Following the lessons of an SEO post explaining how to parse a batch of information with Google Docs, I got a sudden inspiration… why not do this with the information from the Facebook API? Yes, my geek side has gained the upper hand again.

Anyway, the result is here and you can use it as you wish. This tool has been built on Google Docs and it allows you to watch the development of the number of fans of your competitors’ Facebook pages . Even better, this tool comes with a tutorial to re-build it and adapt it to your needs.

See the Spreadsheet

Before we start

Marketers and community managers are justifiably debating about  social media objectives and KPIs all the time. I would like to say that yes, I totally agree that quantity is not a goal for itself, and I am still convinced that engagement has much more value. However, this reporting tool is useful because:

• The more fans we have, the higher the probability to come across the people that are going to build our community;
• To have a big number of fans is a trust indicator and can reassure potential customers (and could play a role in Google’s Panda Algorithm);
• Identifying when competitors’ fan bases are growing exceptionally fast can be an easy way to find new good ideas.

So after this short point about social media, let’s start the realisation of the spreadsheet.

Facebook Graph API, a frightening name for something that’s within everyone’s reach!

The first step is to understand how to use the Facebook Graph API. For that, you need your internet browser and the unique ID of a Facebook page.

For Non-Customized Facebook URLs:

• http://www.facebook.com/pages/globalholidays/280670926824
• http://www.facebook.com/pages/Flight-Centre/54103434078

For pages with a Vanity URL:

• http://www.facebook.com/laterooms
• https://www.facebook.com/travelodgeuk

If you add the ID to this URL you can access the info of the Facebook Social Graph. For example:

https://graph.facebook.com/ID >> https://graph.facebook.com/Travelzoo.UK

{
   "id": "141835936104",
   "name": "Travelzoo UK",
   "picture": "http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/188075_141835936104_2962801
_s.jpg",
   "link": "https://www.facebook.com/Travelzoo.UK",
   "likes": 16187,
   "category": "Media/news/publishing",
   "username": "Travelzoo.UK"
}

Now that you understand how to retrieve information from the Social Graph, we can start building the spreadsheet.

How to create a spreadsheet to monitor the evolution of fans for the Facebook pages of the main players of the travel industry

To build this spreadsheet you need 2 scripts (one script in Google Docs and one macro in Excel). The first one parses the information from the Facebook API. The second one enables the automatic update of the report.

1/ Create a new spreadsheet in Google Docs

You need a Google account to do that. If you need help, view the Google Docs Tour.

2/ How to create a script to find the number of « like » from a Facebook Page

Go to Tools > Script Editor… and a pop up appears

Copy-Paste this code into it:

function Fblikes(id) {

  var jsondata = UrlFetchApp.fetch("https://graph.facebook.com/"+id);
  var object = Utilities.jsonParse(jsondata.getContentText());
  return object.likes;

It creates a function to parse the batch from the Facebook Graph API. I called this function “Fblikes” but you can give it any name you like.

Now (after you saved the script), you can use a new formula in the spreadsheet. Try to type “=Fblikes(virginholidays)” (without the quotes) into a cell and it is going to return the number of likes for the Virgin Holidays Facebook Page (note: virginholidays is the ID of the page).

Column E in my document has been generated using this formula and the results are updated every time someone opens the file.

3/ Save results from =Fblikes()to keep a historical record

To have a historical view of several pages, you need to save the results regularly. The simplest way to do that is to copy-paste the results into a new column each time.

You can do it manually once a week, but it can become tiring quite quickly. That is why I am using a second script.

Go back into the Script Editor and paste this code (please don’t show it to a real developer, it has been thrown together)

function UpdateFblikes() {
  var sheet =SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet(); //define spreadsheet name
  var column = sheet.getRange("O1").getValue();
  var row = 4;
   Utilities.sleep(4000);  // Slowdown the script (4 second)
   var nblike = sheet.getRange("E4:E60"); // Select and copy the column
   nblike.copyValuesToRange(sheet, column+5, column+5, row, row+56); // Paste the data
  sheet.getRange(3, column+5).setValue(new Date()); // add date in column title
   sheet.getRange("O1").setValue(column+1);  // Incremente variable
}

The comments in green should help you to understand what I did, in case you want to improve it. The counter in cell O1 tells it in which column to paste the data (normally it should be the next empty column).

You need to click the floppy disk icon to save, then (still in the script window), you have to go to Triggers and set it up similar to the one bellow. Thanks to this you don’t need to open the file to update it, it will do automatically every week.

In case you have issues with the time, go to Files > Properties and check your time zone.

Now you know everything you need to re-build this file and maybe create one that is even better than mine. You can benchmark your competitors, but you can also use it to monitor all the pages of your website that have a like button.  And if you have some other good ideas, please share it!

Behind the screen, users don’t realize that when they search one product it’s several databases that are going to be requested. And this is a real stake in the travel industry because information need to be refreshed frequently due to Yield strategies (e.g. flight ticket price) and back-office systems are often old and heterogeneous.

For a hotel search, we often approach a load time of 1 minute. When you are aware that load time is a decisive factor on the purchase intention of more than 50% of your visitors, you should worry about how to keep their attention?

The answer to this question is simple, just work on decreasing your web site load time. But what if you can’t?

Real load time, perception and memorization

Here is a short summary of this very interesting study: Psychology of Performance, Stoyan Stefanov (Yahoo !), that would help you making right usability choices.

Firstly, time is not absolute but rather flexible. That means it will be perceived differently by each person. Some regular rules are:

Regarding memorization, what we remember about the speed of a web site is related to our emotions. If the experience of using the site was positive (e.g. I’ve been able to make my booking easily) we will remember it as fast to load.

Progressive rendering of a webpage

The most efficient solution to avoid people feel that the site is slow is to implement a progressive rendering of your pages. That will avoid your visitors to wait in front of a blank page, which is often associated to a bug. The progressive rendering will let them immediately know that the site is working and that results are coming.

Determinate progress bar

The problem with progressive rendering is that users can be distracted during the load time (and potentially they can leave your page). So, if the load time is long (10 second is very long), giving him information about what is happening and/or what is coming next can fill his time and make the waiting time more pleasant.

We can find different level in term of progress bar:

Throbbers, like hourglass, busy cursor or loading spinner (rotating image), are the worst. Indeed, they don’t give information about the remaining time. On top of that, they tend to let users think that your site is frozen if the loading is too long. A progress bar is much more adapted because it gives information about advancement.

A very good example is the one from Liligo’ search results. The progress bar gives information as one goes along about the number of retailers searched, the number of products found and provide a stop button for users that don’t want to wait more. They even provide a real countdown counter to let the user know exactly the time he as to wait.

Progress bars are commonly used by meta-searchers. OTA tend rather to use interstitial page.

Interstitial webpage  (full page “in-between”)

Interstitial pages are a way of placing full page messages between the current and destination page. This extra page is very appreciated by marketing teams because it allows passing a message at a time where the user is attentive and potentially disposed to read.

Thereby, this page often contains advertisement. To be even more efficient and reassuring regarding loading time, it is recommended to also display information about the user’s request and make sure he has got enough time to read it (otherwise it can become a frustrating step).

Fluidity of the browsing experience

Finally, the last point consists in reviewing the overall customer journey of your site and make sure it is smooth and without interruption. This means that your call to action must be easy to find and reactive (when the user click on them he must immediately perceive that something happened). You should also avoid useless step and dialogues boxes (or overlays).

Conclusion

To conclude, as you can see they are lot of small improvements that can be done by the marketing team in the aim to positively modify the time perception on your site.

In the travel industry, due to all the technological back-office issues, this is going to help a lot. However, even if marketing can help don’t let your IT rely only on that. Indeed, Google is more and more implicated in travel search and now Google’s tools are able to return relevant results in less than 10 second (although the content is provided by your site!).

Internet is actually perceived as an economic and liberator distribution channel regarding to GDS. However, the cyclic effects of the travel industry are returning to the fore and the web is contributing to the installation of new monopoles.

We are passing from a situation where GDS were the unique access point to offers to a situation where the web is becoming this new unique access point.

Here is a short historical recap that would help you to better perceive the cyclic aspect and the stake of the current situation.

The GDS era

From the 80s until the beginning of the 2000s, the GDS have been revolutionizing touristic products distribution and so they have acquired a certain monopole.

The web, an alternative channel for non-adapted products

However, for diverse reasons (too complex, offer too scattered, not enough return on investments…), GDS have stayed hardly adapted to the distribution of some products as hotels or holidays packages.

When the Internet has been mature enough, several web portals have been enabling to industrialise the hotel distribution. They have solved content issues (images, rooms specificities, geolocation…) and have facilitated independent hotels and small chains distribution. A bit later, Internet has also helped the emergence of dynamic packaging through tools like multi-TO platforms and dynamic packaging engines.

The age of direct distribution

More than creating alternative channels to GDS, Internet has enabled all the players of the travel industry to reach directly the final customer (the traveller). This has strongly impacted the business models in the industry and has created situations of coopetition.

Firstly in the US, then in Europe, this encouraged airlines to adopt the zero commission model. Moreover, some airlines are progressively trying to favour the content on their direct distribution channels over the GDS in order to conduce travellers and travel agents to book directly on their site and save up GDS fees (around $10 per booking).

The new unique access point

From a standardized and centralised offer (by GDS) we are passing to an environment based on a multitude of web sites with an offer more and more fragmented and harder to compare.

So, to answer travellers’ needs, new players emerged. They have specialised in the re-globalisation of this scattered offer and are based on business models more economic than GDS.

In hospitality industry, players like Expedia, Booking.com or HRS are now the new central points to access the hotels’ offers. And in the airline industry, meta-searchers could potentially become the unique players able to compare unbundled airlines fares and ancillary products. At a global level Google is this new central point with more than 90% of people that start browsing from it in the UK, in France, in Germany or in Spain.

The birth of new monopoles

That’s how, slowly, new monopoles are taking hold.

Some web portals in the hotel industry have now enough weight to impose their rules: rate parity or commissions up to 30%… Or in general, Google is becoming the new unique access point to the offers of all travel industry players (from producers to distributors and through editorial and comparison web sites). As a consequence, a place on the first page of Google’s results is really strategic and the CPC costs are soaring:

‘’book hotel’’ 3,61€, ‘’car rental’’ 4,39€, “holiday rentals” 2,10€, “hotel cheap “ 3,30€, “last minute flights “ 2,54€ or ‘’Expedia’’ 5,05€, “priceline’’ 4,47€
(Adwords, estimations based on a budget of 10 000€ in February 2011)

Knowing that Internet users visit more than 10 sites before choosing… we can easily understand why online marketing costs are blithely overtaking the GDS fees.

And beyond sufficiency, since Google bought ITA Software, it could potentially bring search that perform better than GDS (see also T. O’Neil-Dunne’s article: Full content vs full capability)

And so on, we are back in a situation where one player is dominating and could impose standards and its own vision. So, are we back to our departure point? Of course not!

The travel industry has always been cyclic.  Each cycle brings innovations: Internet was perceived as the evil by travel agents; today it is Google that is pointed out by pure players (see: Fair Search) par les acteurs nés du web. Passing from one monopole to another is normal and just confirms the dynamism of the industry.

Tourism is one of the most dynamic sector within the web industry. Online dimension has indeed exercised a major influence for each tourism protagonist, all the more because the number of web sites is constantly increasing. Nevertheless, measures have to be taken before setting up a web site.

How to manage the back office of an e-tourism portal?

Methods of stock aggregation depend on the organization and the positioning of each protagonist. The most common processes are these ones:

* The CRS tool feeds the web site with offers

This method has been adopted by protagonists who produce and distribute their own products online. They can feed their website with offers directly from the tools that they use daily to produce and distribute their products offline in travel agencies.

Webservices will enable online booking. They will handle several issues: exportation of products from the CRS tool (products, fares, allotments…), calling customer files stored within the CRS tool, importation of customer files created online in the CRS tool, connection with CRS to check real time availability in the booking process.

Furthermore, the protagonist’s website is usually developed by a web agency and not by the software supplier (CRS). The customer will then manage the website with a CMS tool (Content Management System) that will enable to update the website, and to manage data that cannot be exported from the CRS tool: product descriptions and photos, creation of online customer profiles. The web agency usually manages fares and availability caches.

We have two data sources : CRS and website. Correlation tables have to be set in order to match data contained in each source such as products codes, customer files references, booking references… Connectivity is optimized, bookings are directly registered in the CRS tool without any manual input.

* Integrators feed the website with tour operators’ offers

This method is adopted by travel agencies that have a distribution activity. Integrators mean online platforms that aggregate offers from major tour operators. The most famous actors are Orchestra, Traveltainment, Resastar.

Orchestra, online aggregation plateform

There are also IT actors that provide booking engines, such as Advences. Or others like B2f who are aimed at non-booking websites and who provide connectivity with different web sites and redirect the user to the provider’s website for the booking process. This is precisely the aim of travel search sites.

Dealing with integrators present advantages : real time availability access to the tour operator’s offers, possibility to compare different offers at the same time and on an unique screen, complementarity of online and offline distribution channels.

Furthermore, most of CRS tools adopted by travel agencies enable an automatic recovery of data flows coming from online booking platforms (integrators). This avoids manual booking inputs into the CRS tool : files are automatically created.

IT evolutions that encourage the automation of booking processes

Webservices enable the communication between heterogeneous systems. They make data transfers easier. IT evolutions have particularly been essential in the automation of booking processes.

MCTO messages (Message Comptable Tour Operator, meaning accounting tour operator message) based on the XFT language, automates the filling of sales contracts including information from the tour operators related to the offer. In a concrete way, when an online booking is confirmed (B2B or B2C channel), the MCTO message is integrated in the CRS tool and the travel agent instantly finds the sales contract pre-padded on their screen (within the CRS tool), as soon as the tour operator’s sale is confirmed.

This type of message enables the data flows transfers from the online booking platform to the CRS tool. This implies the automation of the booking process: the MCTO message is integrated in queues within the CRS tool, it then enables the creation of a booking file, including the matching or the creation of a customer file, and fills automatically the sales contract containing all information related to the sale. The travel agent only has to manage the sales process: billing, payment…

Perspectives: integrated mid-back office tools

We are more and more leading to the automation of booking processes. What is at stake for IT providers are integrated mid back office (MBO) solutions, leading to a new type of products consisting in a chain of tools integrating the whole business processes of the tourism industry protagonists.

I agree this version is a bit simplified. However, it is true that before starting a yield or a CRM strategy, the e-distribution must be optimized, which means that  hotel rooms must be available in electronic channels. If we consider that 84% of the hotels’ customers only search their room on the Internet (Source Coach, Omnium), we better understand the issue of hotels connectivity.

Hotel reservation channels – From the hotel point of view

An hotel can sell rooms through direct channels (walk-in, phone, own web site…) or through a third-party (hotel chains, hotel booking specialists, OTA…).

Direct sales are the simplest. However, even with the perfect marketing strategy, they are not enough to fill all the rooms of an hotel. Indeed, to answer the needs of diverse customers, an hotel must be presence on diverse distribution channels (the locations!).

To be on several distribution channels, there are two methods: filling manually several web planning or using technology.

Technology has a cost. In fact, it represents an investment for a hotel. At the same time, it allows hotels to save time (web planning are a fastidious work) and improve the quality of information (more updates, more flexibility, less errors and the ability to receive bookings until the last minute with no overbooking risks).

The channel management solutions: updaters and switch.

The channel management solutions are tools to update rooms’ prices and availability on several channel. They are a double issues in Europe.

Indeed, 80% of the hotels are independent hotels (in contrast with the North American hospitality industry). Independents can represent 89% of the offer in some country like France. So, on the top of making e-distribution possible, channel management solutions participate also in standardizing the hotels’ offer.

The first generation of channel management tools are the updaters. They allow hoteliers to update several distribution channel from a central point. However they only offer a one way connectivity, which means the solution doesn’t handle real time bookings. The reservation are received through fax or email.

The second generation of channel management systems offer 2 ways connectivity.  They can be called “switch” or 2 way connectivity platforms and they are the most powerful (but also the most expensive).

The information flows in two directions between the hotel PMS and third parties allow the hotelier to update availability and rates without the need to split the inventory between channels and with no risk of overbooking.

Overview of the main players offering hotel connectivity in Europe.

Note : Amadeus also includes a channel management solution  (Amadeus Hotel Distribution) in Hotel Platform.

This stake of connectivity is mainly present in the hotel industry. Several IT players are positioned on this gap and we can say that they are now entering a consolidation phase. Thereby, the next big issue should be the integration of campsites and holiday residences’ products that are even less standardized.

All the players related to the tourism sector offers maps based on Google, Bing, Mappy, ViaMichelin…

However, most often these maps are only used to localise a place (an hotel, a monument, an agency…). Therefore this is quite restrictive regarding to the traveller’s needs and the possibilities offered by the touristic sector.

Indeed, travellers need information, inspiration, and some help to plan their travels… A cartographic tool as a map can answer all these needs and at the same time help a company to differentiate it-self from the others.

A map as an entry point in the search process

All the travel industry players, either producers, retailers or metasearchers have search engine in evidence on their home page where the user need to fill several fields.

We only find few exceptions as for example Belvilla or La France du Nord au Sud (two specialists of holiday rentals) that rely on a map to start the search process. This map is as much visible as the search engine and its functionalities allow the user to go deeper in his search process without filling any fields.

These initiatives are interesting because they enrich the way of browsing a travel web site.

Some other players have been further and offer a web site completely build around the map like:

• Mappy , originally a cartographic specialists
• HotelMap or RoomAtlas, two website mashup
• Or some travel agencies or hotel reservation specialists that have launch a dedicated web site like HotelView (Expedia) or Explorotel (WIHP & Lookotel)

In spite of HotelView is not user friendly at the moment, the fact that a leading player like Expedia just launched (June 2010) an additional web site based on a map confirm that they are potential in this way. This is confirmed by a Tony Loeb from Explorotel. Among the 4 search modes offered (classic, map, pictures and based on reviews), their visitors prefer the search on map mode.

A map as an inspirational tool

These website built on a map make the exploration easier. They allow answering at the same time to the users searching for inspiration and to the others searching for information in order to take a decision.

All the websites named previously help the users to find inspiration and information. However there are some players that clearly create their map as an inspirational tool.

For example, we can talk about Kayak Explore (on kayak.com) which use a lexical field related to inspiration (explore, thinking about…), use original search criteria (activities, temperatures, flight duration…) and a very visual display of the results (the whole page is a map).

On the offline side, we can find TTvisiondesk (also called Extreme Search) from TravelTainment/Amadeus. This tool is based on an interactive map and offer new possibilities to the travel agent to engage his customer in the search process.

A map to plan and save a trip

Finally, a map can be a visual way to display a trip. The Trip Planner tools like Tripcase, TripIt, Kukunu, Yahoo Trip Planner… use this functionality to display pass and coming trip on a map.

This allows displaying a visual resume of the trip, but it can also be a starting point for additional search like a hotel, in-destination events and activities…

Thus, a map can really be a planification tool. It offer wide opportunities, especially with the evolution of functionalities like Google Street View, Bing Streetside or the possibilities revealed by augmented reality (have a look for example at UrbanDive, the service of immersive views from the French YellowPages).

To conclude, if some of you are still not convinced by the possibilities and the potential of a map in the tourism sector (whatever your core activity), just have a look at what Google is doing. Its array of functionalities for travellers doesn’t stop growing on Google Maps: plan an itinerary (by foot, by car, or using the public transportation), find places and information about places (photos, description, reviews…), compare hotel prices, visualise a destination…

In fact, these new functionalities are supposed to help the user to find exactly what he is looking for, but they are also impacting his decision process. They bring more information in the search results and use more suggesting technologies. So the decision that is usually done when the user visits the first page of a site, now takes place at an earlier time (directly in Google).

Instant previews

Instant previews offer a graphic overview of the web page when the user clicks the glass next to the title of any search result.

Impact: if your design doesn’t look good or if your website doesn’t respect Google’s standards, this will impact in a negative way your organic traffic.

Click on these images to see a good and a bad examples of what could happen to your website with Google Preview. Read more on Google blog

Instant results

Instant results dynamically display search results as the user types. To do that, Google use new algorithms to predict what the user is looking for.

This is part of Google’s quest to speed things up. And the main aim is to reduce the average time spent on search by 2 to 5 seconds (before that, it took 24 seconds: 15 to type + 9 to chose which results to click).

Impact: this could mainly impact your long tail strategy if people stop typing after the first few keystrokes and click on the results that show up the most quickly.

Read more on Google blog

Google Place Search

Google says that location-oriented searches currently accounts for 20% of all Google searches. So Google Place Search has been released to improve the relevance of the location-oriented search.

Concretely the top of the search results has been totally reorganized: the first results are local organizations (like hotels) and the map is now on the top right of the screen. So the separate local listings (also known as the seven-pack) is now combined with organic results.

Impact: this will improve the visibility of hotels’ own websites to the detriment of third party (OTA, accommodations specialists…). Indeed, above the fold line there are only the local results and the Google map. The “classic” SEO results and the Adwords have been pushed below this line.

Read more on Google blog

Rich snippets for shopping sites

The snippets allow Google to display in the search results a small sample of content from the web page. In the travel industry it mainly concerns the average reviews and the number of reviews. But according to Google if the data were wrapped in microformats markup on the web page, it could also show the range of prices.

Impact: highlighting the web page that have these information on Google’s search results and allow the user to compare product directly in Google’s search results. So, that will directly impact the user decision to visit (or not) your web site.

Read more on Google blog

In fact, the 3 main pages of the booking process, the ones leading the customer to a booking are very instructive.

Home Page: search form and marketing content

In the home pages, two elements are taking almost all of the space: the search form (or booking pod) and the marketing content.

The search forms take from 1/3 (Hertz and Sixt) to 2/3 (Europcar and Avis) of the width. All the rest of the space above the fold line is filled with marketing content (promotions, lead-in prices, special offers…).

The classic three column design that was dominating is now changing. The tendency is more to an interface with two large panels on the top of the page with 3 columns below. Only Hertz still has three columns but it is the older of the 4 websites.

Concerning the search form, it is quite interesting to notice the number of functionalities offered by the car hire companies. Each one has a different approach.

Avis has the most basic one, which is in fact not the most attractive, neither the most user friendly. Systematically, it displays a list of rental stations related to the user query or redirect the user to a map.

Hertz has an interesting suggestion engine. In fact the user can enter what he wants in the field, after the third letter a suggestion list will appear. The engine is quite intelligent because it is able to suggest countries, cities, rental stations, and when there is no match it suggests alternatives that could be related to the query. So the user never ends with an empty field or an error message.

Europcar has a suggestion engine like Hertz but without the fuzzy match. The interesting functionality is rather the map in the search field. In fact, in the suggestion list there are normal links to select a station and there are destination links that allow the user to choose a rental station on a map without leaving the suggestion list.

Finally what we can retain from Sixt is the simplicity and the adaptability to the user. In fact the same search form allows two different usages. The very classic one, where the user selects a country and then selects a station from a list. Or using the same fields, the user can type what he wants and the field behaves like a suggestion engine. This is very interesting because all of the users don’t have the same internet background.

Concerning the marketing content, we have to notice that the use of carousel is very popular. Europcar, Hertz and Sixt have one in their home pages. The main advantage is that they can display several ads above the fold line.

Results page: tabs and filters to maximize the number of vehicles displayed

The results pages of the Big Four are all quite similar.

Avis, Europcar and Hertz have long pages of results with tabs and filters to help the user to choose. Consequently to make the booking process seamless, there is a booking button on every products (product = vehicle).

Sixt does quite the same, but in a very compact version. In fact there are less results and the product has to be clicked to view more information. This could be less convenient for the user, but presents two advantages: first with a correct tracking it allows Sixt to know exactly which vehicles have been seen before booking (or leaving the website), from the user point of view this enables to display more information without loading a new page, opening a pop-up or an overlay.

Ancillary products related to the hired vehicle

By looking at the booking path, we also notice some improvement in the selling of ancillary products. In fact, it seems that there are two schools of thought: the very integrated version and the one more step version. Each one has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Avis and Hertz have one extra step, that makes the booking process a bit longer but they can display more additional products and more information about each one. The main advantage is that all the customers will have been informed about the additional products and there is enough space to explain to the customer why he should add equipments, insurances…

Europcar and Sixt have integrated them in the results page. Europcar’s website presents a drop down list displayed if the “extras” button is clicked. On Sixt website they are all the time displayed but each additional product has only one short line of text. So to compensate this, Europcar and Sixt also offer extras on the top of the payment page. That allows them to feature specific products and make sure that the customer has been at least exposed to the 2 items displayed.

Travel agencies are supposed to be website optimization champions and airlines are since shortly quite crazy about selling ancillary products. But in fact, nobody seems to watch enough what is happening in the car rental industry. These players that have less connectivity issues than the others producers and that are working in a very competitive environment are becoming very good in the online field. They all have (the Big Four at least) performing booking paths, advanced user experience and interesting approach of ancillary revenues.

Have a look at them!

Both will depend of your website conversion rate and the quality of the traffic you drive in it. But as an online marketer, to improve conversion and qualified traffic you need to deeply know your customers.

You can divide your customers into segments, engage conversation with them, personalize your marketing actions… These are good points that will for sure improve your performances, but they don’t consider the root of the question. Moreover depending of his aim (family trip, romantic weekend, business travel…) a same customer can have different behaviors.

You need to know how they are searching your products and why they book or don’t book your products when they visit your website. These are the fundamental questions, but also the most difficult points because nobody knows the answers.

The only certitude is that customers’ behaviors are not linear. When they book a travel product, they will visit 22 websites before (according to a Google research), being exposed to a lot of advertisements (online and offline) and to friends recommendations, so they will do numerous back-and-forth between several players of the travel industry.

Thus, the question will be how to deal with this lack of understanding of the customer to setup a strategy and increase revenues?

Optimizing website conversion

They are a lot of recommendations concerning website optimization. Generally they all go in the direction that simple is better. But due to the amount of time we spend on the web, our experience is too influenced and we are no capable of doing simple any more. Moreover, we have a lot of received ideas that influence our way of thinking the perfect customer experience. Confront your ideas to Which test won,  you will be surprised.

So to understand the difficulty customers are facing the best way is to run tests. The aim is to find how to make your web site relevant and compelling to your audience. To do that, numerous tools are available like /B split testing, multivariable testing, clicks mapping… All these tools will provide you data to understand what is not working. But they will never tell why, so to get this information you need to interact with your customers using call center feedbacks, live chat, usability test, survey…

Generate qualified traffic

Concerning the traffic, the more qualified it is, the more it will convert on the website. However, the difficulty is that there is not straight line from an ad to a purchase. In fact, a customer can use many paths to arrive on your website and being exposed to several ads.

In the hotel industry 40% of the customers found hotel website by tipping their name in a search engine. That makes the metric completely wrong because you don’t know from where these customers are coming from. They can have been exposed to an offline ad, seen a special promotion, discovered the hotel on an affiliate website…

So to be able to understand the multi ways your customers used, you need first to adopt analytic tools that go beyond the “last click wins” model. This model attributes the sale to the last marketing channel the customer had been exposed, which is a wrong approach.

So, the keys to better understand travelers’ online behaviors are tests and experimentations. The use of the  right tools in site and on your marketing channels will lead you to the right conclusions and help to improve the pertinence and the user experience of your web site.

This model consists in offering products (flight, hotel, rentals…) without disclosing the identity of the supplier. It will be revealed only after making a nonrefundable commitment to buy. This model is totally consistent with the behavior of price-sensitive customer. These customers are very numerous on the web (3/4 of the Internet users according to Gregg Brockway from Hotwire.com), they are brand switcher and they are above all looking for good prices. In the travel industry, this model has been supported by Hotwire and Priceline since 2000. Initially it was perceived as an unconventional model, but we notice that since last year this kind of offers is multiplying, especially in hotels businesses.

Main travel industry players positioned in opaque products sale

Hotwire and Priceline are the leaders in this segment in the United-States. Hotwire is an online travel agency, which works with fixed price and doesn’t show hotels’ names. Priceline is also an online travel agency, but it differs with its “Name Your Own Price” (NYOP) tool.  This is a reverse auction system to buy hotel without knowing the supplier’s name or to buy flight without knowing the schedule.

In early 2010, two main players of the travel industry joined this segment: Travelocity/Lastimute with Top Secret Hotels and Expedia (through Hotwire) by displaying unpublished rate into its hotels search results.

Although we don’t speak a lot about them, they are also a multitude of lesser-known players on opaque products sales like Getaroom.com (Unpublished Rates), LateRooms.com (Secret Rooms) Wotif.com (Wot Hotel ?), HotelDirect.co.uk (Hidden Gem’ Hotels), Quickbook.com (Secret Sale), Booklt.com (Mystery Hotel )…

Advantages for hoteliers

The main benefit for hoteliers is inventory clearance. Indeed, opaque selling are an excellent alternative to promotions for these reasons:

*Maintain the coherency of the pricing strategy (rate integrity)

*Limit the negative impact on hotel brand

*Raise RevPar (revenue per available room)

*Attract a new segment of customers who will initially weren’t interested in the product (induce less cannibalization than a promotion regarding to the loyal customers)

*Introduce our product to client that maybe would never have stayed in your hotel (this can also generate a web 2.0 positive impact with reviews or word of mouth)

Moreover, working with opaque intermediaries also confers a better view of market demand to the hoteliers. Indeed,  Priceline give statistics on all bids made on the establishment (so it allows to know how high is the demand and what customers want/were willing to pay). Concerning Hotwire, they give statistics on how many time the hotel has been viewed.

Advantages for online travel agencies exploiting this business model

The reason that this model is currently very popular and experimented by more and more travel agencies is differentiation (unique tool, different offer…) and loyalty-building.

Actually, non-brand loyal consumers who are adepts to opaque shopping are in fact really loyal to the mechanism of selling opaque products. According to Chris K. Anderson studies : « Opaque site users are hardcore loyal to that mechanism ».

Advantage for travelers

Finally, for travelers, the benefit comes from the price attractivity. In fact, they have to find a balance between incertitude about the product and best price.

However, this incertitude should be nuanced because we can find a lot of tips and debates about the way to buy these products (especially hotels) in TripAdvisor’s forums, or in specialized websites like biddingfortravel.yuku.com ou betterbidding.com.

Even through this model is booming in the North American market, it extensions to Europe is only in its early days and the right formula has not yet been found: Priceline made a U-turn in the UK market and Expedia is only testing unpublished rates in the US market. Thus, currently, there is only Lastminute.com /Travelocity and LateRooms.com positioned on the opaque selling in Europe (and their strategies seem to target mainly the UK market).

Watch this space!