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Archives for July 2011

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Expedia founder Barton introduces mobile discovery network

Trover, a mobile discovery network where people share location-specific discoveries, has been formally launched.

The company believes its defining feature is its location-based discovery mosaic, which allows explorers to visually browse through an eye-catching collection of thumbnail images featuring places to see and things to do nearby.

As the user scrolls, a mileage indicator guides them to hidden gems located in nearby neighbourhoods, towns, states and beyond, allowing users to explore new places or plan activities. To view a specific location, simply push the Jump To button for a virtual adventure. Trover’s search features also make it easy to find and follow people with common interests.

Adoption

The company shared that during a limited spring trial, open to Facebook members only, the Trover community attracted more than 70,000 users in 150 countries.

To set the stage for significant expansion, the company has now opened its network to Twitter and email users as well.

Trover is now available as a free iPhone app in the Apple iTunes Store, with an Android version planned for fall. Non-mobile users can view Trover content at trover.com.

Team

Trover is a private company funded by General Catalyst Partners, Ignition Partners and Benchmark Capital. Its founding team includes: Jason Karas, CEO, who founded Carbonrally.com; Andrew Coldham, vice president of technology who directed software development at Expedia.com’s corporate travel division and Rich Barton, chairman, who founded Expedia.com and co-founded Zillow.

“I've always dreamed of having a personal guide to the world with me at all times, full of recommendations from my friends on where to go and what to see,” said Rich Barton, chairman of Trover. “Likewise, I have a strong urge to capture my own discoveries, so when my friends and followers come by in the future I can steer them to the good stuff. This is why we built Trover.”

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US business travelers who own a smartphone on average have a 7% higher income

Hollywood, Florida – July 26, 2011 – Two weeks after the release of Mobile360 for iOS devices ICE Portal is proud to announce the complete Mobile360 platform, including support for Android.

A July 11th Forrester Research publication establishes that smartphone users are “Better-educated and have higher incomes. Smartphone travelers are more likely than the general base of travelers to be college graduates. They earn more money, too. On average, a US business traveler who has a smartphone has a household income about 7% higher than the typical business traveler. Smartphone travelers are also more likely than the general population of travelers to be primarily motivated by entertainment. What does this mean? These people value experiences, and they expect that experiential content — whether it’s written copy, photography, or video — to come through, regardless of the touchpoint.”

There are varying forecasts of potential market caps, but as per EyeforTravel eight percent of Asian mobile users will be booking travel from their smartphone in 2012.

“Capitalizing on the ICE Portal platform, clients enjoy access to the best technology available to present their product world-wide. Better presentation through more channels translates to lower bounce rates and higher sales conversion- more heads in beds. It really is a win-win” reiterates Henry Woodman, President and Founder of ICE Portal.

ICE Portal is known to deliver value and quick ROI to its’ clients through the all inclusive ICE platform. Joe McMahon, ICE Portal Chief Operating Officer, adds that “this is the second step of our mobile evolution as we continue to provide a full featured solution and allow our clients to remain ahead of market trends”.

About ICE Portal:

ICE Portal helps clients produce, manage and distribute rich visuals to over 11 million unique visitors a month on 1000s of websites around the globe. Powerful and flexible technology leverages HD360, photography, videos and eBooks that are easily managed and automatically distributed to all vanity names in travel worldwide.

The company is always in the forefront of innovation to constantly deliver real value to clients and get more heads in beds. For more information please visit www.iceportal.com.

CONTACT: Gil Keinan, VP of Business Development ICE Portal 3595 Sheridan St. Suite 200 Hollywood, FL 33021 +1-954-893-6778 info@iceportal.com

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Google starts testing its Hotel Finder search tool

Google has introduced a new experimental search tool, Hotel Finder. It is currently only available for locations in the US.

Andrew McCarthy, Software Engineer, Google explained how the new tool makes it easy to narrow down the options:

Figure out where to stay: Hotel Finder shines a “tourist spotlight” on the most visited areas of US cities. It’s based on what’s most popular or one can draw a shape around the area where a traveller wants to stay, e.g. on the ocean or along Sunset Boulevard.

Get a good deal: In the “Compared to typical” section, one can see how each hotel’s price compares to its historical average.

Compare fast: One no longer needs to open a new browser tab for each hotel result, and then go hunting around for pictures. When you select a hotel in Hotel Finder, the tool shows a collage of images, Google Places reviews, and key information right within the list. You can even use keyboard shortcuts (“J” and “K”) to flip through the results quickly, just like in Google Reader and News.

Keep a shortlist: As you flip through the results, add the hotels you like to a shortlist to easily keep track of the ones that interest you.

When one is ready to book a hotel, a user find a selection of booking options from a range of available partners or directly from the hotel.

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easyJet Holidays to offer £100 per person getaways every Friday

The easyJet Holidays website is to offer 100 Holidays to European city and beach destinations for £100 per person every Friday for the next six weeks.

The holidays will be for a variety of travel dates throughout summer and winter through to March 2012.

The initiatives, according to the company, give holidaymakers a choice of beach and city locations in Europe with a range of three to seven night stays flying from a variety of UK airports in the easyJet network.

A further selection of £200 and £300 holidays will also be available to book on the easyJet Holidays website every Friday throughout the promotion.

The offers are available for bookings made through the easyJet Holidays website only and are not available through the call centre.

Mandy Round, general manager of easyJet, said: “Savvy holiday makers already know about the great offers available via the easyJet Holidays website, however this is an exciting weekly deal for £100 holidays. Some will be romantic breaks, some cultural city visits and others glorious popular beach destinations, offering the opportunity of relaxation and sunshine or nightlife.”

“These easy and affordable £100 per person getaways offer a selection of holidays that will appeal to everyone without breaking the bank.”

The arrangements for a holiday booked on the easyJet Holidays website are made by easyJet, acting as principal for flights and as disclosed agent for travel insurance, car rental and airport parking; and by Lowcostbeds acting as agent for accommodation and transfers.

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Navigating the Road to Revenues: GPS for the Revenue Manager

What would it be like if you had to provide input into your car’s GPS (global positioning system) for every segment of your upcoming journey?

Just imagine a late night, last minute trip to the store—it’s the only store still open—and you only have 10 minutes until it closes! You, the expert driver can handle the car; but you could always use some 21st century GPS technology to get you there quicker.

You get in, frantically fumbling with the keys to start the car. It’s going to be closed, you’ve got to get going. You input the address into the GPS. Hurry. That warm and friendly computerised female voice, so calm and reassuring prompts you: “Follow the road, then take a left on Main Street.”

You do as she commands, turning left on Main Street. Come on; come on, what’s next? She responds:

“You can either take a left on Green Avenue, then proceed to Lemmon Road, bearing right on Abercrombie, taking the driveway on the left to reach your destination—OR—you can take a right on Baker Street, follow it for three miles, exit Lemmon Road, take a left turn on Abercrombie, and turn right into the driveway of your destination. Please make your choice now.”

What? You’re stopped on Main street: car idling, brain baffled, confused of what to do next. Which route will get you there soonest? Only six minutes left!. You’ll never make it. Delay in the decision cost you too much time.

Why couldn’t the GPS just direct you along the fastest route, foregoing the need for your decision and response for every step beyond inputting the address? Luckily, in real life, it does.

All that’s needed for the GPS to work is the input that provides the initial information. Define where the GPS needs to take you and most systems will even allow you to define how you want to get there. Need to take the shortest route to conserve fuel? No problem. Want to get there as fast as possible, taking the freeway in lieu of the traffic light-laden shorter route? You bet. You provide the parameters and today’s GPS will get you there based on that input. Based on fluid information, GPS keeps track of every second of your journey, adjusting and updating the route in real-time, ensuring your arrival.

It’s the same with systems that automate revenue optimisation: you, the expert, provide the initial input, and the system will get you the highest revenue per available room based upon the ongoing fluid information received throughout the booking path. That’s as much of a pitch as I’m going to give you on software—I’m more interested in presenting the concept of how a solution that automates revenue optimisation disencumbers you from time-consuming RM processes.

I use the term “disencumber” because RMs must make too many split-second decisions based on an overwhelming amount of dynamically changing data – every minute of every day. So let’s go back to the GPS example: GPS disencumbers the driver from meticulously searching for streets, directions, and signposts. As a result, the driver can focus on “human only” functions such as steering, accelerating, and braking – all while the GPS adjusts and updates automatically in the background, providing the driver with the best routing information for getting to the destination. So a program that automates revenue optimisation does virtually the same thing for the RM: instead of continuously monitoring booking channels and adjusting rates, the RM can focus on more crucial, more human-dependent decisions.

So what would it be like if you had to provide input data for every single function of your revenue optimisation system? Is it hard to image, or is it your daily routine? You, the expert RM, can handle the revenue management; but you could always use some 21st century technology to get you there quicker.

After all, as we know from those last minute late night trips to the store with a “hesitant” GPS: a delay in the decision can cost you too much time, and, of course, money.

(This article has been contributed by Jean Francois Mourier, CEO, RevPar Guru).

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VisitBritain takes marketing initiatives for independent hotels and agents

VisitBritain.TV, the website of Britain’s national tourism agency, has signed a pact with web-based hotel review and booking site Hotels.tv.

The partnerships sees Hotels.tv become a partner channel responsible for providing video content on independent hotels on the site.

VisitBritain.tv has over 500,000 unique users per month, globally. The VisitBritain.TV website has recently undergone a complete overhaul and seen major investment in readiness for key events such as the Olympics.

Hotels.TV will be responsible for providing hotel videos content via a micro-site within the VisitBritain.TV website.

VisitBritain.tv has taken this initiative as part of its plans to create an in-depth experience for its viewers allowing them to gain real insight in to specific areas, historical destinations, hotels and attractions across Britain.

Hotels.tv is offering a deal exclusively for VisitBritain.TV viewers. On booking any of the selected hotels, travellers will receive £10 cashback. Cashback is only valid for bookings made with Hotels.tv and stay completed during 2011, with a total booking value exceeding £100.

BritAgent programme

VisitBritain has also created a new BritAgent online training programme to help agents around the world showcase events happening throughout 2012 as well as during the period of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The “Great Britain You’re Invited - 2012” initiative will give agents specialised product and destination knowledge, and help them to sell Britain as a great place to visit in 2012. BritAgent will increase productivity and maximise sales by arming the travel trade with the necessary tools needed to meet their clients’ needs and expectations.

Along with signposting details of all the Olympic events taking place, the programme covers topics such as where to find accommodation and transport during the period of the 2012 Games. It will also provide inspirational ideas for amazing things to see and do across the UK, as well as information and planning for other events occasions taking place next year, such as the Diamond Jubilee and World Pride.

VisitBritain recently launched its biggest, most ambitious tourism marketing programme for 10 years with the first phase of “Great Britain You're Invited”.

Globally renowned British celebrities including Dame Judi Dench, Dev Patel, Twiggy, Rupert Everett and Jamie Oliver are inviting the world to visit Britain and join in the mood of celebration. Tourism businesses including airlines and hotel companies have joined forces with us to mount a major campaign in 21 key markets to attract an additional four million visitors over four years.

Figures show that three million foreign visitors spent over £2 billion in the UK watching and playing sport.

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Business travel market benefits from returning corporate travel budgets

The business travel market is basking in the validating glow of returning corporate travel budgets, according to Pegasus Solutions.

Mike Kistner, chief executive officer of Pegasus, mentioned that companies that previously slashed their travel budgets are again willing to now send their sales teams on the road, to trade shows, to meetings, or even to host their own meetings in the name of driving revenue.

Reinforcing healthy gains made overall in the first half of the year, the growth in business travel bookings could potentially climb to +15 percent through August, and possibly higher into the third quarter.

As the company released its new report, The Pegasus View, it emerged that with greater growth expected September through November, the corporate market, which represents bookings made through the global distribution systems (GDS), is also seeing average daily rate (ADR) rise at a healthy pace of more than +6 percent over 2010.

Leisure travel bookings, those made through online channels, grew by +7.3 percent over prior year, nearing the +8.2 percent year-to-date pace. Global ADR grew nearly +5 percent for the second consecutive month as consumers show a healthier appetite for vacations. Forward-looking data for the channel indicates overall bookings will increase nearly +10 percent into September, perhaps easing in October, and picking up again for the year-end holidays.

“Despite talked about economic hiccups, consumers have shifted their perception from travel as a ‘want’ to travel as a ‘need’,” added Kistner. “This positively impacts the leisure market as higher demand allows rates to continue the arduous march to pre-recession levels. Travelers getting away this summer – for work or pleasure – is good news for the industry and the economy.”

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Cox & Kings and Holidaybreak reach agreement on acquisition

Tour Operator Cox & Kings and Holidaybreak have confirmed an agreement on the terms of a recommended cash acquisition by Prometheon Holdings (UK) Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cox & Kings, of the entire issued and to be issued share capital of Holidaybreak.

Holidaybreak shareholders are set to receive 432.1p in cash per share in the agreed bid.

As per the information available, the offer price, as reported by investments.hsbc.co.uk, values Holidaybreak’s fully diluted share capital at approximately £312.0m and represents a premium of around 35.5 per cent to the closing price of 319.0 pence per Holidaybreak share on 22 July 2011, the last trading day before Holidaybreak announced it was in bid talks. Holidaybreak shareholders who were on the register of Holidaybreak on the dividend record date of 15 July 2011, will remain eligible to receive the previously announced 3.35p interim dividend payable in cash on 10 August 2011.

Martin Davies, Group Chief Executive of Holidaybreak, reportedly said: “While the board of Holidaybreak was confident that significant value could have been generated for shareholders over time through implementation of our standalone strategy, today's announcement of the recommended acquisition of Holidaybreak by Cox & Kings provides certainty and immediate value to shareholders, in cash and at a premium.”

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Letting travellers “discover and buy” experiences

IN-DEPTH: Discovering travel and booking remains complex, perhaps too complex, says Nick Stafford, GM Europe, LivingSocial Escapes

The flash sale space in the travel sector continues to get crowded, but there is a great range in what each player has to offer. Hotels have their task cut out and they now need to research the emerging players they are interested in, pick the ones they want to work with and decline the rest.

LivingSocial believes that the social commerce movement fills a gap in travel discovery and buying. It champions evocative travel stories and pairs these stories with transactional “buy” buttons like never before.

For its part, the company says at LivingSocial Escapes, it’ all about inspiring travel buying.

“The term “flash sale” only just begins to describe the bigger merchandising and marketing idea here. If Facebook is where people share experiences, LivingSocial is where people discover and buy experiences,” says Nick Stafford, GM Europe, LivingSocial Escapes.

Stafford, who is scheduled to speak at the forthcoming EyeforTravel’s Online Marketing & Social Media Europe 2011 , to be held in Amsterdam (October 10-11) this year, spoke to EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta about the concept and its strength. Excerpts:

How do you assess the maturity level of flash sales and also the presence of so many players at this juncture?

Nick Stafford:

I think we are just scratching the surface and there’s considerable innovation and maturing ahead. Today, LivingSocial’s suppliers are delighted with a partnership that places their brand in front of millions and delivers material volume at no upfront cost.

It’s clear though that differences will emerge. We’re starting to see that already, based on whether companies bring travel industry expertise into the heart of the company, whether they inspire travel and whether they build a truly global audience the way LivingSocial does.

As far as the expectations of the buyer is concerned, it is being said that consumers want to know that they’re getting the very best deal before they book, and they need more flexibility. In fact, a new private sale travel site unveiled recently says it has launched with the only Best Deal Guarantee in flash-sale travel. How do you assess the clutter in the marketplace?

Nick Stafford:

You’re correct to say that customers want value, although it’s probably more accurate to say that customers check both deals and non-deals sites in their selection process. In fact, at EyeForTravel London, Google stated that the average holidaymaker browses 24 sites prior to booking. So, it’s clear that discovering travel and booking remains complex, perhaps too complex.

At LivingSocial, we focus on delivering unique travel experiences in a simple way, all at great prices. Our experienced travel team searches the globe to find those unique hotels, resorts, inns, B&B’s and ski chalets for our customers. We continue to see that our members appreciate the uniqueness and value of our deals and trust LivingSocial with their cherished holiday time.

What according to you is your company’s strength which places it in an advantageous position to make the most of this concept?

Nick Stafford:

Firstly, we believe that it takes a level of travel industry sophistication and creativity to get this right. That’s why LivingSocial brought in a team with extensive travel industry experience to launch Escapes. Travel is an intrinsic part of the culture of LivingSocial and this enables us to engage closely with our travel partners. Many of us have worked on the supply side and we recognise that there are three parties involved in every successful Escapes offer. There’s the hotel, LivingSocial and the traveller. We continue to build leading partnerships with the best hotels, resorts, B&B’s and chalets in the industry.

Secondly, we have a fantastic group of global members. The Nielsen Company recently reported LivingSocial audience numbers that prompted one reporter to write that our customers are “younger, richer and smarter” than our nearest competitor. That said, I think what’s most interesting about our audience is their mindset. They are sociable and adventurous. They like to try new things, they’re curious about the new and unconventional, and they like to convince others to try new things as well. The LivingSocial member wants to get out from behind the screen and experience the world.

Finally, LivingSocial is also much more than just a travel business. Our audience demonstrates uncharacteristically high levels of daily engagement with our site relative to an OTA, or other travel vertical flash sale sites. The LivingSocial customer checks in regularly on local deals, finds lunch with LivingSocial Instant on their iPhone, and shares offers on Facebook. Escapes travel partners benefit from this heavy daily engagement. We’ve sold over 400k room nights for about 400 properties since launching just months ago.

Can you explain how typically you plan to go about offering deals/ exclusive offerings to your subscribers? How do you make it enticing for them to avail the same?

Nick Stafford:

It starts with our experienced team in the field, a team with deep travel and media backgrounds. They work with each individual property to develop ideas and packages. We do not believe in a “one size fits all” approach.

After an Escape idea has been crafted, we have an in-house editorial and design team that works with our partners to develop an offer page. The page presents the partner’s story using rich copy, imagery and video. Once each week, we publish a collection of Escapes including both local getaways and destination trips, and our offers typically run for 7-days.

Importantly, LivingSocial’s members subscribe for email or mobile alerts from a home market. That means we can intelligently feature Devon & Cornwall getaways to members in West London, promote Marrakech getaways on the back of an Easyjet promotion to Morocco from Manchester or hotels in the south of France to sun-searching Parisians looking for that August break. Of course, discovery of these deals is not limited to these markets as we’ve seen plenty of beach breaks purchased by our members around the world. Sometimes an escape means going a little further away so escapes.livingsocial.com is designed to encourage discovery of our entire collection – from near to far – each week.

Recently, in an interview with EyeforTravel, a senior RM professional mentioned it is very important though, for hotels not to fall into a trap of working with everybody and having discounts all over the place. It may prove too costly with all the heavy discounts and margins these players are requesting. What do you recommend hotels considering that so many options for flash sale initiatives are now available?

Nick Stafford:

Like all distribution channels, suppliers should choose their partners carefully and in line with their objectives. We believe LivingSocial Escapes provides an unmatched combination of ‘smarter, younger and richer’ members, true global scale and superior merchant support.

It’s important to remember that the social commerce model comes with unambiguous marketing benefits. Escapes pages link directly to hotel websites, by design. We want to create direct engagement between our members and properties. We want travellers to engage with property brands, videos, content, and more importantly, that property’s stories. Moreover, our voucher-based redemption model drives all reservations through the supplier directly. Enterprising partners report more than doubling their revenues before travelers arrive because unlike other online travel distribution, they own and control the opportunity to upsell at the time of reservation, and for the weeks leading up to the traveler’s arrival on property.

For consumers, flash sale sites are becoming increasingly popular because they’re an attractive way to access overstocked inventory, or to get introduced to new offerings. How do you expect this concept to shape up going forward?

Nick Stafford:

We know our members are looking for unique experiences, and that does not necessarily equate to the notion of overstocked inventory. In fact, many of the partners we work with are looking for certainty of demand, as opposed to addressing a shortfall in demand.

Escapes partners report selling as many room nights in a week with Escapes as they’ve sold all year with an OTA partner. This includes vacation destination & ski resorts, city-market properties, casino hotels and independents. The model is viable. It will change hotel distribution going forward. It’s on-demand distribution for an increasingly on-demand world.

EyeforTravel’s Online Marketing & Social Media Europe 2011   Nick Stafford, GM Europe, LivingSocial Escapes is scheduled to speak at the forthcoming EyeforTravel’s Online Marketing & Social Media Europe 2011, to be held in Amsterdam (October 10-11) this year.     For more information, click here   Or   Contact:   Gina Baillie VP, Marketing, EyeforTravel E: gina@eyefortravel.com T: UK +44 (0)207 375 7197

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Identifying how truth-tellers and deceivers differ in their hotel reviews

Cornell University researchers say they have discovered an intriguing correspondence between the linguistic structure of deceptive reviews and fiction writing.

Cornell researchers are developing a computer software for spotting opinion spam. Such initiative has been taken as researchers consider that review sites are becoming targets for opinion spam -- phony positive reviews created by sellers to help sell their products, or negative reviews meant to downgrade competitors.

In a test on 800 reviews of Chicago hotels, a computer was able to pick out deceptive reviews with almost 90 percent accuracy. The work has been shared by Claire Cardie, professor of computer science; Jeff Hancock, associate professor of communication; and graduate students Myle Ott and Yejin Choi.

“While this is the first study of its kind, and there’s a lot more to be done, I think our approach will eventually help review sites identify and eliminate these fraudulent reviews,” Ott said.

The researchers created what they believe to be the first “gold standard” collection of opinion spam by asking a group of people to deliberately write false positive reviews of 20 Chicago hotels. These were compared with an equal number of carefully verifed truthful reviews.

Process

As a first step, the researchers submitted a set of reviews to three human judges -- volunteer Cornell undergraduates -- who scored no better than chance in identifying deception. The three did not even agree on which reviews they thought were deceptive, reinforcing the conclusion that they were doing no better than chance. Historically, Ott noted, humans suffer from a “truth bias”, assuming that what they are reading is true until they find evidence to the contrary. When people are trained at detecting deception they may become overly skeptical and report deception too often, still scoring at chance levels.

The researchers then applied computer analysis based on subtle features of text.

Truthful hotel reviews, for example, are more likely to use concrete words relating to the hotel, like “bathroom”, “check-in” or “price”.

Deceivers write more about things that set the scene, like “vacation”, “business trip” or “my husband”.

Truth-tellers and deceivers also differ in the use of keywords referring to human behaviour and personal life, and sometimes in features like the amount of punctuation or frequency of “large words”. In parallel with previous analysis of imaginative vs. informative writing, deceivers use more verbs and truth-tellers use more nouns.

Using these approaches, the researchers trained a computer on a subset of true and false reviews, then tested it against the rest of the database. The best results, they found, came from combining keyword analysis with the ways certain words are combined in pairs. Adding these two scores identified deceptive reviews with 89.8 percent accuracy.

Ott cautions that the work so far is only validated for hotel reviews, and for that matter, only reviews of hotels in Chicago. The next step, he said, is to see if the techniques can be extended to other categories, starting perhaps with restaurants and eventually moving to consumer products. He also wants to look at negative reviews.

This sort of software might be used by review sites as a “first-round filter”, Ott suggested. If, say, one particular hotel gets a lot of reviews that score as deceptive, the site should investigate further.

“Ultimately, cutting down on deception helps everyone,” Ott said. “Customers need to be able to trust the reviews they read, and sellers need feedback on how best to improve their services.”

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