Travel Weekly Blog

Jeff Jarvis at Buzzmachine follows up a lengthy post about 'the social airline' with a shorter one about carriers acting as publishers for travel content, mainly UGC reviews.

Imagine if, on return trips, the airlines asked us the hotels where we just stayed and ate and invited us to rate and review them. Imagine if they asked natives to share some inside tips on eating and shopping in their towns.

They have a currency to pay for the information: They could reward us with frequent-flier bonus miles.

It's interesting stuff, so let's take a moment to look at a few of the issues.

Would the system be easy to use?

Physically, it wouldn't be too bad, and would improve with the general standard of IFE interfaces. Virgin America already offers instant messaging, and the post-Blackberry world is no longer intimidated by tiny keyboards. And if laptop use follows mobile use into the cabin, the whole thing becomes even easier.

Would customers be in the right frame of mind to use it?

Yes, if you can get passengers out of the sleep/eat/movie mindset - which wouldn't be too hard, given the way they are used to consuming media on the ground.

One concern is that this would work best on an airline with internet access; and if passengers can access the whole of the internet, will this be compelling enough to hold their attention? Okay, the airline will offer bonus miles - but can rewards drive quality review content?

Is there a benefit for airlines?

The potential benefits are threefold: one, you create customer goodwill and loyalty; two, you capture valuable data; three, you monetize the network, most likely through advertising.

Points two and three are clear-cut, but both depend to an large extent on the success of the network. So it all rests on creating engaged, loyal customers who want to use the service regularly.

The potential for inspiring that kind of loyalty (i.e. both repeat business and repeat use of the social network) is greater among luxury or business travellers, who can and do take their pick of airlines.

But in economy class travel there is an overwhelming trend to choose flights on price, which will only be exacerbated by a possible aviation downturn.

Unless you can provide your network without charging more than the next guy, he'll get the volume business. And if your network isn't getting volume, Metcalfe's Law is against it becoming a success.

So over to you: is this something readers would like to see? And do you think we ever will?

Nathan Midgley, web producer