2009 October

TripAdvisor adds flight metasearch to UK site

October 6, 2009 By Kevin May 3 Comments

Launched quietly last night, but press released this morning, TripAdvisor has finally launched its flight metasearch product in the UK.

The service is a like-for-like copy of the US product which launched in February 2009 and comes amid significant changes in the metasearch arena in the UK.

At present the UK is the only country site outside of the US to have taken the product, although a spokesperson says the remaining domains on the roster (currently running at 12 after the US and the UK) will all receive the functionality in due course.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: metasearch, tripadvisor

United premieres Premier Baggage

October 5, 2009 By Dennis Schaal 2 Comments

There is nothing like United Airlines for getting us in that proper holiday frame of mind.

Just in time for Chanukah, Christmas and Kwanza, United has introduced Premier Baggage. If I hadn’t read about it on the United website, I would have taken the name, Premier Baggage, and the idea as satire.

So with Premier Baggage, the latest salvo in ancillary-services marketing, travelers can pay an introductory rate of $249 per year and check up to two standard bags for no extra charge all year on United and United Express flights.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: ancillary services, checked bags, United Airlines

U.S. Dept. of Justice begins Sabre-Farelogix inquiry

October 5, 2009 By Dennis Schaal 8 Comments

The U.S. Dept. of Justice has begun looking into allegations by Farelogix that Sabre engaged in anti-competitive practices when it terminated a Farelogix developers’ agreement in March.

Tnooz has learned that the Dept. of Justice has recently begun contacting Farelogix customers about the allegations.

Farelogix partner Pass Consulting, as well as Globus and Vayama (also known as Air Trade International), confirmed they have been contacted.

Farelogix alleges — and Sabre denies — that when Sabre terminated the Farelogix developers’ agreement with the Sabre GDS that Sabre was using its imposing market clout in the U.S. market to snuff out a competitor. When that agreement ended, it made it much more difficult for Farelogix customers to integrate their Farelogix bookings with other reservations made through Sabre.

Filed Under: Gadgets, News, Uncategorized Tagged With: airlines, Dept. of Justice, distribution, Farelogix, sabre

BlueSky update: bids hitting the inbox, no deadline

October 5, 2009 By Kevin May 3 Comments

Rumours that bids for the beleaguered BlueSky Travel Systems business would only be accepted before 5pm BST today are apparently wide of the mark.

The cut-off date appeared rather hurried as the company only officially went into administration last week, on September 30.

Administrator MCR has confirmed how many bids have been received “so far” and also remarked that any technology company or investor that wanted to put a proposal together for BlueSky needn’t panic at missing what was supposedly an official deadline.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: bluesky travel systems

Kayak gets trendy – nothing to do with fashion

October 5, 2009 By Kevin May 2 Comments

Farecast, Farecompare and a number of other travel sites made the idea of data crunching at the front end extremely popular with users.

Such scientific chores such as displaying when is typically the best time to buy a ticket on certain airlines became quite a usual and often core feature of websites as they tried to differentiate themselves from the metasearch engines already in the market.

Kayak has now done it the other way round, with a slightly watered down version showing search volumes and average fares across its network of destinations.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: kayak, metasearch

The changing social habits of Asians

October 5, 2009 By Siew Hoon Yeoh 2 Comments

In putting WIT-Web In Travel 2009 together, I have been traveling across the region and getting a taste of what’s unfolding in the online travel landscape.

From Kuala Lumpur to Taipei to Bangkok, a similar story seems to be unfolding – that the convergence of several things happening is moving more and more consumers online and onto mobile in this biggest, and fastest growing market in the world.

First, there’s the crisis that’s made 2009 The Year of the Deal in Asia, and many of these deals are being pushed online by suppliers.

Filed Under: Gadgets, Mobile, News Tagged With: asia, Mobile

Is there a Bing Travel brain drain?

October 5, 2009 By Dennis Schaal 8 Comments

I reported over the weekend that Hugh Crean, general manager of Bing Travel, is leaving the company, effective Oct. 23.

Now, it turns out, that Jay Bartot , chief principal engineer at Bing Travel, will be following Crean out the door a few weeks later, in mid-November.

The question now is whether Bing Travel can up the ante with much of the original team missing in action.

Filed Under: Data, News Tagged With: Bing Travel, Farecast, Hugh Crean, Jay Bartot, Microsoft

Welcome @GoogleTravel to Twitter

October 5, 2009 By Alex Bainbridge 3 Comments

We can have a long debate about the merits of Twitter. It has its advocates as well its opponents.

The reason I like Twitter is because the travel industry is so fragmented that it is a great mechanism to keep up with the zeitgeist.

No other tool, website, conference or trade association is as effective at joining together so many people from all corners of the fragmented travel industry.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Google, twitter

Away Network, Lodging.com embark on new strategies

October 4, 2009 By Dennis Schaal Leave a Comment

The Away Network, which traces its roots to 1999, has been true all these years to its initial focus on destinations.

And, another advertising/media network, the TripAdvisor Media Network, found its footing during the same era with hotels as its core business.

It would be simplistic to attribute the relative performance of these two advertising networks to that one key decision for each. But we all know which focus turned out to be the more strategic one as the much-largerTripAdvisor leads parent company Expedia Inc.’s media efforts around the world.

So now, the Away Network plans to play a little catch-up with TripAdvisor.

Filed Under: Gadgets, News Tagged With: Away Network, Lodging.com, Orbitz Worldwide, TravelMuse, tripadvisor, UpTake

Hugh Crean to leave Bing Travel

October 3, 2009 By Dennis Schaal 6 Comments

Founded in 2004, the original name of Farecast in the incubation phase was Hamlet.

Five years later, after having sold Farecast to Microsoft for $115 million and successfully integrating it into Bing last summer, Bing Travel General Manager Hugh Crean faced a Hamlet-like question.

To stay or not to stay?

Word has leaked out that Crean has decided to leave Bing Travel, effective Oct. 23.

Filed Under: Data, Gadgets, News