The company, normally known for its B2B services with such industry sectors as airlines and insurance providers, has unleashed two iPhone applications this week to iTunes, one covering trip planning and another attempting to make travel more sociable.

The first, Travelplan, claims to be the only app in the marketplace that has timetable information for 750,000 scheduled flights and access to around 15,000 hotels on a directory.

The accommodation information includes details number of rooms, facilities and contact details. Users can select different elements of a trip and bundle into an itinerary.

Collinson is making great play of the offline status of the app, meaning users do not need to tap into a live data stream to access content.

Air data is provided by FlightStats.

The second app, Fly&Share, which Collinson has decided to charge £5.99 ($8), works as a trip update system so that users can notify other people in their social networks and address books when they are using a particular travel service.

The user enters the detail of a service and the app automatically sends messages at various points during a flight, for example, allowing people to learn when an aircraft has taken off or landed.

Asked why the company has developed two separate services instead of combining into a single product, an official says:

“Potentially in the future they will be, but they are two single minded products to serve different needs at different stages of the travel journey.

“There is also the logical disconnect in the middle – Travelplan allows you to identify the trip you want to take, but you haven’t booked anything yet. Fly&Share allows you to share confirmed and current travel.”

Collinson says the two apps are the first in a suite of different B2C travel products, primarily as a testing vehicle to evaluate requirements of consumers.

“What do people want? Will they use it, will they pay for it? We are also testing Apple – what are the boundaries? How much data can we put out on a phone etc, and how we connect to Facebook and Twitter.”

The white label deal between the pair sees a Skyscanner search widget included in a dedicated flight channel on the Hostelworld site.

Users have identical search parameters on the site as available on the existing Skyscanner service, although they are redirected to the Skyscanner site to view results rather than staying on Hostelworld.

Details of the agreement – length of the deal, business model – have not be released but white labels are still seen as a useful way of spreading a service into different corners of the web, including travel and non-travel sites.

Other budget accommodation sites, such as Hostelbookers, have yet to include flights as another user channel on their sites.

The European high-speed rail operator reckons the new system, Europe by Eurostar, encourages people to travel around Europe and book their own get-aways.

“Visitors will have the option to post online their comments and tips once they’ve returned from their trip,” Eurostar says.

There is also the now obligatory use of “influential bloggers” to write guests post on the platform, “sharing experiences from their visits to Europe.”

The reality is slightly different. Eurostar has simply integrated destination content from a previous platform and thrown in a handy map to find destinations in France and other countries the operators services.

The “social media platform” element is allowing users to leaves comments or tips against other articles and find out how to follow on Twitter and Facebook.

Needless to say, Eurostar’s Facebook page is where the action and engagement is taking place, not on Europe by Eurostar.

Noises emerging this week from Brussels, home to the European Commission, suggest the search giant could be facing scrutiny from members as to whether a beefing up of its position in travel after acquiring ITA Software needs to trigger a shake up of wider regulatory powers.

The problem Google could potentially face is not around the subject of competition, as its acquisition of ITA and the travel tech company’s client base is predominantly a North American issue.

Investigators at the Commission are beginning to be concerned that Google’s dominance of the search market in Europe, coupled with how it decides to use the ITA technology, could seriously impact on consumers and their ability to compare air fares.

There are now increasing calls for the Commission to undertake a study as to whether Google should be seen in the same light as other air data firms, namely the global distribution systems.

A source who wished to remain unnamed but is well-placed in the regulatory world of Brussels, says:

“In a GDS environment, the display neutrality concept enshrined in the GDS Code of Conduct addresses this issue. If Google is going to provide services that are similar to those of GDSs, then probably safeguards similar to those in the GDS Code of Conduct should be imposed on Google.”

Such a move would be a enormous leap for those that administer the GDS Code of Conduct and how regulation of the distribution of airfare data across the continent is handled.

Placing Google alongside the GDSs (as it has done so itself with the travel technology ecosystem chart) within a regulatory framework also has the opportunity to trigger other major permutations.

The push to include Google in such a framework is considered by a number of those close to the situation to be primarily a GDS-led drive.

But Google could argue that if it is subject to such oversight by regulators then other travel search providers (B2C and B2B) should be included – a prospect likely to keep lobbyists in Brussels tied up for years.

For its part, Google remains focused on the competition element of the deal and will not address the Code of Conduct issue, saying:

“The [ITA] transaction is subject to normal pre-merger notification procedures in the United States only. ITA Software’s European revenues aren’t large enough to warrant European regulatory review.

“We think this combination will benefit travelers as well as those seeking their business, but closer scrutiny has been one consequence of our success, and on that basis we wouldn’t be surprised if there were regulatory review before the deal closes.”

An alternative and radical position could be that if commissioners decide Google is not to be included in the regulatory framework then the same powers should be relaxed for the GDSs as well.

A Travelport official says:

“Given that there are so many factors in relation to the potential Google/ITA acquisition that remain to be resolved and/or announced, it would be inappropriate for Travelport to speculate on these specific questions.”

Sabre declined to comment and Amadeus is discussing internally with its legal team how to respond.

Who and what are you (including personnel and backgrounds)?

JumpFlight is an international online marketplace for second-hand flights. Persons unable to travel due to medical, professional, or personal reasons, can offer their flight tickets for sale without a commission on our platform. Travellers looking for cheap flight offers can scroll through the database and contact the sellers about flight exchange.

What financial support did you have to launch the business?

This project was launched without financial support.

What problem are you trying to solve?

We are trying to gain awareness that many flight tickets are transferable and can be sold to someone else. Every day, thousands of passengers have to cancel their flights, and the airlines fly with empty seats. It’s a waste of money, there is no reason why other travellers shouldn’t use these flight tickets.

Furthermore, we want the visitors of our site to know that a holiday cancellation does not have to be a complete financial lost. If you can’t find a buyer for your flights, you can still reclaim taxes and service charges from the airline.

Describe the business, core products and services?

We offer travellers a simple and user-friendly platform for posting flight offers. JumpFlight is a free service, you just have to be a registered user to be able to add flights to our database.

For persons looking for flight offers, we’ve implemented a search field right on the welcome page. In addition, the sections “All flights” and “Latest entries” give you a good overview of the current flights posted on our site. If you want to be informed about new flights on JumpFlight, just follow us on Twitter.

You can contact flight offerers by using an internal JumpFlight mailing system. If you would like to buy a flight ticket but you are unsure about transferring money to a stranger, you can choose to use the commercial JumpFlight mediation service. The financial transaction will then be processed by us.

As we want to reach travellers worldwide, the site is available in English, German, French, and Spanish.

Who are your key customers and users at launch?

Firstly, travellers around the world wanting to sell their transferable flight tickets. Secondly, spontaneous globetrotters and bargain hunters looking for cheap flight offers.

Did you have customers validate your idea before investors?

Not really. But anyone who has faced the problem of having to cancel flights knows how difficult it is to get a compensation for the unwanted tickets. After a thorough market research, we were convinced that travellers need an online marketplace like JumpFlight. The fact that we are getting new flight offers on a daily basis is a pleasant validation of our idea.

What is the business AND revenue model, strategy for profitability?

We want to provide our users a free service without obligations. Thus, we concentrate on financing our site through advertisements.

For our commercial mediation service, we charge 10% of the ticket price.

SWOT analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?

Strengths:

• JumpFlight is an international and dynamic platform, covering a market niche.

Weaknesses:

• Unfortunately, not all flight tickets are transferable.

Opportunities:

• Every day, thousands of passengers have to cancel their flights. So there are plenty of flights out there which can be re-sold.

Threats:

• Big market players might start to offer second-hand flights as well.

Who advised you your idea isn’t going to be successful and why didn’t you listen to them?

The feedback we’ve received so far has been solely positive. Many of our users run in to our service by coincidence and are surprised to find a new to way save money on flights.

What is your success metric 12 months from now?

We want JumpFlight to become the online marketplace for second-hand flight tickets. Our site should not only be the number one address for travellers wanting to sell their flights, but also a site always worth a visit for anyone looking for cheap air fares.

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

So, interesting that on Monday this week guidebook giant Lonely Planet uploaded a video to YouTube specifically to promote opportunities within its IT and web development divisions.

This move, of course, chimes with CEO Matthew Goldberg’s drive to push the business into areas outside of its existing and core world of printed guidebooks.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohnrX41nG7Y

Getting less publicity is news that business development manager Alex Cheeseman has left to join hotel site Gekko this week as commercial director.

His departure follows that of Matthew Cashmore, innovation ecosystem manager, quitting a few weeks ago to become digital director for magazine publishing group Hachette.

Cashmore is widely credited with spearheading many of LP’s web and mobile projects over the past 18 months after joining from the BBC in October 2008.

The film is viewed by many critics as one of the best of the 2000s and was a landmark portrayal of history.

As is the way with web, however, since its release in 2004 a segment where Hitler realises the war is lost and confronts his generals with a verbal volley has been parodied endlessly with a succession of alternative versions with new subtitles added so that the lead character is reacting to some setback to a present-day cultural, political or business reference.

Such versions have included reaction to Usain Bolt breaking the world 100-metre record, launch of the iPad, vuvuzelas at the FIFA World Cup and even one when a string of parodies were removed from YouTube.

So it was only a matter of time before someone -- in this case, GuestCentric Technologies -- applied it to the business of travel, this time when the Furher learns about hotels going independent with their technology.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvZBKr4nLGA

As the industry grapples with such enormous opportunities, Tnooz’s Gen-Y Collective was asked to pinpoint (!) how the geo-location concept might impact on their individual areas and the industry as a whole.

The Gen-Y Collective is group of under-30s from every corner of the industry, assembled to debate how different travel technology trends are impacting on strategy as well as the opportunities they carry.

NB: Worth pointing out that the Gen-Y Collective submitted its ideas ahead of the Facebook Places announcement, but the possibilities remain, just the admission of Facebook to the party makes the case for building a strategy even stronger.

Graham Robertson, Project Wander

I’ve been excited about what mobile geo-location services will (eventually) do for the travel industry for quite a while now. For the first time, brands can be actively engaged in their customers travel experience while it it’s happening. Sounds futuristic?

Explore Chicago did this many months ago when it partnered with Foursquare to create custom badges for visitors to the city (followed by VisitPA).

In my opinion, the current incarnations of mobile geo-services have been rather conservative, leaving most of the fun up to those willing to blaze a trail for everyone else to follow.

The game-changing moves have yet to be made, for example. Check in at the Qantas terminal in Sydney and then the again at arrivals in Melbourne to unlock the Qantas city hopper badge, or the mayor of the Qantas terminal gains free access to the lounge.

Can’t meet up with your tour? Tweet your location to the supplier and get picked up within minutes.

For geo-location services to reach their full potential, mobile providers are going to have to drop these ridiculous international roaming fees. They’re really the only limiting factor on something that has the potential to revolutionize the way the industry interacts with it’s customers.

Mike Tomlinson, British Airways

There’s a great potential for mobile services within the airline industry. However, I’m not sure that we would benefit from knowing the location of our customers – the airline industry is fairly tied down to physical locations and processes within it’s core business.

Where there are clear benefits to geo-location is at either end of the airline journey. Travel and traffic information, maps, guides and hotel/restaurant recommendations are all areas where geo-location has a part to play.

At the moment, I think these destination services will only appeal to a very small market.

Roaming data charges exclude anyone who has to pay their own bill and the fragmentation amongst smartphone platforms makes it difficult to target the majority of customers.

Given that it’s outside of our core business, I think we need to wait and watch how this area develops with a view to forming strategic partnerships that will add value to our customers.

Amy Widdowson, NileGuide

I am one of those individuals who has to be reminded that checking in on Foursquare at the dinner table is rude.

While not every traveler is attracted to reminding their friends everytime they stop by Safeway to purchase toothpaste, there’s a major opportunity to capture the behaviors and decision patterns of travelers on the fly – where content can make an immediate impact on planner and impulse traveler alike.

At NileGuide, we like to think of ourselves as being that in-the-know person who can recommend not only the hippest scotch bar in town, but also the nearest tourist trap that’s actually worth your cash.

I tested our iPhone app What’s Next pre-launch on my first trip to LA, and found out about the Animal restaurant while deciding where to go for a nibble in West Hollywood.

You can no longer divide “planning” and “content” in our sphere. It’s imperative to not only have the tools, but to be able to provide aspirational, inspiring local content on the fly, when you need it.

That’s the challenge: it is one thing to be able to check in, and a whole other thing to be able to actually convince someone to get there in the first place…

James Addison, Skyscanner

Internet geo-location services were arguably an early indicator that the web was becoming the sophisticated marketing arena it is today.

Country-level analytics and ad-targeting were frequently-touted features during the heady days of the dot-com bubble, and in a way it’s surprising that mobile applications have taken so long to catch up; but they certainly have now.

GPS, cell triangulation, and IP geo-location are all coming together to provide robust location information for mobile applications to use.

There are immediate benefits from this information for travel search – pre-population of departure locations being the frequently seen example – but I think we’ll increasingly see a trend towards collection and analysis of historic user travel, using mobile geolocation; Foursquare and similar services are already beginning to harness this data.

Search is all about providing relevance, and travel search will benefit from knowledge of destinations users have previously visited, and the activities they took part in – from events, to hotels, and even restaurants.

Similarly, business travellers could be alerted to timetable/service changes given information on their regular commute.  I’d suspect that this geo-location history may quickly become as intrinsic – and as straightforward to use – in online travel search and advertising as simple IP-address geolocation did ten years ago.

Katie Wait, Thomson Holidays

With the increased popularity of smart phones comes this innovative way to reach our customers and potential bookers.

We’ve learnt through our personalised pre-travel websites, MyThomson and My First Choice that customers will spend lots of time researching their hotel and resort, gathering as much rich content as they can get their hands on relating to their holiday.

Through geo-location tools such as Foursquare, there are lots of opportunities to reach our customers in resort, providing them with local restaurant reviews and encouraging them to leave their own, recommending local places to visit, and potentially letting them know when their reps ‘check-in’ to their hotel if they need to speak to them.

There are opportunities to encourage loyalty too, teaming up with sites such as TopGuest to offer bonus points and special offers for loyal customers checking in to our hotels.

We can’t ignore the fact that using mobiles to access the web abroad can be expensive, so may limit its success.

However as we’ve seen with the ‘My’ sites, customers seek this information before they depart, so there’s a great opportunity to use location-based services as a ‘virtual guidebook’ to plan where to visit, find top restaurants etc. before they go, searching on their destination instead of their current location.

Potential customers could also benefit from targeted offers available at their closest retail shops, flying from their local airports. The possibilities are endless…

Chelsea Mitchell, Holland America Line

Until recently, cellphone service wasn’t available at sea on cruise ships since most cell phone reception towers are land-based. However due to satellite reception, cell phone service is now available on board the majority of cruise ships.

With geo-location services on smart phones, the cruise industry can take advantage of mobile advertising featuring cruises departing from local ports.

For example, with Google advertising, cruise lines can geo-target mobile users specifically in San Diego, CA with ad copy like “Cruise roundtrip San Diego from $699.”

Another opportunity with geo-related mobile services is creating a smart phone application that suggests shore excursion activities based on a cruise passenger’s geographical port location.

This application will allow cruise passengers to access this application and easily find activities ashore.

Lastly, and presumably the more obvious opportunity, is leveraging social media with geo-location cellphone services to build brand awareness and buzz.

For instance, Cruise lines can leverage the FourSquare idea to add their ship names or create their own application so when passengers embark.

Even though cell phone service is available on board most cruise lines, it is expensive. Call, text, and data services are billed at rates similar to International roaming fees.

However with sales of smartphones increasing every year, cell phone service rates aboard cruise ships may change.

Joanna Cheok, Tourism New Zealand

Geo-location services allow destination marketing organisations to reach travellers and potential travellers directly and influence travel decisions.

Our role could be bringing tourism operators together, creating local partnerships and bundling deals.

With geo-location, Tourism New Zealand has an opportunity to use the functionality on Newzealand.com as a base for a mobile application. Travellers to New Zealand could pre-load their travel diaries and view them on the go.

Based on location, we could send suggestions of what to do and offers for geo-tagged tourism operators from our database.

Visit PA has done a great job with their Foursquare partnership and quality checked tips.

New Zealand’s challenge is the lack of mobile internet access, due to the geography of our landscape. Currently, travellers would only be able to use these services mainly in cities. Roaming fees are another limiting factor for those travelling to New Zealand.

Services like Foursquare and Gowalla are only reaching a small subset of the online population and still need a critical mass of users to be effective.

Twitter and Facebook have the best chances at making location-sharing common behaviour and we’ll be watching developments between these services before deciding where to place resource.

Kim Maier, BCD Travel

The travel industry is learning that location-based networking apps are not a fad, but rather an opportunity to be capitalized on.

It is a new way to incentivize corporate travelers and influence purchasing patterns through gaming techniques.

These strategies are proving to be effective in many sectors of consumerism and are trickling into the world of corporate travel via tools like Topguest – a free service that gives you real rewards and program points for your check-ins.

Other gaming incentives include loyalty rewards for checking-in at gates, terminals and specific airlines.

While there are great expectations for traveler friendly apps such as Gowalla and Foursquare, traditional corporate travel account managers are anything but enthused.

Just as Orbitz and other public online booking tools enabled travelers to make more decisions on their own, geo-location apps could likely disjoin corporate travelers from travel policy, for example, purchasing outside of policy solely for the purpose of accumulating rewards.

However, it is to the advantage of travel companies to adopt a strategy that embraces these tools – travelers are using them regardless of corporate policy.

By creating a living record of our world through geo-location apps, corporate travel companies will have the ability to track activity, target advertising and reward and incentivize better than policy behavior via gaming mentality.

Anna Li, Orbitz

As is relates online travel agencies, geo location services on mobile present opportunities to market to specific locations as well as target consumers with more relevant messaging.

In order to do so, OTAs such as Orbitz will require robust mobile sites and/or smart phone applications that will be able to read the geo locations captured from the mobile devices.

Relevant display banners can then be delivered to consumers on their mobile devices, such as travel deals originating from their location.

Additionally, geo-location services offer a great opportunity for OTAs to cross-sell attractions and services.

While traveling, consumers could be able to search & book attractions, such as theater, tour and concert tickets based on their current location.

This would be especially useful to those consumers that do not purchase in advance but would like to avoid lines.

OTAs also have the opportunity to offer consumers added value, similar to our Orbitz Care Alert service in which travelers can receive up-to-date travel conditions information.

The geo-location service could allow travelers to view any pertinent delays, weather & traffic information that may impact their travel en route. Alternatively, consumers may opt for alerts to be proactively pushed out to them through their mobile device, including nearby hotel deals or area offers on attractions or other services.

OTAs would ultimately be involved in all phases of traveling, from researching to booking to the experience of the trip while it is in process, thereby earning a customer’s brand loyalty.

Sarah Kennedy, Sabre

Location-based services have already been integrated into industry-leading travel apps like TripCase to connect relevant offers with nearby travelers in real-time. Additional mobile travel tools like Yelp and TripAdvisor offer real-time reviews, augmented reality guides and virtual concierges for travelers around the globe.

These tools are mind-blowing, regardless if discovered in 1990 or 2010.

However, what mind-blowing can’t articulate is the long-term revenue potential for these tools in our industry to-date. My apologies to the startup warriors currently rolling their eyes at my mention of revenue right off the bat. I know it’s not all about money on day one – customer problems take time to solve.

But let there be no doubt – revenue is sexy. It benefits your customers through your ability to reinvest in meeting their evolving needs, and it reaffirms for those with a vested interest what potential your vision could realize.

In this decade, clearly defining the needs these location-based tools can meet and how that helps realize revenue long-term is crucial for the Gowalla’s and Brightkite’s of the world to avoid a short-lived day in the geo-location based sun.

For end-consumers, needs that geo-location services can help meet are abundant. Most importantly, consumers increasingly are dissatisfied with the travel shopping experience.

Geo-location offers invaluable data and resulting increase in advertising relevance to improve the shopping experience. And for corporate travel agents and managers, these tools offer more control and real-time service.

For the former, geo-location check-in data, stored via mobile by these consumers every day, could be used in combination with trip shopping data to uniquely enhance travel advertising relevance before the booking is made.

It combines what Sally Traveler says she wants with what she actually does on a daily basis – that’s priceless. The more targeted and relevant the ads are for the consumer, the more likely that consumer lead is to convert, and the more the advertiser is willing to pay the technology provider for that lead. Win – win – win.

(For example, Sally Traveler’s online hotel shopping history combined with her Foursquare check-in data for the last year could improve hotel advertising relevance based on: proximity to top coffee shop preference, favorite restaurant type, nearby art museums and/or shopping malls.)

For the latter, an opportunity I personally hope becomes more prevalent is increased female business traveler safety via mobile safety check-ins, traveler safety notification tools, heat-mapping to identify nearby predators, and exit route mapping unique to each hotel and floor where the traveler is located.

The continued adoption of GPS-enabled smart phones will support these potential growth areas, and both will be primarily monetized through the evolution of “advertising” into “personalized recommendations.”

This evolution improves the shopping experience for a traveler prior to booking, no matter from where or with what device they chose to book.

Relevance is the linchpin, qualified leads come as a result and high-margin travel advertising revenue then begins to flow – the sexiest revenue of all.

Sian Martin, Hyatt

Location based services are new and exciting, and offer a world possibilities, but figuring out how to use LBS in the hospitality industry is top of mind for those of us who are trying to meet the demand of this social media dominated world.

With less than five percent of people in the U.S. using geolocation services, according to a recent Forrester Research study, why are we spending so much time trying to understand it and perfectly execute our strategy? Because, the world is social media.

How can the hospitality industry utilize LBS? FourSquare is an opportunity for individual hotels to spotlight promotions at the property’s bar or restaurant, extending the “Mayor” badge to those who check-in, helping a hotel to create a fan base or “regulars,” and especially attract those that are social media influencers.

Most importantly, LBS helps us better understand and provide for our customers. For example, enter your location on your phone and find: a map to the nearest hotel when your flight is cancelled, a map of local joints for those interested in really getting to know the city, or a map of child friendly activities for the traveling family.

Having these services available, mostly via apps, to guests is now and will continue to be a priority.

As long as people continue to disclose where they are at any given moment, we have to make sure we’re there also, in some virtual shape or form.

Who and what are you (including personnel and backgrounds)?

TruPrice has four founding members with very distinct areas of responsibility.

Our backgrounds reflect significant aviation and travel industry expertise through a combination of long-time airline employment, elite frequent flyer status, or extensive airline technology experience. In addition, we also have several external advisors with substantial industry background.

What financial support did you have to launch the business?

The initial funding for TruPrice came mostly from its founders and was used for development and bootstrapping the launch.

What problem are you trying to solve?

Our goal is to fill a consumer, corporate, and B2B demand by aggregating and creating displays of accurate, ancillary travel-related fees in a dynamic environment.

Describe the business, core products and services?

TruPrice is a consumer and business solution that combines technology algorithms and mined fee data as scalable products.

Fees and technology can be customized to meet a particular business’s demographics based on demand and/or can be used on a much wider basis by the travelling public.

Who are your key customers and users at launch?

B2B solutions include corporate travel departments using TruPrice data to track business trip expenses and itemization and enable travel budget forecasting and prediction.

Travel agents can integrate TruPrice fee data into their ability to quote accurate, comprehensive trip pricing with all fees included with base fares and taxes allowing them to offer their customers the most efficient travel experience with all-inclusive pricing.

And, the flying public can conduct transparent comparisons of all-in pricing on their travel choices prior to purchase.

Also contemplated are partnerships with vendors using TruPrice data to enable predictive consumption patterns thus aiding in controlling inventory through just-in-time supply chain decisions and meeting customer needs on a more personal level. We see unlimited expansion opportunities.

Did you have customers validate your idea before investors?

In many cases, discussions with potential investors were in fact discussions with customers as TruPrice routinely was hailed by everyone we spoke with as a B2B and B2C solution with limitless application and growth potential.

Everyone, to a person, from whom we solicited advice and financial guidance said of our idea: “I could definitely see the demand for TruPrice and I’d use it myself.”

What is the business AND revenue model, strategy for profitability?

The business model is comprised of bundled (no pun intended) technology and data solutions for seamless integration into existing travel forecasting and budgeting technologies.

The same applies for the travel agent population. This can be accomplished through a partnership with one or more Global Distribution System (GDS) providers or through direct sale to interested parties.

On the B2C side, TruPrice.net, with GDS fare and schedule availability, will offer opportunities for click-through revenue, and to a lesser extent advertising revenue, as a one-stop travel decision portal.

In any scenario, we are both a technology solution provider and fee data provider.

SWOT analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?

Strengths:

• Agility and innovation: Unlike the cumbersome corporate environment of many of the monoliths that serve the travel sector, TruPrice is extremely nimble and can provide customized solutions and get them quickly to market. This provides tremendous opportunity to meet specific sector needs.  It also allows TruPrice to expand its offerings – for example, ancillary fees in multiple consumer-related areas, to meet the growing market paradigm of unbundling.

Weaknesses:

• Airlines and other travel providers could begin re-bundling or make fees so conditional that the proper identification of them under most scenarios would become extremely difficult.  TruPrice accesses information from publicly available sources such as corporate Websites, contracts of carriage, in-flight magazines, and press releases. If major travel providers began consciously hiding their fees or making fee rules so complex as to be undecipherable, the data mining process would be compromised.

Opportunities:

• There is a substantial void in the areas of consumer, business, and travel technology.  TruPrice’s solutions enable  access to accurate, ancillary fee data customizable to existing technology platforms. From travel agents to corporate travel planners to meta-search engines and even OTAs, without accurate fee data, the consumers of travel information are making full purchases with partial information. Our technology solutions and fee data fill that void.
• Plenty of markets and industries which have ancillary fees: airlines, rental cars, hotels, ticket resellers, credit cards, etc.
• Growth opportunities into other ventures

Threats:

• Potential competition: OTA and metasearch engines.
• Regulatory framework changes: current legislation in the United States is framed to force airlines to be more transparent about their fees. While the language now pertains primarily to baggage and to the airlines’ specific Websites, full disclosure of all ancillary fees to the GDSs may be the next area targeted by legislators. We consider this highly remote, but still possible.

Who advised you your idea isn’t going to be successful and why didn’t you listen to them?

No one [with background in this industry] said that the venture is not going to be successful. Some of them did mention potential issues (the kinds that would be filed under SWOT Weaknesses/Threats), but no one pulled a ‘hard stop’ on the venture concept itself.

What is your success metric 12 months from now?

Our goal is market penetration and continued supremacy as the most comprehensive provider of ancillary fee information for multiple industries.

We are the globe’s first provider of comprehensive, dynamic airline fee information.  We will work hard to maintain that lead.

We see fertile ground in several sectors where fee aggregation and parallel technology solutions can be monetized both to the private and public sector.

We are positioning TruPrice to be a verb as well as a noun.  One year from now, everyone should be TruPricing their airfare, their rental cars, their…

As the strategy develops, that ellipsis will replaced by even more commas.

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

• Net revenue – Euro 1,379.3 million (up 11.9% from Euro 1,232.6 million y/y).
• EBITDA – Euro 556.7 million (up 19.9% from Euro 464.2 million y/y).
• Adjusted profit – Euro 246.8 million (up 38% from Euro 178.8 million y/y).

Divisions:

• GDS revenue – Euro 1,037.0 million (up 9.8% from Euro 944.9 million y/y).
• IT revenue – Euro 299.9 million (up 20.9% from Euro 248.0 million y/y).
• Opodo revenue – Euro 53.7 million (up 5.8% from Euro 50.8 million y/y).

David Jones, president and CEO of Amadeus, says:

“These results are underpinned by an encouraging growth in distribution bookings compared with the same period last year, coupled with the continuing evolution of our IT business.

“Our transaction-based model is both robust and profitable, and has shown that it can quickly benefit from a recovery in travel worldwide. We look forward to the remainder of the year with confidence.”