Travel Weekly Blog

Bing UK created a good visual search of prime ministers for the state opening of Parliament today (you'll need to install Silverlight) - and it turns out there's one for travel destinations too.

(Visual Search isn't an open-ended tool at this stage, there are just a handful of galleries that Bing has developed itself.)

It's a story best told with screengrabs:

So the first big problem is picture selection. While there are obvious ways to visually differentiate UK prime ministers (their faces) it isn't always that simple with travel. The enlarged section is the thumbnail for Hawai'i's Big Island. A clear visual clue? Not to me.

We drill down using category filters on the left, again enlarged, and get a flat gallery with some text cues. (You can also move up or down in the taxonomy by hovering over an image, which opens up a little sub-menu.)

Subsequent screens resemble this one, but with fewer 'results' as you refine your 'search'.

I use scare quotes because, as I said, this is a static gallery and not a true search tool - but it leads to true search results, because the endpoint of this process is a page of standard Bing results for the image you clicked on.

Hit the thumbnail for Bath, UK, and you'll get...

...organic search results for Bath, UK.

Clearly this is experimental, and it's a nice interface. I'm sure there are some more sophisticated ways it could work in the travel market - 'destinations' is after all as broad as it gets...

Twitterthanks: @alisongow, who retweeted the UK PMs gallery from MSN UK executive producer @peterbale.

Neither of these is hot off the press, but it is worth putting them side by side.

• Top travel sites show poor load times [Travolution]
• Site speed: Google's next ranking factor [Search Engine Land]

The latter refers to organic search results - i.e. the 'proper' results, not the paid-for slots right at the top or over at the side.

Big deal? Well, Google only said they may start using site speed, and Search Engine Land goes on to say:

If I had to guess, page speed would not be a tremendously weighed factor, unless the site takes 90 seconds to load

...and the worst load time in the Gomez study that Travolution reported was 30 seconds. So this isn't going to bring anybody's business down.

But every little helps, and a quick load time is important regardless of SEO impact.

For those who want to improve, econsultancy wrote a quick guide to some of the issues that impact load time in the wake of the Google story. 

• Heathrow is using search to monitor mentions (the first message wasn't an @)
• It is replying (sounds simple, doesn't always happen)
  
• It is replying with details of action - not just platitudes
  

Update: Cambuslangtravel.com now has a bare-bones announcement and a link to ABTA. But the criticisms below still stand... (2pm, August 27)

Cambuslang Travel, which isn't that well known nationally but is a sizeable Scottish agency, has gone down, leaving hundreds of potential lost bookings.

"Fear grips East Kilbride holidaymakers," says a local paper. Let's hope none of those worried holidaymakers tried going to Cambuslang Travel's website for clarification or reassurance, because they would have got this:

Bobcat.

Refresh the site and you'll get another word on roughly the same theme - cue two minutes of chatter as colleagues piped up with "I've got 'jackal'", "I've got 'elf'" and so on. What fun.

Or rather, what an insult to customers caught in the company's wake.

Chloe Berman, who covered the story for us, wrote that

Frustrated holidaymakers have been phoning the company and visiting the two retail shops in Cambuslang and East Kilbride with no success

...so things are no better outside the digital realm. So much for the new age of communication. I've said it before, but it's about the people, not the tools.

If you're affected, your best bet is to contact ABTA, or speak to your credit card provider about recovering your money.

In the profile-based social networking world, things are pretty clear - at least once you're old enough to put MySpace and Bebo out of the picture: it's LinkedIn for business, Facebook for pleasure.

Not so the status-driven world, in which Twitter controls the horizontal and the vertical.

I'll just post these real-life scenarios and leave it hanging...

Scenario 1

You've heard about problems at an airport. You're going to tweet about it anyway, but it could also affect your clients.

Whether or not you think of yourself as a 'brand', the benefits of them hearing about this through you rather than, say, the BBC are obvious.

In this scenario, you want clients following you - they get an extra bit of service at little or no cost to you.

Scenario 2

As everyone does from time to time, you need to blow off some steam. You want to do it within earshot of people who are likely to sympathise.

You're smart enough not to name clients, but you still don't want people to see you moaning about your bookings.

In this scenario, you definitely don't want clients following you.

Third-party clients like Tweetdeck, Hootsuite and Thwirl will help you manage multiple accounts.

Eighteen months on, I still remember reading this article about (literary) character in the Guardian's print edition - not just because I like books, but because it uses a great and transferable phrase of Ford Maddox Ford's: 'to get [a character] in'.

In other words: to show at a stroke who a character is and how he or she operates.

Ford and his friend Joseph Conrad loved a sentence from a Guy de Maupassant story: "He was a gentleman with red whiskers who always went first through a doorway."

Ford comments: "that gentleman is so sufficiently got in that you need no more of him to understand how he will act. He ... can get to work at once."

The phrase came back to me while profiling travel inspiration site Joobili (and on Twitter) for Travolution, because it strikes me that it achieves something comparable.

I'm willing to bet you understood what was going on before you even touched the slider; when the events beneath it shuffle in response to new date parameters, you can't fail to get the point.

The site's designers have 'got it in', and it can 'get to work right away'.

Interestingly, this neat focal point didn't emerge, let alone come centre stage, until the site was in beta - and it was part of a honing process that saw certain features stripped back to allow the site's central premise room to breathe.

NB - Alex Bainbridge tells me on Twitter that there's a technical term for this: affordance.

NB: Don't look for the Travo profile yet - coming in the September issue.

A new report, to be released Tuesday by Forrester Research, found that far from embracing the do-it-yourself era, many consumers were fed up with the complicated process of planning and booking travel

1. These complaints are about complexity, not about online booking per se. The will to book online is there. Used to be that security fears were the big stumbling block, which meant the will wasn't even there. (Though never assume that those days could not return.)
   
   
2. Frustration from what? Slow loading? Poorly-worded instructions? Bad design? They can be fixed, but...
   
   
3. ...does the economic situation mean they won't be? It costs money. Estimates of what all this costs in lost bookings would be interesting.
   
   
4. ...even if they are fixed, is there a bedrock of complexity beyond which we can't go? If so, how close to it have we come?
   
   
5. Seriously though, how good was the study sample at data entry?
   
   
6. Okay, scratch that last one.

Hoping that nobody in travel has paid too much attention to news of the report 15-year-old Matthew Robson penned for Morgan Stanley.

It's rather surprising that a major investment bank is floored by 'teens don't use Twitter,' 'teens don't like advertising' and 'teens prefer to get things for free'. They didn't know those things?

Perhaps most surprising is Morgan Stanley's readiness to treat one 15-year-old's notes as if they are a meaningful sample. The Guardian asked some other teenagers and got different answers.

Ask a third teenager and you'll get a third set of answers. Ask another 997, analyse the data, and you might have something worth reporting.

Okay, this video just shows Dutch start-up Layar using GPS data to display locally relevant results - something any standard GPS software already does (I can do similar stuff with Nokia Maps on my N95, for instance).

But it's doing it with a very appealing interface, isn't it?

It's currently available in the Netherlands for phones using the Android operating system, originally developed by Google. 

Imagine it will be more resource-hungry than alternatives that don't use the camera or have zippy visuals, so battery life may be an issue.

Wonder too how much stress testing they've been able to do - is it going to slow down when faced with the density of bars, restaurants etc in big city centres? 

Thanks to Donald Strachan (@hackneye) on Twitter for the catch - check out his piece on travel apps for the Telegraph.

[Sarcasm begins]

Just so you all know - I'm abandoning Twitter following Harvard findings that 10% of users create 90% of content.

I follow just short of 200 people from all walks of the travel industry, and they regularly share great links and make me think and laugh.

But what good is that now I know there are 9 million people out there not posting at all?

The idea of missing out on all the things they might theoretically post if they were a) part of my community of interest or b) interested in participating is too much to bear.

Some of you might be content to use Twitter to keep up with a sensible number of interesting people, but I was in it for those 10 million voices. Every one.

See you in the print letters pages.

[Sarcasm ends]

On Holiday Group's Steve Endacott helps demo a Microsoft Surface at Travolution Summit 09.

IWOOT... retails at some £8k though. Maybe for Christmas.

Pic courtesy of Travel Rants' twitpic feed.

This is the YouTube channel of a user calling themselves 'MSCCruiseLines'.

Take a close look at the favourites...

Tom Cruise goes crazy? The unfunny truth about Scientology? Some crazy scientology stuff?

Needless to say, this channel isn't anything to do with MSC Cruises. The user has been reposting official MSC vids as replies to other cruise clips, such as ours - which is what brought it to my attention.

A quick call to MSC Cruises UK head of PR (and former TW editor) Sarah Longbottom reveals that there is no official MSC Cruises YouTube channel, though there are nicely curated ones here and here.

How to deal with it? Well, YouTube's T&Cs don't directly deal with impersonating a brand, and a 2007 article on Marketing Sherpa suggests that usernames are basically first-come-first-served. It's unlikely that MSC could expect direct help from YouTube or its owner Google.

The brand whose case is discussed on Marketing Sherpa got this response from YouTube:

We are not in a position to adjudicate the appropriateness of a user's name selection. We do not disable accounts in response to such allegations. We recommend instead that people pursue any claims they may have directly with the user in question.

Speak to your lawyers, in other words, and no doubt the lawyers would (eventually) be able to do something about it - there's clearly a case for saying this brings the brand into disrepute.

Ultimately it's just a minor irritant, and could probably be ignored. But it's another interesting case study on brand protection in the social media badlands...

Interesting phone call from an independent travel agency today (I'm not going to name them, hence the lack of links).

It had launched earlier in the year, and its name was virtually identical to that of a recently collapsed agency in the very same area.

The problem? When you type the new agency's name into Google, the top result is a Travel Weekly story about the old agency going out of business.

The story is factually correct, and clearly dated months before the new agency even opened its doors.

So my caller asked that we clarified the distinction, and I placed a line at the end of the article to reassure any worried consumers who land there (I'm nice like that).

But the request laid bare how much work some small agencies need to do towards understanding and leveraging search. Here's how the decision process could have looked:

1. We want to use this name
2. But it comes with baggage
3. The baggage is archived online
4. We need to make sure we rank above the baggage

That means building a website with ninja SEO, which might incur more cost or manpower than an independent start-up can spare.

But the cost of not doing it, as these guys found, is worried customers.

Ultimately the choice was between keeping the name and spraying cash on SEO consultants, or choosing a different name and saving a few bob.

And while Travel Weekly supports independent agents, we can't fundamentally alter correct stories to mitigate the results of getting that decision wrong.

Like it or not, it's every man for himself on the Google Plains...

Memo to anyone who's still resisting all this webby, bloggy, YouTubey nonsense: HRH now has the drop on you.

That's right, the Queen. That dignified lady of 82 who wears a crown. Think it might be time to admit this stuff has gone mainstream?

Admittedly that goes for some people in the media too...

Nat Torkington at O'Reilly Radar has a counter-intuitive idea: recessions can free techies up to have new ideas rather than chase existing ones.

A recession means technologists cease to be paid vast amounts to duplicate the work of others. The Great Tech Bust of Ought Two gave us 37Signals, Flickr, and del.icio.us and there's a strong argument to be made that many companies spent the next six years chasing what [those companies] created

Friendster was 2002, MySpace 2003, and Facebook 2004. Much direct travel relevance? Maybe not a huge amount, but networking and UGC are definitely developments that have filtered down to our market.

So who knows - Travel Rants asked the other day what the next big thing in travel will be, and maybe it will emerge from the unpleasantly lean years we're about to experience.

(According to Hitwise, another winner of the downturn is BBC business editor Robert Peston, whose search traffic has 'shot up'. Never mind that the eighth most popular search for him is "I hate Robert Peston"...)

Marketing type Ben McConnell has posted some stats on consumers, companies and social media.

They indicate that 43% of Americans think companies should use social networks to solve customers' problems.

And as it happens, I can offer a recent example of a travel brand doing it.

It comes from the lastminute.com twitter feed, which started a largely sceptical discussion on Travolution at launch. Looks like it's bedding in.

So here's lastminute.com responding to PaulWalsh's tweet about problems for users in Ireland; and here's PaulWalsh being grateful.

See? The system works...

Kev has posted this on the Travolution blog. The new site is due to go live very soon . . .

Martin Couzins, managing editor

There were several major incidents abroad over the weekend, including bombs in Istanbul and India and forest fires on Rhodes.

Not all of these affected tourists, but they will fuel the debate over how operators communicate with holidaymakers who are caught up in, or are staying close to, incidents abroad.

The penetration of mobile devices makes SMS messaging an obvious solution (see our recent feature on new mobile services for travel companies) and technology providers like Travel Buddy are helping operators to send information direct to holidaymakers in resort.

With terrorism still high on the agenda and extreme weather events apparently on the rise, you can imagine SMS updates from operators becoming commonplace in the coming years. Is it something TW Blog readers want to see - and would you pay a premium for it?

Check out the Whiz Freedom which according to the manufacturer is "the world's first antibacterial and hydrophobic urine director". The video says more than words can describe . . .

Martin Couzins, managing editor

Ages ago I waxed sceptical about travel agencies using 'holodecks' to demo destinations - an idea floated by the then TUI new media director Graham Donoghue (now at travelsupermarket.com).

I cited technical limitations:

In the unlikely event that the technology is able to completely mask the walls and contours of the room, it would require the customer to stay stock still, since moving around would leave them suffering from simulator sickness and/or a bump on the noggin from one of the now-invisible walls.

Well, I have two-and-a-half words for you: omni-directional treadmill.

Set phasers to 'aaaah'...

Nathan Midgley, web producer

The search for the ideal travel guide model continues. Technorati founder David L Sifry is working on Offbeat Guides, kind of a cross between desktop publishing and content aggregation:

From the information you tell us, we can create a guide that includes events in the city you are visiting when you're there, the most current exchange rates, key phrases in the city's language, and even a weather forecast based on your travel dates!

The guide then comes as a pdf or hard copy. (I actually suggested something similar on TW Blog a while ago, but I think I'd have had a harder time securing funding and developers than Sifry.)

Pricing runs from $9.95 for a pdf of your custom guide to $29.95 for a hard copy and pdf ($24.95 for beta testers).

It will be interesting to see how this model works - pushing the hard copies will involve distribution costs that most travel guide sites don't have to worry about, particularly if Offbeat Guides wants to reach an international audience.

I'd imagine Offbeat Guides will also take revenue from content partners. The About page says it is already pulling in content from about two dozen 'really great' sources, but it would probably need more than that to maintain profitability and a good content proposition.

It seems unlikely display advertising will have any place in the mix, but we'll have to wait and see.

Anyway, Offbeat Guides is in beta - I'm waiting on an invitation - and is probably one to keep an eye on, if only for Sifry's pedigree... (via Triphow)

Nathan Midgley, web producer

Is this a good or a bad thing? Go holiday hunting on Flexibletrips and then hit search. While you wait for the results you get a minimal version of the classic video game Breakout.

See the dot and paddle at the bottom of the screen grab - told you it's minimal.

I enjoyed the game, but then wondered why it took so long to return the search results.

Good thing: a great way to while away the time waiting for the search results
Bad thing: the search results should not take so long you can squeeze in an old school video game.

Martin Couzins, managing editor

TW is at the Travolution Summit today. Highlights have included a talk by Robert Torres, Google MD of advertising and marketing for the North American travel sector, and an onstage interview with Steve Hafner, co founder and CEO of Kayak.

The audience has just been treated to a demo of an application that has been developed by BA.com - based on pictures, maps etc. No transaction elelment until the end of the process - very good-looking but still in development. Could be live some time this year.

Intriguingly BA.com general manager Carsten Willert said BA is working on a blog for senior execs to communicate with consumers...

Martin Couzins, online editor

The Guardian's Vicky Baker is travelling around south America using people she meets in social networking sites as her guide. What I found interesting was that this week she managed to hook up with someone through A Small World, which is a networking site for the rich.

That was some feat to get in there - unless Vicky is loaded.

And there are other similar sites too, such as Yacht6. It would seem that the long tail of travel, Travolution's ongoing project, is a wealthy one. Mercedes-Benz, for example, has just signed up to A Small World as a commercial partner.

There's a new travel start-up every day, but Zicasso is worth flagging up because it exploits the expertise of - gasp! - travel professionals.

Zicasso takes your trip requirements, pings them off to pre-approved agents and tour operators, and hits you with up to four costed itineraries. The whole thing takes a day or two.

Earlier this year I asked Travolution readers how small travel agencies with limited technology resources can sell their expertise to customers who can't or won't go along to a shop (here's my pick of some of the responses).

A service like Zicasso clearly isn't the whole answer, but couldn't it help?

(Via the Dot Tourism blog.)

Nathan Midgley, web producer

Interesting point on whether menu options on web sites will soon disappear . . . and how search will develop on travel web sites.

Keep up to date with Travolution blogger's live blogging from Phocuswright at ITB.

This week is show time in Berlin with the huge travel show ITB and its integral travel technology conference Phocuswright.
This year Phocuswright includes a Bloggers Summit featuring panel discussions and sessions.

Basically, Europe's travel bloggers are in Berlin to look at what they do and how they see things developing. There is an impressive list of bloggers taking the panel slots and we at TW Blog are proud to say that Kevin may at Travolution is representing the UK.

Here are other panellist bloggers:
Jens Thraenhart - Tourism Internet Marketing (Germany/Canada)
Klaus Hildebrandt - FVW (Germany)
Annalisa Ballaria - Reflections (Italy)
Claude Benard - Les Explorers (France)
Stephen Joyce - Travel and Tourism Technology Trends (Canada)
Dr Klemens Waldhör - Blogs in Tourism (Austria)
Yeoh Siew Hoon - The Transit Cafe (Singapore)
Henri Roelings - Hospitality (The Netherlands)
Ram Badrinathan - Phocuswright (India)
William Bakker - Wilhelmus (The Netherlands/Canada)
Vicky Brock - Tracking Tourism (Scotland)
Joe Buhler - Travel Marketing In The Age Of Web 2.0 and Beyond US
Jens Oellrich - Tourismuszukunft.de (Germany)
Karin Schmollgruber - Fastenyourseatbelts (Austria)

Darren at Travel Rants is also attending the conference. Looking forward to seeing what gets discussed . . .

Martin Couzins, online editor

That's what I asked the panel (pictured) at last night's Travolution Question Time, held at the lovely Charlotte Street Hotel. Thanks to Travolution for letting Travel Weekly get a question - the last one of the night in fact.

The answers to the questions were interesting in the fact that all of the panel apart from one would so something different to what they are currently doing. This is what they would like to do:

Alan Josephs, Ebookers: set up a vertical search company.

Kristie Goshow, Jumeirah Hotels: a widget to enable users to move their profiles from one online community to another.

Steven Freudmann, ITT: set up an online travel agency.

Chris Roe, Virgin Holidays: set up a destination marketing company.

Kevin Edwards, Affiliate Window: set up an affiliate network.

Pic Credit: Andy Huntley

Martin Couzins, online editor

This is a plug as Travel Weekly and Travolution are media partners for this year's Travel and Technology Show, being held at Earl's Court 2 on 5/6 Feb. Kev over at Travolution has set up a blog dedicated to the show, so if you want to find out all the news, why you should attend, who is saying what etc, you know where to go.

There is a strong seminar programme plus more than 120 exhibitors - so lots to see and do. Hopefully see you there.
Martin Couzins, online editor

Security firm Websense has published a list of the top 10 online security threats for the year ahead. If you run a web site this will be of interest. Looks like social networking sites could be in for trouble. The Beijing Olympics tops the list.
martin Couzins, online editor

Beta site qdos.com is offering adults that live in the UK the opportunity to measure their internet status. All you have to do is put in your name and postcode and then it gives you a number - and this is your status. Your status is based on: popularity, impact, who you know and individuality. Could this be ultimate online vanity or just a way to get hold of your postcode?
Martin Couzins, online editor

Big congrats to Kev for Travolution's place in The Times 50 best travel sites for 2007.

It's a list worth a look. These are the sites to look out for in 2008, according to The Times.

WorldReviewer.com
CruiseCritic.co.uk
Travelmag.co.uk
Travelintelligence.net
Gowander.com

Martin Couzins

If I told you that Google (yes, them again) had announced a tie-up with a petrol pump manufacturer, would you believe me?

Of course you would. Rightly so: a new deal will see Google Maps delivered through the 'Applause' media system embedded in certain of Gilbarco Veeder-Root's pumps in the US.

Lost motorists will now be able to find and print directions while replacing the fuel they wasted driving around in circles. Great fit.

Source: Engadget via Gadling.

Nathan Midgley, web producer

Travel Weekly has got itself indexed on Google News, but not without a short and surprising to-and-fro with the omnipotent brand.

Its first response read:

We reviewed travelweekly.co.uk and are unable to include it in Google News. We don't include sites that are purely news aggregators, and we weren't able to find any stories on your site that weren't from outside sources.

And there I was thinking the news team that sits not ten feet away was writing articles for us. Heaven knows what they were really up to.

So back came TW:

We are not a news aggregator...I suspect Google may have based its assessment on one of the daily round-ups of travel news that we publish...there are less than ten of them on the site against over 18,000 original articles...

This did the trick.

Thank you for your reply and for providing us with this additional information about your site. We've reviewed your site again and will be adding it to our index for Google News.

Ultimately, Google's service was pretty good when you take into account how much it must have to process - I know Travolution had a far worse time with the Digg customer service team. But as anyone with a stake in a website will know, being unfairly assessed by the big G is scary stuff...

Nathan Midgley, web producer

Travel Weekly's web producer, Nathan Midgley, is blogging live from today's Travolution Autumn conference in London.

Keep an eye on developments - there are some big names speaking.

Martin Couzins, online editor

Our front page poll this week is on mobile phone use on aircraft. Ofcom gave the technology the thumbs-up last week, though it will be up to airlines whether or not to implement it.

Either way, there is a lot of strong feeling about this - a Yougov poll found that the majority are opposed to it, and the Telegraph is running a petition against mobile use in the air.

Those in favour are making less noise (isn't it always the way?) but I'm sure they're out there.

It'd be interesting to know how opinion is divided among Travel Weekly readers, so cast your vote on the homepage...

Nathan Midgley, web producer

Kevin, editor of our sister title Travolution, predicted in his current editorial that Travo's 'Power Edition' - listing the 50 most powerful people in online travel - would attract some controversy.

Guess what?

An open thread on the topic attracted over 20 comments in one day - some by the dreaded 'anonymous'. Worth a read.

The Global Language Monitor has published the top 10 Most Confusing (yet widely used) High Tech Buzzwords for 2007.

And here they are:

iPOD
Flash (as in Flash Memory)
Nano
Cookie
Kernel
Megahertz
Cell (as in Cell Phone)
Plasma (as in Plasma Television)De-duplication
De-duplication
Blu-Ray

Martin Couzins, online editor

The Guardian has an article on 'Personal Rapid Transport' systems - an approach to public transport based on networks of private, driverless pods that you use rather like taxis.

The ULtra PRT system, developed by Advanced Transport Systems, will be piloted at Heathrow, where it will ferry users between the car park and Terminal 5 when the latter opens next year.

BAA signed an agreement with ATS back in 2005, and if the system comes together the airport operator could end up with a £7.5 million equity investment in the company - so if this works at Heathrow it could well be introduced at other BAA airports.

Here are some mock-ups from the ATS site:

Advanced Transport Systems Ltd | atsltd.co.uk

Nathan Midgley, web producer

My faith in customer service and the human condition has been restored today. Following video work on MS Prinsendam yesterday, I managed to leave the bag of video kit on my train to work.

Once I had realised I rushed down to Sutton station where the staff called through to stations further down the line to see if the bag had been handed in. They also asked for someone to check the carriage when it had reached the end of the line.

No news from all that. It all went quiet for an hour or so and then Tony Louth called. He was the driver of the train who had found the bag, opened it up and clocked the large Travel Weekly stickers on the kit.

I was reasonably happy to take his call informing me he had the camera. Here is the man.

Thanks to Southern station staff at Sutton for all your help. And thanks to Tony for saving my bacon.

Congrats to Kevin and Tricia on Travolution. The latest issue is an indepth look at how different age groups interact with travel brands on the internet and it includes loads of exclusive research. Well worth a read.

While wandering around Google Earth (Just like Earth, but without the noise and odour^TM) TW Blog was astonished by the number of 3D buildings on display in Hamburg.

A few searches later I discovered that the 'virtual city' is the brainchild of Hamburg@Work, a 'joint initiative of the city and private business'. More in this Spiegel article (via Google Earth Blog).

A bit over the top? At least it guarantees accuracy. In most cities buildings are added piecemeal by independent users, and that's how mutant clock towers happen.

Eek. Should UK cities follow Hamburg's example, or is a well-crafted Google Earth presence sheer vanity?

Travel Weekly is always on the look out for pics of our print title being read in unexpected places. But we have stiff competition from Travolution. Check out this film of a Travo reader taking the mag for a skydive. Kev, who is your crazy reader?

Tim Elkington over at Enhance Media is running a test to check a person's e-credentials. It's for a good cause so find out how E you are.

I scored 65 which makes me an e-vangelist but I only ranked 3,220th out of 11,325.

TW Blog was subscribing to a few cruise feeds yesterday when something appeared that made me choke on my tea.

Here comes a wicked whisper...

• Which cruiseline's community portal community site dedicated to a particular cruiseline is inadvertantly publishing adult spam in its RSS feed?

We will be contacting the company to notify them - there should be some follow-up in Travolution.

UPDATE: Kevin at Travo has contacted the cruiseline, who are naturally horrified but inform us that the site is run by an independent agent - I've altered this post and its headline accordingly. More soon.

Nathan Midgley, web producer

Fans of the Lonely Planet guide series will know that it recently launched a download service called Pick & Mix, allowing travellers to buy single chapters.

Lonely Planet's Tom Hall sent me a couple of samples, and they do what it says on the tin - you get exactly what you would in the full book, including a few small maps, in a pdf format.

They don't include any photography, but that will keep the file size down and make the documents easier to print - and Lonely Planet guides aren't picture-heavy anyway.

Static, professionally written travel content is under pressure online, so I asked Tom whether Pick & Mix is a direct response to competition from the likes of Tripadvisor and Wikitravel:

Free content is one component of an increasingly competitive market for travel information, comprised of traditional print and and new online competitors. The strong and varied competition is one of many reasons to try new approaches, such as Pick & Mix.

Most travellers are familiar enough with guidebooks to have a strong sense of what they need, and now they generally expect to get what they want, when they want it. My own feeling is that successful products like iTunes have really contributed to changing expectations.

It will be interesting to see how much success this has. I was critical when the Telegraph lauched downloadable city guides earlier in the year, and I still think the format has problems - but it's a step in the right direction, and the LP brand has enough firepower to carry it off.

Any thoughts from readers?

Nathan Midgley, web producer

Over at Travolution Kevin recently posted the results of the title's first Facebook poll.

It asked users where they go to find out about travel deals, and it will be no surprise to find that travel websites weighed in at 77%.

Social networking sites only accounted for 2%, but given the growing number of travel networking sites there is likely to be some overlap that isn't accounted for here.

Agents? They took 10% - the same amount as recommendations from family and friends, which may be great when planning a trip but not much use when it comes to finding the right package at a good price.

Travo plans to run a new Facey B poll every week, so keep your eyes peeled.

Nathan Midgley, web producer

Travel is the sector most at risk of losing sales as a result of negative consumer reviews posted online.

So says recent research by Tamar, as reported on Hotelmarketing.com (tip of the hat to Buhlerworks for the spot).

Apparently 58% of consumers would abandon a travel purchase based on negative reviews on a forum or social network.

That's more than would abandon a consumer electronics purchase (in second place with 51%).

Joe Buhler comments:

...travel purchase is often a higher expense and more importantly the product can't be tried before consumption, unlike a TV, camera or DVD player

So keep those service levels high if you want to avoid getting stung. And if you can't keep your service good, at least keep an eye on your online reputation...

Nathan Midgley, web producer

Confession: Second Life has always got on my nerves. So I am taking malicious pleasure in the news that Starwood is closing its Virtual Aloft hotel.

What's my problem with the supposedly all-conquering role-playing game? Well, it sorely lacks focus, and that makes two things happen.

Firstly, it gradually bores straight-laced users, who want purpose (these are the people who are choosing streamlined Facebook over chaotic MySpace).

Secondly, it attracts users who want the freedom to do freaky stuff.

Sure enough, the Relactions blog reports some research by one Ian Schafer of online marketing firm Deep Focus:

[Schafer] started at the Aloft hotel and found it empty. He moved on to casinos, brothels and strip clubs, and they were packed. Schafer found that "one of the most frequently purchased items in Second Life is genitalia."

Ech. And apparently usage of and economic activity in SL are showing signs of decline - while usage of social networking sites continues to explode.

So.. a future for travel in Second Life? Or will the game slowly become the preserve of programmers and fantasists alone?

Nathan Midgley, web producer

Came across a new travel startup while browsing TechCrunch - Yapta allows you to bookmark fares you're interested in, then compare and track them from its desktop software.

Price comparison is already pretty well covered by sites such as Travelsupermarket.com, but they only pull in data when you run a search; the idea of Yapta is to display real-time updates, rather like an air fare RSS reader.

Tracking prices helps you get hold of fares at their cheapest, also the aim of fellow US startup Farecast, which uses historical data to predict when prices will rise or fall.

But should you miss out on the lowest price, Yapta has another trick up its sleeve. Says TechCrunch:

If you make a purchase by clicking through to the airline or travel site from Yapta, they’ll continue to monitor the price. If it falls, they’ll ping you and suggest you contact the airline for a refund or flight coupon. All airlines offer these on price drops but few consumers follow up...

The downside, of course, is that both Yapta and Farecast are US services and still in development - so not much practical use to us in the UK. But they're interesting and a glimpse of how holidaymakers could be shopping for flights in the coming years.

Nathan Midgley, web producer

Boeing unveiled its long-awaited 787 Dreamliner yesterday (07/08/07 - geddit?) in an elaborate ceremony at the manufacturer's Everett, Washington base.

The Boeing Company

The extensive media coverage will be welcome to Boeing after European rival Airbus grabbed the limelight by closing an astonishing number of deals at the Paris Air Show last month, including many orders for the A350 WXB, its hitherto troubled answer to the Dreamliner.

You'll know the Dreamliner pitch by now: the body is mostly carbon fibre, so it's lighter; it uses 20% less fuel than comparable aircraft; it's also rather nice to look at.

All good stuff, although the environmental lobby is already speculating that the 787's low operating costs will encourage airlines to buy and fly more of them, effectively negating the aircraft's fuel-efficiency benefits.

We'll see. Cheap to operate it may be, but its technical advances apparently make it a headache to manufacture, so concerns about 787s buzzing around like fruit flies are perhaps a little premature.

Personally, of all the pin-up aircraft currently making their way to market it's the Dreamliner I'm keenest to fly on, because I think the enormous windows are a great enhancement to passenger experience. But then I've never been an aisle man...

The Boeing Company

There's some video knocking around on the web, though nothing I can embed unfortunately - have a look at this Dreamliner search on Truveo for some of the best.

Nathan Midgley, web producer

There's an episode of South Park called "The Simpsons Already Did It" in which every idea that the character Butters comes up with is met with the titular phrase.

It's easy to feel that way when new travel community sites pop up.

So the cynic in me winced at news that Cheapflights VP head of international Hugo Burge is joining this crowded space with Hereorthere.com, a place for (all together now) sharing and rating travel experiences.

The start up says: "Our mission is to uncover the secret source of travel inspiration. We are on a mission to make it easy, enjoyable and fast to share your travel experiences!"

Simpsons did it.

To be fair one feature did strike me: the ability to filter reviewers by 'lives here' and 'tourist here' on destination pages. Nice.

Hereorthere also promises 'a long list of plans to create innovative tools,' and a tie-up with Cheapflights is obviously a possibility. So you never know: my cynicism might come back to bite me.

Nathan Midgley, web producer

Right on cue after the iffy 'stay away from agents' advice published on MSN last week (read reactions by Travel Weekly and on Travel Rants) Classic Collection Holidays managing director Nick Munday emails this piece of virtuoso sarcasm...

My barber recently told me of a fantastic idea he'd had that would completely revolutionise the hairdressing industry: Haircutonline.com.

The benefits to the customer would be immense, he assured me. A new style and cut would be just a click away!

Step 1: Download your choice of style. As a convenience to its customers Haircutonline.com would only make three basic styles available online owing to the difficulty of certain haircuts.

Step 2: Grab your scissors and follow the online instructions. At this point a flashing disclaimer would warn the customer that as Haircutonline.com was acting solely as an agent, rather than a principal, it could not be held responsible for any accidents that might occur during the process.

And the greatest benefit of all? Haircutonline.com cuts out the middleman, saving the average male customer a massive £7.00!

While telling me this my barber gave me a cut that was executed with all the expertise and experience that a professional acquires during years of personal service, and which seemed such good value for money at just £7.00.

I wondered whether he had been sniffing too much setting lotion, or been reading up on the benefits of bed-banks and dynamic packaging. Was it purely a coincidence that I went home and registered the domain name Dontbookyourholidayonline.com?

Nick Munday, managing director, Classic Collection Holidays

How refreshing that the US city of Chicago has asked pioneering DJ of house music Frankie Knuckles to produce a visitor's guide to the music and nightlife highlights of his home town - the birthplace of house music and the blues capital of the world.

Frankie's MyChicago podcast enables you to listen to one of his tracks whilst he guides you to his favourite places in the windy city.

Being a house music fan I like the fact Chicago is referencing more recent musical genres - moving it on from simply a blues city. What a great way to enagage 30 something visitors.

So who else would you like to see podcasting a destination? I'd like to be guided around London by Soul II Soul . . . are my musical preferences showing my age?

Martin Couzins, acting editor

In the light of Travel Weekly's campaign to highlight fraud in the travel industry, it's interesting to hear about new kinds of secure payment technology - particularly given that 'cardholder-not-present' transactions made online or over the phone are now the main target for fraudsters.

Recent start-up Voice Pay calls you after you've made a remote transaction with your credit card, and checks over 100 features of your voice to get authentication (here's how it works). And it's based on your vocal physiology, so even the best impressionist won't fool it - though in an interview with the BBC a Voice Pay spokesman admitted that bad telephone lines could be a problem.

The Telegraph travel site had a refit last week, gaining a snazzy map interface that lets you drill down to country-specific content. Also new is a series of downloadable destination guides.

While the map is a great feature, for me the guides are doomed to be neither fish nor fowl.

If they flag up the newest and trendiest attractions they have a short lifespan; if they do the opposite and highlight established hotspots then they have no real point of differentiation.

The problem, basically - and it is by no means unique to the Telegraph - is that they are generic and static, and web users can easily access something that is more niche and current.

So, money where mouth is: if I had unlimited resources, how would I use the web to deliver consumer destination guides?

It would be somewhere between content aggregator and desktop publishing software. Users would create their own guides by placing elements on a page using a simple interface - as per services such as MySpace, Ning or Netvibes.

They'd fill those elements with text, images, videos or feeds of their choice; alongside a New York feature from a newspaper might be a New York feed from Gridskipper, or a local weather feed from the BBC. Ideally much of this would come from an integrated content directory.

Finally they'd save the guide to a mobile device, or print a hard copy. Admittedly the latter renders the guide static, but if you're creating or updating it the day before you leave then that isn't a problem.

How does that sound? Or, if you're a Travolution reader, does it already exist?

As I mentioned below the third Travolution Summit conference took place this week. Kev and Tricia have put together a Video Blog from the event, featuring a series of top online travel bods answering one big question: What's the biggest challenge that travel faces in the next 12 months?

There also a small version embedded in the sidebar of our homepage.

Couple of things going on over on the Travolution blog:

First up is the 'Long Tail of Travel' project, which is based on a book and blog by Chris Anderson. His original Long Tail theory, based mainly on book, CD and DVD sales, says that new retail models have the power to squeeze big revenue out of niche product.

The Travo team want to see how the same idea can be applied to the travel market - read the feature, comment on the blog post and email the team if you want to get involved.

Second, check the blog regularly today because Kev and Tricia will be posting live from the third Travolution Conference. They'll also have some video blogs by delegates available towards the end of the week.

US webzine Slate recently ran an article in which writer Tim Wu travelled to Thailand using advice from Wikitravel, the user-generated online guide book based on Wikipedia.

The conclusion? Not much cop. Wu finds the articles 'vague' and the accommodation content thin on the ground. A glance at the London, Berlin and Sydney pages suggests it isn't just the Thailand section that is lacking.

I'm in two minds. Clearly on this occasion Wikitravel hasn't delivered what a guidebook needs to. But there's potential in the Wiki model - given time and engagement it can cover more, do it in more detail, deliver it to more people and deliver it at less cost than any other.

For me there are two questions. First, does the model need more time and more engagement than is realistic? It's all very well having the capacity to do the above, but will it ever happen?

Second, is Wikitravel's basic style and structure, which is characterised by long, flat HTML pages and a simple database taxonomy, appropriate to delivering travel content? Rival online resources like Lonelyplanet.com and Travelgator allow me to search inventories of product - accommodation and tours and what-have-you - in a way that Wikitravel can't.

Have any readers used Wikitravel? What's the verdict?

(In desperation, Wu eventually bought himself a good ol' Lonely Planet book. Cue a link to his article on the venerable brand's blog, which is where I spotted it.)

Nathan Midgley, Travelweekly.co.uk

As is its wont, our sister title Travolution is blogging its socks off from the PhoCusWright at ITB conference in Berlin, with much interesting gossip on Google's rumoured move towards a travel search engine (nicknamed 'Troogle'). New posts are popping up at a rate of two or three an hour, so Kevin and Tricia deserve to be read for their work rate alone...

Travel Weekly's Dynamic Packaging Month starts today, and one of our lead stories concerns the impact of so-called Web 2.0 services on the quality of dynamically packaged product.

On Holiday Group's Steve Endacott has predicted that websites such as TripAdvisor and VirtualTourist, which are driven by user-generated content, will gradually force up standards as consumer reviews expose the industry's 'cowboys'.

Let's hope so, since the travel industry faces quite enough ill will without unscrupulous suppliers damaging its reputation further.

The problem is that such improvements are very difficult to quantify. Consumer review sites have been around for some time, and there is little hard evidence of service or product quality rising in any of the markets in which they exist.

You may also remember the Sunday Times investigation we covered last year, which called into question whether user-driven travel sites can be relied on to deliver authentic opinion (though some of the sites issued a robust defence of their product).

Still, it would be wrong to be wholly cynical - review sites do give consumers a more powerful voice, and Endacott is right to hope suppliers will sit up and listen.

It would be interesting to get some discussion going over what Web 2.0 can and can't deliver in the dynamic packaging space - your thoughts, please, in the comments or on our spanking new dynamic packaging forum.

Nathan Midgley, Travelweekly.co.uk

You are directly threatening the loss of your most valuable customers by imposing costs already included in the price of our tickets and hampering technology that is critical to the efficient functioning of our modern corporate travel programmes.

We urge you to move promptly to conclude your GDS negotiations with your best customers’ concerns top of mind.

...or so says a group of leading corporate travel types, upset at British Airways over its widely rumoured tough negotiating stance with the GDSs.

Full story here, courtesy of Travolution.

Our sister title Travolution is out at the Travel Technology Show and is running a special TTS Blog on which delegates can post their opinions.

Except that so far delegates have proved reluctant to do so. What gives? It's free, it's interesting and you get to meet the nice people at Travo. So if you're going to Earl's Court 2 tomorrow, walk the Web 2.0 walk and write a post for them. The stand is roughly in the middle of the show.

Travel Weekly's acting editor Martin Couzins approached me a few weeks ago with the idea of guest editing a technology special edition to coincide with next week’s Travel Technology Show.

The issue is out today, and while there is a focus on what you all might call ‘technology issues’, what you will read about in its pages is actually something broader.

This week’s Mystery Shopper, for example, puts the leading online travel agency websites to the test; while the lead feature looks at the changing role of agents and operators in the ‘brave new world’ of the Internet.

The Big Interview features arguably one of online travel’s most important men – Google head of travel in Europe Esteban Walther.

But why is it so important to suddenly home in on these issues?

Travolution has spent the last 15 months focusing on the profound changes sweeping the industry, triggered primarily by the power the Internet now has over the lives of consumers.

Take-up rates of broadband are now so high that the Internet is almost a constant presence in the home and workplace, meaning consumers are just seconds away from researching and ultimately booking a holiday.

It’s a controversial statement to make, but there are large parts of the industry that are still dismissive of this fundamental shift in the way people now interact with each other and travel companies.

To ignore these changes, or fail to recognise how to meet the challenges ahead, could be a truly fatal mistake.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Over at the Travolution blog Kevin has noticed certain similarities between the newly-launched Guardian and Times travel sites.

While some commenters simply damned him for a cynic ("That's not very kind!" cried an aghast John Franks) others opted for bare-faced cheek...

A bit like the new Travel Weekly and the New Statesman, perchance?
Erica Settle

Why, Madam! Naturally, Kev and Travel Weekly's acting ed Martin were duty-bound to respond...

If you've been following the negotiations between British Airways and the GDSs - which could, as we reported yesterday, leave agents lumbered with a £4 charge per sector - head over to the Travolution blog, where Kevin has been chatting to an insider. Apparently walking away isn't on the airline's agenda at all...

Instead, our mole suggests, BA is demanding “unfeasibly large cuts” in their GDS booking fees and, if they don’t get these, threatening simply to add the full GDS booking fee to any bookings made through this channel – which would make GDSs the most expensive way to book BA. And – in fairly short order, you can bet – any other airline.

"Either way," Travo's source eloquently concludes, "it sucks for everyone except BA."

If you’re feeling depressed today, worry not, you’re in good company.

January 22 is the most depressing day of the year, according to one headline-grabbing psychologist who, among other things cites fading memories of holidays as one reason for this being a particularly gloomy start to the working week.

If you’re a travel agent or tour operator, however, there should be a little spring in your step and a glint in your eye that says, today’s the day to sell holidays, to give people something to look forward to.

And with a cold snap with us and no World Cup this year to ride a coach and horses through all your plans to generate forward bookings, operators are heralding the return of the busy early year booking period.

I’m not usually one to take much notice of the kind of psycho babble that prompted this blog but maybe there is something in it. A relative of mine was saying just last night how all she could think about at the moment was where she was going to go on holiday this year.

So while everyone else is moping around, suffering from the effects of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), it is the travel trade’s job to find the motivation, the positive outlook on life to sell them their dream holiday.

Good luck, and hopefully by the time the year’s happiest day come along (June 23) you’ll have sold enough holidays to enjoy yourselves.

Lee Hayhurst, acting news editor [note new title for Lee - Ed]

The winners of the Yahoo! Finds 2006 competition have just been announced.

There are some interesting sites in the travel category, although how travel-related they are is questionable.

Tell us what you think or sites that you find interesting or useful when travelling yourself or advising clients.

Winner

Geograph - The Geograph British Isles project aims to collect pictures and information for every square kilometre of the UK and Eire.

Runners up

Meaningful I to I - A website that brings travellers together: sharing experiences and helping to make the world a better place.

Baby Friendly Boltholes - A website that lists places to go on holiday that are baby-friendly.

Train Delays - A website that aims to make sure that people are reimbursed for their train delays.

Heart Beat Guides - A website that lists downloadable podcasts for travel guides.

[Pic: Sunny Sutton with Travel Weekly Towers in the background]

Martin Couzins, acting editor

Brian Hordon, from Silversea Cruises and one of our regular industry bloggers, writes:

WTM is a remarkable GLOBAL event, and although I know that there are often negative comments within the UK with regard to the cost (travel, hotel, etc), this expense does not seem to deter many agents who travel from all corners of the world on a "one stop" shopping and learning exersise.

I remember a well know travel personality who left the tour operating world and moved into retail; he would attend the last day at WTM with his 4 x 4 and trailer, "helping" our global tourism partners by taking unused quantities of destination material for use in his high street agency.

Actual specifc destination material is often in short supply within the retail arena, and access to these country, resort, hotel brochures can be of real benefit, and can be distributed by agents AFTER the customer has paid the deposit and the booking is confirmed! No free distribution outlet here!

This entire scenario ia actually a communication feature which can be "loaded" into your newsletter, e-mail blast or blog, targeted at YOUR special customer data base.

I would love to hear what other creative activities have been developed by other agents within the trade show arena.

More World Travel Market. Wherever you looked, whatever you read, from the various platforms hosted by the travel and technology experts within our business, the words appeared with remarkable frequency: dynamic packaging, cruising, specialist holidays, long-haul holidays.

This MUST be sweet music to the creative travel agent who has taken a lot of "hit's" during recent years. Is the tide turning I ask?

Brian Hordon, director of training development, Silversea Cruises

With the exception of the public sector's dot-edu and dot-gov, industry-specific top-level-domains have never been conspicuously successful.

Like dot-travel, about which Paul Nelson wrote in Travel Weekly 1 December, dot-info and dot-biz – the two most prominent TLDs launched in recent years – both saw few of the domains registered within them activated.

Several years on, neither of them has achieved a fraction of the public recognition that dot-com has.

Part of the problem with info and biz is that they don’t do what they claim to. Though intended to indicate legitimate businesses and informative websites respectively, their use is completely unregulated.

Dot-travel doesn't have that problem – it is genuinely restricted to travel and tourism – but it will have difficulty shaking the perception that industry TLDs are meaningless at best.

On top of that, I’d argue that using all six letters of ‘travel’ instead of an abbreviation (dot-trl and dot-tvl are both available) breaks one of the Web’s unwritten naming conventions. It risks looking a little awkward and dated, which will not endear it to big new media brands like Lastminute.com.

Are these problems insurmountable? No, because dot-travel is offering peace of mind to anxious online shoppers – a compelling offering for consumers making high-risk purchases such as holidays. It is also slowly but surely winning over tourist boards and destination marketers, particularly in the US and China.

To make sure retailers follow, Tralliance, the company that operates dot-travel, must win round consumers. The domain needs to be marketed convincingly to the public, with explicit backing from the 'independent third parties and industry associations' that participate in its screening process. If that works, there is a chance the trade - and maybe even Lastminute - will follow.

Nathan Midgley, Travelweekly.co.uk

Busy couple of days here.

Last night we hosted a party in Central London to unveil the re-launched Travel Weekly magazine. Reaction has been overwhelmingly positive so far! [Lawrence Assock of Destination Care pictured]

Earlier today, Travel Weekly managing director Trevor Harding handed out copies of the new magazine here at Reed Business Information in Sutton.

All the frenetic activity of the past few months will continue next week at World Travel Market, where we will be out in force with a special stand at ExCel with our new TW Group colleagues, Travolution and Gazetteers Plus.

We will also have our famous WTM dailies, which will be circulated every single day of WTM.

Make sure you drop by to say hello during the course of the event, stand # 1700 in the South Hall.

Probably the one phrase almost certain to send holidaymakers into a panic.

But is Virgin Trains perhaps setting a precedent for the rest of the Branson empire following news today that passengers on a London to Manchester express were asked if they could help the train crew fix a dodgy windscreen wiper on one of its Pendolinos.

Apparently staff were eager to find a passenger with a spare cable tie [standard luggage item for your average rail user these days, of course!] so issued the request.

Remarkably one passenger did actually have a one tucked away in a briefcase but, alas, it was too short to repair the offending wiper, Virgin Trains told the BBC. The train was eventually taken out of service.

The much talked-about new accommodation-only start-up Youtravel.com, which counts the likes of ex-Libra Holidays sales and marketing boss Paul Riches among its senior management team, launched at the weekend.

At first glance on Saturday morning there appeared to be no obvious technical glitches.

Positives: The site has a relatively simple design, making use on the homepage of handy boxed sections for destinations, bookings, sign-ups, suggestions and special offers.

The hotel search tool is as thorough as the user wants it to be, including options for board, facilities, check-in day, et al.

There is also a search-by-weather option – a nice, user-friendly tool that appears to becoming a rather popular piece of functionality following a similar launch by Wegolo earlier this month.

Negatives: more colour, please! [There are plenty of images of hotels and resorts, but often buried way down amongst the – very comprehensive – stack of details for each product]

Comments elsewhere ahead of Youtravel.com's launch pondered how much pay-per-click advertising would be needed in order to take on the reams of other bed banks, such as Hotels.com, Hotelopia.com, Lowcostbeds.com.

Perhaps Riches will tell us soon?

UPDATE: Check some critical comments left on the Travolution Blog by Nick Gassman (BA.com) and Darren Cronian (Travel-Rants).

Kevin May, Travolution editor