For a consumer preparing to spend a substantial portion of her household income on a family vacation, travel is about finding the right experience for the best value. For the business providing that experience, travel is about standing out in a hyper-competitive, global market while maintaining a sustainable margin. For both parties, travel has also become about mastering the Internet, which these days means immersing themselves in the emerging world of Web 2.0, notably the deep respect for data and the collaborative creation of content.
It’s well established that travellers rely on the Internet to make their plans. For example, in its North American Consumer Technology Adoption Study, Forrester discovered that
“User-generated content has exploded over the Internet, and, from blogs to Wikis to MySpace, real-life user commentary is trumping established media and brands,” writes Matt Rand in Forbes.com. “Travelers have taken to the Web and are now providing real-time, illustrated, no-holds-barred travel guides.”
The online travel industry, which has reached sales of US$60 billion in revenue, or about one-quarter of the overall US travel market, has recognized the importance of these trends, and as a result provides helpful examples of how to incorporate the technology and mindset of Web 2.0 into their business plans:
- A new generation of travel search sites have stolen a page from the Google Web 2.0 playbook, and perform meta-searches to offer comparison-shopping pages that aggregate pricing data from many retail sources. Unlike the travel agent sites like Travelocity, the meta-search sites include every airline and travel-booking agency, including Orbitz and Expedia. Kayak, for example, features the slogan: “search with us, book with them.” As interesting as the model is, however, Forrester reports that these sites owns less than 5% of all online travel.
- The industry offers an interesting deployment of a wiki to assist with travel planning, World66, a site on which everything is written and edited by random visitors.
- Social networking has become one of the most talked about Web 2.0 phenomenon, and the travel industry has a numerous examples. FlyerTalk, for instance, features thousands of posts from frequent flyers who are helping one another, trading discount certificates and swapping customer experiences. The established travel players are attempting to participate in this Web 2.0 world. Starwood, for example, created a new blog, TheLobby.com, and invited the Starwood Lurker, who had become a celebrity on the FlyerTalk community, to address hotel issues.
While these examples provide a good reference for any company contemplating how to incorporate the mindset and technology of Web 2.0 into its strategy, Yahoo! demonstrates how organizations that develop a competence with CGM can enter new markets and pose a significant threat to incumbents.
“With features like Yahoo! Shoposphere, an add-on to Yahoo! Shopping that gives users a chance to make lists and guides for others, Yahoo! is tapping into its 400 million users to create content and foster communities that will keep the Web traffic flowing,” notes
Reiterating the point that Yahoo! sees travel as being a market that requires Web 2.0 technology, it bought travel meta-search site FareChase in 2004 which enables users to check fares while looking at reviews and trip planners.
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