A pundit has the right to cast a critical eye over a business, even if the founders are proven entrepreneurial billionaires.
A pundit has the right to cast a critical eye over a business, even if the founders are proven entrepreneurial billionaires.
Categorisation of online travel sites used to be easy. Either a site was transactional or non-transactional.
Let me take you down under. All the way down under to the online travel market in New Zealand.
With a population of only 4.23 million (123rd in the world), NZ punches above its weight in a number of arenas (sports, arts and movies being just a few).
Also in online travel. PhoCusWright tell us in their latest Asia-Pacific report that the combined ANZ online travel market is US$6.2billion (2008).
I caught up with Rob Torres, managing director of Google Travel, following his Center Stage slot at the recent PhoCusWright Conference in Orlando.
Appearing alongside Suzie Reider, chief marketing officer and head of advertising for sister company YouTube, Torres stressed there are no plans for Google to do a “Troogle” – a bookings site for travel.
The Next Big Idea to share, however, is video and the travel category.
The PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit is over.
Of the 33 presenters, four will be chosen to go through to the Center Stage presentation and compete for the winner’s trophy.
Here is my pick for the top four (and four more I wanted to pick but did not hear enough to know).
I am always on the watch for news items on Lonely Planet.
Like many children of the 70s and 80s, I have powerful and joyful memories of trips that consisted of a backpack, a round the world ticket and a Lonely Planet book.
In a time before email, GPS and mobile phones, Lonely Planet was the way to navigate your way around your lost youth.
I may have been caught out in one of my predictions for 2009 and it might be worth me starting with a possible mea culpa.
In January 2009 I kick off the year with a post that made five (adjusted to six) predictions for 2009.
The most controversial of these was that 2009 would NOT be year for mobile.