Bit confused about the new Tourism Australia site, www.nothinglikeaustralia.com, which launched today. Initially promoted as a social media portal in which ordinary Aussies extoll the virtues of their country, turns out it's a competition site. Best entry wins a $25,000 trip while the photos and accompanying words ("There's Nothing Like…") will be used on a "new map of the best Australian holiday experiences". The whole thing looks management rather than people driven. Inevitable I suppose but a little disappointing given the high expectations of what can be achieved for destinations through social media – witness Tourism QLD's "Best Job In The World". Anyway, check it out, see what you think.
Pilgrims used to travel for weeks or months by foot to reach their goal. Now they log on to the net and fly vast distances in a matter of hours to attend great religious sites or events such as the Canonisation of Mary MacKillop in Rome on October 17. Thousands of Australians are expected to attend and a website www.canonisationtravel.com has just been set up by Harvest Pilgrimages. Entry level deals feature 'pilgrim accommodation in a central religious house or convent style lodging in rooms with private facilities'.
RISING home loan interest rates are having no impact on Australian leisure travel according to Qantas CEO Alan Joyce, who said Australians are not cutting back on their holiday spend. "We are seeing very strong leisure demand despite interest rates having gone up," Joyce told the Sunday Business program. He also said the business market, which was hit by the Global Financial Crisis, is strengthening. "Confidence is returning to the business sector, people are travelling again."
Here's a prediction for you. The day is fast approaching when every prime spot on Google will be paid advertising. Nothing free, all organic listings pushed down the page. It's been a long-term trend, first the ads down the side, then those across the top, three deep now, supplemented by the rise and rise of Google Maps, which occupies all the prime real estate for key accommodation based search terms. Then there's fact that Google pushes Maps harder than any other travel tool and its motivation is always to make more money.
Speculation, sure, but the recent announcement that Google is testing a form of paid travel meta-search via Google Maps seems to confirm this line of thinking and for many the writing has been on the wall for some time now. That is, Google wants all “above the fold” listings on its precious splash pages – the majority of which used to be free – to be paid for by advertisers. More …
HARD to argue with claims that the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand next September/October is looming as an exercise in price gouging. The focus so far has been on hotel rates during the tournament, headlined by the Hilton Auckland charging NZ$1700 a night with a 10 night minimum during the finals period. Warren Livingstone, Managing Director of We Love Rugby told scoop.co.nz that such pricing is not isolated: "We have a list of hotels that have all increased rates by 400% and in some cases by up to 100% from their normal rates." But what about official wholesale packages?
In the same week Jetstar announced one way fares of just $129 between Sydney and Auckland (travel between 20 April and 22 June), I saw a "deal" from Adventure World costing an enormous A$2068 for return Sydney-Auckland travel and a ticket to the England v Scotland pool match. No accommodation. It is just me or is that outrageous? More …
Do the math and it's hard to argue against the run of record low Australian domestic airfares continuing throughout 2010. The equation is simple: supply is set to increase while demand is at best flat. Latest government stats show that January domestic passenger numbers fell 1.5% year on year while airline loads slipped from 81% to 79%. More aircraft (and routes) are due for Jetstar, Virgin Blue and Tiger Airways over the coming months, ensuring further aggressive discounting for these carriers to just maintain market share. That's certainly what's happening right now.
According to research from CommSec, airfares are the lowest since official tracking began 17 years ago and 13.2% less than they were a year ago. Full economy and business airfares have been rising of late but are still well down on 2008, says CommSec. For me the big thing out of all this is domestic passenger growth, or lack of it. Just check out the chart above.
After years of incredible growth, is has levelled off. Some may argues that the GFC is to blame but I'm not going there. I reckon growth had to level out at some point and that's simply what's occurred. As a result I don't see further significant increases, which puts suppliers under a lot of pressure to maintain the high loads they require to ensure profitability when fares are so heavily discounted. Someone must lose, but who?
AFTER years of speculation Google has finally made its move into travel meta-search by offering hotel price comparison on Google Maps. "Today we started experimenting with a new feature, visible to a small portion of users, by showing specific prices for selected hotel listings," the company said. More …
Budget carrier Jetstar will spend up to 40% of its marketing budget on the internet next financial year – an increase of more than 500% over present
levels, according to a report in B&T Today. Social media will be a big part of the mix. Jetstar's head of marketing and PR, David May, was quoted as saying that traditional media cost too much relative to its audience reach. "It's clear our customers are comfortable in the online space and as Jetstar is essentially an online retailer it makes sense for us to embrace social media outlets. Online media channels gives us immediate access to our consumers. Social media offers more value for money (than traditional channels) and is a smarter way to reach our customers." He said Jetstar's already had "phenomenal" success with Twitter and YouTube.
Flashes from No Vacancy conference yesterday. 2010 looking like another winnner for online travel agents while suppliers bouncing back though no-one really has any clear idea of trends. Summed up by Accor boss Simon McGrath who was confident of a solid year overall for the 150 property group but said would be patchy when you drill down. Said GFC knocked pricing back to 2006 levels but rate recovery would be much faster this cycle – a 'V' rather 'U'. Rejected suggestion it could be a 'W'. Channel shift – from GDS to web – big topic through the day, accelerating. Star Ratings, official and social, also in for a lot of comment, all of it negative. Clearly no-one is happy with present AAA Tourism rated system, which is in for an overhaul. Online from Hitwise showed that still less people visiting travel sites than pre-GFC, an interesting contradiction with outstanding performance from all accommodation websites. Anyway, that's it for now. More news soon.
Web portal Yahoo7 is hunting for a new Head of Travel following the resignation of Paul Fisher, one of Australia's most experienced online travel execs. Fisher has been with Yahoo7 since it acquired TotalTravel.com, in which he was a significant shareholder, last September. TotalTravel.com is a very deep site that makes its money from advertising with around 170,000 listings across a number of industry verticals. The sites are now in the process of being merged, a massive process that requires a huge amount of back end work.
When TotalTravel was sold for a rumoured $20m, major shareholder Malcom Baker told the Australian Financial Review: "Now with the muscle that Yahoo7 and its owners can put behind us, we can overtake Wotif." In other news, Expedia.com.au, which recently launched its Travel Agent Affiliate Program in Asia Pacific, has eliminated its change and cancellation fees on all flights, hotels, packages and car reservations.
SO many people trying to talk up the travel industry at the moment but three "Sales" emails in three days from Accor Hotels Asia Pacific, Oaks Hotels & Resorts, and Mantra Hotels, Resorts and Apartments suggests that the recovery, if it's on, is patchy. No question some markets are doing well – Sydney had a huge events-driven February – but others remain soft or under threat; eg Melbourne hotel market is facing dramatic oversupply.
Conflicting signals also in travel retail. Flight Centre half year profit up 96% off low base, Jetset Travelworld down 68%. Meanwhile, online retailers like Wotif.com booming, wholesaler Cox and Kings optimistic, others not so sure. Rebound or dead cat bounce? Yes and no. Hard to not think that some of those on the floor may never get back up.
Incumbent e-Channel has retained the massive Flight Centre paid search account – which covers several sites and worth in excess of $10m a year – after a intensely competitive pitch.
Flight Centre is renowned as an aggressive marketer no matter what the platform and is reputedly currently bidding on more than 200,000 key words.
Main site Flightcentre.com.au has been consistently ranked in the top two travel agencies for a number of years by Experian Hitwise due to its strong brand and heavy paid search spend, which is probably only second to the airlines – Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin Blue – and maybe some accommodation sites such as Wotif.com.
Flight Centre’s other sites, Escape Travel and Student Flights, also rank well. Meanwhile, Sydney company Switched On Media has won Flight Centre’s SEO business and reports good early results.
Just a day or two until until No Vacancy 2010 in Sydney on March 18 and things are really starting to hot up. Bookings are good with representation from most major offline and online accommodation brands plus all leading industry groups. It should be a great day with an audience of around 190. Haven't booked yet? Don't miss out. See who's down as a delegate so far. More …
Google is doing everything in its power to push people into Google Maps, one of Australia's smartest travel search marketers told me last week. Hard to argue. See response to 'Sydney Accommodation' below.
Everything above the fold either sponsored listings or maps (I had to crop right side sponsored column due to space). Not a single organic text listing to be seen. Good news for savvy suppliers, bad news for Online Travel Agents, which dominate text listings for this popular search term but have no relevance for Maps and so don't appear above the fold. So now OTAs must bid and buy top spot, enabling Google to make more money from the page. Of course further revenue could be generated by charging for Google Maps listings. Something that hasn't happened. Yet.
This is weird – counter-trends. After years of booking lead times contracting in our "just in time" world, the Wotif.com results for the last six months of 2009 reveal that the number of days between reservation and check-in blew out by almost 100% over the corresponding period in 2008 …. 13.35 days compared with 7.93 days.
Why? Perhaps it's because people, stung by the new financial and social reality created by the GFC, are becoming more considered in their decision-making. Or maybe the deals were so good, and time-sensitive, they couldn't wait. Time will tell. (Update March 1: Or it could be something as simple as Wotif extending its booking window – see comments…)
Also had a laugh at yesterday's news from Qantas it is increasing flights between Australia and Japan after years of cut backs. The reason is increased Australian leisure visitors to the Land of the Rising Sun, tourism payback after all the business Japanese visitors have given Australia over the years. Who knows, one day they may even return in large numbers. After all, a trend is only a trend until it ends (when it becomes a new trend)…
GOOGLE, and social media for that matter, is under legislative attack in Europe. The contentious conviction by an Italian court today of three Google execs for allowing the download of a video in which an autistic boy is bullied came just a day or two after news broke that the European Commission has started an anti-trust (abuse of power) investigation. That’s not all. According to Electronista.com, the company is also the target of an anti-trust action initiated by Italian newspaper publishers who say Google unfairly keeps them from making money from online advertising; Germany has a similar case ongoing, while a government-commissioned panel in France recently began a related inquiry. You get the feeling there's a lot more to come. See Google's response to the Italian ruling here.
Traditional wholesaling finally moves online but not in the way we may have thought. That’s one interpretation of the launch by Orbitz Worldwide of 
a travel agency portal offering commissions of 10% on accommodation bookings and 4% on packages, rates that are much better than its existing affiliate program for online partners. It’s a move that makes a lot of sense, opening another distribution channel for Orbitz (which has 80,000 hotels on its books) while giving agents access to new product, some which would not be available through the GDS. What’s most interesting, I think, is the way it changes the relationship between online and traditional travel agents, many of whom resent their web rivals. There would certainly be some irony if this succeeds. www.orbitzforagents.com
I love marketing and I love words but when the two collide the end result is often a verbal car crash with language the innocent victim. Marketers take a word, apply it to a product and manipulate it until the original meaning has been lost.
Travel marketers in particular have a lot to answer for with two words - luxury and premium.
Luxury has been abused for years while Premium is now on the slippery slope. Great example is Qantas Premium Economy, a pure marketing creation, merging two conflicting words to create a new product and revenue stream.
Brilliant marketing concept but the end of Premium as we know it (and First Class, for that matter)…
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