The pair added around 0.5% and 0.25% market share respectively to their tallies from the previous week, keeping Expedia in pole position and pushing Travelocity up one place to fifth spot.

Priceline, Orbitz and Yahoo Travel all lost market share.

Most popular travel websites in the US for the week ending February 4 2012:

Agency

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Expedia	www.expedia.com	12.64%	1
2	priceline.com	www.priceline.com	8.68%	2
3	Yahoo! Travel	travel.yahoo.com	7.71%	3
4	Orbitz	www.orbitz.com	6.99%	4
5	Travelocity	www.travelocity.com	6.22%	6
6	Kayak	www.kayak.com	5.75%	5
7	Hotwire	www.hotwire.com	5.44%	8
8	CheapOair	www.cheapoair.com	5.35%	7
9	bookingbuddy	www.bookingbuddy.com	2.52%	9
10	Cheap Tickets	www.cheaptickets.com	2.51%	10

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.com	8.31%	1
2	Hotels.com	www.hotels.com	2.83%	3
3	Marriott International	www.marriott.com	2.71%	2
4	Booking.com	www.booking.com	2.20%	6
5	Vacation Rentals by Owner	www.vrbo.com	2.17%	4
6	Hilton Hotels Online	www.hilton.com	2.16%	5
7	InterContinental Hotels Group	www.ichotelsgroup.com	1.95%	8
8	Carnival Cruise Lines	www.carnival.com	1.88%	7
9	Southwest Airlines Travel Guide	travel.southwest.com	1.60%	9
10	Walt Disney World	disneyworld.disney.go.com	1.45%	-

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Southwest Airlines	www.southwest.com	22.89%	1
2	Delta Air Lines	www.delta.com	12.14%	2
3	American Airlines	www.aa.com	9.34%	3
4	JetBlue Airways	www.jetblue.com	7.36%	4
5	Continental Airlines	www.continental.com	6.75%	5
6	United Airlines	www.united.com	5.98%	7
7	US Airways	www.usairways.com	5.32%	6
8	AirTran Airways	www.airtran.com	4.48%	8
9	Allegiant Air	www.allegiantair.com	3.52%	9
10	Spirit Airlines	www.spiritair.com	3.49%	10

Travel search terms

Rank	Search Term	Percentage of Clicks	Percentage Paid	Percentage Organic	Previous Position
1	mapquest	4.36%	0.04%	99.96%	1
2	google maps	1.56%	0.88%	99.12%	2
3	southwest airlines	1.38%	34.03%	65.97%	3
4	travelocity	0.86%	58.52%	41.48%	6
5	expedia	0.81%	54.53%	46.47%	5
6	maps	0.72%	0.68%	99.32%	4
7	map quest	0.55%	0.42%	99.58%	7
8	continental airlines	0.53%	7.88%	92.12%	-
9	american airlines	0.51%	5.38%	94.62%	9
10	google earth	0.48%	14.08%	95.92%	10

NB: Data couresy of Experian Hitwise

Babai is one of the figures behind a new wholesaler focusing on group travel, known as G2 Travel, a remarkably similar offering from the GTA (launched as Gullivers Travel Agency in 1975) business he sold to Travelport-forerunner Cendant in 2005 for an eye-watering $1.1 billion.

In Blues Brothers style, Babai appears to be getting the old band back together, too, assembling the senior management team at G2 Travel from various GTA alumni.

The only named employee so far is David Littlefair who will run G2′s offices in Bangkok after leaving GTA in September 2011 as managing director of operations in Thailand.

Other regional offices include Hong Kong, Jakarta, London, Rome and Bucharest.

G2 says it plans to offer “group land services” such as hotels and other local products from around the world, with a particular focus on the Far East, but only as part of a third party, wholesale-type relationship with travel agents.

G2 is not using third party suppliers for Europe, however non-European destinations will be through third party suppliers, an official says.

Very little information is coming out of G2 so far, but the rhetoric is there:

“We recognise in this world of mega company buy-outs and mergers, on-line hotel distribution and multi layer sales and distribution strategies that the traditional values and skills of servicing wholesale groups business has been neglected.

“Specialist group purchasing requires unique skills, experienced and tailor made IT systems, not only to satisfy our clients, but also our suppliers. We recognise that hotels do not want to be dictated to by multinational giants on how to sell their rooms, encompassing the whole spectrum of wholesale, retail and on-line distribution.

“We recognise the service supplier needing a choice of a partner who truly appreciates the word partner in both buoyant periods and testing times.”

Babai’s disappearing act (and previous well-known lack of enthusiasm for personal publicity) was intentional, with Cendant locking him down with a non-compete for six years after the sale of GTA in 2005.

Travelport offloaded GTA to Kuoni for $720 million in March last year, just a month before Babai’s expulsion from the sector ran out.

But, at least I wasn’t the only one.

The death of William Shatner’s The Negotiator character stoked some memories.

It was April 2005 in the Norwalk, Connecticut, office of Priceline CEO Jeffery Boyd and he was explaining the company’s strategic shift from being primarily an opaque seller of merchant hotel inventory through its Name Your Own Price service into a full-fledged retailer of air, hotel and car inventory.

More than a year earlier Priceline had debuted airline tickets on a retail basis and now it was adding hotels and cars so it could take on the then-much larger online travel agencies, Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz.

At the time, Priceline crunched only about 13% of the gross bookings that Expedia did, and Boyd said that day that Travelocity’s and Orbitz’s gross bookings were about twice that of Priceline’s.

So, the smallest of the four was going to make its move to become a full-service OTA and play with the big boys and girls.

And, Boyd thought there was no reason there couldn’t be a Big Four instead of a Big Three.

It’s unclear how much Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz heeded the threat, but Boyd clearly laid out the blueprint: Priceline would become a full-service OTA and expand through organic growth and acquisitions.

“Retail airline tickets was a big piece of that,” said Boyd, referring to a growth spurt in 2004. “If the new product launch of hotels is anywhere near as successful, I would expect our business would gain share and continue to gain share as we have done historically.”

Priceline had already acquired Active Hotels, would scoop up Bookings B.V. in July 2005, and tack on Agoda a couple of years after that as the OTA engineered a Europe and Asia marketshare grab in hotels.

Back in April 2005, however, the other OTAs were not surprised or particularly concerned about Priceline getting into the retail hotel business.

After all, they were focused primarily on the merchant model for hotel sales and were bigger and badder.

Michelle Peluso, then-CEO of Travelocity, said it made sense for Priceline to expand beyond Name Your Own Price, but Travelocity would have advantages because it could count on the resources of parent-company Sabre.

And, an Expedia spokesman said the company preferred its multi-brand approach — Hotwire for opaque hotels and Expedia for merchant and published rates — to Priceline’s tack of stitching it all together.

The Expedia spokesman wondered whether Priceline’s retail offering would cannibalize its opaque hotels business.

Boyd said Priceline had initially been concerned when it launched retail air that it would dilute the company’s opaque air business, but it found retail air brought incremental bookings.

Fast-forward to 2012 and Priceline, riding its global hotel offering, has a $26.3 billion market cap compared with the recently TripAdvisor-less Expedia at $4.7 billion.

In 2005, did Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz see all this coming?

Perhaps even Priceline would have been hard-pressed to predict the depth of its success.

Were the three other OTAs complacent in the beginning?

Were they over-confident based on their parentage or were they reading their own press clippings too closely?

Priceline and others undoubtedly will learn from all of this online travel history.

They should be cautious and cognizant that they shouldn’t count out Expedia, which apparently has fixed up its global technology platform, and has allied itself with Groupon and boasts of an exclusive agreement with AirAsia.

Sometimes online travel history — or perhaps we should say mobile-travel or social-travel history — unfolds before your eyes and you don’t recognize it right away.

There are tons of travel startups which have outlined their strategies in the Tnooz TLabs Showcase.

Is there a travel startup out there laying out its battle plan, calmly articulating how it will survive and thrive, and we just can’t recognize it through all of the noise?

Many people didn’t take Priceline seriously, either.

Orbitz saw its share of the agency category rise by 0.5% in the close spread across second, third and fourth positions, putting it 1% behind Priceline.

Expedia continues to hold the premier spot, securing almost 13% share of the agency category.

Most popular travel websites in the US for the week ending January 14 2012:

Agency

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Expedia	www.expedia.com	12.70%	1
2	priceline.com	www.priceline.com	8.84%	2
3	Orbitz	www.orbitz.com	7.59%	3
4	Travelocity	www.travelocity.com	6.45%	4
5	CheapOair	www.cheapoair.com	5.72%	6
6	Kayak	www.kayak.com	5.41%	7
7	Yahoo! Travel	travel.yahoo.com	4.94%	5
8	Hotwire	www.hotwire.com	4.88%	8
9	Cheap Tickets	www.cheaptickets.com	2.68%	9
10	bookingbuddy	www.bookingbuddy.com	2.50%	10

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.com	8.71%	1
2	Marriott International	www.marriott.com	2.89%	2
3	Hotels.com	www.hotels.com	2.86%	3
4	Vacation Rentals by Owner	www.vrbo.com	2.24%	5
5	Hilton Hotels Online	www.hilton.com	2.13%	6
6	Carnival Cruise Lines	www.carnival.com	2.12%	4
7	InterContinental Hotels Group	www.ichotelsgroup.com	1.97%	7
8	Booking.com	www.booking.com	1.89%	8
9	USA Today - Travel	travel.usatoday.com	1.83%	-
10	Walt Disney World	disneyworld.disney.go.com	1.64%	9

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Southwest Airlines	www.southwest.com	22.57%	1
2	Delta Air Lines	www.delta.com	11.99%	2
3	American Airlines	www.aa.com	9.62%	3
4	JetBlue Airways	www.jetblue.com	7.78%	4
5	Continental Airlines	www.continental.com	6.53%	5
6	United Airlines	www.united.com	5.62%	6
7	US Airways	www.usairways.com	5.23%	7
8	AirTran Airways	www.airtran.com	4.29%	8
9	Allegiant Air	www.allegiantair.com	3.81%	9
10	Spirit Airlines	www.spiritair.com	3.37%	10

Travel search terms

Rank	Search Term	Percentage of Clicks	Percentage Paid	Percentage Organic	Previous Position
1	mapquest	4.01%	0.11%	99.89%	1
2	google maps	1.37%	0.85%	99.15%	2
3	southwest airlines	1.35%	40.92%	59.08%	3
4	expedia	0.79%	49.85%	50.15%	4
5	maps	0.76%	0.67%	99.33%	5
6	travelocity	0.69%	53.19%	46.81%	7
7	map quest	0.65%	0.26%	99.74%	6
8	continental airlines	0.60%	8.72%	91.28%	8
9	american airlines	0.56%	3.27%	96.73%	9
10	google earth	0.50%	20.56%	79.44%	10

NB: Data couresy of Experian Hitwise

The metasearch engine increased its market share by almost 2% on the previous week, while Travelocity added a mere 0.5% over the same period.

Market leader Expedia gained 1% of its own, Priceline added 0.5%, Orbitz a nominal 0.25% increase.

Most popular travel websites in the US for the week ending December 31 2011:

Agency

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Expedia	www.expedia.com	13.00%	1
2	priceline.com	www.priceline.com	9.81%	2
3	Orbitz	www.orbitz.com	7.09%	3
4	Kayak	www.kayak.com	6.49%	8
5	Travelocity	www.travelocity.com	6.27%	7
6	CheapOair	www.cheapoair.com	5.75%	5
7	Hotwire	www.hotwire.com	4.74%	9
8	Yahoo! Travel	travel.yahoo.com	3.84%	4
9	Bing Travel	www.bing.com/travel	2.86%	6
10	Cheap Tickets	www.cheaptickets.com	2.76%	10

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.com	8.21%	1
2	Hotels.com	www.hotels.com	2.75%	4
3	Marriott International	www.marriott.com	2.50%	3
4	InterContinental Hotels Group	www.ichotelsgroup.com	2.11%	5
5	Hilton Hotels Online	www.hilton.com	2.08%	6
6	Southwest Airlines Travel Guide	travel.southwest.com	2.01%	2
7	Booking.com	www.booking.com	1.95%	7
8	Vacation Rentals by Owner	www.vrbo.com	1.67%	10
9	Carnival Cruise Lines	www.carnival.com	1.62%	8
10	Walt Disney World	disneyworld.disney.go.com	1.34%	9

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Southwest Airlines	www.southwest.com	23.87%	1
2	Delta Air Lines	www.delta.com	12.10%	2
3	American Airlines	www.aa.com	9.29%	3
4	JetBlue Airways	www.jetblue.com	6.95%	4
5	Continental Airlines	www.continental.com	6.74%	5
6	US Airways	www.usairways.com	5.83%	6
7	United Airlines	www.united.com	5.42%	7
8	AirTran Airways	www.airtran.com	4.72%	8
9	Allegiant Air	www.allegiantair.com	3.66%	9
10	Spirit Airlines	www.spiritair.com	3.31%	10

Travel search terms

Rank	Search Term	Percentage of Clicks	Percentage Paid	Percentage Organic	Previous Position
1	mapquest	4.00%	0.20%	99.80%	1
2	google maps	1.61%	1.08%	98.92%	2
3	southwest airlines	1.32%	31.87%	68.13%	3
4	maps	0.86%	0.36%	99.64%	4
5	expedia	0.76%	57.25%	42.75%	8
6	map quest	0.65%	0.02%	99.98%	5
7	travelocity	0.57%	58.94%	41.06%	7
8	google earth	0.53%	20.58%	59.42%	6
9	continental airlines	0.50%	9.38%	90.62%	9
10	american airlines	0.49%	0.62%	99.38%	10

NB: Data couresy of Experian Hitwise

The company was on the back-foot most of last week, and saw its chief marketing officer and CEO attempt to explain its actions in mea culpa-type blog posts, but so far not felt any impact on the brand’s popularity in terms of overall traffic share.

In fact, Kayak increased its market share by almost 0.5% and moved up a spot in the list of leading travel websites in the US.

Market leader Expedia and second placed Priceline also gained on their previous showings, while Orbitz and Travelocity experienced small decreases.

Most popular travel websites in the US for the week ending December 17 2011:

Agency

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Expedia	www.expedia.com	12.32%	1
2	priceline.com	www.priceline.com	9.48%	2
3	Orbitz	www.orbitz.com	7.01%	3
4	CheapOair	www.cheapoair.com	6.49%	4
5	Yahoo! Travel	travel.yahoo.com	5.95%	6
6	Travelocity	www.travelocity.com	5.90%	5
7	Kayak	www.kayak.com	4.94%	8
8	Hotwire	www.hotwire.com	4.87%	7
9	Cheap Tickets	www.cheaptickets.com	3.17%	9
10	Onetravel.com	www.onetravel.com	2.40%	-

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.com	7.87%	1
2	Marriott International	www.marriott.com	3.03%	2
3	Hotels.com	www.hotels.com	2.49%	3
4	Hilton Hotels Online	www.hilton.com	2.25%	5
5	InterContinental Hotels Group	www.ichotelsgroup.com	2.25%	4
6	Southwest Airlines Travel Guide	travel.southwest.com	1.78%	-
7	Booking.com	www.booking.com	1.69%	6
8	Carnival Cruise Lines	www.carnival.com	1.61%	7
9	Vacation Rentals by Owner	www.vrbo.com	1.51%	8
10	Walt Disney World	disneyworld.disney.go.com	1.44%	9

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Southwest Airlines	www.southwest.com	24.09%	1
2	Delta Air Lines	www.delta.com	13.11%	2
3	American Airlines	www.aa.com	9.35%	3
4	JetBlue Airways	www.jetblue.com	7.37%	4
5	Continental Airlines	www.continental.com	6.47%	5
6	US Airways	www.usairways.com	5.52%	6
7	United Airlines	www.united.com	5.03%	7
8	AirTran Airways	www.airtran.com	4.31%	8
9	Spirit Airlines	www.spiritair.com	3.43%	9
10	Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air	www.alaskaair.com	3.05%	-

Travel search terms

Rank	Search Term	Percentage of Clicks	Percentage Paid	Percentage Organic	Previous Position
1	mapquest	5.06%	0.40%	99.60%	1
2	google maps	1.83%	1.36%	98.64%	2
3	southwest airlines	1.34%	30.01%	69.99%	3
4	maps	0.96%	1.05%	98.95%	4
5	map quest	0.87%	1.37%	98.63%	5
6	expedia	0.61%	51.90%	48.10%	7
7	travelocity	0.57%	59.98%	40.02%	6
8	google earth	0.56%	17.14%	82.84%	8
9	continental airlines	0.53%	9.05%	90.95%	9
10	delta airlines	0.46%	51.88%	48.12%	-

NB: Data couresy of Experian Hitwise

Third placed Orbitz saw the gap between it and the market leader increase to almost 5% this week, while CheapOair and Travelocity has saw their share of traffic in the agency category decline.

Most popular travel websites in the US for the week ending December 10 2011:

Agency

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Expedia	www.expedia.com	12.20%	1
2	priceline.com	www.priceline.com	9.35%	2
3	Orbitz	www.orbitz.com	7.35%	3
4	CheapOair	www.cheapoair.com	6.49%	4
5	Travelocity	www.travelocity.com	6.14%	5
6	Yahoo! Travel	travel.yahoo.com	6.05%	6
7	Hotwire	www.hotwire.com	4.67%	7
8	Kayak	www.kayak.com	4.59%	8
9	Cheap Tickets	www.cheaptickets.com	3.17%	9
10	Bing Travel	www.bing.com/travel	2.95%	10

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.com	7.94%	1
2	Marriott International	www.marriott.com	3.13%	2
3	Hotels.com	www.hotels.com	2.64%	4
4	InterContinental Hotels Group	www.ichotelsgroup.com	2.34%	6
5	Hilton Hotels Online	www.hilton.com	2.31%	5
6	Booking.com	www.booking.com	1.81%	7
7	Carnival Cruise Lines	www.carnival.com	1.62%	9
8	Vacation Rentals by Owner	www.vrbo.com	1.43%	8
9	Walt Disney World	disneyworld.disney.go.com	1.36%	-
10	Harrah's Casino Hotels	www.harrahs.com	1.32%	10

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Southwest Airlines	www.southwest.com	22.39%	1
2	Delta Air Lines	www.delta.com	12.68%	2
3	American Airlines	www.aa.com	10.13%	3
4	JetBlue Airways	www.jetblue.com	7.04%	4
5	Continental Airlines	www.continental.com	6.71%	5
6	US Airways	www.usairways.com	5.49%	7
7	United Airlines	www.united.com	5.49%	6
8	AirTran Airways	www.airtran.com	4.41%	8
9	Spirit Airlines	www.spiritair.com	3.86%	-
10	Allegiant Air	www.allegiantair.com	3.06%	10

Travel search terms

Rank	Search Term	Percentage of Clicks	Percentage Paid	Percentage Organic	Previous Position
1	mapquest	4.82%	0.36%	99.64%	1
2	google maps	1.72%	1.33%	98.67%	2
3	southwest airlines	1.35%	26.91%	73.09%	3
4	maps	0.91%	0.51%	99.49%	4
5	map quest	0.80%	0.30%	99.70%	5
6	travelocity	0.68%	57.33%	42.67%	7
7	expedia	0.65%	54.44%	45.56%	6
8	google earth	0.57%	16.70%	83.30%	8
9	continental airlines	0.51%	8.95%	91.05%	9
10	american airlines	0.49%	5.14%	94.86%	10

NB: Data couresy of Experian Hitwise

There has been much conjecture on how it will all play out,  but Sabre now says that American Airlines’ two antitrust lawsuits against Sabre could be resolved before the airline reorganizes and emerges from bankruptcy.

That nugget emerged as Sabre filed a motion in bankruptcy court December 8 to enable it to make counter-claims against American Airlines in federal and state court proceedings in Texas.

If Sabre’s motion is granted — and it says American Airlines is onboard with it — the bankruptcy court in New York would grant Sabre relief from an automatic stay against such legal actions which the airline would normally get because its parent filed for Chapter 11 protection.

Sabre says American Airlines’ state and federal antitrust lawsuits are on a fast-track and could be resolved before the airline reorganizes.

“Granting stay relief benefits American’s creditors because it ensures a timely resolution of the litigation, which will likely occur before American emerges from Chapter 11, or even before creditors vote on a plan of reorganization,” Sabre’s motion said. “Indeed, granting relief permits the parties to expeditiously determine their liabilities and provides certainty to other creditors in the reorganization process.”

In the state court lawsuit in Tarrant County, Texas, pretrial hearings are slated for June 11, 2012, Sabre says.

And, Sabre has a legal army working on the case, noting it “has employed over 100 attorneys in connection with discovery alone” in the state case.

There have been developments in the federal antitrust case in the last few days, as well.

American Airlines on December 5 filed a second amended complaint against Sabre, Travelport and Orbitz in the airline’s federal antitrust case in Fort Worth, Texas.

It’s impossible to tell what new ground American Airlines is trying to cover in its amended antitrust case against its two global distribution partners because the complaint has been sealed by the court.

Last month, the judge in the federal case threw out several claims against Travelport, Sabre and Orbitz in American Airlines’ initial complaint.

It is interesting that Orbitz is included as a defendant in American’s second amended complaint in the federal case because the judge terminated Orbitz as a defendant in the original complaint.

In the federal case, pretrial motions are due by June 15, 2012, Sabre says.

Sabre and American, which saw one of their contracts expire in August, have agreed to a status quo regarding commercial actions against one another until the court cases are resolved.

The hope — among some, at least — is that court verdicts will break the impasses in their negotiations.

Expedia announced today that its Expedia Hotels app for iPhone and Android now gets into the tablet game with full support for iPad and Android tablets.

Launched in the Spring of 2011 and nearly 2 million downloads later, the app is now optimized for tablets.

To kick off the festivities, Expedia conducted a Twitter chat for followers of the Expedia account  who use the #expchat hashtag.  Participants in the chat were eligible to win an iPad 2, loaded up with Expedia Hotels, of course.

Nothing like a little social media traction and a giveaway to highlight a tablet-app launch.

The Expedia hotel and mobile initiative almost stole the mobile marketing thunder of Orbitz, which expects to announce December 12 that it has readied a “faster and more powerful”mobile website at m.orbitz.com, which can handle queries from iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Windows 7 devices.

The Orbitz mobile website detects your location, once you grant it permission, and then you can search for nearby and other hotels and view images of the properties in a manner similar to the way you might navigate through your personal photo albums on your smartphone.

The Orbitz mobile site also enables you to search for a hotel, and then access the search later on a laptop or desktop or vice versa.

Other features of the mobile site include alerts to find out when there are only a few rooms remaining at a particular property, and the ability to search and book flight and hotel packages up to four rooms at a time.

Expedia is a much more powerful player than Orbitz in the hotel arena, but Orbitz is doing some interesting things as well and the seeming mismatch doesn’t stop them from trying to one-up each other in the all-important and ever-evolving mobile sphere.

Hotel distribution changes every ten years. In the 1980s it was the GDS, in the 1990s the emergence of tour operators like TUI and Thomas Cook, and in the 2000s the adoption of the web and online travel agents.

At the beginning of the decade of the 2010s, we can already see a shift happening to digital marketing.

Hotel digital marketing is the response to consumer changes – consumers are much more “educated” in travel search, and they use multi-channel: OTAs, direct website, review sites, social media, mobile.

Never before are there so many search products: OTAs, metasearch such as Kayak, the new Google Flight Search and Hotel Finder, Hipmunk, the “cool” new search interface on top of Orbitz’s inventory.

In addition, the planning tools market is exploding. TripIt and TripCase are more traditional travel planners, but a whole slew of new social tools is emerging with Gogobot leading the pack, but also with new competitors like Gtrot, Flymuch and others.

Lastly, new products are now transactional online: restaurants at OpenTable, tours and activities using Viator and even derivative accommodation products using Airbnb, a new darling of Silicon Valley VCs.

So, against this backdrop of exploding choices, how does a hotel manager make its brand visible online?

Mass marketing vs Niche strategy

Hotel managers need to be realistic. Large OTAs spend tens of millions per month on SEO/SEM, and advertise on hundreds of thousands of keywords. So, becoming the #1 on “hotels in New York” is probably not an option.

But a niche strategy may work. Let’s consider New York City, one of the most competitive hotel markets in the world.

When searching for “Cheap Hotel in New York” the results are dominated by advertising from Booking.com, Hotels.com, Kayak, Airbnb and organic search results from Hotels.com, Hotelclub, etc.

However, just by focusing on the brand identify and location provides immediate differentiation. Let’s look at three examples:

• “boutique hotel in New York close to the Jacob Javits Center”
• “economy hotel in New York in soho”
• “corporate hotel in New York in chelsea”

Boutique hotels near the Jacob Javits Center

When searching more specifically for “boutique hotel in New York close to the Jacob Javits Center” the results are very different as can be seen from the screen capture below.

By focusing on brand and location, four things happen:

• While there is still some advertising, it is now dominated by specific brands (in our example morganshotel.com, royaltonhotel.com, thetimeny.com).
• The pay-per-click costs are lower
• The organic search results are now dominated by independents (#2 and #3 are ink48.com and indigochelsea.com)
• You have a good chance of showing up on the map

Let’s now try the other two searches and see if the same results apply:

Economy hotels in SoHo

Advertising is still very competitive with Booking.com, hotels.com and kayak.com. But by focusing on brand and location, three of the four things happen once again:

• The pay-per-click costs are lower
• The organic search results are now dominated by independents (#2 is TheSohoHotel.com)
• You have a good chance of showing up on the map

Corporate hotels in Chelsea

Advertising is very competitive with booking.com, hotels.com and kayak.com. But by focusing on brand and location, three of the four things happen once again:

• The pay-per-click costs are lower
• The organic search results are now dominated by independents (#1 is hotelchelsea.com)
• You have a good chance of showing up on the map

Experience tags differentiate further

Another element to differentiate your hotel is to associate experience tags with it. Let’s take a look at two examples: golf and wine for hotels in california.

When searching for “golf hotel california” we expect to see high levels of competition:

And, as expected, “golf” is a pretty wide term, and highly competitive with golf-oriented tour operators bidding no the keyword.

Surprisingly, the results for “wine hotel california” are quite different:

There is almost no competition, therefore an SEM/SEO strategy will work well for a hotel that is located in california and tied to the california wine experience. So, a quick search on the experience terms you can associate with your destination will probably provide a good benchmark of which keywords you should be optimizing for.

Conclusion

In conclusion, whether you are in a highly competitive market, or in a secondary market, three simple items will provide in-destination differentiation for you search optimization strategy:

• Your brand identity: economy, corporate, boutique, budget…
• The location of the property: landmarks around your hotel…
• Experience tags relevant for your destination: gourmet, horses, relax, nightlife, wine, museums…

Using these three items you will not necessarily make your hotel #1 on Google in your market, but you will have a good chance of having great occupation rates with guests that are going to enjoy the experience at your property.

NB: This is a guest article by Pedro Colaco, president and CEO of GuestCentric.

Agency category leader Expedia increased its market share by almost 0.5% as Yahoo shed almost 6% on the previous.

The top five agencies are now Expedia, Priceline, Orbitz, CheapOair and Travelocity.

Most popular travel websites in the US for the week ending December 3 2011:

Agency

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Expedia	www.expedia.com	12.07%	1
2	priceline.com	www.priceline.com	9.16%	3
3	Orbitz	www.orbitz.com	7.44%	4
4	CheapOair	www.cheapoair.com	6.61%	6
5	Travelocity	www.travelocity.com	6.30%	5
6	Yahoo! Travel	travel.yahoo.com	4.67%	2
7	Hotwire	www.hotwire.com	4.60%	7
8	Kayak	www.kayak.com	4.47%	8
9	Cheap Tickets	www.cheaptickets.com	3.45%	9
10	Bing Travel	www.bing.com/travel	3.29%	-

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.com	7.46%	1
2	Marriott International	www.marriott.com	3.17%	2
3	Southwest Airlines Travel Guide	travel.southwest.com	2.48%	9
4	Hotels.com	www.hotels.com	2.46%	3
5	Hilton Hotels Online	www.hilton.com	2.33%	5
6	InterContinental Hotels Group	www.ichotelsgroup.com	2.26%	4
7	Booking.com	www.booking.com	1.79%	6
8	Vacation Rentals by Owner	www.vrbo.com	1.73%	10
9	Carnival Cruise Lines	www.carnival.com	1.65%	8
10	Harrah's Casino Hotels	www.harrahs.com	1.51%	-

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Southwest Airlines	www.southwest.com	22.51%	1
2	Delta Air Lines	www.delta.com	12.08%	2
3	American Airlines	www.aa.com	10.29%	3
4	JetBlue Airways	www.jetblue.com	7.67%	4
5	Continental Airlines	www.continental.com	6.16%	5
6	United Airlines	www.united.com	5.44%	6
7	US Airways	www.usairways.com	5.25%	7
8	AirTran Airways	www.airtran.com	4.50%	8
9	Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air	www.alaskaair.com	4.16%	-
10	Allegiant Air	www.allegiantair.com	3.61%	10

Travel search terms

Rank	Search Term	Percentage of Clicks	Percentage Paid	Percentage Organic	Previous Position
1	mapquest	4.61%	0.14%	99.86%	1
2	google maps	1.76%	2.83%	97.17%	3
3	southwest airlines	1.43%	26.34%	73.66%	2
4	maps	0.90%	0.74%	99.26%	4
5	map quest	0.77%	0.02%	99.98%	5
6	expedia	0.67%	51.39%	48.61%	6
7	travelocity	0.62%	51.28%	48.72%	7
8	google earth	0.60%	24.04%	75.96%	9
9	continental airlines	0.56%	11.88%	88.12%	8
10	american airlines	0.54%	4.30%	95.70%	-

NB: Data couresy of Experian Hitwise

Yahoo Travel added almost 4% to its previous tally, pushing ahead of Priceline and Orbitz to take the second spot in the top ten agency websites in the US.

Most popular travel websites in the US for the week ending November 26 2011:

Agency

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Expedia	www.expedia.com	11.68%	1
2	Yahoo! Travel	travel.yahoo.com	10.30%	4
3	priceline.com	www.priceline.com	8.57%	2
4	Orbitz	www.orbitz.com	7.22%	3
5	Travelocity	www.travelocity.com	6.18%	6
6	CheapOair	www.cheapoair.com	5.91%	5
7	Hotwire	www.hotwire.com	4.47%	7
8	Kayak	www.kayak.com	4.36%	8
9	Cheap Tickets	www.cheaptickets.com	3.33%	10
10	Onetravel.com	www.onetravel.com	2.37%	-

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.com	7.58%	1
2	Marriott International	www.marriott.com	3.02%	2
3	Hotels.com	www.hotels.com	2.43%	3
4	InterContinental Hotels Group	www.ichotelsgroup.com	2.20%	6
5	Hilton Hotels Online	www.hilton.com	2.15%	4
6	Booking.com	www.booking.com	1.97%	8
7	Travel Channel	www.travelchannel.com	1.73%	-
8	Carnival Cruise Lines	www.carnival.com	1.58%	7
9	Southwest Airlines Travel Guide	travel.southwest.com	1.53%	5
10	Vacation Rentals by Owner	www.vrbo.com	1.49%	9

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Southwest Airlines	www.southwest.com	23.01%	1
2	Delta Air Lines	www.delta.com	12.78%	2
3	American Airlines	www.aa.com	9.68%	3
4	JetBlue Airways	www.jetblue.com	6.81%	4
5	Continental Airlines	www.continental.com	6.59%	5
6	United Airlines	www.united.com	5.73%	6
7	US Airways	www.usairways.com	5.66%	7
8	AirTran Airways	www.airtran.com	4.80%	8
9	Spirit Airlines	www.spiritair.com	3.42%	9
10	Allegiant Air	www.allegiantair.com	3.14%	-

Travel search terms

Rank	Search Term	Percentage of Clicks	Percentage Paid	Percentage Organic	Previous Position
1	mapquest	4.64%	0.13%	99.87%	1
2	southwest airlines	1.62%	27.06%	72.94%	2
3	google maps	1.58%	1.27%	98.73%	3
4	maps	0.98%	0.51%	99.49%	4
5	map quest	0.81%	0.17%	99.83%	5
6	expedia	0.66%	51.22%	48.78%	6
7	travelocity	0.62%	52.71%	47.29%	7
8	continental airlines	0.60%	13.74%	86.26%	8
9	google earth	0.58%	22.47%	77.53%	9
10	southwest	0.51%	27.09%	72.91%	10

NB: Data couresy of Experian Hitwise

The deal with Orbitz Worldwide-owned Ebookers will see SilverRail’s Silvercore integrated across 12 country sites in Europe, giving the agency its first foray into rail search and ticketing for multiple train operators on the continent.

Although Ebookers and Orbitz are now on a unified technology platform, Orbitz has not been included in the partnership.

As well as giving users the ability to book rail-only fares, Ebookers will be packaging tickets with hotels also available on the system.

SilverRail is hoping the deal will trigger a wave of interest around online travel agencies to start focusing on rail product, especially in Europe where high-speed train travel is seeing heavy investment by a string of countries including France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK.

The company, which was on the receiving end of a $5 million investment round in April this year, signed another significant deal a few months ago when Sabre picked it to power the rail search and booking provision on the GetThere platform.

Expedia, Priceline, Orbitz and Travelocity all made gains on their previous showings, while Yahoo Travel slumped two places following the loss of almost 2.5% market share.

Most popular travel websites in the US for the week ending November 5 2011:

Agency

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Expedia	www.expedia.com	12.32%	1
2	priceline.com	www.priceline.com	9.63%	2
3	Orbitz	www.orbitz.com	7.43%	4
4	Travelocity	www.travelocity.com	6.53%	5
5	Yahoo! Travel	travel.yahoo.com	5.91%	3
6	CheapOair	www.cheapoair.com	5.85%	6
7	Hotwire	www.hotwire.com	4.83%	7
8	Kayak	www.kayak.com	4.20%	8
9	Cheap Tickets	www.cheaptickets.com	3.49%	9
10	Onetravel.com	www.onetravel.com	2.64%	-

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.com	7.35%	1
2	Marriott International	www.marriott.com	3.14%	2
3	Hotels.com	www.hotels.com	2.79%	3
4	InterContinental Hotels Group	www.ichotelsgroup.com	2.46%	5
5	Hilton Hotels Online	www.hilton.com	2.37%	4
6	Southwest Airlines Travel Guide	travel.southwest.com	2.33%	6
7	Booking.com	www.booking.com	1.84%	8
8	Vacation Rentals by Owner	www.vrbo.com	1.62%	7
9	Carnival Cruise Lines	www.carnival.com	1.60%	9
10	Choice Hotels International	www.choicehotels.com	1.29%	-

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Southwest Airlines	www.southwest.com	22.84%	1
2	Delta Air Lines	www.delta.com	12.65%	2
3	American Airlines	www.aa.com	9.70%	3
4	JetBlue Airways	www.jetblue.com	8.11%	4
5	Continental Airlines	www.continental.com	6.71%	5
6	United Airlines	www.united.com	5.93%	6
7	US Airways	www.usairways.com	5.35%	7
8	AirTran Airways	www.airtran.com	4.64%	8
9	Spirit Airlines	www.spiritair.com	3.54%	9
10	Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air	www.alaskaair.com	2.92%	10

Travel search terms

Rank	Search Term	Percentage of Clicks	Percentage Paid	Percentage Organic	Previous Position
1	mapquest	4.40%	0.09%	99.91%	1
2	google maps	1.75%	0.91%	99.09%	2
3	southwest airlines	1.19%	23.18%	76.82%	3
4	maps	0.97%	0.17%	99.83%	4
5	map quest	0.86%	0.00%	100.00%	5
6	expedia	0.68%	52.94%	47.06%	6
7	travelocity	0.61%	60.95%	39.05%	7
8	continental airlines	0.53%	7.92%	92.08%	10
9	mapquest driving directions	0.48%	0.00%	100.00%	-
10	american airlines	0.48%	8.78%	91.22%	8

NB: Data couresy of Experian Hitwise

So, the once-public company, which went private four years ago, would start trading on a stock market again.

But, if you are thinking that an IPO would be the exit strategy for private equity owners TPG and Silver Lake Partners, which acquired Sabre for $5 billion in 2007, then think again.

Gilliland says even if Sabre opts for an IPO, then he anticipates TPG and Silver Lake Partners would retain a stake in the company for at least four years thereafter.

Of course, the IPO market is fairly barren at the moment, but that’s OK, as Gilliland refers to TPG and Silverlake Partners as “a patient bunch.”

“We have managed this business conservatively,” Gilliland says. “They are long thinkers and long holders.”

There are exceptions to the “long holders” proposition, Gilliland acknowledges, referring to Silver Lake’s involvement in buying a majority stake in Skype from eBay and then striking a deal  a year-and-a-half later in May to sell it to Microsoft.

But, Gilliland says the company has made strategic investments in the business and doesn’t have to manage from a short-term perspective.

Sabre is not currently involved in any sale or consolidation talks, Gilliland says.

This wasn’t the first time Gilliland discussed playing the IPO card, having mentioned the possibility a couple of years ago, but the idea seems to be higher on the agenda these days.

The Sabre CEO also talked about trends in the company’s four business lines in a group discussion with assembled media at Sabre headquarters in Southlake, Texas, and in a one-on-one interview later.

The Sabre Travel Network GDS business is Sabre Holdings’ largest revenue driver, followed by Travelocity, then Sabre Airline Solutions and Sabre Hospitality, with Gilliland describing the latter as the smallest and fastest growing.

The markets will “highly value” the fact that Sabre Airline Solutions uses an SaaS model “if we become a public company again,” Gilliland says.

Gilliland confirmed that Sabre views its Travelocity business, including the Travelocity brand, Lastminute.com and Zuji, as core to the overall company.

Gilliland and other Sabre officials touched on other hot-button issues.

Travelocity and Cheapoair

Asked about September 2011 comScore  statistics showing that the Fareportal Media Group, including Cheapoair, overtook Travelocity and secured the #4 spot in terms of monthly unique visitors among online travel agencies in the U.S., Gilliland says those sorts of numbers can be directionally helpful, but Travelocity focuses on its own numbers.

People should also consider “the quality of the traffic rather than the raw numbers,” Gilliland says.

Asked how the online business would take the next step in creating a larger footprint in the European hotel competition, Gilliland said Lastminute.com is poised to differentiate itself with some new product launches in the next several weeks.

Southwest Airlines 

With Southwest Airlines mulling a new reservations system provider and having narrowed the candidates to Sabre and Amadeus, Gilliland says he hopes Southwest continues to view Sabre as a good partner.

About the competition with Madrid-based Amadeus, Gilliland says: “We do understand how to service this market. We are just down the street. They know us well and we have very good relationships with their senior management team.”

Orbitz-American Express Deal

Travelocity has been powering the American Express Consumer Travel site for several years, but will be replaced next year by Orbitz, which also plans on gaining a foothold with Amex agents by paying them 12% commissions on hotel bookings.

Asked about the loss of that Amex business, Gilliland merely says it’s a “competitive marketplace” and “sometimes you lose.”

Virgin America Cutover

Virgin America migrated its Ifly reservations system over the weekend to SabreSonic for reservations and airport check-ins, but as of Nov. 2 still had a notification on its website alerting customers to problems with website bookings, viewing upcoming flights,  extended hold times in its call center and long lines at the airport.

“We’ve been pleased with the progress of a transition of this scale and scope to date,” said Abby Lunardini, a Virgin America spokeswoman, Nov. 1. “We are still working through some of the final Web functionality issues, which is to be expected given the scope of a project like this — and we are appreciative of the patience of our guests.”

It turns out that in addition to transitioning to SabreSonic, Virgin America itself also changed part of the back-end of its website to mesh with the new Sabre system, Lunardini says.

And that perhaps was another element adding to the complexity of the project.

Hugh Jones, president of Sabre Airline Solutions, says the cutover “met our expectations,” adding that the data migration part of the process “went flawlessly.”

Jones said service at the airports has been “good,” although there’s “always some abnormality” in call center operations during a reservation system cutover because agents are still learning a new system.

American Airlines

Chris Kroeger, Sabre Travel Network’s senior vice president of marketing, says Sabre recently reached out to American Airlines in a bid to restart negotiations on a new GDS participation agreement, but was rebuffed.

Kroeger claims the airline, which has sued Sabre on antitrust grounds, prefers “the courtroom as a path to negotations.”

A spokesman for American Airlines, Ryan Mikolasik, sees it differently.

“We’re willing to negotiate, but the parties are not yet aligned on the value and importance of American’s claims,” Mikolasik says.

The two parties have agreed to continue their current agreements until a Texas court issues a verdict on the matter, which is expected around June 2012.

Google Hotel Finder

Felix Laboy, president of Sabre Hospitality Solutions, revealed that Sabre and the hotels connected to its CRS have been participating in Google Hotel Finder since the Spring.

So, for example, brands such as Affinia, Preferred Hotels, Kimpton and Peninsula, to name a few, appear with pricing in Google Hotel Finder because of their Sabre Hospitality CRS ties when consumers do a hotel search in the relevant market, Laboy says.

There is no extra fee per se from Sabre for hotels to participate — Sabre makes its money on the transaction volumes.

Trust International also is a CRS participant in Google Hotel Finder.

Device Agnostic

Sabre Hospitality plans to release a solution in the second quarter of 2012 which would give hotel websites a uniform appearance regardless if the websites were accessed by desktops, laptops or the panalopy of mobile devices, including tablets.

The solution uses sniffer scripts, which detect the type of device seeking to access the websites. Parts of the solution are written in HTML 5, Sabre officials say, because the iPhone and iPad don’t support Flash.

—–

Note: Dennis Schaal took part in a Sabre-sponsored media event at Sabre headquarters.

The “Wait” was due to slow dial-up lines, clogged service provider servers, and let-it-all-out heavy graphic/flash websites.

In 2011, the same label could be refreshed for mobile apps, in particular travel mobile apps. In part because of similar network speed reasons, but also because of wrong decisions in app design.

Here’s a summary of the most common problems with mobile travel apps today:

1. Assuming always-on data connection.

It’s not always on. Full stop.

Because it’s mobile, users constantly lose coverage: metro/tube stations, inner buildings, car parkings, cathedrals (yes), rural areas.

And obviously, when it comes to traveling abroad, roaming forces data networks off for most users. Also let’s not forget in-flight situations, where data is off and you’d still need to access data in your apps.

The fact is that as soon as coverage is lost, some apps stop working.

I’m not talking about features which obviously need remote access, like checking live availability, or bookings: even simple static data or previously downloaded items disappear.

Case in point with the Eurostar or the AirFrance apps. No connection? The apps are virtually dead. Even the phone number list, which might be the only way to get in touch with the airline in case of problems abroad, is not accessible.

The return mobile boarding pass so efficiently downloaded before departure? Gone, right when you need it to board the train back home.

Good cases: American Airlines and Delta apps at least provide a simple static tap-to-call contact screen, to get in touch even if there’s no connection.

Don’t assume always-on, build standalone apps with good caching.

2. Assuming high speed network access.

Despite what you can read on theoretical data speeds, truth is mobile bandwidth is far from fast and predictable.

Tons of factors can influence the actual speed, such as number of people in the area, architectural structures of nearby buildings, weather conditions, and even the position of the hand on the device.

It’s a good thing that our phones can transmit faster, but if everyone wants to transmit at the same time in a busy area, no one gets enough bandwidth and we must all keep retrying until everyone else is silent.

Take for example small femtocells used in underground metro stations. These can typically accept two concurrent connections. That does not mean that only 2 people can use the network, because statistically each device will just need access for a few tens of seconds.

However, with 100 devices in the approaching train all trying to connect at the same time, and 100 other devices on the platform, things start getting very busy.

Whether the app pulls data from the network, or you have a mobile optimised web site, keep data transfer very compact. It’s really the size that matters.

Don’t use a big CSS with loads of effects and scripts that might be used only once. Don’t build big XML APIs with tons of data “just in case” (forget SOAP, go REST). Cache everything you can to avoid reloading the same data multiple times.

3. UX design too small and packed.

Some designers seem to forget that a finger is a finger. Every action button or dropdown list should be not only large enough that it can be hit with reasonable success, but also spaced away from other active items to avoid tapping the wrong one.

Selecting items in predictive search lists can be difficult if the results are too small and squeezed one next to the other.

There seem to be some design legacy from older WAP/text based sites, where we used to scroll from (small) item to (small) item just with the phone up/down buttons, or even with the dial pad, but we’re now in the smartphone era.

Forms can reveal huge problems.

• Each field should be easily tappable without touching nearby fields;
• Remember the virtual keyboard will open up filling half of the screen, make sure the rest of the form and in particular the submit buttons still remain accessible!
• Moving the device from portrait to landscape mode can mess up the layout big time, and what was easy to tap in a mode might become weird in the other mode: test in both scenarios.
• Calendars… make them full screen, simple, with large arrows to move from month to month. Make the number big. As with usual localizations, some countries start the week on Sundays and others on Mondays. If you can’t make it dynamic, at least make sure the Saturday and Sunday columns have a very different background color to limit risk of confusion.

Test your app using leather gloves to make sure it works for everyone.

4. Poor data synchronization with the cloud.

Some apps seem to require a login every time they need to be used, and expect to have data connection for login verification every time.

For example the AA app loses the session if there is a loss of data connection, hence all stored trips and boarding passes disappear until the next succesful login – which requires data connection.

This approach finds some rationale with data privacy, but it does not meet expectations. If I download an item to my mobile to have it accessible on the road, I need to have it accessible in all situations.

Take for example, TripIt and other itinerary management apps: they are born mobile, and are handling this well.

You install and register your account once, and then forget it. Every plan you send by email will appear automatically in your device.

Every trip you add or remove manually on the web is then perfectly synchronized with the app. You can simply trust that your itinerary app will always have all the useful data you need on your trip.

5. Requesting too many permissions.

We are getting used to being able to happily install any app, without checking who is the developer and the actual permissions we grant to access our phone data and functions.

But sometimes the requests are very surprising.

Why does TripCase need the address to my whole address book? Why does Expedia need access to my phone (including the list of numbers I call, apparently)? Orbitz doesn’t, for example.

I believe in the future users will get wary of malicious apps and will learn to pay more attention to permissions.

In social, an empirical rule for Facebook apps is that every additional permission requested decreases the app installation rate by 2-3%. We will probably get into something similar with mobile.

+1 (Android specific bonus) App cannot be moved to SD card.

This is a legacy problem for Android, probably the only serious architectural problem, with long term consequences.

Internal phone memory for many mid-range smartphones is only 128 or 256 MB. It’s small, and it fills up quickly. Many native apps like Google Maps, Contacts database or Flash already eat up a good chunk of the internal memory.

Since Froyo 2.2, apps can be moved to an external SD card of potentially any size, thus freeing up the internal storage. However, app developers must include the ability for their apps to be moved to the SD card.

Many don’t.

If a travel app cannot be moved to the SD card, it will have to fight for space in the small internal memory and it will only be kept if it’s really, really useful.

Expedia Hotels by Mobiata is 3.8 MB and cannot be moved to the SD card. Orbitz is 2.5 MB and cannot be moved to the SD card. Sooner or later, one will have to go.

Please, please, please make sure your Android apps can be moved to the SD card.

Expedia lost 0.5% market share on its previous showing last week, while Priceline remained status at just below 10% of the overall audience.

Yahoo Travel slumped by 0.75%, meaning Orbitz took third place and Travelocity moved into fourth spot.

Most popular travel websites in the US for the week ending October 22 2011:

Agency

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Expedia	www.expedia.com	12.06%	1
2	priceline.com	www.priceline.com	9.74%	2
3	Orbitz	www.orbitz.com	7.04%	4
4	Travelocity	www.travelocity.com	6.32%	5
5	Yahoo! Travel	travel.yahoo.com	6.09%	3
6	CheapOair	www.cheapoair.com	5.80%	6
7	Hotwire	www.hotwire.com	4.76%	7
8	Kayak	www.kayak.com	4.27%	8
9	Cheap Tickets	www.cheaptickets.com	3.34%	9
10	Bing Travel	www.bing.com/travel	2.98%	-

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.com	7.18%	1
2	Marriott International	www.marriott.com	3.47%	2
3	Hotels.com	www.hotels.com	2.62%	3
4	InterContinental Hotels Group	www.ichotelsgroup.com	2.39%	5
5	Hilton Hotels Online	www.hilton.com	2.29%	4
6	Carnival Cruise Lines	www.carnival.com	1.93%	7
7	Booking.com	www.booking.com	1.63%	8
8	Southwest Airlines Travel Guide	travel.southwest.com	1.61%	6
9	Vacation Rentals by Owner	www.vrbo.com	1.47%	9
10	Walt Disney World	disneyworld.disney.go.com	1.32%	-

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Southwest Airlines	www.southwest.com	25.25%	1
2	Delta Air Lines	www.delta.com	12.63%	2
3	American Airlines	www.aa.com	8.91%	3
4	JetBlue Airways	www.jetblue.com	7.54%	5
5	Continental Airlines	www.continental.com	6.49%	4
6	United Airlines	www.united.com	5.42%	6
7	US Airways	www.usairways.com	5.38%	7
8	AirTran Airways	www.airtran.com	5.12%	8
9	Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air	www.alaskaair.com	3.22%	10
10	Spirit Airlines	www.spiritair.com	3.22%	9

Travel search terms

Rank	Search Term	Percentage of Clicks	Percentage Paid	Percentage Organic	Previous Position
1	mapquest	4.41%	0.43%	99.57%	1
2	google maps	1.66%	1.10%	98.90%	2
3	southwest airlines	1.28%	30.87%	69.13%	3
4	maps	0.87%	0.37%	99.63%	5
5	map quest	0.81%	0.16%	99.84%	6
6	mapquest driving directions	0.72%	0.66%	99.34%	4
7	expedia	0.72%	42.05%	57.95%	7
8	southwest	0.58%	22.39%	87.61%	9
9	travelocity	0.52%	59.68%	40.32%	8
10	google earth	0.48%	20.73%	79.27%	10

NB: Data couresy of Experian Hitwise

The DOT says in early 2011 display ads on Orbitz’s homepage didn’t provide taxes and fee information, and consumers could only access that information when navigating to the bottom of another page after clicking on the ad.

In addition, the DOT says Orbitz was advertising discounted fares that were unavailable and transferring consumers to a page where a different fare was presented.

The DOT requires that any air transportation ad with pricing must include the full price that the consumer must pay, including any airline surcharges.

Orbitz says the problems have been resolved.

“Orbitz is in compliance with DOT advertising requirements and the glitch that resulted in how fares were displayed for a short period of time earlier this year has been addressed,” says Chris Chiames, Orbitz spokesman.

The fine against Orbitz is ironic since the online travel agency pioneered the display of total hotel pricing in initial display results.

However, the DOT action against Orbitz may have been the OTA’s first DOT penalty.

New DOT rules become effective Jan. 24, 2012, requiring all airlines and ticket agents to include all government taxes and fees in advertised fares.

In other OTA news, Dollar Thrifty opted to extend its rental car distribution agreement with Orbitz Worldwide through the end of 2014.

Meanwhile, Expedia Inc. says its general counsel, Burke Norton, notified the company Oct. 11 that he has resigned, effective Oct. 28.

Expedia says Norton has been hired by another company.

Priceline added another 0.25% on its previous showing, while Expedia remained flat. Orbitz fell away slightly, while Travelocity added and Yahoo Travel lost 2.5% on its own.

Most popular travel websites in the US for the week ending October 8 2011:

Agency

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Expedia	www.expedia.com	12.54%	1
2	priceline.com	www.priceline.com	10.11%	2
3	Orbitz	www.orbitz.com	7.41%	3
4	Travelocity	www.travelocity.com	6.35%	5
5	CheapOair	www.cheapoair.com	5.61%	7
6	Hotwire	www.hotwire.com	5.19%	6
7	Yahoo! Travel	travel.yahoo.com	5.07%	4
8	Bing Travel	www.bing.com/travel	4.14%	-
9	Kayak	www.kayak.com	4.01%	8
10	Cheap Tickets	www.cheaptickets.com	3.07%	9

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.com	7.46%	1
2	Marriott International	www.marriott.com	2.93%	3
3	Hotels.com	www.hotels.com	2.83%	2
4	InterContinental Hotels Group	www.ichotelsgroup.com	2.35%	4
5	Hilton Hotels Online	www.hilton.com	2.31%	5
6	Carnival Cruise Lines	www.carnival.com	1.98%	7
7	Southwest Airlines Travel Guide	travel.southwest.com	1.94%	-
8	Booking.com	www.booking.com	1.65%	8
9	Vacation Rentals by Owner	www.vrbo.com	1.46%	6
10	Choice Hotels International	www.choicehotels.com	1.38%	10

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Southwest Airlines	www.southwest.com	23.81%	1
2	Delta Air Lines	www.delta.com	12.99%	2
3	American Airlines	www.aa.com	9.48%	3
4	JetBlue Airways	www.jetblue.com	7.72%	5
5	Continental Airlines	www.continental.com	6.55%	4
6	United Airlines	www.united.com	5.75%	6
7	US Airways	www.usairways.com	5.47%	7
8	AirTran Airways	www.airtran.com	4.62%	8
9	Spirit Airlines	www.spiritair.com	3.23%	9
10	Allegiant Air	www.allegiantair.com	3.19%	-

Travel search terms

Rank	Search Term	Percentage of Clicks	Percentage Paid	Percentage Organic	Previous Position
1	mapquest	4.24%	0.12%	99.88%	1
2	google maps	1.65%	0.43%	99.57%	2
3	mapquest driving directions	1.16%	0.02%	99.98%	3
4	southwest airlines	1.07%	32.34%	67.66%	4
5	maps	0.98%	0.41%	99.59%	5
6	map quest	0.86%	0.96%	99.04%	6
7	expedia	0.66%	51.58%	48.42%	7
8	travelocity	0.49%	57.85%	42.15%	8
9	american airlines	0.48%	9.82%	90.18%	-
10	delta airlines	0.47%	49.78%	50.22%	-

NB: Data couresy of Experian Hitwise

Last week’s fourth placed Orbitz gained and moved into third position, while Travelocity and Hotwire also moved up.

Most popular travel websites in the US for the week ending September 17 2011:

Agency

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Expedia	www.expedia.com	12.99%	1
2	priceline.com	www.priceline.com	9.95%	2
3	Orbitz	www.orbitz.com	7.58%	4
4	Travelocity	www.travelocity.com	6.34%	5
5	Hotwire	www.hotwire.com	5.59%	7
6	CheapOair	www.cheapoair.com	5.37%	6
7	Kayak	www.kayak.com	4.28%	8
8	Yahoo! Travel	travel.yahoo.com	4.16%	3
9	Cheap Tickets	www.cheaptickets.com	3.07%	9
10	bookingbuddy	www.bookingbuddy.com	2.87%	10

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.com	8.10%	1
2	Hotels.com	www.hotels.com	3.25%	2
3	Marriott International	www.marriott.com	2.98%	3
4	InterContinental Hotels Group	www.ichotelsgroup.com	2.42%	4
5	Hilton Hotels Online	www.hilton.com	2.22%	5
6	Carnival Cruise Lines	www.carnival.com	1.83%	7
7	Southwest Airlines Travel Guide	travel.southwest.com	1.80%	6
8	Vacation Rentals by Owner	www.vrbo.com	1.67%	9
9	Booking.com	www.booking.com	1.62%	8
10	Choice Hotels International	www.choicehotels.com	1.39%	10

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Southwest Airlines	www.southwest.com	22.51%	1
2	Delta Air Lines	www.delta.com	13.82%	2
3	American Airlines	www.aa.com	10.00%	3
4	JetBlue Airways	www.jetblue.com	7.59%	4
5	Continental Airlines	www.continental.com	6.83%	5
6	United Airlines	www.united.com	5.69%	7
7	US Airways	www.usairways.com	5.56%	6
8	AirTran Airways	www.airtran.com	4.58%	8
9	Spirit Airlines	www.spiritair.com	3.34%	9
10	Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air	www.alaskaair.com	2.95%	10

Travel search terms

Rank	Search Term	Percentage of Clicks	Percentage Paid	Percentage Organic	Previous Position
1	mapquest	4.19%	0.20%	99.80%	1
2	google maps	1.72%	0.44%	99.56%	2
3	mapquest driving directions	1.10%	0.00%	100.00%	4
4	southwest airlines	1.00%	35.24%	64.76%	3
5	maps	0.95%	0.40%	99.60%	5
6	map quest	0.82%	0.27%	99.73%	6
7	expedia	0.64%	48.46%	51.54%	7
8	travelocity	0.52%	54.21%	45.79%	8
9	delta airlines	0.49%	56.11%	43.89%	-
10	continental airlines	0.46%	9.10%	90.90%	-

NB: Data couresy of Experian Hitwise