WebInTravel: 10 things I overheard from companies (Tnooz)

Over at Tnooz I have written two posts following the WebInTravel conference in Singapore last week. Part 1 is 10 things I overheard from companies. Check out the post called "Part One of Two: The Asian online travel zeitgeist". Companies covered include Wotif, Cleartrip, TripAdvisor, DaoDao (TA in China), Mobilizy, Kaha, eLong, AirAsia, Small Luxury Hotels of the World, Abacus and Accor. Part 2 tomorrow is on industry trends.

AirAsia bidding for hotel words in Google - Low Cost Carrier embracing quasi-OTA status

Back in December I re-posted a story from 2007 (and one of my original tips from the t-list posts) that contained my three recommendations for airlines that were winning with supplier direct online on how they can improve their online offering.

One of the recommendations was to " invest in being a true online hotel (land) business". We has seen strides from the low cost carriers in this first (for example Easyjet's seamless packaging integration). Now I have seen another next step from a low cost carrier - reports have come in of KL based AirAsia have been bidding on hotel based keywords on Google. In effect competing head to head with online travel agents, hotel only intermediaries and hotel suppliers on hotel sales rather than waiting for air cross sell to provide ancillary revenue.

This has been hard for me to replicate in a screenshot to show you as it looks like they are currently targeting certain Asian IP addresses (ie customers) and not yet targeting Australia. John Fearon of Asiarooms sent me through this shot from an Alexa search he was doing. You can clearly see AirAsia targeting Bangkok hotels along side Booking.com and others. It is the second time Fearon has spotted AirAisa actively promoting hotels.

I applaud this move by AirAsia. It is consistent with there "we do want we want and love to break the rules" brand message and it embraces my rules for growing airline online share. That said as an online hotel player is gives me the willies. Anyone else seen more examples of AirAsia or other airlines bidding for hotel words to support their ancillary business.?

thanks for the tip John.

Ryanair hates Kayak - promises to cancel tickets booked through meta-search

eyefortravel are quoting Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary as saying that he will cancel all bookings made on Ryanair flights through meta-search. As he puts it

"We want to cause as much chaos for the screen scrapers as possible"

This news comes a week or so after the coverage of a looming issue between AirAsiaX (long haul offshoot of Asian low cost carrier AirAsia) and Webjet (Australian based OTA that uses an aggregation engine to combine non-GDS available fares) over Webjet's reported intentions to screen scrape for access to AirAsia X fares.

I understand the argument of the carriers here that meta-search or aggregated search based engines end up pounding the websites (or rez systems) of the carrier, especially where the connection is based on a robot/screen scrape rather than a direct connect. But on the other hand when an airline opens itself to the internet and search engines and enjoys all the benefits of being indexed and discoverable by consumers, they cant then complain when people build mechanisms for more effective forms of search.

In the case of Ryanair, I am sure they are down on their knees and grateful to the SEO leprechauns that they are the number one for organic search result for "cheap flights london dublin" (see shot below)



To then turn around and complain about other search players wanting to build indexes as well is a bit like trying to have your un-fetted search cake and control it at the same time. This is especially true if you are a low cost airline. If as an airline you believe that your prices are the best and are the definition of your product then you should embrace aggregated/meta-search as it will prove your case every time. Seems like O'Leary now likes Expedia but hates Kayak.

BTW - what is Etihad doing bidding on Google.com.au for the keywords "cheap flights london dublin". I know the UAE airlines seem to have unlimited marketing budgets and an insatiable desire for growth but surely the clicks from this are a complete waste of money. Whoever their SEM agency is needs to be roused from the marketing conference bar room and put back to work.

Update - if you want to hear a different view check out Timothy O'Neil-Dunne's post on the same subject "Ryanair clams down on Screen Scrapers - Agents too?"