You know traditional agents are in trouble when the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission effectively approves the mega agency merger between Stella Travel Services and Jetset on the basis that it won't impact competition because everyone's heading online anyway. "The internet has dramatically affected the way competition works in the travel industry as more and more customers look online for the best deals," ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel said. "As a result, not only are traditional bricks and mortar agents forced to compete harder on price and service to attract customers, but airlines, hotels and tour companies have new ways of reaching those customers. In that context, the Jetset-Stella merger is unlikely to substantially lessen competition".
You are currently browsing Martin Kelly’s articles.
Hotelscombined.com has beaten a strong field to win TRAVELtech Website of the Year, announced yesterday at another very successful TRAVELtech conference, attended by 260 of Australia’s online travel industry leaders.
There were also nine category winners in the TRAVELtech Web Awards: Webjet, Jetstar, Habitathq, Lonely Planet, Wicked Campers, P&O, Contiki, World Nomads (and of course Hotelscombined.com) – details below.
The TRAVELtech Web Awards, sponsored by Amadeus and also Tourism Technology, were judged on the following criteria … Innovation, Design and Usability, Meeting the Brief, Speed and Build, Content.
Hotelscombined.com is a Sydney-based hotel search engine operating in the global online marketplace.
Deceptively simple but supported by excellent technology, it finds and attractively presents deals from many of the world’s leading websites in seconds, seamlessly incorporating modern essentials like user reviews and maps.
As one of the three judges commented: “Outstanding, quick to the point, no hoo ha in the way of getting deals… Elegant clean design to aid search.”
- BEST AIRLINE WEBSITE – http://www.jetstar.com.au
- BEST HOTEL OPERATOR WEBSITE – http://www.habitathq.com.au
- BEST ACCOMMODATION WEBSITE – http://www.hotelscombined.com/
- BEST TRAVEL AGENT WEBSITE – http://www.Webjet.com.au/
- BEST TRAVEL DESTINATION WEBSITE – http://www.Lonelyplanet.com/
- BEST CAR/CAMPER HIRE WEBSITE – http://www.wickedcampers.com.au/
- BEST TOUR OPERATOR WHOLESALER WEBSITE – http://www.contiki.com.au/
- BEST NICHE WEBSITE – http://www.worldnomads.com/
- BEST CRUISE WEBSITE – http://www.pocruises.com.au
Founded in 1999, TRAVELtech is Australia's leading online travel marketing, website, distribution and technology event.
Wotif.com execs must be scratching their heads. The company's shares fell more than 6% today after the online travel retailer posted a 22% increase in
profit to $53m, marginally down on last year's 26% boost. Webjet shares also slumped 5% in a clear re-rating of the online travel sector. Wotif.com sold 7.12m rooms during the financial year, turning over $1.09bn. It is now claiming more than 10% of all Australian accommodation sales. Wotif.com shares – now trading at $4.60 – have fallen more than 50% since April when they hit a high of $8.08. But nothing has changed. Maybe that's the issue.
Bookings are strong for TRAVELtech with a crowd of 250 expected at Australia's leading online travel marketing, website, distribution and tech event next Tuesday, August 31. Great networking is guaranteed with delegates coming from all over Australia and New Zealand. There's still space available but you'd better get in quick. Check out some of the the delegates below. More …
Travelport is the business services provider to the global travel industry and is well known in this region for its Galileo GDS, related productivity tools and its mid/back-office solution, CrossCheck Travel Enterprise.
Travelport recently developed its Universal API (uAPI), the global distribution system (GDS) industry’s first truly universal API, providing access to a world of content and functionality through a single API connection.
It’s designed to run alongside existing API solutions, with efficient and low-risk implementation and has the ability to aggregate content from multiple sources such as GDS, low-cost carrier and merchandising content.
Whether you’re a third-party developer, an OTA, travel agent or consolidator, who is looking to build travel related applications for deployment on the Web, Desktop or Mobile, Travelport’s Universal API brings many benefits including efficiency gains, a streamlining of the travel supply chain, reduction of software development costs and improvement in time to market.
Rich and comprehensive travel content is provided via the uAPI through Travelport’s GDS platforms and content hub infrastructure, delivering a deeper, more complete range of travel content, leading to cross-sell and up-sell opportunities, improving customer satisfaction and revenue.
Tourism Technology is the developer and owner of the Calypso Travel System – the standard and leading solution for mid to large independent, state government and airline travel wholesalers and tour operators.
With a range of enhanced online supply and distribution products and services, including direct supplier XML connectivity, trade and direct consumer online booking engines Calypso provides world leading travel wholesaler customers with a powerful, progressive and cost-effective wholesale travel management solution.
The team at Tourism Technology are a unique combination of travel and IT professionals, dedicated to ensuring Calypso retains its functional richness and technical excellence.
The company currently employs 60 people, of which half are programming staff dedicated to full-time development of the Calypso Travel System. Tourism Technology has a general policy of employing full-time IT professionals with varying backgrounds and levels of experience which includes recent graduates through its graduate recruitment program.
Now in its 19th year of business Tourism Technology continues to provide a functionally enhanced and innovative wholesale travel management system to a strong base of customers.
For more information on the Calypso Travel System and Tourism Technology visit www.tt.com.au
Amadeus is a leading transaction processor for the global travel and tourism industry, providing transaction processing power and technology solutions to both travel providers (including full service carriers and low-cost airlines, hotels, rail operators, cruise and ferry operators, car rental companies and tour operators) and travel agencies (both online and offline).
The company acts both as a worldwide network connecting travel providers and travel agencies through a highly effective processing platform for the distribution of travel products and services (through our Distribution business), and as a provider of a comprehensive portfolio of IT solutions which automate certain mission-critical business processes, such as reservations, inventory management and operations for travel providers (through our IT solutions business).
www.amadeus.com and www.au.amadeus.com
BACK in the day, when I trod the road less travelled, I really thought there was a difference between myself and tourists. I was a traveller, you see, and they were … um … tourists. For some reason I thought my wanderings were superior, my interactions with local folk more meaningful. Why? Well, I was definitely more committed to travelling than the average tourist, quitting my job and travelling for months on end. But really, it came down to youth and a lack of understanding. Age has remedied that and I now really don't think there is a difference. A traveller is a tourist and vice versa. Seems I'm not the only one who's give this some thought. Check out this great article on the subject from Ben Groundwater. The comments are even better.
Peter Beveridge, Stella Travel Services
Peter Beveridge is the Chief Information Officer of Stella Travel Services in Australia and has been in that role since 2008. In the role he is responsible for the IT and broader distribution strategy of the business.
Stella Travel Services in Australia forms the core of the group with a network of long established retail, corporate and online brands and businesses.
It also provides supporting wholesale and air ticket consolidation services to the network through wholly owned businesses.
Key brands include Harvey World Travel, Travelscene American Express, BestFlights, Travel 2, Travel Indochina and the ATS Pacific networks in Australia
Originally from the UK, Peter has worked in a number of retail and wholesale travel businesses. He worked for Sabre Pacific for a number of years in key commercial and operational roles.
Further information available at http://au.linkedin.com/pub/peter-beveridge/b/7b0/244
GET set for a domestic airfare war over the next six months as Qantas Group and Virgin Blue ditch marginal routes and redeploy aircraft to the biggest, most popular city-pairs in their network, virtually all of which are on the east coast. Qantas set the ball rolling last week by revealing a 10% capacity increase while Virgin joined the fray today with a series of hard-headed moves – it's pulled out of the small New Zealand domestic market, boosted trans-Tasman capacity, increased Pacific Blue services to Southeast Asia and confirmed that "recent changes to our flight patterns and frequencies now provide more than 490,000 additional (domestic) seats". More …
NIIT Technologies is a leading IT solutions organization, servicing customers in Australia, Asia, North America and Europe.
It offers services in Application Development and Maintenance, Enterprise Solutions including Managed Services and Business Process Management to organizations in the Travel, Transportation & Logistics, Financial Services, Manufacturing, Retail and Distribution, and Government sectors.
NIIT Technologies follows global standards of development, which includes ISO 9001:2000 certification and assessment at Level 5 of SEI-CMMi version 1.2. Its data center operations are certified at the international ISO 20000 IT management and ISO 27001 information security standards.
For further information, please visit www.niit-tech.com
QANTAS Group is cautiously optimistic about the near future. CEO Alan Joyce yesterday said Qantas expects to increase aircraft capacity across its brands - Qantas and Jetstar – by 10% over the next six months "while retaining the capacity to optimise": ie switch aircraft between international and domestic, Qantas and Jetstar. This flexibility saw Qantas Group announce a respectable before tax profit of A$377m. Joyce said business demand has been encouraging but warned that the low cost leisure market is under "some pressure", evidenced by Jetstar's half-price sale this week.
FINALISTS have been announced for the 2010 TRAVELtech Web Awards. There are nine categories plus the big one – Website of the Year. Judging will be based on the following criteria – Innovation, Design and Usability, Meeting the Brief, Speed and Build, Content. Winners will be announced at TRAVELtech in Sydney on August 31. More …
Robyn's career path is a great illustration that a non-conformist route can lead to business success. She says that the sum of her life's experience along with an abundance of energy, passion, initiative and the courage to take a few risks, has provided her with the background and skills to enable her to fulfil her role within one of the world's fastest growing travel companies.
Starting her adult life as a wife and mother at 19 led to the beginnings of her business life as she joined the forces of the self – employed running a small business, doing a milk run, to support the family. Having studied politcs and economics at university, being President of the Milk man's union and lobbying to government seemed like a natural progression. Most importantly these first years of business experience taught her the fundamentals of business.
Having always had a passion for live theatre, Robyn returned to university to study drama and this led into a career in professional theatre. The challenges of promoting a show and getting "bums on seats", sponsorship and funding taught her the basic of direct marketing and understanding consumer behaviour.
But it was when she and a friend decided to venture into travel running small group adventures in India that she found out, by doing the leg work, about the global travel business. It was during this venture that she met Darrell Wade, CEO and Founder of Intrepid Travel . When they met Intrepid was in its 4th year of business, having successfully carried around 400 passengers. (Intrepid expect to carry 100,000 passengers to points all over the globe in 2010.)
Over the next few years paths crossed and eventually Robyn was persuaded to move to Melbourne to work for Intrepid. It is probably no accident that this unconventional route has made Robyn a great fit with a company that is also very entrepreneurial. In addition to leading the global sales and marketing team Robyn is part of the exec management group at Intrepid PTY Ltd and sits on several boards of companies within the group.
Cloudbreak Fiji
MASSIVE debate happening in the growing world of surf tourism with the Fiji Government opening up 'private' reef breaks like the famous Cloudbreak, previously exclusive to guests at Tavarua Resort which leases it from the local tribe. According to reports, the Regulations of Surfing Areas Decree 2010 will "liberalize access to any surfing area in Fiji and thereby enhance Fiji's image as a premier surf travel destination". Reaction in the surfing community – pioneers of so many exotic ocean destinations such as Bali – is split. More …
Business travel is bouncing back, Europe remains soft, some leisure sectors are picking up and Amadeus dodged a bullet big-time with its IPO earlier this year, CEO David Jones said at a briefing in Sydney this morning. Jones revealed if the public listing of the company on the Spanish stock exchange had been held just a week or two later it would not have got off the ground. More …
Crawford Rix
Tiger Airways. What can you say? Cheap. And some would say a little nasty.
Unlike other new Low Cost entrants such as AirAsia, Tiger has adopted an abrasive public persona since arriving in Australia, best seen in the public comments of founder Tony Davis and its local leaders, including new boss Crawford Rix, who last week bitched about loyalty schemes. Why? Tiger doesn't have one. More …
New York and Chicago; Barcelona and Madrid; Sydney and Melbourne … Singapore and Bangkok. All very different cities, all very much in competition with the other for national or regional eminence. But when it comes to tourism in Southeast Asia, there is no real competition any more. The latest STR Global stats show Singapore hotels in strong recovery mode (REVpar up 40%) while Bangkok hotels – endlessly hurt by civil unrest - are still scraping the bottom of what has been a brutal cycle. More …
HELP me out here please! I need websites you think are worthy of consideration for the 2010 TRAVELtech Web Awards, which features various categories in addition to Website of the Year. I've made a strong start as you'll see below but would love some outside input. Which is where you come in. The major proviso (see TRAVELtech Web Awards 2010 – Overview, Criteria, Eligibility) is that that the nominated websites are Australian. There'll be separate category winners, each of which will be considered for the TRAVELtech Website of the Year. So have a look and post your nominations. Deadline is 10am Wednesday, August 11, 2010. More …
THE risks of doing business in Vietnam have been dramatically illustrated by the trevails of two Qantas staff, Tristan Freeman and Daniela Marsilli, who worked senior roles for Jetstar Pacific. Qantas Group has a 27% stake in the carrier. Its partner, the Vietnam Government, launched an investigation into US$31m fuel hedging losses sustained by the carrier, the country's second biggest, separated Marsilli and Freeman from their families, and interrogated them over a six month while refusing to allow them to leave the country. The enquiry was suddenly dropped without explanation. Both are now back in Australia but Jetstar Pacific's CEO Luong Hoai Nam is in jail. See full Sydney Morning Herald Story.
Events
TRAVELtech 2010 has just concluded. It was a great day attended by more than 260 Australian online industry leaders and a fantastic program.
Photos will be posted soon. Meanwhile, you can check out the 2010 speakers below.
- Justin Baird, Innovationist, Google Australia
- Shelley Beasley, Managing Director Pacific, Travelport
- Jeremy Bellinghausen, President, HotelClub.com
- Peter Beveridge, Chief Information Officer, Stella Travel Services
- John Bolakis, Director, SEO.com
- Andrew Burnes, CEO, AOT Travel
- Chris Chambers, Director - Digital Marketing, Tourism Queensland
- Ian Cumming, Founder, Travellr.com
- Barney Harford, President and CEO, Orbitz
- Mark Higginson, Director of Analytics, Nielsen Online
- Martin Kelly, Director, Travel Trends
- Kevin Lippy, co-Founder, Brokepacker.com
- Alan Long, Research Director, Experian Hitwise Asia Pacific
- Dan Lynn, Managing Director, Expedia Asia Pacific
- Rohan Lund, CEO, Yahoo!7
- Warren Livingstone, Founder, TheFanatics.com
- Robyn Nixon, GM Global sales and Marketing, Intrepid Travel
- Andy Owen-Jones, CEO, TravelTainment, Amadeus Leisure Group
Major Sponsor:
Premium Partner:
Sponsors:
If you have any queries about TRAVELtech, please call Martin Kelly on (02) 9882-1575.
Recent Comments