I have been looking at who is doing a good job in providing consumer information on fees and ancillaries charges.

Given the industry and consumer advocacy focus on this – I really wanted to see who does a good job.

So, I went to some of the top online travel agency sites, GDSs and the search/metasearch sites who can provide data and then this table is the results.

Global Distribution Systems

Search/metasearch engines

Online travel agencies

Notes:

• *1 – Sabre Explore Flight Fees
• *2 – Farecompare domestic fee chat
• *3 – Kayak airline fees

Frankly, I am surprised – I would have thought that by now consumer advocacy would have driven sites to do a better job.

So either the sites are lazy or they are fatalistic about doing the job.

It has been a long while since I did an overview of consumer support – but I am actually surprised at how little there is out there to help users.

In almost all cases – it was hard to find the information on each site.

So I could actually have missed if the individual site does have the information. In that case I will apologize for not finding it but then chastise the site for not making it intuitive and easier.

If there is a lesson here – it is that if you are consumer facing you should have an easy way to simplify the way airline information is presented. It will also help to build trust in the mind of the consumer.

That has to be a good thing – so why aren’t you doing it?

How quick many were to scratch their heads in puzzlement over an augmented reality project launched by Hotels.com in May 2010.

The Expedia-owned hotel service created a rather surreal mash-up between a promotion, game and trip planning tool to form VirtualVacation.

Essentially it was a microsite bolted on to Hotels.com that allowed users to explore ten cities in the US by combining webcam technology with live interaction and storytelling.

A clip is still the best way of explaining the idea:

Fast forward three months and Hotels.com is claiming some pretty mind-blowing statistics as a result of the campaign around the VirtualVacation project.

Speaking at the InterACT Conference in the US last week, Hotels.com senior director of brand marketing Vic Walia outlined what the project had contributed to in terms of key performance metrics.

• 277 million media impressions (apparently worth around $14 million of advertising)
• Hotels.com traffic increased 26%.
• Transactions up 36%.
• Welcome Reward programme registrations up 32%.

Although Hotels.com launched a TV ad campaign in the UK at around the same time, this would not account for the some key indicators soaring by around a third each time.

So, AR does work then…?

NB: Waiting for further detail on the reporting period statistics.

Indian online travel agency Cleartrip recently launched a new mobile version – a product which is stunningly simple.

Going mobile is all the rage these days – indeed, we hear about smartphone battles all the time.

But much of this in the USA for example and Western Europe is focused on the high end user communities. It’s more of a luxury item than a necessity.

In the past I have spent quite some time with the Cleartrip people and am impressed with their ardent belief that a simple uncluttered interface is the right way to go.

Eschewing many advertising opportunities (and one assumes cutting off some potential revenue in the process) they have been constant in their pursuit of a straight forward user experience.

For India and other markets, where fixed web is far less relevant than mobile web, this has to be a fundamental philosophy.

I have tried a lot of mobile apps for travel – the workflow often does well in the initial screes and then falters at the critical stages later in the process.

For mobile users the iPhone Applet model has changed the world from the all-encompassing (and therefore complex) multi-purpose Swiss army knife model to a 99% free-app one that anyone can download and use immediately.

Clearly the heavy handed approach favoured by Nokia and others has given way to the simplicity and user controlled model that Apple espouses with its iPhone and iPad environments.

While some like myself don’t like the commercial model, we all love the way that Apple has changed the world and given the mobile marketplace a much needed spike.

Adoption is clearly showing the success.

I asked Cleartrip founder and head product man, Hrush Bhatt, why the team went for mobile and why now?

“We stayed away from doing anything on mobile phones because we didn’t believe the market was ready to start shopping or booking from phones. And we’ve never believed in launching a product just to check a box and say ‘Okay, we’re present on mobile’.”

Joining the chorus for 2010 is the year of mobile, he adds: “We expect this year to be the tipping point for powerful mobile devices with always-on access to the web.

“That makes this the perfect time for us to invest in the mobile web, and we’ve started with building a product that leapfrogs anything else available in our market.”

For those parts of the world where mobile is much more relevant than fixed location web, Cleartrip’s solution represents a more normalized approach to the enabling web apps.

Nothing fancy, just something straightforward that works. This is a lesson that many could learn.

European tour operator Thomas Cook has not let weak financial results hit its ambitions to launch an online travel agency to challenge the likes of Expedia and Priceline in Europe.

The operator warned investors today that full profits would be at the lower end of market expectations, due to “softer” trading conditions as the economy continues to bite and hit consumer spending.

But despite facing heavy costs (£81.9 million) as a result of the volcanic ash cloud saga in April this year and nervousness amongst holidaymakers, Thomas Cook is ploughing on with its widely plugged OTA.

The company says plans to launch the OTA are “well underway” and it expects the division to be “largely in place” for the start of the company’s next financial year, beginning October 2010.

Despite the launch date being just three months away, Thomas Cook has still given away very little information as to its strategy behind the plan, except to confirm the presence of a number of key officials, decision to use Travelport as its GDS, and a desire to possibly acquire another company to give it a leg up.

Thomas Cook’s decision to continue with the OTA strategy makes sense given other figures quoted in its interim management statement released today.

The operator says bookings of mainstream and independent products over the web have increased by 11% year-on-year.

An official says operational details about the OTA will be made available “in the future”.

UK-based online travel agency Directline Holidays moved quickly this morning to dismiss growing speculation that the company is up for a sale giving its founders a multi-million pound windfall.

The Sunday Times suggested [payment needed] the 18-year-old agency had been in contact with a number of private equity investors to explore selling the business, resurrecting a previous attempt from two years ago.

Founders Matthew Flint and Tony Bradley would stand to split around £40 million as a result of any sale.

Inevitably, an official says:

“We have been approached a number of times in the past as a potential acquisition target due to the competitive position of the company and its product portfolio. We don’t engage in comment on rumour or speculation regarding these offers.”

However the company admitted it is working with business consultancy giant KPMG (and has done for two years), although would not elaborate further.

Reports that Directline could be ready to sell will fuel speculation growing over recent months that it is one of a number of companies tipped to be under the watchful eye of Thomas Cook.

The tour operator has stated its intention to buy an online travel agency to help it reach a target of becoming a top European OTA in the next few years.

More big money moves in the world of online travel agencies with news that Spanish giant eDreams has changed ownership in a deal for around Euro 250 million-300 million.

A majority stake in the Barcelona-based OTA was sold yesterday by US private equity firm TA Associates to UK-based counterpart Permira.

The fee was not disclosed, but the Financial Times estimates the transaction was worth up to Euro 300 million, almost double the Euro 153 million TA paid for the business in 2006 from a group of venture capital firms.

Permira is supposedly also in the hunt for other, smaller online travel businesses in Europe.

eDreams launched in 1999 in Spain under the stewardship of Javier Pérez-Tenessa and James Otis Hare, and has since expanded into 14 other markets around the continent. Pérez-Tenessa is the current managing director.

Officials say:

“The company’s growth prospects are underpinned by relatively low levels of online penetration in core markets, potential for further geographic expansion and further moves into non-flight business areas.”

The deal comes just a day after Indian online travel agency MakeMyTrip announced its intention to seek an IPO on the Nasdaq stock exchange, a move it hopes will raise around $100 million for international expansion and acquisitions if its own.

The first two decades of online travel were filled with merge and acquisition activity within and between the US and Europe.

Starting in the late nineties with Travelocity’s acquisition of Preview and reaching a peak in the mid naughties with the Expedia/Hotels.com merger, Lastminute.com acquisition by Travelocity and the Orbitz/Ebookers/HotelClub acquisitions by Cendant.

Big dollar deals covering America and Europe. As we enter the third decade of the online travel I strongly suspect we are seeing the rise of Asian firms as acquisition targets and as potential acquirers.

When I suggest M&A activity in Asia, I am not just talking about the buying of Asian online travel companies by large European or US companies. I am also referring to Asian firms with money to spend and a target list to spend it on.

There are three big and M&A active Asian based companies with money to spend and a need for growth outside their home market – Rakuten, Wotif and Ctrip.

• Rakuten – is the largest online travel company in Asia and one of the largest ecommerce companies in the world. Based in Tokyo, Rakuten is generating around $2.5billion in gross bookings. 90% plus of it within Japan
• Wotif – is the dominant force in online travel in Australia. They are on track to sell $1billion in travel this year, 85% of it in Australia or New Zealand.
• Ctrip – is the biggest travel agency in China. Generating $3.7billion in GBs per year (according to PhoCusWright). Critically the vast majority of the sales are offline through a 12,000 seat call centre rather than online. I normally hear that 70% of their sales are offline but have also heard talk that the offline percentage could be as high as 90%.

In the last three years these companies have been very active in buying companies.

In 2008, Wotif bought Sydney based travel.com.au/lastminute.com.au and (separately) Thailand based AsiaWebDirect. The AWD (though a English language business) is Wotif’s first push for demand outside Aus/NZ

In 2009, Ctrip bought EZTravel, the number one domestic player in Taiwan. In December of that year Wotif also bought GoDo, an activities and services provider.

Rakuten has done three big deals in 2010 and we are only halfway through the year. Rakuten’s parent company launched a JV with China search giant Baidu, purchased US based Buy.com for $250 million and had $250 million left over to buy Euro ecommerce site PriceMinister (all separate deals).

None of these deals are specifically travel-related but they are indicative of the companies desire to push beyond Japan. The company has even announced a English By 2012 Pledge that will see English become the official language of the company in two years.

Also this year, Ctrip has announced plan to buy offline Hong Kong Travel Agency WingOn (to provide them with ticketing and fulfillment services in Hong Kong). And In a move reminiscent of a 1980s European tour operator, Ctrip has started buying up hotel interests across China. [NB: Tnooz post on both those deals]

Three years of deals from three companies

The reasons behind these deals are clear: each of the companies is very different but they share the common traits of being dominant in their home market and unable (mainly through market factors) to replicate outside of their home market the elements that drove that dominance.

Hence the need to use the big domestically generated cash-lows to fund international growth.

I predict that there is more to come; that we should expect to see more deals by these companies in the next three years. I would also not be surprised to see one of these companies make a major play through a big ticket acquisition in either Europe or America.

Clearly there is something in buying a string of country domain names and then throwing an existing online travel system onto it – or at least that’s what Sunshine.co.uk thinks.

Just a few months after unveiling three new domains – Tenerife.co.uk, Majorca.co.uk and Tunisia.co.uk – officials behind Sunshine have splashed out yet again, securing a further eight addresses and preparing the sites as dedicated country OTAs for UK travellers.

The eight additions include UK domains for Hawaii, Cyprus, Gran Canaria and what officials are calling “the biggest capture” of the list, Spain.co.uk.

The new sites are expected to go live this week with country specific content and product form the existing Sunshine portfolio.

Co-founder Chris Clarkson says the new sites will run on the same principle as the Tenerife portal from earlier this year, with locally sourced editorial content and cheap holiday deals.

The strategy behind producing such sites is becoming increasingly obvious, with Clarkson claiming the Tenerife site appears on the first page of Google for key travel phrases after just a few months.

Despite the enjoyment country sites appear to have with search engines, Clarkson says a number of the new domains were bought from brokers and were never used.

Trebles all round it appears at Directline Holidays after releasing annual performance data indicating solid sales and traffic growth in 2009.

The online travel agency says visits to its website increased by 26% during 2009, crediting an effort on bolstering its presence in search engine optimisation.

During 2009 the increase in traffic led to the site seeing around 19 million visits, chief executive Maria Whiteman says.

Directline is widely recognised as a strong performer in search engines despite the powerful presence of rival OTAs such as Expedia, Lastminute.com and Travelrepublic all ahead in terms of traffic.

The agency was singled out by Greenlight Search in April 2010 as the most visible travel site in the UK for key travel-related search terms.

Whiteman says sales at the agency grew by 50% in 2009 to £50 million.

Directline was one of several contenders tipped in June this year to be on Thomas Cook’s acquisition hitlist of other businesses to help it establish an online travel agency in Europe.

Fun idea from European online travel agency Ebookers – although one game behind already – which could either be a social hit or as disappointing as an English goalkeeping fumble.

Trying to attract fans to its Facebook page, Ebookers has created a competition whereby the first person to post the word “goal” onto its Wall every time the England football team score in the FIFA World Cup wins a two-night hotel stay in the UK.

Ebookers says it will run the competition throughout the duration of the tournament whilst England is involved.

The flaws in the competition are obvious:

• England is not the most reliable of goal-scoring teams.
• Another two poor performances in the group stages and the competition is over.

Ebookers is probably breathing a huge sigh of relief it hasn’t launched the same competition for every time Germany scores.