Newspapers have spent the best part of, well, ever since the web came along, trying to figure out how to capitalise on travel search and content being one of the most popular activities online.
Various models have come and gone, ranging from publishing more of the glossy weekend supplement-type travel writing and endless lists (“Best places to visit before you die”) to fully formed and integrated online travel agencies.
Has anyone REALLY made it work, both in terms of managing to position themselves as vital resources of travel information and a producing a healthy return commercially?
Both elements are difficult to judge, given that most newspapers do not share their commercial revenues for individual departments and the value of content is very subjective.
But step forward the Daily Mail, one of the UK’s biggest newspapers which has thrown a massive amount of effort into its online activities in recent years, not least today with the launch of a new travel brand known as MailTravel.
In short, MailTravel is a paper-branded microsite hosted by P&P Associates, with air, hotel, package holidays, cruises and transfers available for booking.
It is effectively an online travel agency, with products protected by ABTA much like any other OTA in the UK.
But will it work?
The Daily Mail’s parent company, A&N Media (a division of DMGT), will obviously be hoping so, but those with memories reaching back further than when details announcing the project came out this week will recall that the paper has been here before.
Five years ago the company made what it then hoped would be an enormous push into travel with TravelMail (not, err, MailTravel).
After delays with the launch in early-2007, TravelMail finally appeared in May of that year with a mixture of guides, content from the main papers and travel product from sister deal site Teletext Holidays.
It obviously didn’t work out as a standalone brand as TravelMail eventually just redirected back to the main travel pages on the Daily Mail website.
MailTravel is a much different proposition, in some respects, being an OTA rather than a content and ad deal farm like its predecessor.
And, of course, the mothership is a far bigger beast in 2012 than it was in 2007, with Comscore earlier this year claiming the Daily Mail website is now the biggest newspaper website in the world, overtaking the New York Times and, much to its UK rival’s horror, the Guardian.
So has it picked the right model?
There doesn’t appear to be a guaranteed formula for success on the commercial side, with newspaper sites often noisily opening new services only to switch them to something else a year or so later (the Telegraph and the Guardian in the mid-2000s were forever switching between white labelled metasearch or OTAs to just pushing advertiser deals).
Currently the metasearch route is popular with the likes of USAToday (run by Kayak), whereas the New York Times and the Guardian have white label deals with Expedia and Lastminute.com respectively.
Bosses behind MailTravel will be hoping that the millions of visitors that flock to the main newspaper site – Comscore reckons around 45.3 million UVs a month – for their (bizarrely, given the political slant of the print edition) fix of celebrity news and sport will soon head over to the microsite.
Integration and cross-promotion will be massively important with this initiative – so expect lots of links and plugs to the MailTravel nestled in between the reams of picture showreels of half-naked footballers and models.
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About Kevin May
Surely it’s just a white-label site using the authority of the brand and – as you say – the guarantee of traffic, rather than a full integration of editorial content and revenue generation?
Might be a worry for tour operators, though. Will they miss out on mentions on the Mail website as visitors are redirected instead to this new site?
@mark – thx for the comment…
Yup, it IS JUST a while label site, but one would presume that content will filter over from the main site eventually. It’ll need that content for SEO anyway, eh Mark?
Thus why perhaps tour operators will be less worried if they still see their precious mentions in editorial featured on it.
Like I said in the piece, not sure any newspaper brand as properly cracked this yet.
SEO might not be a consideration given the amount of referral traffic it will get
Interesting viewpoint Mark, but Mail Travel is not competing with operators, MailTravel.co.uk is an additional route to market for them, part of an already successful travel business which markets and sells holidays through the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Metro and Northcliffe Media. We have also recently launched a Freeview TV channel so now offer a truly integrated, cross-channel sales platform.
The editorial integrity of the paper will never be compromised. There is clear distinction between editorial and sales. We have deliberately opted not to integrate sales fully into the travel section in the way that some other titles have.
The talented and experienced travel team at A&N source and contract product so that we can offer fully tailored packages based on reader insight, as well as exclusive offers. So no, this is not simply a white label microsite.
Has anybody REALLY made it work Kevin? Well, during 2010 and 2011, we marketed and sold holidays to 42,000 passengers and in the last 18 months, we have increased revenue by 30% which, in a challenging market, is a very good start I’d say!
@andy – hey, thx so much for commenting.
I’ll leave the content/SEO chat to expert folk like Mark and others to debate.
In terms of the “REALLY made it work” element, I think it’s a valid question to ask given the models you and others have tried over the years.
Lost count circa 2006-07-08 how many times a newspaper brand would say it is integrating TravelSupermarket et al only to flip to Thomas Cook or LM or Expedia a year or so later on.
In metasearch especially, most of the feedback that came out at the time is that the numbers were so low as to not make it worthwhile organising or paying the fees.
But I guess that’s why you’ve gone for white label OTA this time round?
Thx again for chiming in.
We’ve got the benefit of learning from past mistakes, ours and everyone else’s! And as I mentioned: we’re not simply white labeling product, we’re proactively working with operators to tailor it to the readership. If the readership asks for it, we try and make it happen and we create lots of opportunities to get to know them better. It’s a conversational approach. It works because we’re delivering the quality product that the readers want.
@andy – sure, all good points.
Do you see yet, however, where the majority is traction is going to come from? From those, for want of a better phrase, curated and tailored holidays, rather than people simply looking for a flight or city break hotel?
Our product strategy is absolutely about creating and distributing differentiated and tailored products relevant to our readership.