All four sites – Skyscanner, Cheapflights, Travelzoo and Travelsupermarket – increased their market share last week as others such as Thomas Cook and TravelRepublic saw slight decreases.

Market leader Thomson is still managing to hold off the threat of Expedia, with around a third of a percentage point over its rival.

Most popular travel websites in the UK for the week ending January 28 2012:

Agencies

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Thomson	www.thomson.co.uk	7.60%	1
2	Expedia.co.uk	www.expedia.co.uk	7.25%	2
3	Thomas Cook	www.thomascook.com	5.70%	3
4	Lastminute.com	www.lastminute.com	4.51%	4
5	TravelRepublic.co.uk	www.travelrepublic.co.uk	4.08%	5
6	First Choice	www.firstchoice.co.uk	3.11%	6
7	skyscanner	www.skyscanner.net	2.78%	7
8	Travelzoo UK	www.travelzoo.com/uk	2.69%	9
9	Cheapflights.co.uk	www.cheapflights.co.uk	2.57%	8
10	travelsupermarket.com	www.travelsupermarket.com	2.46%	10

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	TripAdvisor UK	www.tripadvisor.co.uk	12.30%	1
2	Booking.com	www.booking.com	7.15%	2
3	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.com	3.16%	3
4	LateRooms.com	www.laterooms.com	2.53%	4
5	Premier Inn	www.premierinn.com	1.97%	6
6	Travelodge UK	www.travelodge.co.uk	1.86%	5
7	Hotels.com	www.hotels.com	1.51%	7
8	Owners Direct	www.ownersdirect.co.uk	1.29%	8
9	Time Out	www.timeout.com	1.22%	10
10	Holiday Lettings	www.holidaylettings.co.uk	1.22%	9

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	easyJet.com	www.easyjet.com	17.91%	1
2	Ryanair	www.ryanair.com	13.95%	2
3	British Airways	www.britishairways.com	12.12%	3
4	Flybe	www.flybe.com	5.32%	7
5	Jet2.com	www.jet2.com	5.15%	4
6	Virgin atlantic	www.virgin-atlantic.com	5.02%	6
7	Monarch.co.uk	www.monarch.co.uk	4.76%	5
8	Thomson Airways	flights.thomson.co.uk	3.31%	8
9	flythomascook.com	www.flythomascook.com	2.79%	9
10	bmibaby	www.bmibaby.com	2.58%	10

Travel search terms

Rank	Search Term	Percentage of Clicks	Percentage Paid	Percentage Organic	Previous Position
1	google maps	0.97%	0.47%	99.53%	1
2	thomas cook	0.65%	35.51%	64.49%	2
3	easyjet	0.64%	2.69%	97.31%	3
4	national rail	0.58%	1.15%	98.85%	5
`5	ryanair	0.52%	1.25%	98.75%	4
6	tfl	0.46%	1.25%	98.75%	6
7	travelodge	0.42%	30.50%	69.50%	8
8	thomson	0.41%	1.43%	98.57%	7
9	aa route planner	0.40%	0.54%	99.46%	-
10	trainline	0.39%	45.24%	54.76%	10

NB: Data courtesy of Experian Hitwise

NB2: Image via Shutterstock.

It is the first time in at least two years that the site has failed to feature in the top ten sites, losing its place this week to Yahoo Travel.

Thomas Cook also continues its worrying decline on the web, capturing just 3.9% market share compared to Thomson‘s 5.8% and Expedia‘s 7%.

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

Agencies

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Expedia.co.uk	www.expedia.co.uk	7.05%	1
2	Lastminute.com	www.lastminute.com	6.35%	2
3	Thomson	www.thomson.co.uk	5.77%	3
4	Thomas Cook	www.thomascook.com	3.86%	4
5	Travelzoo UK	www.travelzoo.com/uk	3.57%	5
6	skyscanner	www.skyscanner.net	3.28%	6
7	Yahoo! UK & Ireland Travel	uk.travel.yahoo.com	2.99%	-
8	TravelRepublic.co.uk	www.travelrepublic.co.uk	2.81%	8
9	Cheapflights.co.uk	www.cheapflights.co.uk	2.78%	7
10	Expedia	www.expedia.com	1.97%	10

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	TripAdvisor UK	www.tripadvisor.co.uk	11.00%	1
2	Booking.com	www.booking.com	6.35%	3
3	Agoda.com	www.agoda.com	3.55%	2
4	LateRooms.com	www.laterooms.com	2.83%	4
5	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.com	2.57%	5
6	Travelodge UK	www.travelodge.co.uk	2.13%	6
7	Time Out	www.timeout.com	1.82%	8
8	Premier Inn	www.premierinn.com	1.69%	7
9	InterContinental Hotels Group	www.ichotelsgroup.com	1.29%	9
10	40 Winks	www.40winks.co.uk	1.28%	-

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	easyJet.com	www.easyjet.com	17.13%	1
2	Ryanair	www.ryanair.com	15.83%	2
3	British Airways	www.britishairways.com	13.55%	3
4	Flybe	www.flybe.com	4.92%	4
5	Virgin atlantic	www.virgin-atlantic.com	4.45%	5
6	Monarch.co.uk	www.monarch.co.uk	3.50%	7
7	Jet2.com	www.jet2.com	3.30%	6
8	Emirates	www.emirates.com	2.94%	8
9	bmibaby	www.bmibaby.com	2.08%	9
10	KLM Royal Dutch Airlines	www.klm.com	2.05%	-

Travel search terms

Rank	Search Term	Percentage of Clicks	Percentage Paid	Percentage Organic	Previous Position
1	google maps	1.07%	0.85%	99.15%	1
2	national rail	0.95%	1.04%	98.96%	2
3	tfl	0.91%	0.87%	99.13%	3
4	train times	0.74%	17.05%	82.95%	4
5	easyjet	0.63%	5.10%	94.90%	5
6	ryanair	0.63%	0.90%	99.10%	7
7	trainline	0.57%	42.87%	57.13%	6
8	aa route planner	0.48%	1.39%	98.61%	8
9	maps	0.42%	0.22%	99.78%	9
10	travelodge	0.37%	44.83%	55.17%	10

NB: Data courtesy of Experian Hitwise

NB2: Image via Shutterstock.

The price comparison specialist, which acquired 51% of Local Daily Deals for an initial consideration of £1 million, has already rebranded the Brighton-based service to MoneySupermarket Local Deals.

The deal could increase to £11 million depending on financial targets being met in the next three years.

Mark Guymer, MoneySupermarket’s shopping, vouchers and partnerships boss, describes the deal as another good example of the company’s activity beyond product comparison following the company’s roll out of vouchers across its various verticals.

“Customers really like the deals proposition and it naturally sits with the MoneySupermarket proposition of getting more for their money.

“We have the relationship with all the major providers of travel inventory so it’s relatively straightforward for us to go in and leverage that.”

Guymer says TravelSupermarket currently promotes top deals but has no flash sales element.

He also says the company is only at the ‘launch stage of the deals proposition’ and currently extending it into big cities such as Manchester and Birmingham, after going live about five weeks ago.

In the previous article we looked at channel diversity and how this relates to new opportunities in affiliate marketing, as the discipline continues to grow and evolve.

Now it is time to look in closer detail at developments around product feeds in affiliate marketing, how widgets and new platforms are evolving the wider marketplace and managing partnerships.

In other words, putting the pieces together.

The product feed challenge

With more online travel sites out there than ever before, it is vital a product can be found easily and that the affiliate is able to give the consumer the information they want in one simple, clean hit.

To achieve this, a travel brand can build a product data feed for a specific affiliate marketing application, comprising product information such as the holiday destination, pricing and availability. Applying this data feed across multiple channels and potentially hundreds of affiliates increases complexity by an order of magnitude.

In the past, travel brands have struggled to ensure pricing and availability information included within the feed accurately reflects their package availability on a daily basis. The data feed also becomes unwieldy if it includes too many combinations of different products.

At the same time, affiliates need product level information supplied and structured in different ways. All too often, it is left to the affiliate to extract product information in the format they need to convert it into consumer-facing content.

Inaccurate product information results in a poor consumer experience and damage to the company’s brand. It can also have legal implications if the consumer’s complaint is brought to the attention of a trade or regulatory body.

Moreover, affiliates don’t want to have to wade through huge volumes of product information. This is especially true for those specialising in the long tail, where many sites are managed on a part-time basis.

Data feed technology has therefore evolved, with advanced data extraction and feed creation tools being developed to enable travel brands and affiliates to use data on holiday and hotel packages across a wide range of applications, drive conversion rates and revenue.

Getting tooled up – Widgets, Dynamic Adverts and f-Commerce

By harvesting (among many other elements) pricing, availability and holiday package attributes directly from the travel brand’s website, it is possible to ensure that the extracted data feed is accurate and includes comprehensive product data.

This enables a travel brand to deliver to its affiliates all the elements their online audience may, in turn, be engaged with. Also, because there is no requirement for technical resource from the travel brand, feeds can be generated and deployed quickly and at low cost by extracting the “front end” product-related HTML code from the website, with no requirement for any back end data.

At the same time, affiliates need feed creation and management tools that quickly and accurately convert information carried within a travel brand’s feed into consumer-facing content.

They also require controls for ensuring consistency in ad/brand messaging, as well as filtering out and presenting special offers or engaging content relevant to their target audience.

Creating interactive and engaging advertising content is just as critical in the conversion of the online consumer. Ad and widget creation tools, for example, can allow affiliates to create dynamic advertising solutions that go beyond the simple ‘banner advertising’ concept and enable consumers to engage and select products within the banner.

Facebook Commerce (f-commerce) and social media widgets allow the travel brand to soften their corporate messaging and engage customers with interesting, fun and potentially viral media.

Rich product attributes are also included in the feed allowing for the exploration of some very creative engagement angles. Business logic can also be applied to the feed and API’s created to allow the extraction and combine of data from other sources.

Clear and open channels of communication are just as important in building relationships with affiliates. Many affiliates feel they have limited or zero means of direct communication with their travel brand partners.

The provision of an interactive portal (an ‘affiliate hub’) by the travel brand not only provides easy access to the types of affiliate tools discussed but improves communication and knowledge.

This makes it much easier and more attractive for the affiliate to work with them, eliminating the time it takes to wade through product information, minimising the risk of inaccuracies and increasing conversion rates by making consumer-facing content easier to distribute.

Thomas Cook for example recently launched an ‘affiliate hub’ portal where its online affiliates can access a suite of online marketing tools, as well as the latest information on its products, pricing and availability.

Delivering mutual benefit

Affiliate marketing has been described as a microcosm of the entire digital marketing mix. The complex nature of online channel marketing can certainly bamboozle all but the most tech-savvy. There needs to be investment of time and resource within the channel to make it work over the long term for both travel brands and their affiliates.

Despite high booking values, margins can be very low in travel, meaning the ability to drive traffic and conversion rate is crucial. What’s more, with travel experiencing one of the highest levels of consumer research prior to a purchase being made, it is vital that affiliates are able to display as much rich product information as possible.

This information enables them to become more like online travel agents than simple brochure-style websites.

Product data feeds that are accurate, well structured and rich in information simplify the affiliate proposition by making the distribution of the feed much easier.

When feeds are combined with ‘easy to use’ deployment tools enabling customisation of feeds and the production of dynamic advertising units, they provide a platform for powering the best online product marketing performance.

Once an affiliate starts to generate revenue from the travel brand, they can invest further in the functionality of their site – thus delivering mutual benefit. By making content more engaging and by deep-linking searches to the exact product pages, high-quality data feeds ensure that consumers are able to find what they are searching for and convert better too.

Interactive, dynamic advertising content that uses product feeds adds further functionality that enables consumers to combine different products such as flights, hotels and car hire to create a tailored package and purchase all of the elements directly.

After all, a wasted click is wasted potential revenue for both the affiliate and the travel company!

NB: This is a guest article by Lee Brignell-Cash, co-founder and COO at FusePump.

Travel brands who market products and services online via affiliates are seeking the most efficient ways to drive traffic, conversion rates and profitability as the channel continues to grow and diversify.

That’s a reasonable simple statement to make.

So maybe we should examine how innovation in technology can make marketing products online easier and more profitable for merchants and affiliates in the ultra-competitive travel sector.

Affiliate marketing remains one of the fastest growing and most efficient means of online advertising. It accounts for 30% of bookings made through online travel websites and demands high brand visibility given the countless number of companies vying for the same carefully considered purchases.

Consumers need to trust the brand and clearly understand the advantages of booking with one provider over another.

Travel brands therefore need to be able to communicate their prices and USP clearly to consumers. Working with affiliate partners can add legitimacy to a travel brand, expedite word-of-mouth referrals and greatly increase reach. It can also strengthen a brand’s long-term positioning in an extremely cost-effective way.

However, the complexity of the relationships and resource needed to optimise the affiliate channel can frequently lead to badly run and poorly-performing campaigns.

The affiliate or performance marketing channel has undergone immense change since its inception in the mid-1990s. It has branched into new areas including comparison and group buying sites as well as making footsteps into social media and mobile.

It has become more professional, with affiliate networks and super affiliates investing in technology platforms and it has diversified with the emergence of micro-affiliates catering for the longer tail specialised search terms of the web.

The proliferation of streams within the affiliate channel makes it much harder for travel brands to work successfully across them all. This is why development of rich product level data feeds and innovative tools for their creation, distribution and management are so important.

High-quality data feeds allow travel brands to create a single platform of distribution under which brand consistency and product visibility is maximised, while affiliates can more easily tailor rich product information (i.e. promotional text) into higher-converting consumer-facing content.

Consumer engagement drives channel diversity

The internet remains a key focus for consumer holiday spend and is the biggest growth area within the travel industry.

According to the European travel index report from the Centre for Economics and Business Research, 54% of all internet users in Europe research and book travel-related services online. Meanwhile, recent research by Affilinet confirmed travel as the leading advertiser sector within the affiliate channel.

The evolution in the way in which consumers engage with brands online is driving diversity throughout the affiliate channel. Consumers are using a much wider selection of applications to help them choose holiday packages, including search engines, online comparison websites, group buying websites and comparison shopping engines.

They are also engaging more with voucher codes and discount offers, which means travel brands must ensure their products appear on sites offering value for money. Discount codes can make a big difference to a high-value considered purchase and can be a powerful way to boost sales with price-savvy customers at key times.

Recommendation engines such as Trip Advisor and Lonely Planet are also becoming increasingly important for travel companies. A recent survey by Havas Media Social and Lightspeed Research found that 53% of consumers were more likely to look up a brand if a friend had recommended it.

This boom in user-generated content and the power of recommendations has led to the emergence of micro-affiliates – i.e. the sites that form the web’s ‘long-tail’ of niche search product categories.

Historically, the micro-affiliate stream (including bloggers) was perceived as uneconomical in terms of the administrative burden in managing a huge number of tiny commissions. The tide is turning though as brands begin to appreciate their ‘collective’ influence in driving click-through activity.

Indeed, long-tail search terms are now recognised as a huge opportunity to drive traffic back to their sites, generate buzz and spread messages virally

For example, an affiliate focused on long-tail search terms – e.g. “holiday” + “destination” + “accommodation type” + “price” – will most likely see lower traffic volumes but a higher rate of conversion. Whereas those bidding on generic search terms – eg. “Spanish holidays” – will drive higher traffic volumes but have a lower rate of conversion.

Affiliate opportunities

For affiliates, the change in consumers’ online behaviour means they have more ways in which to drive and monetise traffic. Organic or ‘natural search’ traffic via SEO remains one of their preferred methods, while Pay Per Click (PPC) is also popular.

Other widely-adopted models include loyalty and reward schemes, email marketing (affiliates that build their own data lists to target a travel brand’s potential customers with newsletters or dedicated email campaigns), co-registration, voucher-code and group-buying affiliates. Notable brands in the UK, for example, include Travelsupermarket, Lastminute.com and TripAdvisor.

Each affiliate stream results in a different quality and quantity of leads, which impacts on the incoming revenue they can generate.

What remains constant however is the affiliate’s aim to drive performance by bringing travel brands closer to their visitors, and ensure the incremental revenue generated as a result is greater than the amount invested initially to build and promote the site.

Based on this premise, selecting the merchant to partner with becomes a question of scale, efficiency and lowest cost for the affiliate.

In the second part of this series we will look at product feeds, tools and partner benefits.

NB: This is a guest article by Lee Brignell-Cash, co-founder and COO at FusePump.

Yahoo is the tenth most popular travel site in the agency category by audience share, while Travelzoo has leaped ahead of metasearch engine Travelsupermarket and tour operator First Choice to reach sixth position.

The airline category has seen the unlikely entry of Malev Hungarian Airlines for the first time, replacing FlyThomasCook in tenth spot.

Most popular travel websites in the UK for the week ending July 16 2011:

Agencies

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	Thomson	www.thomson.co.uk	7.84%	1
2	Expedia.co.uk	www.expedia.co.uk	6.47%	2
3	Thomas Cook	www.thomascook.com	5.59%	3
4	Lastminute.com	www.lastminute.com	4.95%	4
5	TravelRepublic.co.uk	www.travelrepublic.co.uk	4.12%	5
6	Travelzoo UK	www.travelzoo.com/uk	2.86%	9
7	First Choice	www.firstchoice.co.uk	2.72%	7
8	travelsupermarket.com	www.travelsupermarket.com	2.62%	8
9	teletext Holidays	www.teletextholidays.co.uk	2.47%	6
10	Yahoo! UK & Ireland Travel	uk.travel.yahoo.com	2.43%	-

Destinations and Accommodation

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.co.uk	11.07%	1
2	Booking.com	www.booking.com	6.52%	2
3	TripAdvisor	www.tripadvisor.com	3.33%	4
4	LateRooms.com	www.laterooms.com	3.21%	3
5	Travelodge UK	www.travelodge.co.uk	2.79%	5
6	Premier Inn	www.premierinn.com	1.73%	6
7	Hotels.com	www.hotels.com	1.65%	7
8	ukcampsite.co.uk	www.ukcampsite.co.uk	1.28%	8
9	Owners Direct	www.ownersdirect.co.uk	1.07%	-
10	InterContinental Hotels Group	www.ichotelsgroup.com	1.02%	10

Airlines

Rank	Website	Domain	Percentage of Visits	Previous Position
1	easyJet.com	www.easyjet.com	20.19%	1
2	Ryanair	www.ryanair.com	15.38%	2
3	British Airways	www.britishairways.com	10.26%	3
4	Jet2.com	www.jet2.com	5.18%	4
5	Flybe	www.flybe.com	4.51%	5
6	Monarch.co.uk	www.monarch.co.uk	4.12%	6
7	Virgin atlantic	www.virgin-atlantic.com	3.15%	7
8	Thomson Airways	flights.thomson.co.uk	3.02%	8
9	bmibaby	www.bmibaby.com	2.85%	9
10	Mal‚v Hungarian Airlines	www.malev.com	2.53%	-

Travel search terms

Rank	Search Term	Percentage of Clicks	Percentage Paid	Percentage Organic	Previous Position
1	google maps	1.16%	1.07%	98.93%	1
2	thomas cook	0.61%	16.61%	83.39%	2
3	easyjet	0.52%	3.22%	96.78%	4
4	ryanair	0.52%	1.32%	98.68%	3
5	aa route planner	0.49%	0.48%	99.52%	5
6	thomson	0.48%	1.22%	98.78%	6
7	travelodge	0.45%	41.08%	58.92%	-
8	national rail	0.45%	0.60%	99.40%	8
9	tfl	0.43%	0.10%	99.90%	7
10	maps	0.42%	0.29%	99.71%	10

NB: Data courtesy of Experian Hitwise

Hotels went live this week. New flights interface to follow in the next few weeks, apparently. Chris Nixon also says it is considering online personal travel assistants.

ORIGINAL:

Kelkoo is splashing out Euro 2 million to reinvigorate its travel search service, with the first results expected within the next few weeks.

The investment comes as owner Jamplant looks to bring the travel section of the cross-vertical site back to its old position as a high profile service to find hotels, flights, car hire and other travel-related products.

The first element to be relaunched will be the hotels section of the travel channel, with an overhauled design and interface by the end of July.

The new functionality will be rolled out in the UK first of all, following by other European markets within around four weeks.

New managing director, ex-Travelsupermarket boss Chris Nixon, says the flights section will be relaunched by the end of August, once again in the UK initially before being extended elsewhere.

The last element in the first phase will be car hire, expected by the end of September using the same launch strategy as hotels and flights.

Flights will continue to use a mixture of the Amadeus Metapricer technology and links to air fare merchants. Hotel results are expected to eventually come from around 50 different merchants and direct connections with hotel chains.

Nixon admits Kelkoo’s previous owner Yahoo “didn’t know what to do with it”, but a year or so after the sale to Jamplant in 2008 the company realised it should do something with the brand’s travel channel.

Part of the investment, alongside hiring new people, includes the design work as well as widespread re-engineering of content on the site to help improve its performance in search engines. The first fruits of this work included the recent partnership signed with Frommers to produce travel guides on the site.

Currently, Kelkoo’s largest markets are the UK, France and Scandinavia, with around 70% of traffic focusing on flight search, 20% for hotels, remainder for other travel-related products.

An old favourite of TV advertising, Nixon says the company is currently considering whether to launch a dedicated TV campaign in early-2012 to support the new push.

The pair announced today that user reviews and ratings will be published for the first time against hotel properties on holidays supplied by First Choice.

This is an extension of a existing agreement between TripAdvisor and First Choice parent company TUI Travel, where the review giant’s content already runs against hotels featured on the website of sister business Thomson.

But those with reasonably long memories will recall TUI announcing in late-2007 that TripAdvisor reviews will appear on the First Choice website some time during 2008.

Surely some mistake?

It turns out that the proclamations at the time were correct and there was a plan in place to integrate TripAdvisor reviews on First Choice three years ago.

The idea, under the stewardship of then TUI new media director Graham Donoghue, was to expand the content system and reviewing platform used by Thomson over to First Choice, as part of a wider programme to integrate business processes following the high-profile merger of the pair in September 2007.

For some reason, integration of the platforms never materialised and hotel user reviews have never seen the light of day until now.

Coincidentally, Donoghue left TUI in early-2008 to become managing director of metasearch engine Travelsupermarket.

First Choice was contacted about this kink in the timeline, but has yet to give a reason as to what happened in early-2008 to stall the implementation of TripAdvisor reviews on its site for another three years.

Six months after getting his feet under the table, Nixon appears to be kickstarting Kelkoo once more with a move to differentiate it from the multiple travel search competitors now in the sector since Kelkoo first blazed a trail over ten years ago in Europe.

The first visible sign that efforts are being made to reinvigorate the business is a deal announced this week with travel guide giant Frommers Unlimited.

The pair have united to produce a series of exclusive series of destination content guides for the search site, targeting the most popular cities around the world such as New York, Paris, London, etc.

The guides (which, as most know, can give a handy boost to a site’s presence in search) will run on five countries site for Kelkoo including the UK, France and Italy.

Kelkoo is also in the throes of completely overhauling the travel section of the site, with focus groups being convened to test new ideas around functionality, ahead of a major relaunch later this year.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNn9j3VTvF4

The ad follows a similar pattern of a recent TV campaign from rival Travelsupermarket by suggesting people using Cheapflights secured a better deal.

Unfortunately the Travelsupermarket version got the company into hot water with ad regulators when it suggested viewers would be much better off than visiting a travel agent – Cheapflights clearly wouldn’t dare use the same tactic as many of its product suppliers are agents.

Skyscanner dipped its toe in the world of TV advertising for the first time in January 2010 (although is not set to repeat any activity), while Kayak unveiled its first spot in April this year.

The launch of the campaign follows a series of management changes at the company.

CEO Chris Cuddy announced his departure last week, replaced by executive chairman Hugo Burge. Global sales boss Francesca Ecsery left earlier this week while a new role of director of user acquisition has been created to allow digital marketing expert Don Wong to join.

Marketing says the ad is scheduled to run as part of a wider summer promotion campaign on digital-only channels ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4.

The company today has notified writers contributing to the site that it has spent recent weeks evaluating the validity of the company’s business model, but has been forced to concede that Simonseeks is “simply not viable”.

The letter says:

“Consumers are not currently ready to pay for professionally-written travel content online and the amounts generated through hotel bookings and page impressions are not significant enough.”

Revenue was gained through affiliate relationships with suppliers and metasearch engines, and advertising on the site.

Simonseeks captured the attention from the off, primarily because it was backed by Simon Nixon, brainchild of metasearch site TravelSupermarket (and parent company MoneySupermarket).

Its promise of a new revenue opportunity for travel writers (submit content, take a cut of revenue depending on traffic etc) came as many journalists debated the ongoing lack of lucrative writing opportunities on the web as commissions from mainstream media continued to dry up.

The first solid warning signs that the business was struggling came in late-March when six people were made redundant from the company, around half the total headcount.

Four weeks later and Nixon has admitted that despite a number of last-ditch marketing efforts, including a TV advertising campaign, the game is up.

He wrote today:

“Over the course of the last few months the Simonseeks team has been working round the clock in order to drive the commercial side of the business.

“As you will be aware, this has included the investment of substantial marketing time and expertise together with a significant financial commitment in launching television advertising together with many other online and offline initiatives.”

The site will be closed to new editorial content immediately and the company wound down, Nixon says.

“This is not a decision that has been made lightly and is made with the regret of all of the Simonseeks team members who have made every effort to make the business a success.”

Similar to his previous business, Nixon brought in brother Chris to work alongside him as commercial director, only for the sibling to quit in August last year after just 12 months, eventually emerging as boss of the travel division for metasearch site Kelkoo.

In an email statement, Nixon says his funding for the Simonseeks project will cease but “some of our management team are currently discussing how they can continue to operate on a smaller scale”.

“Many of our experts have already shown an interest in this model as they see Simonseeks as a valuable showcase for their knowledge and work.”

Nixon says he hopes the site will eventually continue in some form as it has been an “extremely interesting project to be part of”, despite struggling to get the traction required.

SimonEscapes, another Nixon project focusing on travel property rentals, will continue. He also remains executive deputy chairman of MoneySupermarket.

The two 30-second spots will start airing on day and prime time slots on the two main commercial terrestrial channels – ITV and Channel 4.

Until now Kayak has relied on existing online marketing techniques and PR to get its message out to potential users in Europe, so the launch of a TV ad campaign is a significant shift in strategy.

The decision to throw money into what will be a fairly expensive TV advertising push comes after rival search engine Skyscanner tested its own activity in Scotland in January 2010 but eventually decided against a wider campaign.

UK market leader Travelsupermarket famously spent what was believed to be in the region of around £10 million on a major TV advertising campaign ahead of its IPO, returning in 2010 with a controversial (it upset travel agents) effort with X-Factor stars Jedward.

The launch of the Kayak campaign ends a busy week after announcing its acquisition of Austrian market leader Checkfelix.

Here is a clip of the UK ad:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo6cmm9mJeM

Terms and scope of the deal have not been disclosed today, except that it is a 100% takeover of Momondo by Cheapflights, but the partnership signals a move to strengthen the Cheapflights business in markets it has so far not targeted such as Scandinavia and Russia.

The most immediate development as a result of the agreement will see the end of Cheapflights metasearch experiment Zugu, launched just over 12 months ago but failing to make any large inroads on established players such as Travelsupermarket or Skyscanner in the UK or Kayak, Bing and other US metasearch engines.

Momondo will continue to run as an independent business from its base in Denmark, but over time technology, data and advertising partnerships will be brought together to build what bosses are calling “a major global player in internet travel”.

This, of course, isn’t the first time Cheapflights has made a strategic investment in a metasearch company. It announced a partnership with Icelandic global flights planner Dohop in 2007, only for the agreement to end quietly around two years later.

Momondo has attracted varying degrees of attention in recent years, not necessarily because of success outside of its core markets in Northern Europe but because its technology is well respected, curiously amongst other metasearch players in the US.

Cheapflights chairman Hugo Burge says a deal with the five year old Momondo will “accelerate our ambitions” as it looks to build out in international presence beyond its core markets of the UK and US as well as country sites in Canada, Germany, Australia and New Zealand, France, Italy and Spain.

CEO Chris Cuddy adds that the company has “learned a lot” about metasearch in recent years and now respects how it can compliment its existing deals business.

“We are both pioneers and leaders in deals and metasearch,” he adds. The two companies are also strong in different markets and will compliment one another during what will no doubt be aggressive plans for expansion.

The 30-second spot will run in the UK on main terrestrial channels such as ITV1 from this week and is primarily pitching its tailor-made holidays to viewers.

Includes obligatory, cheeky “Carry On…” moment…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYsXWQV-lBk

Metasearch site TravelSupermarket recently ran a new campaign featuring the dreaded Jedward twins. Thomas Cook has also resurrected the infamous Jamie and Louise Redknapp TV ads from last year.

The acquisition will see Zoombu founders Rachel Armitage and Alistair Hann move to the Edinburgh-based Skyscanner for what are being called senior technical and marketing roles within the company. Another member of the Zoombu team is also expected to move to Scotland.

As well as the well-respected Armitage and Hann, perhaps even more importantly Skyscanner gets its hands on technology which will allow it to become a fully functioning, multi-modal travel search engine, covering rail, bus and city transportation to combine with its existing flights product.

Zoombu was created in 2008 but was limited to a private beta test for much of its early, opening up with a micro version targeting European ski destinations in January 2010 and the full site three months later.

The site’s core proposition is that a user can enter a postcode within the “From” and “To” fields for a search query and obtain results, door-to-door, covering every mode of transport.

It also lists results based on the cheapest, quickest and greenest options – the latter becoming an important comparison when it comes to adding rail into metasearch engines.

Skyscanner CEO Gareth Williams says the rail element of the Zoombu technology will be integrated into the main Skyscanner site over the course of the next few months, with buses and city transportation expected some time in the future.

“The goal is take the best bits of what Zoombu is doing, add more caching to make it faster and then integrate with Skyscanner over time,” Williams adds.

The acquisition appears to have come at a critical point for both companies – Skyscanner wanting to expand into multi-modal search and Zoombu reaching a moment where the product and technology “was extremely good” but needed help to grow.

Williams says the existing Zoombu consumer-facing site will not see any further development, except perhaps as a test area for new functionality in the future.

Zoombu, which had attracted a six-figure round of investment from the Said Business School in Oxford in late-2009, started to bring in some revenue but had not reached profitability, Williams confirms.

Skyscanner could have eventually worked on its own door-to-door search technology, Williams believes, but the acquisition meant Armitage and Hann could join the team and developers could continue to work on the existing flight search functionality (“lots of work to do on flights, but we can’t wait forever to do rail”).

Armitage says: “They [Skyscanner] are a company we’ve always been impressed with and it’s an exciting next step for multimodal search and a great home for the tech we’ve built.”

Meanwhile, Williams says the company has been watching developments closely across the Atlantic Ocean in recent months, especially with Kayak laying down plans to list on the public markets.

The earliest Skyscanner would consider following suit would be 2013, he explains.

Oh dear, UK regulator, Advertising Standards Authority, has come down on Travelsupermarket for the ad following complaints from travel agents.

Two agencies argued that the metasearch engine had “exaggerated the typical amount that consumers might pay” instead of directly with a travel agent.

The ASA upheld the complaint, but dismissed a further one which claimed the ad “misleadingly implied that Travelsupermarket would always be cheaper than booking directly with a travel agent”.

A Travelsupermarket official says:

“We will continue to work with the ASA on future campaigns.”

ORIGINAL STORY:

X-Factor stars Jedward and comedian Omid Djalili are to feature in a new television advertising campaign for UK metasearch site TravelSupermarket.

Jedward, known for creating a large and global cult following (despite, some might say, not exactly having the talents of other popular performers in modern pop culture), are seen in the ad talking to Djalili about how they booked their latest trip.

Djalili is a long time collaborator, having appeared in ads for parent-company MoneySupermarket in recent years.

Beware of the opening segment as Djalili reveals his swimsuit…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQom-lxj79M

Nixon left his brother Simon Nixon’s business Simonseeks in September this year, claiming to be looking for new opportunities. He joins Kelkoo as managing director for travel across Europe.

Both Nixons were behind the rise of the TravelSupermarket metasearch site in the mid-2000s, culminating in the successful IPO for the parent MoneySupermarket brand in 2007 – Nixon left as managing director of the travel division in 2008, eventually joining Simonseeks after a year-long sabbatical.

The appointment is the first major development for the travel end of Kelkoo for many years, signalling that it is perhaps preparing to try and reclaim its once strong position in the marketplace around Europe.

The cross-vertical metasearch site was launched in 1999 and was later sold to Yahoo in 2004. It was synonymous in many markets and amongst consumers as one of the early pioneers in Europe for metasearch, especially in travel.

But as other metasearch sites launched and established a market, Kelkoo Travel appeared to miss out. In the meantime, the company went through a sale of its own in 2008 after Yahoo offloaded the business to Jamplant.

Certainly bringing in a relative heavyweight from the travel search sector indicates a willingness to re-establish the business.

Perhaps one of the first jobs for Nixon will be to re-form some of the alliances Kelkoo used to have with key portals around the web, not least its former owner Yahoo, which switched Kelkoo for Expedia earlier this year to run its travel search section.

The 18-month old website will splash out £2 million on a regional and then national campaign on the largest commercial terrestrial channel in the UK, ITV1, kicking off in the North West on Boxing Day and then elsewhere around the country during 2011.

The idea behind the campaign is to focus on the expert writers involved in the site.

The decision to go with an above-the-line and expensive TV ad campaign shouldn’t come as a big surprise, despite it probably being the first so-called content or guide site to run a high profile programme for many years.

Founder Simon Nixon famously backed a TV advertising campaign for metasearch TravelSupermarket, a move which surprised many at the time but suited part of a wider profile raising exercise for parent company MoneySupermarket’s move to an IPO in 2007.

Earlier this year Simonseeks confirmed it had spent around £1 million getting the site up and running and a further £100,000 every month thereafter.

Nixon’s brother Chris (also former managing director of TravelSupermarket) left the company in August 2010, claiming he was looking at “various opportunities” elsewhere.

Nevertheless, the decision to launch a high profile media campaign will no doubt stir the comment boards once again as the Simonseeks proposition has not been universally popular with the travel writers it was hoping to attract.

The Chester-based MoneySupermarket subsidiary saw revenues across the travel vertical down 6% in the third quarter of 2010 compared to the same period in 2009.

Although this is an improvement of sorts on the previous set of published figures (revs down 20% year-on-year for the first half of 2010), bosses now say a full relaunch of the site is expected in the first quarter of 2011.

The company originally said in August this year that some improvements would be made in later part of 2010.

It now says:

“Management continue to believe that there is significant structural growth potential in Travel and work has begun on an improved travel website which will be ready for launch in the first quarter of 2011.”

When asked about international ambitions (something the company has stated in the past it has considered), an official says:

“Our focus over the next six to 12 months is to consolidate our position in the UK and re-develop the infrastructure and user experience of the UK site. Once we are in a position we are happy with in the UK then we will evaluate opportunities in other markets.”

Perhaps one of the changes is a new white label provider for the site’s airport hotels, parking and lounges services.

Previously run by APH, the white label will now be operated by Holiday Extras, giving users a choice of 40 airport parking providers, 165 UK airport hotels and 21 airport lounges.

Results released as part of parent company MoneySupermarket’s six month interims for the first half of 2010 indicated a 20% drop in revenue for the travel division.

The company publishes results for a number of key indicators across its channels (money, insurance, travel, home services).

For TravelSupermarket:

Officials say:

“In what remains a challenging market, with consumers managing discretionary expenditure tightly, the group has continued to manage the business for margin in the first half of the year and in particular has minimised its marketing costs. Consequently visitors to most channels within the travel vertical were lower than in the same period last year.”

The company intends to manage the travel vertical in a similar manner over the short term, but plans are in place for improvements in the second half of 2010.

The group will devote some development resource “in improving the product proposition” in some of TravelSupermarket’s channels (hotels, flights etc).

The effort is to ensure TravelSupermarket remains “well placed to compete” when the travel market returns to normal levels in the future, officials predict.