Here are some interesting findings from the study, Social Media and Mobile Strategies for the Travel Industry 2011:

• Location-based services such as Foursquare will be huge this year. Almost half of all the airlines surveyed wish to increase their presence in location-based social networks in 2012 (they’re going to get you while you travel!)
• Over 70% of travel marketers are using social media to “build their brands” – a typically “fluffy” or qualitative goal which often can’t be measured in concrete terms
• More marketers (56% vs 45%) are confident of having unlocked useful data to measure ROI on their mobile strategies vs general social media strategies.
• Almost 60% of marketers are either sure of the conversions to booking rate via Facebook or have a fair idea, which is rather impressive.

A study of “hundreds” of product developers, route planners and investors in travel, tourism and hospitality found that while so-called traditional information providers, such as global distribution systems, WTTC, UNWTO and industry associations, were still considered important, newer sources are also coming into play.

Almost 60% of those surveyed said they rate Facebook data as an “Average” to “Excellent” source for creating new products, compared to 55% for GDS data.

Industry association information and reports were considered less influential than GDS data, the report found.

Google Analytics came out as the best source of external data, with 86% of product developers considering it useful.

EyeforTravel managing director Tim Gunstone says:

“Better data sourcing, analysis and management is viewed as by far the best data to create new products with 81% saying improving the use of internal data is key to improving the profitability and performance of the products the travel industry creates.”

The report claims the findings are significant considering the “high costs of buying GDS data” compared to what is essentially free information from social networks such as Facebook.

NB: More information about the forthcoming Product Development Strategies conference by EyeforTravel.

Some might argue it’s been a year characterised by game-changing startups, disruptive trends, big investments and leaps in both travel technology and consumer behaviour.

In addition, our fixation with the instant and virtual means that it is becoming increasingly rare for us to ‘look-up’ and to the horizon for the next threat or opportunity that lies ahead for the online travel industry.

Which emerging trends will fizzle, and which will pop?

What is the most significant opportunity (or critical threat) that our industry faces? Which disruptive forces will reshape the online travel landscape as we know it in the next few years?

We asked some of the leading lights at Facebook, Google, and TripAdvisor what they think are the supposed “next big things” for the online travel industry?

Rohit Dhawan, lead product manager at Facebook

At Facebook, we’re really seeing that the web is being rebuilt around people – everything is becoming more social.

What used to be an information web where people sought to find the “what” has really shifted to a social web where people are looking to find the “who?”

Today, there are more Facebook profile pages than there are web pages.  This social web really means that people are at the centre of marketing – in all industries, including travel

There is now an even greater opportunity for marketers to create an on-going, two-way dialogue between their brands and their customers.

Because of this connection, we’re seeing that businesses can now achieve effective word-of-mouth marketing at scale for the first time.

We’ve always known that the best recommendations come from your own friends – and now businesses can leverage this natural word-of-mouth using the suite of marketing tools that Facebook has to offer – including ads, pages, sponsored stories, and social plugins.

Barbara Messing, chief marketing officer at TripAdvisor

1. Travel is becoming more social

People are using technology and social networks to tap into the wisdom of friends to make good travel decisions.

We are spending a lot of energy at TripAdvisor facilitating these connections between friends as we think seeing travel advice from your friends is incredibly valuable.

2. The travel category is changing (dramatically) with mobile.

Mobile is incredibly exciting – and changing both the travel planning period and the in-trip experience.

Particularly during the in-trip experience there is still a ton of opportunity to make the traveler better informed, allow her to find the right restaurants & attractions tailored to her interests and time, and even provide special location-based features that can only be delivered via mobile.

If only we can get rid of those pesky roaming fees for international trips!

3. The power (and omnipresence) of the review

While TripAdvisor has for over a decade believed that the wisdom of our reviewers helps other travelers have the best trips, we’ve recently seen that the hotel industry has also embraced the benefits of reviews and the importance of that content to their social reputation.

You once had to search hard to find hotel reviews outside of TripAdvisor, and now nearly every OTA has reviews in their hotel path, hotel chains are displaying reviews on their supplier-direct sites, and even Google has begun to collect reviews.

With TripAdvisor having over 45 million visitors last month reading some of our 50 million reviews and opinions, we know reviews are essential to consumers in the travel-planning process.

4. Green-friendly and sustainable travel are gaining importance

Travelers want to know more about the green practices and environmental reputation of the hotels, and travelers seek to understand whether the hotel is part of the problem or the solution in promoting better environment practices.

And a growing set of travelers want to see how their tourism dollars are benefiting the local community in certain destinations.

Rob Torres, Head of Travel, Google

1. Aggressive consumer adoption of the mobile platform as a booking vehicle for travel

The growing adoption of web-enabled mobile devices is revolutionizing how many companies do business.

Travel brands have an opportunity to take advantage of this trend.

• The number of mobile users researching travel is expected to grow 51% in 2012.
• 34% of all US smartphone users research from their mobile device
• 23% of all international travelers use mobile check-in for flights
• By 2012 18% of mobile users will also book from their smart device.

2. 2009 all over again…

Travel shoppers will continue to search for deals and discounts at record levels.

In 2012 consumers will again be willing to invest more time in the research process in order to save money – they will look for the best deals they can find, to get the most bang for their buck.

Flash sale sites will continue to flourish….especially in the travel space.

3. Product innovation will emerge for the first time since the entrance of OTAs in the late 90′s.

When you look across the phases of the travel cycle – Dreaming, Researching, Booking, Experiencing and Sharing – the potential for innovation, particularly in the early stages of dreaming and researching is astounding.

In 2012 you will see quite a few travel startups emerge that attempt to capitalize on this opportunity.

NB: This is a guest article by Marco Saio, director of global research and projects at EyeforTravel.

NB2: Google, TripAdvisor and Facebook are scheduled to present at the Travel Distribution Summit North America 2011 in Las Vegas, on 19-20 September.

Personalisation, simplicity, convenience, transparency, swiftness… new startups promise all this and more as they jointly strive to create a new era in the travel sector.

Travellers today expect more information to be readily available at their fingertips throughout the entire travel cycle, as well as more powerful tools to make sense of it all. Mobile, social, search, and local are emerging as key areas of consumer transformation.

With travel being one of the largest purchased verticals online, it’s clearly a time of change.

Shifting waters tend to create opportunities for upstarts that have the tolerance for risk and the nimble business approach to accelerate into growth.

We spoke to following emerging travel ventures to assess the current sentiments in the marketplace:

• Roger Wong, director of product and marketing, Room 77
• Chris Patridge, Chief backbid hotelier, Backbid
• Travis Katz, CEO, Gogobot
• Adam Goldstein, CEO, Hipmunk
• Sam Shank, CEO, Hoteltonight

How do you assess the timing of your venture from the travel industry’s perspective?

Katz:

Travellers have become increasingly reliant on technology for trip planning.  But with the growing number of online resources comes an increase in unreliable sources, planted reviews and general confusion about what sites to trust for what services.

The timing is ripe for Gogobot – by harnessing the power of social media – the site enables users to get on-the-ground insight and personalised reviews from sources that they trust – something that other major travel sites just can’t offer. Gogobot gives today’s savvy, social media-using travellers an experience beyond a normal cookie cutter travel experience.

Goldstein:

I think our timing is perfect. The industry is dominated by established companies stuck on ancient technology who haven’t meaningfully innovated their search experience in a decade or more.

Shank:

As we are based in Silicon Valley, we saw first-hand the growth of mobile as a platform, and the need for a “mobile first” hotel booking service. Right now, web-based travel agencies have a mobile division. In a few years, we expect this to be the primary division of these companies, with a secondary “legacy online websites” divisions.

While this transition is taking place, our mobile-only orientation gives us the ability to focus and innovate. Separately, in conversations with hotels, we identified the need for a new, flexible channel to move distressed, last minute inventory through mobile channels without onerous commitments.

Patridge:

The distribution side of the hotel industry is expanding exponentially as new channels promising the same thing – the absolute lowest price on hotels – launch daily. While savvy hoteliers work to drive bookings through the lowest-cost channel, rate parity agreements often undermine these efforts. At Backbid, we feel that the time is right to give hotels a better choice.

With our model, hotels can see who is coming to their market, how much they are willing to pay, and what their travel preferences are.  With this knowledge, hotels are able to create personalised offers and deliver them directly to consumers.  Value-adds, such as free parking, free Wi-Fi, and room upgrades sweeten the deal for consumers and maximise RevPAR for the hotels.

Wong:

It’s an exciting time to be a startup in the travel industry right now, given all of the technology innovation in recent years. Travellers today expect more information to be readily available at their fingertips throughout the entire travel cycle, as well as more powerful tools to make sense of it all.

Within the hotel and lodging space, for example, travellers are looking for more information but finding largely commoditised information.  At Room 77, we are focused on making hotel room information transparent as the underlying foundation to empower travellers to create better travel experiences.

Which gaps/opportunities are you trying to address through your offering?

Katz:

By creating a dynamic resource for trip planning, we’re taking out the guesswork.  Guidebooks and generic websites can give some generalised ideas about places to stay or things to do on your next trip. Gogobot takes that idea and makes it personal, providing a tailored view of what you should do on your next trip, based on your own tastes and interests.

Now, instead of devoting a whole day wading through anonymous online reviews or sitting in your local bookstore, Gogobot gives you trusted suggestions with just a few clicks.

Goldstein:

We’re trying to take the agony out of searching for flights and hotels. The experience on our competitors is time-consuming and infuriating—from the pop-up windows to the endless pages of search results. On Hipmunk you always know what you’ll get: a single page with the most relevant results, helping you visualise the best choice.

Shank:

For consumers, our goal is to provide a drop-dead-simple way to book a great hotel at a great price, instantly. For hotels, we’ve created a marketplace to sell distressed inventory in a safe channel that preserves their brand and price integrity and exposes the hotel to an attractive audience of smartphone owners.

HotelTonighters are upscale, tech-early adopters and active on social networks. Our hotel partners love this demographic, and also the fact that we’re delivering new customers – 92% of our bookers are first time guests to the hotel they book.

Patridge:

As it stands now, there are few, if any, online distribution channels that are effective in allowing hotels to add value to their rooms, rather than discounting their rate, in order to compete in the crowded hotel environment.

With Backbid, hotels are empowered because they have a great deal of pertinent information about the needs and wants of their potential customers: the rate they are willing to pay, number of travellers,  room type, and thanks to our detailed traveller profiles, service/amenity preferences, and even their memberships to loyalty programs.

This data enables Backbid hotels to effectively target consumers and generate new business, using a flexible and cost-effective tool.

Wong:

We’re trying to address a real imbalance in the hotel purchase process by empowering travellers with better information about the specific rooms in a hotel during the research and shopping phase. Of course, this also helps hotels better market the differences between different categories of rooms, and offers some interesting opportunities for upselling and merchandising.

In the past, you had to rely on a knowledgeable travel agent or a well-traveled friend to provide you with room recommendations at a given hotel. Or, maybe you just rolled the dice and took your chances on getting a good room.

But we now have an opportunity to change the nature of the conversation from “Which hotel should I stay in?” to “What type of room best fits my needs as a traveller, and which hotel is best able to meet those needs?”  The good news is many hotels recognise this is where we’re headed and are partnering with us now to help architect the technology systems to make this more seamless for their operations and consumers.

How do you think your offering is going to set a new benchmark in the travel industry?

Katz:

By tapping into the power of social, Gogobot helps people plan their next trip by making informed decisions on where they want to go and what they want to do.

Instead of trusting their vacations to an anonymous review, users are absorbing honest and heartfelt recommendations from people they trust.  Gogobot is creating a new benchmark of trust in trip planning.

Goldstein:

We have drawn people’s attention to user experience as a massive competitive advantage.

Shank:

As we built our entire platform for the mobile use case, we have many advantages over other mobile apps that connect to website back ends. Hotels rave about our time-sensitive Happening Tonight messages, that are posted by hotels to provide special savings or news about their property.

But the innovation that is having the biggest impact on the industry is our 10-second, 4-tap booking process, from app open to booking receipt. 10-seconds wasn’t easy to pull off, but we’re looking to shorten this process even further.

Patridge:

The growth of social media, and the changes that user-generated content have had on the hotel industry, illustrates consumers’ search for empowerment.

Backbid answers this call by having hotels bid on consumers’ business, making it easy for consumers to sit back and receive bids that will add value and save them money on their upcoming hotel stay.  This sense of empowerment is the emerging benchmark that is being seen throughout the e-commerce space.

Wong:

Before we launched Room 77, we heard the same stories about how a bad room really affected their overall travel experience.  We’ve certainly experienced it ourselves — the feeling of the whole room assignment process being a crapshoot at the front desk.

Will I get a bad view? Will I get a quiet room? We really felt that travellers shouldn’t have to gamble on their room anymore, so we looked for a way to collect and share critical room data, at scale, across thousands of hotels.

It’s a challenge, but we’re up for it. We believe we’re firmly setting the benchmark in making this data transparent and creating a new standard for hotel search.

How is your offering going to be beneficial for travellers in their travel planning and buying cycle?

Katz:

Gogobot creates a personalised and curated guidebook for your next trip.  With the push of a few buttons, a comprehensive and unique trip plan is born.  Hotels, restaurants, sights, and more are at travellers’ fingertips.

Through the site, users are already able to book a place to stay.  By creating these personalised recommendations, travellers can feel more confident in their planning and buying decisions.

Goldstein:

We save them time and energy. Rather than spending hours searching for travel, we can help them find the best option in a few minutes.

Shank:

The HotelTonight target market is people who didn’t necessarily plan to book a hotel when they woke up that morning. Sometimes, they book a hotel because something unforeseen happened, such as inclement weather or a last minute business trip.

But a majority of our purchases are driven by serendipity and spontaneity, such turning a birthday celebration into a overnight staycation in a hip local hotel you’ve always wanted to experience.

In this regard, we’re generating primary demand and growing the size of the travel industry. Our mission is to make the world a more spontaneous place, and our bookers are telling us that we’re accomplishing that goal.

Patridge:

Backbid allows consumers to sit back, relax and let hotels do the legwork of creating personalised bids designed to meet their specific travel needs and desires. Rather than continuing to search (even after booking) to ensure that the rate booked was actually the best one available, Backbid does it all for consumers, freeing them up to spend that time planning the rest of their trip.

Consumers do not just want a lower price, they want value for their spend. For one consumer that may mean a room upgrade, for another loyalty points, and for yet another free Wi-Fi.

These are all elements that hotels can include in their offer which have a higher perceived value by the consumer than cost to the hotel.  It’s a win/win; the consumer gets what he or she prefers, and the hotel gets to do it with options other than lowering rates.

Wong:

For travellers who love to plan ahead and know the details of every aspect of their trip, Room 77 makes it easy to find a great room. Our virtual views and floor maps help guide travellers to the rooms that best match their preferences for floor, noise level and size.

Being informed before you even step foot into the hotel means you won’t find any unpleasant surprises. And these days, we all need to make the most out of every dollar we spend on our travel — and if there’s a room that’s the same price as another, but offers a better view or more square footage, why wouldn’t you opt for that room? It’s all about being informed, prepared, and getting the room that’s right for you.

NB: TLabs Showcases - Hipmunk, Gogobot and Room 77.

NB2: This is a guest article by Ritesh Gupta, senior editor at EyeforTravel.

NB3: Gogobot, Hipmunk, Hoteltonight, Backbid and Room 77 are scheduled to present at the Travel Distribution Summit North America 2011 in Las Vegas, on 19-20 September.

US-based LivingSocial, one of the deal sites-of-the-moment alongside Groupon, launched its travel-oriented vertical LivingSocial Escapes in December 2010.

The official LivingSocial proposition is around offering deals on hand-picked travel “adventures”, claiming it compliments Facebook’s place to share experiences with its own platform of where to discover and buy similar experiences.

We managed to grab some time recently with Doug Miller, SVP for new business initiatives at LivingSocial.

Here follows a Q&A with Miller where he discusses latest trends in the deal marketplace, the focus of the travel vertical, core audience and other issues.

Can you elaborate on the latest trends for both group buying and flash sales in the travel industry?

The overall trend starts with a very simple idea: creating travel demand.  As travellers, we all get excited about watching Anthony Bourdain on the Travel Channel, reading glossy travel magazines or hearing amazing weekend getaway stories shared by friends. These travel stories inspire us, but often pass by without action since there’s no simple way to buy in the moment of inspiration.

The social commerce movement fills a gap in travel discovery and buying. It champions evocative travel stories and pairs these stories with transactional “buy” buttons like never before.

At LivingSocial Escapes, we set out to inspire travel buying. We don’t categorise what we’re doing as “group buying,” and the term “flash sale” only just begins to describe the bigger merchandising and marketing idea here.  If Facebook is where people share experiences, LivingSocial is where people discover and buy experiences.

Can you highlight salient features of group buying in terms of how it works? What is the potential as a viable distribution channel?

Escapes partners report selling as many room nights in a week with Escapes as they’ve sold all year with an OTA partner.  This includes vacation destination & ski resorts, city-market properties, casino hotels and independents.  The model is viable.  It will change hotel distribution going forward.  It’s on-demand distribution for an increasingly on-demand world.

It’s also notable that the social commerce model comes with unambiguous marketing benefits.  Escapes pages link directly to hotel websites, by design.  We want to create direct engagement between consumers and hotels.  We want travellers to engage with hotel brands, hotel videos, hotel content… hotel stories.

Moreover, our voucher-based redemption model drives all reservations through the hotels directly.  Enterprising partners report more than doubling their revenues before travellers arrive because unlike other online travel distribution, they own and control the opportunity to upsell at the time of reservation, and for the weeks leading up to the traveller’s arrival on property.

Outline a few tips for any hotel company that it is focusing on group buying and flash sales?

• Expect a win-win-win philosophy from your social or flash commerce partner.  There are three parties involved in every successful Escapes offer.  There’s the hotel, LivingSocial and the traveller.  We think it’s really important for the long-term health of this business that any deal should work for all three parties involved.  We want to build win-win-win outcomes.
• Require a level of travel industry sophistication from your social or flash commerce partner.  It takes a level of travel industry sophistication and creativity to get this right.  That’s why LivingSocial brought in a team with extensive travel industry experience to launch Escapes.  Travel is an intrinsic part of the culture of LivingSocial.
• Stay in control of the opportunity to upsell premium room types or cross-sell amenities through your reservation desk. This early engagement with your customers is not possible with all social and flash commerce sites.

It turns out that many Escapes hotel partners find customers really excited and ready to further upgrade their experience when making the reservations with their LivingSocial voucher.  Thanks to the voucher’s “trip-in-a-box” savings, travellers are free to immediately add a few personal touches to their getaway.

LivingSocial offers daily deals on handpicked experiences that can be shared with friends. Which areas are you trying to address through your venture considering that consumers are overwhelmed by the research and decision process in the travel sector?

Imagine the ease of shopping a boutique retailer with a small collection of handpicked goods.  The store is inviting, approachable and designed with the idea that less is more. Then, imagine that boutique has the capacity to invite 40+ million people each day.

We are not creating a comprehensive directory and jamming it full of every possible travel option.  We do not want to overwhelm with choice.  Rather, we feature one or two exciting nearcation options and select destination trips.  We go deep in telling the story of places and properties, and why they’re special.

To make the process of buying even easier, each Escape is also a “trip-in-a-box”, filled with fun. Working with our hotel partners and our local staff, who are on the ground in over 300 markets around the world, we design just the right combination of amenities and experiences to make buying a quick getaway exciting and easy.  The “trip-in-a-box” approach reduces consumer stress and planning fatigue.

The approach seems to be working: a surprisingly large percentage of LivingSocial Escapes are bought within just a few minutes of opening our emails.  Again, it is our goal to publish trip ideas worthy of sharing with friends, spark the imagination of travellers and create demand.

Can you describe your core audience?  Can you explain the preferences in terms of travel planning and also buying behaviour of your core audience?

The Nielsen Company recently reported LivingSocial audience numbers that prompted one reporter to write that our customers are “younger, richer and smarter” than our nearest competitor [Groupon].

That said, I think what’s most interesting about our audience is their mindset.  They are sociable and adventurous.  They like to try new things, they’re curious about the new and unconventional, and they like to convince others to try new things as well.  The LivingSocial customer wants to get out from behind the screen and experience the world.

LivingSocial is also much more than just a travel business. Our audience demonstrates uncharacteristically high levels of daily engagement with our site relative to an OTA, or other travel vertical flash sale sites.

The LivingSocial customer checks in regularly on local deals, finds lunch with LivingSocial Instant on their iPhone, and shares offers on Facebook.  Escapes travel partners benefit from this heavy daily engagement.  We’ve sold over 400k room nights for about 400 properties since launching just months ago.

As far as buying behavior among our members, we see a reverse bell curve in purchase patterns meaning people open/buy as soon as the email hits on Wednesday, then there is a dip while people plan with families and friends, and then there is another spike near the end of the week that the deal is live.  Moreover, Escapes partners report that they see huge spikes in their website traffic during the period their deal is live.

The concept of flash sales is gaining traction in the travel industry. For consumers, flash sale sites are becoming increasingly popular because they’re an attractive way to access overstocked inventory, or to get introduced to new offerings. How do you expect this concept to shape up going forward?

The trend toward social buying and flash sales will change and influence both travel media and travel distribution going forward.  One partner recently said to me: “If you had told me I could get my hotel in front of over 20 million, and get more than 800 new customers in ten hours, and do all of that with no upfront cost, I would have told you were crazy. Where else am I going to do that?”

Enough said.

The travel industry has witnessed several new initiatives related to group travel. How do you assess the maturity level of group buying in the travel sector?

I think we are just scratching the surface and there’s considerable innovation ahead.

The field of travel social and flash commerce sites will grow, and clear differences will emerge.  Some will bring travel industry expertise into the heart of the company, and some will outsource it.  Some will create demand and inspire travel, and some will simply push deals on unsold rooms.  Some will build a global audience, and some will focus on a select segment.

In general, the concept of social or flash commerce works for travel.  It’s highly measurable and performance oriented.  You don’t pay for impressions.  You don’t pay for clicks.  You pay for heads in beds and butts in seats.

Can you explain how you go about offering travel deals/ exclusive offerings to your subscribers? How do you make it enticing for them to avail the same?

It starts with our experienced team in the field, a team with deep travel and media backgrounds.  They work with each individual property to develop ideas and packages.  We do not believe in a “one size fits all” approach.

After an Escape idea has been crafted, we have an in-house editorial and design team that works with our partners to develop an offer page.  The page presents the partner’s story using rich copy, imagery and video.  Once each week, we published a collection of Escapes including both nearcation and destination trips, and our offers typically run for 7-days.

Importantly, LivingSocial’s members subscribe for email or mobile alerts from a home market.  That means we can intelligently feature Napa getaways to members in the San Francisco Bay, promote Hawaii in key West Coast feeder markets, and Puerto Rico in New York.

Of course, discovery of these deals is not limited to these markets as we’ve seen plenty of Napa Escapes purchased by our members around the world.  Sometimes an escape means going a little further away so escapes.livingsocial.com is designed to encourage discovery of our entire collection – from near to far – each week.

How do you think hotels can play their part in terms of making the offers attractive?

The experiential “trip-in-a-box” approach is really important to the success of an Escapes offer.  When developing these packages, we welcome creative ideas as we want to excite and inspire travel. One Escapes partner in Banff included an ice-walking adventure, a small property in Vermont included cooking classes, in Oregon a resort included a whiskey tasting experience, and in Arizona a partner included tickets to the family water park.

The more value included in an Escape, the more attractive it becomes to the consumer.  Properties that leverage other amenities such as an onsite spa or restaurant tend to run more successful Escapes than those who offer accommodations only.  Of course, packaging also helps to protect rate integrity.

NB: This is a guest article by Marco Saio, global events director at EyeforTravel.

NB2: Miller is scheduled to speak at the forthcoming Travel Distribution Summit North America 2011 in Las Vegas (19-20 September) this year.

But hang on a second, is the idea achievable as a small startup?

Will consumers or the industry take to it in sufficient numbers for it to be a commercial success? Or will you just get plaudits at launch but six months later quietly close your doors when no one is looking?

Here are five themes that always seem to struggle.

It does not, however, necessarily mean that it is impossible to run a startup based on these models, simply that perhaps wannabe travel entrepreneurs should at least consider switching their focus to other areas where success is easier to come by.

1. Selling consumer leads to travel agents

There are so many of these startup companies around! It seems natural that agents will buy leads, but really they are a lot of work for the agent to handle – they don’t really want an email inbox full of “I want to go to Spain, what can you sell me” style questions.

That is why we all built websites in the first place, right?.

Now, this type of business has the ability to work when you sell such leads to the next layer down in the industry (eg. tour operators or suppliers) or when the lead is well focused (i.e. the lead includes some element of product selection and travel dates rather than just open ended unspecific requirements).

Suppliers have the margin (30-40% rather than an agents much smaller 5-15%) to afford staff time to dedicate to answering these emails properly.

The trick is to get the leads to the right suppliers, not in sending leads to agents that then have to work out which is the appropriate supplier.

Do that work and the lead starts to have value.

2. Trip inspiration/trip planning websites that are too focused on user interface

Who really is going to spend an hour fiddling around answering questions using a fancy UI hoping that at the end of it the website is going to come up with a wonderful, fully matching, trip plan?

There are travel products that are inherently inspirational. These are what you should focus on exposing to consumers. Product, product, product rather than UI, UI, UI.

Big caveat here, as noted philosopher Bertrand Russell once said: “Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.” So if you are going to have a user interface-oriented trip planning website, at least make it enjoyable! Easier to say than achieve though.

3. Two-sided marketplaces

A two sides marketplace is one where you both generate both supply and demand. A conventional business might be one where you are generating consumer demand, but selling another organisation’s supply.

The problem with two-sided marketplaces is that to grow them companies need to run the so-called hockey-stick growth curves on both sides at the same time, and at similar rates.

The worse case scenario is to end up with too much supply and insufficient demand (then suppliers get bored and leave, unless they have another reason to stay).

If you are starting a small travel startup then focus on a sector where you just need to achieve one hockeystick growth curve not two.

4. Solving a new consumer problem

If you are going to solve a consumer problem ensure it really is a problem that consumers have. Don’t invent a new consumer problem and then look to solve that.

Otherwise you have to both sell the idea, as well as sell your solution to the problem. Double the work.

One of the classic cases in the sector is the startup created primarily after the founders had a problem of their own when travelling, a relatively isolated issue rather than widespread.

Also, just because the problem exists doesn’t mean there is a business to be made in solving that problem. Gaps in the market hardly ever exist because you are doing something completely unheard of beforehand – but because others have entered and exited before you.

5. Small travel agents setting up flight/hotel booking websites

Don’t! It just isn’t necessary. It is a battle you cannot win versus the existing, larger and probably well-established online travel agents.

Even using simple technology doesn’t make it easy.

If it takes three hours to configure a hotel in a reservation system (including loading in a contract, finding images, creating a description etc) and you get one booking a month per hotel, then that three hours looks bad.

But that same three hours is necessary for a company which sells 20 bookings for that hotel per month. Much better ROI. Just not a game small travel agents can win.

As always, would love your feedback in the comments. Any models to add to or ones to subtract from this list?

Twelve entrepreneurs pitched. This is a quick roundup of which organisations took part and what their services are about.

Room 77 – Room views and reviews. Now at 500,000 hotel rooms in their system. If you were at the conference and missed their presentation then you missed out on a great behind the scenes look at how the sausage factory works to generate the room specific floor plans etc. Shortlisted into the final but didn’t win. [TLabs Showcase - Room 77]

Zonear – Custom mobile maps. Neat little solution for big events, festivals etc to create their own mobile maps. Can open the map from a QR code or specific wireless point. [TLabs Showcase - Zonear]

Email Vision – Email marketing. They have 600 clients in the travel industry but not much innovation on show in their pitch. Still a good business to be had selling tools to do the basics right, innovation doesn’t always equate to business success.

Pocket Guide – iPhone based audio city guide with a social twist. Lovely tech, you buy a guide, follow a route and stay informed. There are a lot of these city guide type applications and competition is fierce. One USP is that once you have followed your tour (and uploaded photos from each spot) the app creates an embeddable animation of your route – that you can share with friends via Facebook etc.

Trust You – Social semantic search. These guys can take a free-text hotel review (i.e. one written long hand by a consumer) and pick out the key aspects. This data can then be sold to hotels (as a tool) for their own social media / review monitoring or packaged to be included into hotel booking websites.  Initially created for hotel reviews future plans include moving to restaurant reviews then consumer electronics. You can play with their “magic box” on their website. [TLabs Showcase - TrustYou]

Fresh Creator – A SaaS model “build your own website” service for small hotels and guest houses (and take online bookings too). Looks nicely presented and well built. Demonstrated good traction in the presentation.

Get Your Guide – Tours and activities intermediary. Big, bold statements from Get Your Guide about overtaking Viator/Isango shortly (as measured by number of products on sale). Always have liked what Get Your Guide are doing and they present strongly. [TLabs Showcae - GetYourGuide]

A la carte maps – Maps. Real maps. Certainly an original pitch as part of the demonstration included how the map could be used as a rain hat (complete with co-presenter pouring water over second presenters head). I was kind of expecting the pitch to get into how the map has QR codes for special offers – or perhaps how it was printed on demand based around a travellers individual chosen tour – but no – its a waterproof paper map. Least has very simple social and UGC functionality as you can annotate the map (using a pen), share a map (by passing it to someone) and several people can read the map at the same time (by standing close to someone and looking over their shoulder). These are functions that most iPhone based mapping systems have failed to execute on. Nicely designed too.

Add To Trip – Social travel planning – a tool (few lines of JavaScript) you can add to an existing travel website to help friends and family plan together. Probably is a market for tools that can be built into existing sites so good chance of getting traction this one.

Ixaris – Temporary Visa / Mastercards (plus other payment services). One use is that you could only activate the card on the day of hotel check-in – stopping the hotel from charging you before you arrive….. Also if you are a consumer you can use the Ixaris payment solution to NOT pay the EU low cost airline credit card surcharges. Thats almost a business opportunity by itself and should have its own standalone website and brand….

DataCash – Payment gateway with local payment capability. For example, if I am a Brazilian and want to pay a UK-based travel service provider, I can pay via a Brazilian payment system. The UK based travel service provider only has to do one gateway integration (and doesn’t need to have a merchant account with the Brazilian merchant provider). Out of all the pitches this is the one company who I would use in my business as there is a very big need for this – especially for incoming tour operators with clients from around the world (Single source market travel companies (e.g. outbound agents) won’t find this so useful as could do a conventional payment gateway integration that better matches their specific source market)

SITA – Presented Malaysia Airlines MHBuddy, a Facebook app that has full booking, check-in and social seat pick. See previous Tnooz coverage from launch. Great to see the app demonstrated in real time.

And the winner is………… Trust You. Well done co-founder Benjamin Jost!

All these pitches together gave a great collective insight into what is coming in the travel industry (and what is already here!). Not quite sure why so many conference attendees missed what were undoubtedly the best sessions of the conference!

Many will remember a few years ago, before Google announced its intention to buy ITA Software, when the search giant’s travel ad sales folk that usually prowled the halls of events were suddenly joined by product managers, strategy and project people that nobody had seen before.

Even when senior Google executives were telling audiences from the stage that the company had no intention of “getting into travel”, as happened continuously throughout 2009 (and many years before, for that matter), many attendees could sense something was going on.

It was at this time that the phrase “elephants in the room” started being banded around whenever an army of Googlers turned up at an event.

So with Google finally winning its prize (although $700 million lighter in the process), from where is the next wave of disruption going to come?

Fast forward to 2011 and one the next major conferences on the event circuit is the annual EyeforTravel Travel Distribution Summit event in London in a few weeks.

It is a mark of how far the industry has shifted in the past 18 months or so that the likes of FourSquare (general manager Evan Cohen) and Gowalla (biz dev director Andy Ellwood) are given top billing at a travel conference.

When FourSquare was essentially just a game, travel folk wouldn’t have given it a look-in.

Now that it – and other such other location-based tools – are becoming important tools for in-resort services to engage with customers, already the seeds of new business ideas are emerging within existing companies.

Check-ins might sound like a pointless concept to many, but as Caesars in Las Vegas has recently shown, couple social media with customer service and freebies for punters and suddenly there is an interesting new idea around brand engagement with guests.

What about some of the other elephants?

The shy and retiring Jim Davidson of Farelogix is one of a number of cheerleaders for the “direct-connect” model.

Whereas for years the standard “future of distribution” debate would centre primarily on the role of GDSs, and often only include their representatives, such is the potential for change in the model that the likes of Davidson and others are becoming important figures in the debate.

And perhaps, finally, the one area where there are such differences of opinion – that of flash sales and the “Groupon-ing” of ecommerce.

Both Groupon (exec director Rajen Ruparell) and LivingSocial (VP new biz Doug Miller) clearly see the potential for grabbing of slice of the travel business through the model, but where once again the wider disruption comes is arguably in changes to the consumer purchase journey.

The existing order was primarily based on search, shopping, purchase and sharing, whereas now the idea is perhaps mixed up entirely – sharing and purchase, without any shopping and search needed at all.

Nevertheless, perhaps a sigh of relief for many in the industry is that Apple, another shadowy figure with a long history of disruption, doesn’t appear to be testing out the water just yet, despite the prospect of iTravel lingering at the back of many minds.

NB: EyeforTravel details: exhibitor list, speaker list, registration.

NB2: Elephants in the Room presentation for the Affiliate Window travel conference in March 2011:

We managed to grab some time recently with Ali Yilmaz, travel head for South East Asia at Google.

Here follows a Q&A with Yilmaz about various issues including consumer buying patterns and changes, social media and innovation around the travel industry.

What are the most significant shift in travel consumers’ demands and online behaviour? How should travel companies react?

Travel consumers’ demands and online behaviours started to change long before the downturn. The internet was itself a very significant turning point in the travel industry; it was a traveller’s ‘dream’ come true on the computer screen.

What we have seen in the recent years is a faster shift towards online and a variety of technologies emerging within.

Travellers’s online behaviours are changing every other day; 20% of all searches in the first 90 days of 2010 were never seen on Google before.

Billions of searches were done and still, people find new ways of searching. On the other hand, consumers are adapting mobile technologies rapidly.

In 2010, one in four internet minutes were on mobile. In two years, mobile internet users are expected to surpass desktop internet users and in four years time mobile searches are expected to surpass desktop searches.

Travel companies should closely monitor these changes in technology and consumer behaviour, and act quickly.

There used to be a time when we were reluctant with new technology and therefore some preferred the “lets wait and see” strategy.

Unfortunately we don’t have the time to “wait and see” anymore, it is time to adapt “as quick as possible”.

2010 was a year of disruptive new trends with the emergence of flash sales, the travel auction model and the concept of “social buying” – which, if any, do you think presents the greatest opportunity for growth in 2011?

As long as enterpreneurship lives, there will always be new trends and new opitons for the traveller. These will help make a traveller’s buying process more interactive and offer more choices.

Before the internet, friends and family were the biggest single source for travel research and decision.

With the Internet, people had the chance to take the matter in their own hands; they had enough material to search through and had more than a few opinions to help them decide.

Today, with the information overload, travellers have to decide among tens or hundreds of choices and read tens of reviews for every choice, so it became time consuming.

Oh by the way, after going through a few bad experiences as a result of trusting online reviews, now they are even more confused. Who will they trust?

I believe this is where social buying is coming into the picture and after searching, travellers will turn to their own social circle to get suggestions from the people with similar taste.

This is actually the convergence of how people searched before and after the Internet. The only difference is the convenience of social networks over phone books.

Is social media overhyped? Should the emphasis be on engagement or transactional ROI?

New trends always attract more attention. How these technologies should be used to interact with the consumer is a different story.

I think it is rather an “‘and/or” approach than an “either/or” approach. Engagement and transaction can exist together.

Many people love to intertact with the brands they admire and it definitely affects the buying cycle.

This engagement can be through display advertising, video sites, social networks, microblogging, location based media or mobile apps.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to this and the best way to see is to experiment. Some of these may work very well for certain industries and some may not.

Companies should decide to what extent they want to engage with their customers and then try different combinations of these to see which works and which doesn’t.

In your opinion, which game-changing technologies do you predict will re-define the online travel space in the next few years to come and why?

It is becoming harder and harder to make predictions for the long term. New channels of doing business and reaching out to the customers will always keep coming but the game-changing technology for the foreseeable future I believe is the mobile.

As mobile devices get smarter and as people get used to doing busines on the move, companies will need to adjust to this technology.

This is not a prediction, it is already happening, so they’d better hurry up.

Which travel companies do you most admire/envy?

Rather then giving a name, let me put it this way; any travel company that is innovating for the good of the customer and embracing new technologies right away has a seat reserved in my admired companies list.

NB: This is a guest article by Marco Saio, global events director at EyeforTravel.

NB2: Yilmaz is scheduled to speak at the Travel Distribution Summit Asia 2011, to be held in Singapore on May 18-19th 2011.

Eighteen entrepreneurs pitched in front of an audience consisting of angel and VC investors. This is a quick roundup of who pitched and what their services are about.

Seen Mobile Media – Providing a mobile as a service platform taking expertly written destination content (e.g. Rough Guides). Consumers pay for the content as part of their mobile application purchase. If the consumer revisits that city they have to buy a new guide (to get the latest version of the content). Business model based on 3 way revenue share between the guide publishers (e.g. Rough Guides), the white label partner and Seen Mobile Media. Content provision is after the decision about where to go (i.e. not an inspiration based startup). ANALYSIS: Reasonable chance of success but do consumers really want to pay for mobile based destination content written by guide publishers? Not if another service can find a way of making money but still offering free content (e.g. perhaps as a loss leader to other transactional services)

Toozla – A mobile service where you can share your opinions of a location there and then. As you walk around a city you can hear what other people have said about that spot. ANALYSIS: Nice idea but travellers may find rather large data bills when they return home. Toozla understand this but I wasn’t clear from the presentation how they were going to solve it.

YourTour – A B2B service that websites can use to provide trip planning advice for their region. ANALYSIS: One of my favourites as launching with a B2B service is a great way of learning about whether the concept works whilst bringing in revenue at the same time.

Evature – Use clever natural language processing to assist human business travel agents to become more efficient. e.g. it can read incoming emails / texts from clients and begin automated searching against a GDS. If the system, Eva, can’t understand the incoming message it can be routed to a human. Currently at prototype stage and will be running client trials within the next 6 months. Not the same as TripIt because TripIt read booking emails with standard layouts – Eva can read freeform emails from clients. ANALYSIS: I like it but will business travel agents buy it in sufficiently large numbers to pay for what must be expensive research and development? Seems to be solving a problem that is diminishing over time.

TouristWay – Booking engine for SME travel companies selling their own products. ANALYSIS: Good marketplace potential but a number of companies offering similar tools in what is a highly complex problem to solve.

GetYourGuide – Find and book experiences / activities. ANALYSIS: An area with many competitors offering similar sites. However none of the competitors have really taken a grip of the sector quite yet hence there is still plenty of opportunity for a new entrant to create a winning proposition. This team could do it.

The Zouk – A hotel finding service. Customer puts in a request and room providers pitch back to the customer their price / availability. The confidential reverse bidding process could permit the hotel to offer a vastly reduced price that they make available elsewhere because no one else knows what price they have offered. In the last 6 months of trading customers have sent 500 requests and received 2500 offers. The offer is not opaque (unlike Hotwire). Revenue made from charging the hotel 8 EUR for an accepted offer. ANALYSIS: If this service takes off it could become a little overwhelming for the hotelier as each request has to be dealt with manually. I have seen similar services for tours (not hotels) and tour operators start with writing custom replies addressing the questions put by the customers but after a few months tend towards replying back with a generic paragraph or two and a link to a couple of web pages.

Dajiudian – Hotel bed bank / booking system operating in China. Available in English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese. ANALYSIS: They seem to be creating some momentum in the Chinese marketplace however booking volumes remain very light.

Jet2Ski – An online ski publication based on revenues from affiliates and partners. Looking to address their seasonality issues by featuring summer activities (not just winter ski). ANALYSIS: Seem to be doing well in their chosen market but running a portal requires constant attention to content freshness and accuracy and personally I prefer businesses where that isn’t required.

TripSketch – Trip planning system. Building a database of attractions, opening times etc – this data is then presented and can be manipulated by consumers to create day by day itineraries for destination cities. Their content (and functionality) is available for use on your own site via a variety of API methods. ANALYSIS: Their data looks great but their functionality hasn’t got that finely tuned feel quite yet. Good business here though being a data provider.

Tripatini – Traveller social network / blog. ANALYSIS: Travel communities are omnipresent and I am not sure where the uniqueness is for this service nor where the revenue will come to support some quite aspirational investment levels.

AboutAnywhere – Hotel booking system. Charge hotels 10% (vs an average of 25% that larger OTA’s charge). Of the 10% charged, 5-7% is returned to the customer in the form of something the customer will appreciate (e.g. a bunch of flowers) rather than a rebate (such as Bing cashback). ANALYSIS: Consumers probably don’t really care whether a hotel is being charged 25% or 10%. What they care about is good clean search and book functionality and either being able to book their favourite hotel that they always stay at – or to have a selection that offers them a choice within the criteria that they have set. If About Anywhere can provide this functionality on the lean margins they have announced then this could be disruptive indeed. Probably easier to setup as a lean operation than be an OTA and have to cut back to meet the same margins. One to watch.

HouseTrip – Holiday rentals OTA. Guests have to call an average of 8 rentals before finding one that is suitable and available. This service solves that problem as well as providing safety for consumer’s money (rather than consumers having to wire / Paypal money to a supplier they don’t know). There is also an auction model for peak periods (e.g. during large events). ANALYSIS: Seems to tick all the right boxes! [HouseTrip were chosen as the winner]

Nimbus Airlines – Flying from Scotland to Europe. Will charge a “fair price for a fair product” – not copying Ryanair pile them high and sell cheap. Will be following the Scottish ethos of “The price you see is the price you pay” – e.g. no ancillary fees or expensive credit card fees. ANALYSIS: The pitch seemed somewhat optimistic that an existing airline (e.g Ryanair / EasyJet) wouldn’t compete on the same route if a new route was found that was profitable.

Uncle Sam’s New York tours – Guided tours in New York. Looking to expand to cover more cities perhaps using the franchise model. ANALYSIS: Looks good and a fairly understandable business to be in (not like technology startups!)

Arrange Your Exchange – Enables holiday home owners to swap their home for another elsewhere. Solves the issue of “same location fatigue”. No money involved (uses site credits) – as the holiday home owners believe they have already invested in their holiday (by buying a holiday home) so won’t want to pay further. ANALYSIS: The money is probably in renting out the homes rather than building a swapping community. However creating a swapping community is a rather nice way of building a network of holiday home owners who trust you which is a great first step to going fully transactional.

Aviatour – Plan to link up key islands in the Philippines using seaplanes. Will cut journey time from the main international airport to tourist islands down from 17 hours to 90 minutes hence provide a boost to tourism in the area. ANALYSIS: I wasn’t sure whether I was going to be that interested in seeing this pitch but actually it was very nicely done and now I feel much more informed. Not natural Tnooz territory this one!

Hip Chalets – Boutique chalets in Chamonix, France. Aiming to become the next big alpine lifestyle brand. Looking for funding to renovate a hotel in the area. ANALYSIS: Marketing / product distribution will be the big challenge.

And the winner is….. HouseTrip!

Learn more: Tnooz recently interviewed Arnaud Bertrand from HouseTrip