TripWare says it knows what road warriors hate: travel websites full of advertising and pre-checked travel extras.
So — drumroll please — TripWare introduced TripWare WebBook, “the first ad-free travel website for direct booking of flights, cars and hotels,” the company says.
I’m not sure “business travelers dislike online display ads when planning and researching their travel,” as TripWare vice president of marketing and brand Dean Wright says the company’s research shows.
After all, if business travelers have no patience for ads — perhaps for a hotel near their meeting or a restaurant reservation — then who does?
Someone must be clicking on those ads and buying stuff. And, apart from the clutter-free, but still not very attractive user interface, the Phoenix-based company bills TripWare WebBook as a business travel offering, but says leisure travelers can use it just the same.
If road warriors want to feel they are special, then one size fits all won’t really work. Also, TripWare WebBook doesn’t offer bookings for JetBlue or Southwest, although the company says it is working on it.
There’s not much differentiation or readily apparent reason to use TripWare WebBook over the legion of competitor travel websites, although the company argues that its personalization tools make everything super-relevant and fast.
And, then, unlike at airline and many online travel agency websites, TripWare WebBook charges a $4.99 online booking fee for air for each itinerary and it gets bumped up to $25 for a domestic flight and $45 for an international flight when booked over the phone. So the site may have no ads, but the booking fees may get in the way.
Dennis, thanks for your opinion on Tripware WebBook. Several sources indicate travelers’ dislike of current travel websites. The dislike arises from ads, clutter, process, and unnecessary extras. Look at some of the stats in USTA’s Travelers Use of the Internet 2009 edition, Forrester’s North American Technographics Travel Online Survey Q1-2009, and of course, your own article http://www.travelweekly.com/technology/article_ektid198832.aspx.
Unlike traditional OTA’s, (i.e. Travelocity), Tripware’s primary offering and differentiation lies in “point of planning” booking. OutBook plugin for Microsoft Outlook, MoBook mobile app for Apple iPhone/iPad, and DeskBook for travel arrangers.
When looking at Tripware’s entire suite of booking interfaces and fully filling out your travel profile, we offer the fastest, simplest, most personalized booking tools in the U.S.
The average salary of the self-serve business traveler is over $100,000. And most business people instantly get the value equation of time saved versus dealing with ads, clutter, and cruise ships.
When you look at Tripware’s offerings as a whole and see patent-pending technologies such as TripMatch, you’ll understand why $5 doesn’t get in the way.
Again, thanks for your opinion.
Dean Wright
VP, Marketing @ Tripware
Hi Dean: Thanks for chiming in. My focus was on TripWare WebBook, the product you just announced, and not your entire suite. My main beef, I guess, is that you seem to be marketing it as advantageous to the unmanaged business traveler even though I see little to differentiate it from many leisure travel websites.
If your main differentiator for TripWare generally is “point of planning booking” (and I’m unconvinced that trip-planning via Outlook will get you very far), then TripWare WebBook seems to be travel planning in the same way that everyone else does it — on a website.
Perhaps TripMatch is something new and interesting — I hope so, and I’ll be interested in following its progress.
Personally, I’d rather view a few ads — and hey, there’s nothing wrong with cruise ships…I even know a few business travelers who’ve cruised in their spare time — than pay a booking fee. Especially a $45 booking fee for a flight booked over the phone.
No one forces the user to click on the ads.
On a side note, my earlier Travel Weekly article didn’t focus on advertising as being the boogey man of travel planning, but looked at the increasing complexity of the trip-planning process. I don’t think advertising is the main culprit in the process.
Anyway, good luck with TripWare and keep us in the loop. Thanks again for the comment.
More than likely a frequent business traveler would be booking appointments from at a desktop or laptop and planning a trip. However let’s take a look at the various popular interfaces:
1) In the case of an Outlook user, one of the most used email clients, Tripware Outbook would come in handy. You likely don’t want the pop up ad intrusion in your calendar in that case, especially if you want to save the money and time to book in minutes. According to the average business traveler stats, we’re accustomed to making more than $25 an hour and other interfaces take an hour or more to self-book air, car and hotel travel especially in the case of vacation travel. I can’t stand looking through a ton of options that have nothing to do with the time, airlines or date I’ll be traveling! Tripmatch matches date, time and preferences against available travel and gets my vote in this case.
2) If you use iPhone or a web browser on your smart phone, then you definitely don’t want excess travel options and ads on that micro screen. Tripware MoBook limits the displayed travel options to those that “Tripmatch” your profile preferences and travel date, time and location.
3) Even if you use a cool new iPad, and maybe I am unique, but I don’t like annoying pop up ads that tell me about deals to places I don’t want to go or add-ons that I don’t want to buy. If the technology is present, and Tripware has got it, filter out ads and keep the options that I prefer – like “Trip Match” does.
4) Have you ever tried to read a blog and had a roving subscription request pop up in the middle of the article? Well the same annoying pop ups appear in other online travel sites and again for those options and locations you don’t want. The Tripware WebBook avoids that annoyance with the ad-free interface and yes all these interfaces integrate with your travel profile so your preferences and itineraries are always in sync no matter what interface you start out with.
I’d like to stand next to anyone in an airport, office, or with an iPhone, iPad or laptop. While they are fumbling through trying to clear those annoying pop up ads, Tripmatch already has the air, car and hotel I prefer and it is booked before they can look through all the unfiltered options.
P.S. You don’t have to use itinerary aggregators, alerting systems or extra expense report software because it is all rolled into Tripware.
Oh, if you run into Southwest or JetBlue, tell them that I wouldn’t mind having them in the airline preferences, because they would be two more of many travel deals in the current Tripware version. Thumbs up to Tripware for being BOLD enough to come up with travel industry innovations no one else thought of!
Thanks Dennis. I’ll definitely keep you in the loop. All the best and keep up the great work at Tnooz!