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Archives for February 2009

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Expedia launches a new behavioural marketing product

Expedia Media Solutions has introduced a new behavioural marketing product called PassportAds.

The product enables advertisers to reach in-market travel consumers throughout the trip purchasing lifecycle. 

According to Expedia, the first programme of its kind in travel advertising, PassportAds anonymously identifies in-market travelers through “explicit” search behaviours, such as a search for hotels in Hawaii.  

It then uses this anonymous search data to build segments of highly qualified travel shoppers, and targets them with controlled frequency throughout their decision-making lifecycle. Unlike typical contextual buys, advertisers can appear in front of these audience segments anywhere online. 

PassportAds builds on the success of Expedia’s bid for placement product, TravelAds. TravelAds uses shopper search behaviour to deliver highly targeted advertising at the point-of-sale. 

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TripAdvisor launches a search engine

TripAdvisor LLC has introduced a search engine that will pull together flight and fare data from multiple airlines and online travel agencies.

According to boston.com, TripAdvisor will now vie in the “meta-search” engine category and it hopes to distinguish itself is a fee estimator enabling customers to figure the cost of checking bags and buying food and headphones into their cost comparisons. 

“Nobody else has been able to give consumers clarity about what's the true cost of travel,” said Bryan Saltzburg, general manager of new initiatives for TripAdvisor. 

“TripAdvisor will be a formidable competitive threat to Kayak,” said Gregory Saks, general manager of travel at Compete. “The most important asset TripAdvisor brings to the market is its user base. TripAdvisor has millions of people on its site that are already planning trips and shopping for travel.” 

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Wyndham Hotel Group announces executive appointments

Wyndham Hotel Group has made a series of leadership appointments and promotions.

The group has appointed Jim Alderman as executive vice president of development, responsible for growing the company’s Wyndham Hotels and Resorts flagship brand globally and its other brands outside of North America. He has joined the company from Starwood Capital Group.

The group also announced that as chief performance officer, Daniel del Olmo will take the lead in setting the company’s strategy and optimising its performance.  In this role, he will be responsible for developing and overseeing the Hotel Group’s long-term growth plan. Del Olmo previously served the company as vice president of strategy and innovation.

The company’s revenue producing functions will be led by Ross Hosking.  As executive vice president of global sales, he will oversee the sales department and hotel operations centers.  Hosking joins the company from Starwood Hotels and Resorts. 

Sean Worker has been promoted from senior vice president to executive vice president of international operations.  He will continue to lead operations functions for Europe, the Middle East and Africa as well as the Asia Pacific region and have indirect responsibility for the communication, coordination and execution of all cross-functional initiatives in those geographic areas.  

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Air New Zealand remains profitable

Air New Zealand posted NZ$24 million (US$12.1 million) in net profit after tax as it shared its results for six-month period ended 31 December 2008.

Net profit after tax was down 79 percent. Operating revenue increased by 3.7 percent or NZ$87 million on the same period last year to NZ$2.4 billion for the first half of the year. Foreign exchange movements contributed to NZ$75 million of this improvement. 

Passenger numbers declined 4.3 percent to 6.3 million, but ANZ’s premium economy and business premier products helped boost yield 12.3 percent on long-haul routes and 6.4 percent on regional routes. Overall yield increased 7.5 percent to NZ13.9 cents. 

Air New Zealand chairman John Palmer said the past six months has been one of the toughest periods airlines have faced.   

“Fuel costs reached unprecedented levels in 2008, with the average spot price increasing 36 percent on the same financial period last year adding an extra $211 million to the fuel bill. This combined with the deterioration in both passenger and cargo demand, as the global credit crisis intensified, has seen the airline deliver an unsatisfactory financial result, despite the management team’s best efforts.”  

Chief executive Officer Rob Fyfe said the key priority remains closely matching supply to demand, while striving to be the market share leader in all our chosen markets. 

“In the first half of 2009, we have taken a proactive approach to capacity management that has been more agile and disciplined than in past industry downturns. In these challenging times, it is not the largest airlines that will outperform, but the ones most responsive to change. 

 “In the last quarter of the financial year we aim to reduce long haul capacity by 14 percent compared with the same period last year.  

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What issues are affecting the online travel industry’s approach to payments?

The travel industry likes a clear ROI and this is why taking payments online more effectively (and potentially more cheaply) is so vital for the continued growth of online travel sales.

With the credit crunch biting, airlines, hotels and intermediaries are looking at how they can further reduce costs and sharpen their competitive edge. Edgar, Dunn and Company estimated that the airlines alone spend US$1.5 Billion on taking credit card payments so for the whole travel industry the potential savings are truly massive.

A whole host of payment providers are now targeting the travel business and it's not just the trend to drive cheaper debit card payments over credit cards. It's branded payments cards, echecks, air mile bartering, wire transfers, corporate payment mechanisms and CHAPS (ACH for the USA) that are offering savings for businesses and convenience for customers.

Alternative payment systems such as CashTicket are potentially a win-win product for your company, a wider range of potential online customers, transaction savings and increased conversions. But to make your payment system pay for itself in you need to look at this carefully in terms of credit card penetration within your core customer set, payment legislation and cultural payment trends. Your products and your markets all have to be seen within these contexts.

Taking high value payments over mobile is also a major factor in the development of mobile as a viable commercial platform. The industry will only invest massively in mobile when it sees money coming in from that channel. The existing low value sales of ring tones and games just do not equate to flights and holidays so alternatives have to be found. They do exist - the simplest currently being call me buttons, though this does require 24 hour telesales or sign up payment systems and can be customer unfriendly and unsuitable for the modern day non-loyal customer.

The issue of who is to take the risk when it comes to payment fraud - the travel industry or the payment provider - is also a contentious one which hinders development. You have to ensure you are doing all you can to minimise loses and maximise consumer trust.  You cannot ignore the figures. Up to 16% of your customers do not feel secure paying on your website and over £300 million is being lost by airlines to fraud!

Through changing the way you take payments you can boost your profitability but it also can have an impact on:

• How, and even if, your customers still buy from you, especially in emerging markets and European countries where cc are not the favoured method of payment
• It can change the channels your customer buys your product through, so impacting on your costs
• The amount of payment providers you have to negotiate and work with
• Your organisations security - fraud companies are queuing up to lessen your risks but which ones work
• Your organisations proven regional payment methods
• Establish revenue generating payment methods - branded cards, airmiles etc
• Revenues - some airlines make large amounts of money by taking online payments. There are consumer rumblings so the customer may not accept this forever especially the issue of when the payment costs are shown in the buying process

These and other issues will be debated by the travel industry this May 19-20 in London.

Confirmed speakers are:

• Chris Amenechi, eCommerce & Distribution Planning, Continental Airlines
• CFO or COO, SkyTours
• Marian Madara, eCommerce Specialist, SkyEurope
• Martin Shields, Senior Manager Ecommerce, Visa International
• Meta Backman, Corporate Security, Finnair
• Odd Langvatn, Managing Director, Wideroe Internet AS
• Sue Conroy, Fraud Prevention Manager, Eurostar
• Norbert Krawczonek, eCommerce Specialist, Lot Airlines
• Ken Muir, Global Payments Manager, BA
• Jeremy Acklam, Business Development Director, thetrainline.com
• Peter Warner, Payment Systems Consultant, First ondemand
• Wim Kruit, Online Payment, Transavia
• Diane Steed, Head of Sales & Marketing, Institute of Travel Management
• David Hunter, UK CEO, Prepaid Services Company Ltd. (Cash Ticket)

To see an agenda go to http://events.eyefortravel.com/tds/online-travel-payment/agenda.asp

Or call Tim Gunstone on +44 (0) 207 3757557

Tim Gunstone
MD, Eyefortravel Ltd.
tim@eyefortravel.com
+44 0207 3757557

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Yahoo! introduces three ad products

Yahoo! Inc. has launched three targeting products for brand and performance marketers.

The new products “significantly improve the ability for search and display advertisers to reach their target audience, providing increased efficiency and accountability,” said Michael Walrath, senior vice president, Advertising Marketplaces Group, Yahoo!. 

The new products include:

• Search Retargeting, which gives advertisers the ability to target display advertising based on user search activities.

It lets advertisers capture user interest from search terms and retarget the user with display ads throughout the Yahoo! Network. For example, if a user searches for the keyword "sandals," indicating strong purchase intent, an advertiser can target that user with a tailored display ad for footwear.

• Enhanced Retargeting, which allows advertisers to deliver dynamically generated display ads across the Yahoo! network based on user activity on an advertiser's site. 

It combines standard site retargeting with dynamic ad generation. For example, users who visit an airline website to check offers for flights from SFO-JFK can be served a personalized offer for that specific flight when they visit a page within the Yahoo! Network. In a recent trial, a market-leading online travel company saw a 230 percent increase in total bookings and a 651 percent increase in click-through rate when comparing Enhanced Retargeting to their traditional retargeting campaign.

• Enhanced Targeting capabilities for search advertising, including ad scheduling and demographic targeting within search.  

Yahoo! Search Marketing will offer advertisers Enhanced Targeting capabilities for Sponsored Search and Content Match programs (expected to start in March).New features are designed to extend the advertiser's control over where and when an ad is shown at both the campaign and ad group level, including what time of day and day of the week an advertiser would like campaigns to run (ad scheduling) and what age and gender they'd like to reach (demographic). Advertisers will be able to vary their bids for different segments in order to increase their ability to reach the desired audience.  

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Only a few places left for Russia’s only online travel conference.

More then 100 companies including Expedia, TUI, Thomas Cook, Air France, have already signed up.

More then 100 Russian and International travel executives have confirmed their participation in Russia Travel Distribution and e-Marketing Summit. In the list of attendees you will find representatives from intermediaries, suppliers and technology providers as well as independent experts and people who are just about to open their travel business in Russia. All of them are keen to discuss their distribution plans and improve their online marketing strategies.

The Russian show is selling loads. Don’t miss the opportunity to discuss distribution plans with industry key players and meet the audience that is looking for reducing their distribution cost by improving online sales strategies and e-marketing techniques. Secure your place today.

Mikhail Taratynov
Event Director

Russia and CIS
EyeForTravel London
T:   +44 (207) 375 7502
E:  mikhail@eyefortravel.com
W: www.eyefortravel.com/ru

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Ryanair focuses on online ad sales

Ryanair is reportedly planning to keep fares down by boosting its online ad sales on its website.

Ryanair has launched a revamped www.ryanair.com and outsourced ad sales to agency Ad2one to generate advertising income from the five billion page impressions that Ryanair.com delivers annually, reported brandrepublic.com.

Nearly all of Ryanair's flights are booked online, which the airline plans to use to bring in advertising from non-travel and FMCG brands.

The ad sales deal will cover the UK before its expansion to the rest of Europe, the report added.

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Ramada Jarvis goes for personalised pricing intelligence across 38 hotels

Ramada Jarvis Hotels has signed a global agreement with TravelCLICK to implement RateVIEW Enterprise in 38 of its hotels throughout the UK.

The deal has been signed for RateVIEW Enterprise, a rate intelligence and management solution designed specifically to meet the needs of multi-property hotel companies.

“In today’s dynamic marketplace, it is more crucial than ever to understand our portfolio’s strengths and weaknesses,” said Chris Martin, director of revenue & distribution of Ramada Jarvis Hotels. He said RateVIEW Enterprise provides “in-depth analysis of our pricing intelligence questions that in the past required a team of hands-on revenue management specialists to handle.”

The solution will offer Ramada Jarvis Hotels the key advantage of facilitating central management, according to Martin.  “Instead of reviewing 38 separate reports from each of our hotels, we can isolate the hotels that have competitive issues—and focus on identifying opportunities for bringing them to top revenue performance,” said Martin.  

The previous product used by the hotel group did not have the ability to manage intelligence across multiple properties and often provided cached pricing data.

The solution’s key features are: rule-based management to automate custom rules for managing corporate pricing strategies; grouping of properties by county, region, or market to quickly and easily identify changes to price positions in all markets; Interactive views to manipulate rate intelligence data; and Personalised on-screen reporting.

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Peter Gammon, CFO at Abacus shares his thought on Forecasting in Asia’s current climate

In this podcast, hear Peter comment on the following:

• In your opinion, does forecasting hold more or less relevance during times of economic uncertainty? Why/why not?
• What impact do you see things like the strengthening of the US$ versus the GBP, having on travel patterns in/to Asia?
• As Chief Financial Officer, how is your role different now to how it was 6 months ago?
•  With Asia travel demand softening from some typical source markets, what new markets should regional travel suppliers be exploring?
• Describe how you see the state of the travel industry in 12 months time. What are the major differences from how it is now?

Mr Reece Gladstone
Regional Director, Asia-Pacific & Middle East
EyeforTravel
South Yarra Corporate Centre 122 Toorak Road
Melbourne 3141, VIC
Australia

TEL: +61 (0)3 9938 1201
FAX: +61 (0)3 9820 8262
Linked in: Join the Asian Travel Executives
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=661697&trk=hb_side_g

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