1.89%	-

NB: Data courtesy of Experian Hitwise

NB2: Image via Shutterstock.

The technology, in beta with travel management companies and customers, reduces the search, book and expense process to three screens from the current process of more than three times that.

It is designed to enable users to book a door-to-door trip based on destination and desired time of arrival information and using devices such as iPads.

The technology then presents a small set of results within a two-hour window – flights, hotels, taxis and prices – with corporate policy and traveller preferences taken into account.

Travellers can change any of the elements and the whole trip will be updated.

KDS product marketing boss Oliver Quayle says:

“We think it’s the killer app for the business user because it uses the minimum amount of information to highlight the most cost effective option in the shortest time.”

He adds that while most booking systems have not been developed with the end user in mind, KDS started Neo with the aim of being better than consumer tools on the market.

KDS is also developing its Maverick system for release later this year and aimed at curbing rogue spend. For un-managed travel the technology can deliver best practice messages and budget limits as well as automatically populate the expense report.

Corporates with a strict policy can use Maverick to notify travellers they are out of policy and might not be reimbursed. The technology also gathers management information to enable companies to assess the impact.