Okay, so we now know plenty about Google, ITA Software and that acquisition story. But is it important?

Yes, of course it is. What Google does, matters. However, we seem to be missing the long-term picture. Google is mainly great at keyword based search.

But will keyword based search be the dominant search form in 20 years? Ten years? Five years even? Doubt it.

Mobile search is much more about location. Ecommerce search will be much more about your social connections and their experience with the same product.

If I am still typing in keywords in five years time I consider that as bad as travel agents still typing in cryptic command line messages for flight/hotel bookings. (And, yes, I understand the efficiency argument about an expert using a concise well matured language).

What is the alternative to keyword search? Well one step forward is destination/travel date based search. Not exactly a UI panacea but probably more useful than a keyword based research query in terms of pitching back destination inspiration ideas or available travel product.

Yet, Google is not winning that game. In fact it is not even playing in it. The game has changed and it is Bing with its Farecast acquisition just 16 months ago which is playing the game of converting mainstream searches from keyword based search to destination/date based.

Is that 16 month head start sufficient? Will Bing have built sufficient knowledge to be able to fend off any Google-ITA mainstream solution?

It’s a big question. I don’t have the answer. What I am sure though is that Google have a fight on their hands and they are not first to market. In that situation regulators are bound to give them the green light.

If Google ultimately lose the battle (such as it has with book ecommerce moving to consumers searching on Amazon first) then I believe they will regret the five year period between 2005 and 2010 where it basically squandered a lead.

Can you name a single big innovation in travel search that Google has delivered to market in the last five years? Nope.

Oddly, Expedia is making noises about the Google-ITA Software deal expressing concerns to the US Justice Department.

But Expedia is actually in the same boat as Google. Expedia has also squandered a leading travel search position. Compare for example this 2003 hotel search result to a 2010 version.

2003

2010

Remarkably similar, although the Expedia quality rating has been replaced with a user generated one and wireless has trumped breakfast!

What both Expedia and Google have achieved is the fallacy of the local maximum.

They have both made brilliant efficiencies on their core UI design. Undeniable. However, alternatives now exist that are fundamentally different and none of this will be uncovered by A/B testing that just sandpapers existing approaches.

[NB: Expedia continues to keep the faith, as Dan Lynn, managing director of Expedia Asia-Pacific, told a conference in Sydney this week: "Whenever we A/B test, consumers confirm that the typical layout of OTA is the right one"]

The tortoises are just building up momentum and could overtake the hare.

Just for fun. Funny skit from comedy trio Fascinating Aida about the perils of search and booking cheap air fares on the web.

Listen carefully…

OnHolidayGroup launched Google Bypass this week in a bid to reward Facebook users with money for travel leads, instead of paying advertising fees to Google.

The move is being touted as the first personal affiliate scheme in travel (at least in the UK) and utilises different concepts including social networking, email marketing and good old fashioned travel agent-style commissions.

Run through OHG’s Holiday Nights accommodation-only B2C brand, Google Bypass is handing out £25 to Facebook users if they refer a friend to a product on the system which they eventually buy.

The title of the scheme, Google Bypass, was clearly created for the PR value within the travel and web industries rather than making much sense to consumers – “no comment”, says CEO Steve Endacott, a figure not exactly known for his love of the Big G and the keyword advertising model.

Endacott claims Google takes on average around 75% of an agent’s (off or online) commission through PPC costs, so he would rather give the commission it would ordinarily pay to the search giant to an individual with, presumably, better loyalty and the chance of recommending a product or company again and again.

So how does it work?

• Holiday Nights customers are sent an invitation to participate.
• Each is given access to lists of offers within the system.
• Each offer has a unique identifying URL, matching the user to the product.
• Members of the scheme are then encouraged to send the URL around their various social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.
• When a friend or follower clicks on the link and makes a booking, the originator gets £25 wired immediately via Paypal.

Much of the management of the system is contained within a Facebook application, meaning users can throw offers around their network easily and see how their various campaigns are performing.

Endacott predicts the scheme will be mostly taken on by individuals, rather than offline travel agencies.

Although currently limited to the bed-focused Holiday Nights brand, plans are in place to extend to other areas of the OHG business including its dynamic packaging service.

The idea behind the project (alongside presumably avoiding the Google cash drain) is to turn individuals into powerful advocates for a service or brand, an area once the preserve off the agent but now through networks such as Facebook allowing consumers to wade in.

Early stages of the project are “pretty good”, says Endacott.

Around 4,000 opt-in members of the Holiday Nights database were emailed last week. Approximately 150 registered and the average pass-on was to nine people. The early phase has generated nine bookings, totalling £225 in commission.

The company may licence the Facebook integration and other elements of the technology to third parties, Endacott adds. The project is a collaboration between OHG, RateGain and ClickWithTechnology.

Sometimes I feel like a giant lab rat online – in a maze with a bunch of super beings observing my every move and then controlling what I can and cannot do.

No I am not paranoid –  “They” are really out to get me. As regular readers know – we have a pretty strong focus on the user experience here at Tnooz.

I have personally worked on the user experience since the earliest days of the web and, indeed, before that in things like Videotext (now that really dates me!).

There are way too many things which say “Beta” on them because too often that’s code for:

“We are putting this product out there and we want you to debug it for us because frankly we are pretty lazy and we got tired of doing it ourselves…”

Nevertheless, one of the things that is a little worrying in the UEX department is the way search results come back differently on computers with the same characteristics and even in the same location.

I either put this down to Google tracking my every move or to the fact they were actually looking at the interaction as a specimen where the web is their personal large petri dish.

I think the web is becoming more like the Googlesphere every day. Well, friends, we are NOT ALONE.

We now have proof, confirmed by Google, confirming they are indeed always experimenting with us.

Messrs Brin, Page and Schmidt (sounds like a 1970s folk band) seem to be running a giant experiment.

Indeed the paranoia seems to be well founded. Not only is Google experimenting with the results but they are actually tracking keystroke activity.

My attention was caught by an article on Infoworld and a follow-up on Tnooz, Google results now updating like a travel metasearch site.

SEO expert Rob Ousbey captured video of a Google experiment that displays search results that change as you type – a process which is just a little disturbing.

And if you think this is just a one off – apparently not.

Google itself gave some insight into this on their blog from Friday, announcing the following:

“Today we’ve launched a change to our ranking algorithm that will make it much easier for users to find a large number of results from a single site.

This is enough to drive anyone to becoming a conspiracy theorist. What worries me more than anything else is that now so much power and infrastructure flows through Google that there is almost no possible way that Google cannot do evil. (Yes, a double negative).

I am not doubting their desire to be good and to “do no evil”, but when they can mess with the results as they are doing on both a minor and a macro scale, I know am being abused.

Couple this with the ability to make money and maximize the results to tweak search to suit Google’s commercial ends and we have an end to net neutrality.

But that’s okay because Google has already decided that it is good for us to dispense with that arcane concept.

So next time you feel that “They Are Watching You”, just remember they are and tracking your every keystroke. You have been warned.

Consumers in Asia are wielding more power than ever before, triggering the biggest change in the regional travel market over the last decade.

Or so says Kathleen Tan, group head of commercial for leading low-cost airline in the region, AirAsia.

“There’s the empowerment to fly and there’s the empowerment to buy. Low cost airlines and the internet have changed buying behaviour in Asia. There’s more virtual planning – people can do a lot more search – and they book instantly.

For example, Tan says: “When we put Yangon on sale recently (the airline launched Kuala Lumpur-Yangon flights in July), we sold 50,000 seats.”

At the same time, there’s a generational shift happening with travellers in Asia.

“As they are empowered to fly and buy, they have also become more empowered as travellers and the smarter travellers now do not need tour guides or buy package tours – they search for information on the web, and they share information with each other on social networks.

“People are more experimental now and are seeking new kinds of travel experiences.”

This is why she believes vendors and operators have to change not only the way they market but also the way they serve these new travellers.

“I urge the industry not to always look to the West, the spending power is in Asia, and we have to change the way we engage with the new Asian customer.”

“Younger people are more savvy now, do you still sell them the same packages? Do you still take them to gems stores and get commissions? People know where they want to eat. They can find the best places to get a tattoo in Bali,” says Tan.

“For me, the romance in travel is in the exchange that’s happening between students and young people, something that’s been facilitated by low cost airlines. Mainland Chinese are now coming to Malaysia to study; before it was only Singapore, but the less wealthy Chinese are opting for Malaysia.

“We have Malaysians going abroad to study and search for jobs. There’s labour mobility, medical mobility. In Malaysia, nurses are hard to come by and so we have lots of nurses from south India working in the country. And Malaysians are going to India for beach surfing at half the price they’d pay in Bali.

“In Bandung, Indonesia, there are 20 universities – imagine the opportunities for youth travel from that market.”

As a marketer, Tan is proudest of the airline’s annual “one million free seats” promotion. Having run it for the last five to six years though, the customer is getting smarter at it.

“It’s become a game to some now. They know it’s hard to get, and so if they get it, they feel good and tell their friends about it.

“They have become marketers for us. There’s a Chinese customer who managed to book 30 free tickets and, apparently, he studied our route map and our website for a month and when the day came, he did it with such speed, got 30 and told all his friends about it.”

Sometimes, promotions can bomb. “Every route has different characteristics – Yangon is different from Taipei for instance. India is what I call a “marathon” market. The purchasing process is much longer, they discuss a lot before they buy. They also like to travel in groups, so they talk a lot among themselves first.

“With Taipei, it explodes but in India, it’s a slow burn – you can’t take your budget and spend it in one go.”

The travel agency channel is not something that excites Tan. “I refuse to pay commissions to travel agents in Singapore; I don’t want to get into legacy business. To service agents, you also need manpower.

“When we first entered China, we depended on travel agents but now our brand is more established, and people know how to book us online. We are also seeing more FIT travel from China.

“India is challenging – people are still reliant on travel agents – but I see a tipping point taking place this year as our brand gets more established.”

Consumers however need a physical presence from time to time to reassure them that the airline is actually run by people and not computers.

“We held an AirAsia travel fair in Jakarta recently and we had people coming up to us who thought we were run by computers, so you need to be present physically for people to feel your brand.

“We have a long way to go still in some markets,” says Tan.

Community marketing is a personal passion of Tan. She watches with interest how Zouk Club of Singapore has managed to stay relevant to its customers despite it being probably the oldest club in the city.

“They are constantly revamping to stay relevant and has held on to their customers,” she says.

Another company she watches is Apple – “they way it upsells and cross-sells”. She said, “They think out of the box and they keep everything within the community.”

One market that has surprised her is the luxury market and how people are still paying a lot of money for luxury products.

“LV has remained so relevant that a mother and her teenage daughter can carry the same brand. It’s an old brand but has engaged hot new designers like Marc Jacobs, brought out limited editions and clearly beaten the pirates.

“There’s a new generation of kids too who don’t buy pirated stuff and get a kick out of it.”

AirAsia recently released its second quarter results, ending June 30 2010, which showed a profit after tax of RM199 million.

Revenue rose 26% year-on-year from RM748 million to RM941 million. Passenger growth was 11%, rising to 3.9 million passengers. Load factor rose to 77% in 2Q2010 from 75% in 2Q2009.

Mobile network Vodafone has taken delivery of its first travel content and flight search application for smartphones, courtesy of technology firm Mantic Point.

The app is available on a number of devices, including the Apple iPhone, and follows a similar service launched on Vodafone-enabled Blackberry handsets in the US in 2008 through Worldmate.

At its basic level, users can obtain travel, currency and destination information as well as view guides on airports and transfer services.

Flight itineraries can also be included in the system and an alert system through FlightStats is also part of the personalised service.

A flight search system is included in the launch version of the app, but currently only produces results based on Innovata information.

Mantic Point CEO Mike Atherton says the flight search system will be improved shortly, possibly with some kind of metasearch system included.

The Vodafone partnership is the latest in a string on agreements between Mantic Point and various travel companies.

The Leeds, UK-based firm powers the in-flight concierge system on the British Airways London City-New York JFK business class route as well as providing mobile services for Opodo, Manchester and Bristol Airports in the UK and HolidayExtras.

Almost every enhancement Google makes to its core product is inevitably now seen through the prism of its intentions to move into vertical areas of search, especially travel.

Google’s planned acquisition of airfare data company ITA Software can be blamed for that.

So, assuming for a moment that Google wants to leverage its acquisition for a major consumer-focused play, the data and search technology/expertise obtained through buying ITA is one side of the equation.

But user experience and how such functionality might be used on within search results is something the brainiacs at Google are probably developing themselves.

Live updating of search results (using Ajax or flash) are common on the next generation travel search sites, such as Kayak, Zugu, Momondo, Skyscanner et al.

And it looks like Google has started testing similar web technology…

NB: Could not be replicated in the UK.

NB: Hat-tip Andrew Girdwood of BigMouthmedia.

So what do hotel suppliers, airlines, ancillary service providers and travel distribution players face when they think about China?

I’ll be attending the annual China Travel Distribution Summit in Beijing on September 15-16 – coming at a time when China’s tourism industry has grown 19% in first half of 2010 and is expected to exceed original estimates of $205 billion.

Eva He, editor of TravelDaily.cn and the organizer of China TDS, shared some thoughts in an email interview.

EN: What are some of the important trends featuring in the upcoming Travel Distribution Summit?

EH: One key theme is how China can lead the way in helping the world’s travel industry rebound from the recession.

China’s travel market is still one of growth in all areas.  I’m also very interested in how travel companies should be using the social media tools to engage with Chinese consumers and build brand loyalty.

Many travel industry professionals [in China and internationally] do not realize how important social media is and how to get started.

Trends in the Chinese search engine market is also important. Google’s well-documented troubles in China have presented significant challenges to international travel companies who are relying on SEM tactics to reach Chinese online travelers.

Understanding and projecting the future of search in the country – what players will dominate, how they will do business, and how they will interact with travelers – is a key to navigating this dynamic market.

EN: You mentioned Google’s troubles. And recently Jeff Immelt, CEO of GE, as reported by Financial Times, shared his frustration with China, saying “I am not sure that in the end they want any of us to win, or any of us to be successful.” Why should international travel companies even look at China?  Isn’t it a waste of money and time on an unfair playing field?

EH: While most global industry leaders are charting their courses prudently, some however, are looking at creating exciting new opportunities or new markets in the midst of the entire crisis.

China has remained the hotspot of world’s travel market by achieving 19% growth rate for the first half of 2010, measured by total domestic travel revenue.

China’s domestic air traffic also achieved 17.6% growth on a year-to-year basis. For global companies, China is no long the future. It is the present.

China has become the focus of a world that is looking for a way out of swamp.

The anticipated deregulation of China’s outbound travel and GDS market will present the significant growth opportunities to the world’s travel and tourism industry.

EN: What advice do you have for foreign travel companies who are looking at the Chinese market?

EH: First, building a strong local team should be the No.1 priority. Trust them, empower them and listen to them.  For some reason, this seems to be harder than it sounds.

Second, in the China market you need to learn from making mistakes. It is always hard to make no mistakes while you are entering a new market. Learning from your own mistakes is the best way for future improvement. Be patient to your local team.

Third, you need to focus on the long-term growth rather than on the short-term P&L.

Fourth, you need to invest time in talking to the consumers. Chinese travelers are different. Do not try to duplicate all your winning strategies into your China operation

NB: Discount code for Tnooz readers – 10% discount off of the current rate of RMB 3800 from the event. Use the code “CTS555″ when you register and obtain a $50 off. Register.

NB: Chinese tourists photo credit Jing Daily.

This will either be a bit of a storm in a teacup or a fundamental change to how Google produces search results when users are searching for brands on the web.

First picked up by search blogger Malcolm Coles and now Search Engine Land, this is what is supposedly happening.

On SOME search queries for big brands (”Apple iPad” was the one Coles used), Google is returning a first page of results dominated almost exclusively by results from Apple.

What’s the wrong with that?

Well, previously the results algorithm worked by displaying the most relevant pages found across the web, based on page rank, originality of content, title, influence, etc.

This would be the same across verticals, content types as well as photos, video and news.

A traveller searching for Expedia, for example, would ordinarily see results for the brand itself, news items, affiliate sites, high ranking content sites which mention Expedia.

But perhaps no longer:

Eight of the ten results on the first page when searching for “expedia” belong to Expedia or a Expedia-run domain. The remaining two are a Twitter profile and Wikipedia page.

The same could also be found for “opodo”:

Seven of the ten belong to Opodo.

The point here is that results are being served regardless of page rank and existing SEO disciplines. Maybe it’s just a freak of the searches carried out on a particular day for a particular brand?

A clearly concerned Search Engine Land eventually got a statement from Google [officials have yet to respond to calls]:

“We periodically reassess our ranking and UI choices, and today we made a change to allow a larger number of pages from the same site to appear for a given query. This happens for searches that indicate a strong user interest in a particular domain.”

So there you have it. Big is beautiful… when it comes to SEO.

Andrew Girdwood of BigMouthMedia is playing down the change:

“Search is about finding what you’re after. Google wants to be the best at doing that for you. This tweak doesn’t favour brands, certain types or anything like that. Google just used to think that searchers probably didn’t want t see more than two results from the same  domain – now they’ve changed their mind.”

More stealthy experimentation from Google with confirmation that hotel locations are being served on maps from within AdWords search results.

The search giant is testing a new feature where a user can check the whereabouts of a hotel by opening a quick drop-down menu from within paid-for keyword advertising.

Only available to a limited number, Google has added a message below search results in the top Sponsored Links box for some keyword searches.

The message invites users to view a map of hotel locations, presumably using a formula from the original keyword term.

In this case, search query “Premier Inn Devon” (referring to the large UK-based budget accommodation chain, Premier Inn) returns a generic text ad plus the drop-down menu.

Once the drop-down is activated, a map appears indicating the location of other Premier Inn properties in the immediate vicinity.

The new format remains within the existing shaded area and also includes a search box for users to narrow their search further as well as direct links to property pages and map directions.

Google has confirmed the test is taking place but only in countries where location extensions (a system to filter and target certain keyword searches) are available.

In some respects the move is an extension of its more widely publicised testing of hotel properties in Google Maps, revealed earlier this year, but this time putting the map within ad results rather than the opposite way round.

The test is also currently only available to a limited number of advertisers, presumably those with a chain of properties which can be included in a useful way on a map.

A Google official in the UK says:

“As part of our ongoing commitment to help users find the information they’re looking for, we are currently running a test in which an expandable plusbox may appear within some ads on Google search results pages.

“The plusbox provides a map view and location-based information to help users find multiple store locations, and offers advertisers who are using location extensions a new way to engage potential customers.”

Many of the search purists will note that the level of real estate Google is now giving over to paid-for advertising is almost completely overshadowing natural search results, especially in terms of screen size.

Presumably the test cannot be carried out on the right-hand Sponsored Links section due to constraints with the size of the map.

NB: Hat-tip PicturetheUK