2009 "Opportunities in Online Travel" over at the WebInTravel website

Siew Hoon of WebInTravel has been asking people their views Opportunities in Online Travel in 2009. I sent her my top three - which are:

1. Become the Deal Hunter - consumers will still travel they just need deals. Does not mean just price discounts but consumers will need suppliers and intermediaries to be prepared to offer unique specials and deals.

2. Focus on the Product - expectations will be lower so now is the time to invest in your product. Innovation in a down turn is critical, as is fixing all those bugs that have been ignored in times of growth

3. Steal market share from less resilient/prepared competitors - no explanation needed!

If you'd like to see more, including what Ram Badrinathan of PhoCusWright said, then head over to the WebInTravel newsroom.

World Nomads on Social Media

I blogged during the last TRAVELtech conference about the inspiring footprints network launched by insurance provider World Nomads. It was an interesting story because of how World Nomads could meet its desire to be a good corporate citizen with the need to grow brand, market presence and conversion. World Nomads General Manager Chris Noble gives even more background to this program and their approach to marketing in social media over at the World Nomads blog in a blog post called Social Media : Wake Up and Smell The Engagement!. I found it an interesting read. You might also.

Tripwolf Raises another $2.5 million from MairDumont and others

Yesterday TechCrunch noted that Austrian based online travel guide/planning site TripWolf raised another $2.5mm in funding. Leads (according to TechCrunch) are their current investor and media partner MairDzumont and Dieter von Holtzbrinck. My profile of TripWolf and their relationship with MairDumont is here. Congrats to CEO Sebastian Heinze and team.

Wotif.com launches 90 days of inventory on January 27

As I mentioned back in May, Wotif is planning to extend the window for booking of inventory from the current 28 days out to 365 days. An email is going round to hotels today announcing that as of January 27 the first step in that plan will be launched with the Wotif extranet beting extended to take inventory up to 90 days out. No word on what that will mean for changes to the search display. Currently consumers do not enter in dates to get search results. Instead they are present with a grid format showing inventory availability over a 14 day period with an option to click to the "next seven days". I assume that to cover 90 days worth of inventory Wotif will have to change this interface and add date search.

If I am right then there are some challenges ahead for Wotif during the roll out of this new functionality. It is one thing to change the back end and have to train hoteliers on an updated system. This is a painful but relatively manageable task. It is another to manage the impact on consumer behaviour of a dramatic change in the consumer booking process. As they say on CNN - only time will tell.

Can a plane land on water and have survivors? Of course it can!

Photo from grego! over at Flickr
I never ever truly believed, even after thousands of safety briefings on aeroplanes, that a 800,000 pound structure of metal, glass and human passengers could actually land on water, in tact and with people (somewhat) calmly swimming away with the aid of life jackets and slides that turn into life rafts. Now I believe! The pilot of US Airways flight 1549 La Guardia to Charlotte is an absolute genius and legend. More here care of the NY Times.

Another photo of the Hudson River crash is below.

This one I found at the alleyinsider. Attributed to jkrums who was on a ferry that rescued people


Update - here is another photo. This time of the flight tracker from FlightAware.com showing flight 1549 stopping in the middle of the Hudson River. Found it on Crunchgear.

Update - want another angle. Check on this interactive map of the route and crash in the Hudson. Hat tip to Kevin at Travolution.

Update - much watch animation video including voice exchange between the tower and plan (and flying geese)!!! (thanks to TechCrunch)

Last minute travel is coming back - research report from Co-op Travel

The sixth of my five predictions for 2009 was that the economic conditions would mean that the last minute model would return in online travel distribution. This is where suppliers provide intermediaries (and direct channels) with heavily discounted inventory very close to the day of travel. I called this model as being "on hiatus" but not dead back in May 2008 because suppliers were doing so well they had no reason to risk future sales by discounting.

I do not like to fall for PR spin dressed up as research but I am starting to see more and more evidence of the likely return of last minute discounts. The most recent PR spun research piece comes from The Co-Operative Travel as picked up by Travelmole and e-tid in the UK (registration required for both). In short the survey of 850 customers found that more than half (57%) were waiting until between March and June to book their "traditional" UK summer holiday. 89% had not finalised their summer plans, with 65% still intending to go on holidays. In other words waiting until the last minute to book.

I am sure this is more driven by the economic circumstances of the traveller rather than some cunning plan to wait for suppliers to drop their prices. But the consequence will be to force suppliers to cut capacity (if they can) and drop rates. I expect to see more of this across different countries and distribution channels. We are now officially in last minute model rebirth watch here at BOOT central. Are you seeing any earlier evidence of the return?

thanks to lounger over at flickr for the great photo

Have you seen how bad things are in car rental? Avis, Hertz, Dollar all down 80%+

The crash test dummy in this photo maybe smiling but the car rental industry has smashed into the recession/global financial crisis wall with such force that dramatic industry changes are inevitable. I usually spend my time ranting about airlines, hotels and online agents such that I often forget to watch other sectors like cruise and car.

I received an enormous shock yesterday when I was surfing around Yahoo! finance and decided to see how the Avis/Budget stock price was doing. I have soft spot for the Avis Budget Group Inc (CAR) stock ticker (to the extent you can ever have feelings for a stock ticker) for two reasons. Firstly because CAR is such as great ticker for a car rental company. Mainly though because it is the successor to the once public and once amalgamated Cendant Corporation. Back in Sept 2006 CAR took over from CD and Cendant was no more.

Anyway what I found was that Avis stock is now trading at less than $1, has a market cap of less than $85million and is on notice to be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange unless it can find a way to trade above a $1 per share. This is a company that has some 28,000 employees (after a cut of 2,200 in Dec last year) and at the time of the spin off in Sept 2006 had a stock value of nearly $20. The stock reached highs of $30 in mid 07. That said back in 2006 analysts were already saying that the company was in trouble. I have not been tracking enough to speak definitively but clearly the crash to a US recession straight after all of the pain and suffering of high gas prices and credit being squeezed has just been too much for this company.

It may not give the Avis execs much comfort but their competitors in car rental are also in terrible trouble. Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group (DTG) stocks are trading at less than $1.50 off a 52 week high of $27 and a two year high of $50 - only just staving off breaches of debt covenants. Unimaginable drops. Hertz (HTZ) - the market boss - seem to be holding steady at $6 off a 52 week high of $15.32. Standard & Poor's are expecting at least one of these players to disappear into bankruptcy - with Dollar Thirty their lead tip. The other big player is Enterprise - but they are private so I can't find word on how they are coping. [tips welcome]

The other side of the industry is the intermediaries and car dedicated meta-search players. The biggest global online car rental broker is the Lastminute.com/Travelocity owned HolidayAutos. Travelocity has been a private company for a year and a half now so it has been very difficult to get any news on how parts of their business is performing. There was word last Sept on the turnover at Lastminute being in the region of Euro 2 billion per year but September was an age away in this crisis and there was not split out in the announcement for HolidayAutos. [tips welcome]. My thumb in the air guess is that intermediaries should be able to take advantage of this industry pain and secure fantastic rates and deals. Down here in Australia you would think that this could be good news for two of main car intermediaries, the meta-search provider Oodles.com and consolidator Vroomvroomvroom. More info on Oodles is here including a bio on long time BOOT commentator and Oodles MD Steve Sherlock. Smart Company have a profile on Vroom inc Founder/CEO Peter Thorton here.

If you thought the air and hotel industry was in trouble, then spare a moment of industry reflection and concern for our brothers and sisters in the car industry.

Thanks to anthena1970 for the photo over at flickr

New US entry rules and registration. First confusion, now ripoff merchants. Recombobulation time?

The new US rules on registration prior to entry are coming into force next week (January 12). Called the Electronic System for Travel Authorisation, the process is a four step process to apply for the right to enter the US under the Visa Waiver Program. It seems completely strange and contradictory to me that qualification for the Visa Waiver Program (ie a program that means you can enter without a visa) requires an online registration and approval and then completion of a detailed form (the green one) on the airline before entry into the US is permitted. Not surprisingly a articles are appearing with stories of confused travellers, airlines and bureaucrats (Sydney Morning Herald). Frighteningly stories are emerging of companies offering to complete this (free and supposedly easy) process for a fee (Herald.ie story about Holiday Home Direct).

My advice - don't wait until you are planning a US trip. If you are a regular traveller go straight to the ESTA registration page and complete the process. You do not have to have a specific travel date in mind and (if I read this right) only have to do it once.

I hope this public service announcement has been useful. Of course I am only writing this post so I have another excuse to use the Recombobulation photograph and tag the word again :)

Update - I made a mistake above in saving that the green form also has to be completed in this new ESTA world. The form (officially called an I-94W form) does not have to be completed for ESTA approved travellers. See ESTA FAQ pdf for more (page 12)

Update 2 - there is some real confusion here. Despite what I found above in the ESTA FAQ I was still required to fill in the green I-94W form on arrival in the US.

(thank you lark is already taken from Flickr for the fantastic photo)

The Airline Industry - IATA style - Times Interview with CEO Giovanni Bisignani

I have come across an interview in the TimesOnline by Suzy Jagger with IATA CEO Giovanni Bisignani. The article is a great piece of PR for Bisignani but if you can read through the "talking points", the text contains some interesting predictions and comments from him about the year ahead for airlines. Here are a couple of them:

• Bisignani believes that the current environment is significantly worse that anything he has seen in the last 60 years including 9/11 which "had a very limited impact";
• While the US has already cut capacity by 10% (he expects this to rise to 12%) there have been limited cuts so far in Europe. This will hurt the Euro carriers significantly as they are carrying too much capacity and have been for too long. Bisignani is predicting that Euro carries will lose €1billion in 2009. He singles out Alitalia and BMI as being the airlines most likely to be worst-hit;
• Airlines are going to be working hard to wiggle out of orders with Boeing and Airbus as the capacity cuts have resulted in more tha 760 airlines being parked somewhere gathering dust.

Backs up my predictions from yesterday including that I expect to see another big airline fail this year (other than Alitalia).

The BOOT is back for 2009 with 5 predictions for the online travel industry

The BOOT is back for 2009. Tanned (a little burnt), rested (though could do with another big sleep in) and ready for action (kind of). Inspired by the Travolution article "Predictions for 2009" I am going to open up the 2009 edition of the BOOT with my predictions for the travel industry. Here are my five predictions for 2009:

1. There are more airlines to go bust. In fact before the end of 2009 a big carrier will go bust or be taken over as a saving measure. Alitalia is a gimme so I wont count the impending Alitalia failure/restructure as a successful prediction. Another big carrier (or two) will fail or be bought in 2009. Update - if you want a list of all of the 21 airlines that died in 2008 check out this post over at cranky flyer;
2. Domestic travel growth will surprise us all. I am a noted optimist when it comes to the travel industry surviving shocks and set backs. People will still travel in 2009 - they will just go short. Consumers will look for domestic deals and shorter trips to enable them to enjoy the travel and breaks they want without the long-haul price tag;
3. Consolidation is not yet finished: In 2008 TripAdvisor bought everything in sight, Venere first bought Worldby then joined the extended TripAdvisor family by being acquired by Expedia, Microsoft bought Farecast, Priceline bought Agoda, Wotif bought AsiaWebDirect and Travel.com.au and more. The consolidation in the online travel industry will continue through 2009. There are too many bargains out there;
4. 2009 will not be the year of mobile for the travel industry: Every year since 2000 we have been talking about the mobile revolution in online travel. This year I rejoined that chorus of mobile revolution fan boys while at PhoCusWright in LA. With the Global Financial Crisis (I am told there is even an acronym for this - GFC) in full swing I think the larger players will pull back from their mobile plans and focus on core products, costs control and customer loyalty. Mobile will have to wait until 2010; and
   
5. The dinosaurs will screw up and come out of the GFC even weaker: The big offline players have been screwing up online for a long time now. The good ones have managed to avoid destruction due to the booming economy and the sale of complementary products (land, car, package and especially cruise). The boom is over and the pain is hitting. Just recently Flight Centre announced a likely 33% drop in profits for 2009. In the past I have given advice on how you would know that offline players like Flight Centre "get it" and are ready to execute online. The GFC actually provides a fantastic opportunity to "get it" and join the online travel revolution. Expectations for performance are low during a bust giving offline players time to shift focus and make investments in areas they have previously ignored online. But I think the offline players will miss this chance. Instead of emerging from the GFC with a stronger online focus they will dig even deeper into the offline hole and emerge even further behind the online industry leaders. As evidence of this see the recent interview from new Stella Travel (Australia's number 2 offline player) CEO Peter Lacaze where he confessed to being an online sceptic. [Disclosure - in the past I have consulted to Stella on their online strategy].

UPDATE - Prediction number 6 - the last minute model will come back. I called the last minute model as being on hiatus in May 2008. It will come back as hotels start to hurt during the GFC.

Stay tuned to see what I get wrong and right here. The BOOT is back for 2009.

thanks to Tokyo Boy on flickr for the photo

Holiday break and a little entertainment. Back in early January

Dear BOOT readers,

I am going on holidays early this year. Barring a collapse, buyout or killer email that draws me back to the keyboard I will see you back on the blog around Jan 5 2009.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Seasons Greetings, Happy New Year and best you and yours.

I'm having a blast writing this. Hope you are enjoying reading. See you again in 2009.

In the meantime I am reposting an old favourite which has no relationship at all with the business of online travel.




Tim

Expedia and Travelocity team up (in Asia at least): Zuji is carrying Tripadvisor reviews

Am sure you know by now that Travelocity is operating in Asia under a number of brands including Zuji in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand and Taiwan. You definitely know that Expedia owns Tripadvisor (though I keep getting search engine travel from people that don't). But did you know that Zuji is now including Tripadvisor branded reviews in their hotel search results. In other words a content sharing deal between a Expedia company and a Travelocity company.

BOOT Link Exchange Policy

The quantity of link requests I am getting is going up by the day. I feel compelled to do a post setting out my link policy. At the very least it will give me something to point to when I reply to link requests. So here is the BOOT link exchange policy.

"I don't due pure link exchanges. Instead I link to sites that I read regularly whether or not they link back to me. I think that is a "purer" way of building blogging and linking communities. You can see from my blog roll there are sites that have not given me links back. Similarly there are sites that have given me links that I don't link back to. If you want to submit a link to me then I promise to take a look at the site and if it joins my list of regularly visited sites then will add to my blog roll and give you a link back"

Best way to get a link out of me is to:

• Give me a link;
• Send me traffic; and
• Have something interesting to say that I want to read again and again.

PhoCusWright Interview: TripWolf CEO Sebastian Heinzel and his relationship with MairDumont

Another very interesting meeting I had in LA at PhoCusWright with TripWolf CEO Sebastian Heinzel. TripWolf is a German based online destination guide, social network and travel planning website. They call themselves a "social travel guide". They have already been generating a some blog buzz (Travolution examples) since their May 2008 beta launch. They have received some funding from i5invest. The part of this conversation I enjoyed the most was hearing about the unique relationship that the online Tripwolf has with the offline publishing powerhouse MairDumont. More on this below.

I have commented before on content sites, including a specific post summarising a series of travel planner sites that participating in the PhoCusWright Innovation Summit.

Tripwolf do a number of the things you would expect from a travel planning and social media site including displaying destination information, providing blogging and UGC systems and allowing travel guide printing. Functionality-wise they have the expected social networking pieces but are still to develop the itinerary aggregation functionality we have seen from players such as TripIt and fellow TechCrunch 50 allum GoPlanit.

Rather they have focused on two elements as their differentiator compared to other trip planning sites. Firstly they are European based. This provides for a different destination focus, greater breadth in language and different consumer pool to fish in.

The second is content and this is where my interest in Tripwolf was particularly engaged. The challenge that a travel planning company has (as I have discussed before) is the need for content and lots of of it. This usually requires time, patience and good marketing as the trip planning site tries to piece together its own editorial content and collect user generated content. Tripwolf has dramatically sped up the time required through a unique relationship with a large content provider - MairDumont. MairDumont (I am told) is the largest publisher of travel guides in Germany (which likely makes them number one in Europe also). It is trite to call them the "Lonely Planet" of Germany because one of MairDumont's many products is to market and translate the German editions of Lonely Planet. I am reliably told that their books, maps and publications are ubiquitous in Germany.

On their own MairDumont have followed an approach we have seen with by companies such as Lonely Planet and Frommers by launching series of sites (8) based on their various publication brands. These have been successful in their own right generating some 240 million page impressions and 36 millions visitors a year (according to Tripwolf's Heinzel).

The interesting part here is that in exchange for equity in Tripwolf and the right to sell advertising on TripWolf, MairDumont have given TripWolf access to the extensive MairDumont library of content. This means access to quality editorial information/content on more than 200,000 destinations in five European languages (press release here). It grants Tripwolf an enormous content head start but threatens MairDumont's tradditional business. This is a very bold move by MairDumont as Tripwolf is now "giving away" the content that MairDumont has been selling in books for 60 years. They are supporting a distribution mechanism that seeks to undermine the traditional publishing business that generated Euro190mm for MairDumont in 2007. Allowing their content to go online through a vehicle they have an interest in, even though it competes with the traditional business is a bold move that deserves our applause. It will cost them book revenue but it recognises that the future of content distribution for travel is going to be beyond the printed page.

Travel industry copying the appliance industry: American Airlines Fly Now / Pay Later

I have written before about how travel is competing with appliance retail for the consumers dollar. In one post I quoted a report from Tourism Research Australia that said as much. In that post we saw evidence of JetStar (AU low cost carrier owned by Qantas) trying to fight this trend with a promotion tied to prizes from a white goods and appliance retailer.

Thanks to an email from an equity research analyst I have become aware of another airline's efforts in this retail battle. Below is a shot from the American Airlines site with a very common appliance store tactic of buy now pay later. In the case of American Airlines they are offering Fly Now Pay Later with six months interest free.



There are restrictions here. Firstly it applies to air only (ie the areas on directly under American's control). The consumer has to apply for an AA credit card, combining financing with credit card customer acquisition. Most outrageously if the amount is not paid in full within six months interest is accrued and back dated at a Mafia like level of 25.96%.

The execution and interest rate may be bordering of scandalous but I expect this to be the first of many appliance retailer like activities from travel suppliers and online agents. Even in these times of credit crunches there is just too much money in financing, extended warranties (insurance) and flexirent style products for margin pressured suppliers to resist the lure of appliance retailer practices. The BOOT will be tracking and posting on these as I see them. If you spot some let me know.

PhoCusWright interview: Talking with Tina Fitch of EzRez about how airlines can improve their online offering

I am finally finding time to write the follow up posts from PhocCusWright in LA. This post also ties back to a story I wrote in May 2007 called “Helping Airlines Stay On Top”. Also one a few months later when EasyJet announced a complete revamp of its website – becoming the first of the low cost carriers to do integrated (read seamless) land and air cross sell and packaging.

I was reminded of these two stories during my meeting at PhoCusWright with Tina Fitch the President and CEO of EzRez. As you probably know EzRez is a provider of web based reservation and distribution services. This includes a mechanism for allowing travel distribution companies (including suppliers) to build multi-product (air, land etc) engines with cross sell and packaging. Effectively allowing a supplier/airline to look like an OTA.

This took me back to my earlier posts because in them I proposed three things that an online supplier (namely airline) should do to increase their online presence. I have updated this list from the earlier post. Here are my three recommendations to an airline:

1. Cross Sell Complementary Product - Properly: Advising an airline to sell complementary land product is the easy part. The twist in this advice is they should not do it through through a simple white label and link on the home page that says "book hotels". It is another mistake to simply to bring online the offline holiday or vacation division of the airline (like what Qantas have tried with what used to be known as ReadyRooms). Instead they need to invest in being a true online hotel (land) business. One that lives by the principles and processes that have made the hotel only players successful - hotel flexibility in rates and availability, product focus and online product managers living and breathing their channel. Leaving it to the holiday division means that the hotel contracting style and results mirrors the less flexible world of wholesale. This does not produce the inventory and pricing you need to beat the hotel only players. Just as important you need to match the big OTAs in putting cross sell in the purchase path through both dynamic packaging and shopping basket style. Both of these things mean investing seriously in the complementary product. It will likely involve a third party inventory provider but for maximum effectiveness needs more than a link to a white label;
2. Give Customer rewards and enticements beyond price: Web only deals and lots of them drove customers to Airline websites but with the OTAs and meta-search now using API connections and screen-scraping to provide customers with the same inventory, the airlines need to expand their offering to customers. They should use content, loyalty concepts/miles, customer service and bonuses (all the stuff that OTAs do) to open up another front in retaining customers. I talked about this in relation to how BA brought their Highlife magazine online. When using content to retain consumers, Airlines should seek to drive loyalty through building community, building brand and linking all elements to the customer experience not just to drive traffic and generate advertising revenue ; and
3. Apply focused channel management and structure: Stop treating the online channel as...well...just another channel. Make it a separate business in itself. Put the person in charge, truly in charge such that they never have to enter into a debate over cannibalisation of other channels. Turn the site into a business that is independent of the airline's other sales activities.

Tina's EzRez is building a business around helping Airlines with these recommendations. Her company's pitch is that their software as a solution (SaaS) products can provide the functionality and connections needed to drive the architecture and inventory. With clients such as AA Vacations where they are hoping to prove it. She believes a SaaS provider like EzRez can invest more in technology (than an airline), can go behind the scenes at the airline (unlike an OTA) and can build on top to customise for areas such as miles/points.

I see a very interesting battle emerging between companies like EzRez approaching this market from the SaaS angle, the OTAs with customisable white label solution and now XML feeds and black box connectivity style companies such as TopDog. The winner will determined by whether or not players like EzRez can keep up with the technology strength of the OTAs (with their deeper pockets and larger technology teams) and can stay ahead with interoperability capabilities ( I have also mentioned these challenges before).

Gift Disclosure Tina was kind enough to give me a t-shirt during our interview.

What the hell does Recombobulation mean? Maybe the TSA can help?

This sign was spotted at Milwaukee's Mitchell International Airport. It is the place passengers go after the security check to put their belt and shoes on and reassemble computers and toiletry packs. I tried to search around for the definition of Recombolutation. This was a typical response online

That is - it is a made up word. Trying to figure it out I came across "Combobulate" which is (according to definition-of.com)

To put together in a somewhat mysterious manner. To bring something out of a state of confusion or disarray. To manufacture by some unusual or novel means. Antonym: discombobulate.

So drawing on my very poor high school grammatical training it is very nice of the Transport Safety Authority (TSA) to provide people with a place for Recombobulation or the

"putting back together of personal items in a somewhat mysterious manner"

Not sure if helping people do things in a mysterious manner should be hallmark of TSA service but then I am not the professional in this area. I am just thrilled to be able to add the word recombobulation to my list of techorati tags.

UPDATE - Looks like it was the airport not the TSA that put up the sign. Here is what the photographer "lark is already taken" had this to say about the photo in an exchange with me

"FWIW I had the impression that the airport put up the sign, not the TSA. Perhaps the airport is expressing an opinion on the whole screening process.."

Hat tip to Consumerist for the story and lark is already taken for the photo

UPDATE 2 - More fame and recognition for Milwaukee. The American Dialect Society has voted "Recombobulation" as the most creative word of 2008. To complete the story - the winner of the "word of the year" was "Bail Out" with runners up including "lipstick on a pig" and "change". Thanks to Steve Sherlock at Oodles who sent me the link.

Qantas and British Airways merger means bringing the pacific pain to the Kangaroo Route

Story on CNN that BA is in talks with Qantas over a merger (thanks to iKangaroo on twitter where I spotted the story).

I hate this idea.

Right now Qantas is gouging me and every other customer on the Pacific Route (East Coast Australia to West coast USA). Qantas earns 40% more revenue per passenger kilometre on that route than the Kangaroo route because...they can. And they "can" because there is no competition. The only "competitor" (if you can call it that) is United. The US and Australian governments have restricted who can fly this route - ensuring profit good times for Qantas and high prices for me. There are possible long way round options with Canadian and Hawaiian Airlines but the routings and timings are terrible. V-Australia (Virgin Blue's long haul play) is due on the route in Feb 2009 but there is only limited capacity improvements expected and how they will connect out of LA to other US destinations is not clear. Basically Qantas own this route and take advantages of customers because of it.

I ranted about this a lot in a recent post - "Open Skies between the US and Australia: There is no one I don't hate right now".

Currently we (travelling consumers) have been spared this gouging on the Kangaroo Route (Australia to UK/Europe and a Qantas Trade mark) because more than thirty carriers fly this route in addition to BA and Qantas from the well respected - Singapore, Cathay, Emirates, Virgin-Atlantic, Etihad, to the mid ranges - Malaysian and Thai, to the micro and niche - AirAustral, to the "no way in hell would I get on it" - Garuda.

But the UK and AU governments let BA and Qantas enter into a "Joint Services Agreement(JSA)" in 1995 allowing them to

"coordinate scheduling, marketing, sales, freight and customer service activities"

In other words to engage in behaviour that otherwise would be anti-competitive. When accused of this BA and Qantas point to the above facts - that 30+ carriers fly the route as proof that competition continues. However since the JSA was signed the following airlines have pulled out of the route - KLM, Alitalia, Air France, Lufthansa, Lauda Air, Austrian Air. Do you see a common theme? In fact there is now not one Continental European carrier flying the route. Not one. All have been forced to pull out because of the scheduling and marketing collusion of BA and Qantas under the JSA (OK..maybe in the case of Alitalia there have been other causes).

I have a (legitimate) concern that a merged BA and Qantas will have further competition consequences and help Qantas to extend their Pacific gouging to the Kangaroo route. If the government is listening please squash this. Then again it is the AU government(s) that allowed the JSA and Pacific Route dominance to continue.

Update - Delta have announced they will fly the route around July 2009. The Cranky Flier has written a post showing what this means in terms of flight schedules across the Pacific.

Australians at PhoCusWright - ekit and viator

Photograph of an Australian group at the recent PhoCusWright Conference in LA. From left to right John Diamond CEO of international mobile phone card, SIM and geo-location services company eKit, Tim Hughes (me) and Rod Cuthbert Executive Chairman of destination services company Viator. Am grateful to Rod as it was through his introduction of me to Philip Wolf of PhoCusWright that I managed to get a blogger ticket to PhoCusWright.

The war on Mumbai, the rescue of my family and the re-writing of the media rules care of Twitter

I have been quiet for the last week on the blog. You could be forgiven for thinking that this was a come down from the activity of PhoCusWright in LA the week before. But actually it has been because my family has been directly caught up in the Mumbai horror that dominated last week. My wife’s cousin and her family (husband and six month old daughter) were long term residents of the Trident Oberoi hotel in Mumbai. The husband was the head chef at the Italian restaurant that was part of this five star property. He was evacuated immediately after the terrorists stormed the hotel but my cousin (in-law) and her infant daughter were trapped in the hotel for more than thirty-six hours as they hid from the terrorists with little to no food or fresh water. The husband managed to sneak back into the hotel at around the thirty hour mark with food and water but it was not until late Friday afternoon Sydney time (around midday local time) that the whole family was liberated. Not surprisingly photos of a young a family escaping the horror dominated a lot of the online and offline press – particularly in their native Italy (click on links for photo).

I share this with you for a few reasons. Terror attacks of this kind will impact all of us in the travel business – particularly in Asia. As an industry we have lost colleagues and friends. Additionally this was a very personal experience for me as I a was filled with worry for nearly two days culminating in the incredible feeling of joy at their survival – held in check by the sadness of the loss of so many others.

It was also a very powerful experience to live this moment in real time with the changing media tools at our disposal. The second I heard they were trapped (early morning Sydney time), I fell into an old habit, immediately switched on BBC world and sat on the couch alternating between that and CNN. Then new world instincts took over. I started by having multiple tabs focused on different online news sites – BBC.co.uk, CNN, Nytimes. But they did not time stamp their updates very effectively. It was hard to know how old (read out of date) a particular story was.

By the end of the second day I had my eyes glued to Twitter under the search tag #mumbai and more generally searching Twitter for any mention on the word Oberoi. Towards the end of the siege these twitter feeds updated themselves with nearly a tweet a second. People from all around the world were tweeting with the important ("am watching pictures of commandos storming the hotel"), the emotional ("thoughts are with all those in Mumbai"), the practical ("here is the direct line to the Oberoi Mumbai staff"), the wishful ("heard a rumour that it was all over, is that true?") and of course the useless ("here is a link to [an unrelated] video"). Meanwhile my other screen was alternating between live web streaming of NDTV (local news) and CNN-IBN (CNN’s partnership in India). Live professional feeds on one screen and live citizens on the other.

This kept me so up to date that I actually saw the live footage (as it happened) of my cousin and her family stepping out of the hotel and towards the buses. My cheers of glee brought work colleagues rushing into my office as I jabbed at the screen screaming “That’s them!!! That’s them!!!”.

This combination kept me as close as possible to the action. Almost certainly closer than if I had actually been there on the ground as I could see, hear and track the events from multiple angles. There was also an amazing human side to the Twitter feed experience. As I posted more and more questions, thoughts and updates to Twitter in the search for “and Italian national and her infant”, more and more people tweeted back with support, tips, thoughts and just plain human to human contact. Some I knew, very many I did not. It was an amazing experience but not a perfect one. At the height of things the Twitter feed was completely unmanageable. Too much information steaming too fast and none of it verifiable. People would state any rumour as fact, which would then we re-tweeted at the speed of light and build up a momentum of its own. One person Tweeted “Indian government to shut down Twitter feed because of security concerns”. Within moments this had become “Twitter law” and reappeared every 15-20 mins without fail. At no point was it supported by a source or any basis for confirmation. Real time Twitter reporting of an event like this is clearly flawed and over-whelming but it is a view into a dramatic change in how events will be reported.

Without a doubt the Mumbai horrors have shown us a real time information world unlike any before it. We will now see and watch the world unfold from multiple angles and the lines between professional media and the people on the street are not just blurred they are eliminated.

[photo is of the Vetro restaurant at the Oberoi Mumbai where my relative was head chef]