901 not out

100 more posts live on the BOOT. 4 years, 200,000 plus words, 150,000 visitors, 240,000 page views and still going. In my regular "not out series" recap I post a few reminders and highlights form the last 100 posts. It started with 101 not out and continued with 201, 301, 401, 501. 601, 701 and 801 not out. Here we go....

Buy buy buy. We may still be waiting for the mega deal but the tuck-ins are everywhere

• Zuji/Travelocity bought Indian based Travelguru
• WRI went for $340mm
• TripAdvisor went further into China with Kuxun
  

Bust bust bust. The Global F'n Crisis had casualties

• Roamfree went into administration as the BOOT had to press delete on comment after comment
• Offline travel maybe dying but I had 3+3 recommendations on how it can save itself
  

Talk talk talk. The BOOT went conference crazy

• Talked EveryYou at WebInTravel - even though a back injury prevented by from actually going
• Joined the Kevin and Gene army of nodes and wrote 8 tnooz posts on subjects as varied as Augmented reality, Lonely Planet, Google, New Zealand and the Do over
• Overheard intermediaries and suppliers sharing war stories at NoVacancy
• EveryYou launched at TRAVELTech (see below)
• Another amazing week at PhoCusWright
• Spoke at Ad:Tech
  

Track track track - kept my eye on big Asian online players that are active in the market but quiet in the results arena.

• Tracking Google - broke the story first that Google meta-search was coming
  
• Tracking AsiaRooms and their TUI A&S stablemates
• Tracking Agoda, finally getting my hands on a Citi reporting estimating their turnover at $244mm for 2009 and early integration with Booking
  
• Tracking MakeMyTrip and claims they have made US$5mm off $500mm in gross sales
• Tracking Lonely Planet and their online plans
• Tracking Kayak and the private sale plans and follow up with Jetsetter CEO Drew Patterson
  

Theory theory theory

• Laid out my predications for 2010
  
• I introduced the concept of EveryYou - arguing that the future of online travel is “The development of a specific and targeted recommendation of one based on the unique combination of desires, needs and interests of each individual at any moment in time”
• Posted my thoughts on the secrets of innovation
• Mused on my 3 rules for a UGC start-up
• Pondered what next for Google in online video marketing
  

Puff Puff Puff - away from the industry I also posted

• More business traveller tips
• More seat reviews
• Introduced the SkyMall follies
• First Class is dead!

I haven't run out of things to say yet, so if you're still listening, then I will keep typing.

Lonely Planet CEO Interview on paidContent: iTunes is now our number distributor of city guides

An interesting interview of Lonely Planet CEO Matt Goldberg by Rafat Ali over at paidContent. Is about 5 mins long and worth a listen. Highlights include:

• Confirmation that Lonely Planet is profitable and growing. Digital business is growing at 40-50% year on year.
• Digital sales now $20mm per year covering paid content, services, transaction fees, advertising and digial apps
• One in five of LP's city guides are sold through iTunes. Easily largest single distributor
• On Acquisitions "not the first thing we are thinking about"...but..."always open in areas of technology, audience or talent"

Here is an embedded version from paidContent.

Tnooz: BOOT on Lonely Planet on Tnooz

By second post for Tnooz is live titled "Tips for what Lonely Planet should do next". Contains some background on Lonely Planet's online plans over the last few years, the online and brand vision from new CEO Matt Goldberg and my recommendations on what else they could do. Check out the post here for more. He is an extract with my recommendations for Lonely Planet:

1. Content Expansion: Make more and more of the content currently only available in books available online with the aim of being the number one organic search results for every major destination search item. It might hurt some book sales but winning in organic search will be more valuable long term;
2. Open Syndication: Increase syndication capabilities by allowing bloggers, writers, transaction sites, Facebook pages and more to access content material is an open way. Similar to point #1 above, it might cost a few book sales but being the social network content source of choice will be more valuable long term.
3. Facilitate and Make EveryYou Recommendations: Invest in recommendation technology to allow the community forums and information to be combined with the editorial content, booking behaviour and other data available to put Lonely Planet at the forefront of the development of specific and targeted recommendations of one based on the unique combination of desires, needs and interests of each individual at any moment in time. See My EveryYou concept. It will cost money and development time but the future of inspiration and content sites are targeted recommendations.

Tnooz editor Kevin May has followed up with a post "We love Lonely Planet and want to see it get better says the BBC", where an interesting debate has started.

Preparing some questions for Lonely Planet

I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago on an announcement by Lonely Planet of plans for an offline store at Sydney Airport. I was critical of the focus, time and energy being spent on something other than online. Since that post I have had a number of emails sent to me with some recent Lonely Planet online activity. I have also been doing some reading of my in preparation for next week's eyefortravel Asia Pacific. One of the speakers for the event is Andy Conroy, Global Online Director, Lonely Planet. Here are the series of announcements that I have discovered:

• Launching a channel on Youtube;
• Launching a mobile site in Australia;
• Joining up with Expedia and Hostelworld for joint accommodation sales; and
  
• Launching an API to provide direct connectivity to reviews and content.
  

Am looking forward to talking to Andy Conroy on how these things all come together.

UPDATE - unfortunately looks like Andy is no longer able to attend eyefortravel. Will have to save my questions for another occasion.

Winner of ticket to Eyefortravel Asia Pacific

I have been running a competition for one free two day (bronze) delegate pass (normally A$1,395) for a lucky BOOT reader to the eyefortravel Sales & Marketing in Travel Asia Pacific conference at the Shangri La Sydney on 29 and 30 July.

The competition was for the best question in the comments for a conference speaker.

Prize Winner

Jonathan's question for Martin Symes of Wego (see below)

First Reserve

Gath's question for Andy Conroy of Lonely Planet (see below)

Second Reserve

Adam Vance's question for Richard Noon of Webjet (see below)

What Next??

Can Jonathan and Gath please send me their contact details to timsboot [at] gmail [dot] com? If I hear from Jonathan by noon Sydney time Wednesday then he wins the prize. If not it goes to Gath. If I have not heard from Gath, then it goes to Adam (Adam I have your details).

I need your Name, Job Title, Company, Email and Phone numbers.

Here are the questions.

For Martin Symes of Wego With price parity increasing in popularity, do they perceive the decreased volatility in accommodation pricing as a threat to their business model, and if so then how do they plan to react/adapt

For Andy Conroy of Lonely Planet As free downloadable city guides take off (eg for iPods, iPhone, Amazon kindle etc) how is LP planning to keep up production on their guides as revenue from book sales diminish.

For Richard Noon of Webjet Due to the current economic climate in the US, we are seeing a number of major online travel agents rolling back the plethora of fees they charge in a bid to attract travellers away from the main airline websites. Given that comments in the past have indicated that up to 60% of your revenue comes from these types of fees/charges - what impact would this have on your business model and how could you mitigate this potential risk moving forward as the economic climate cools in Australia and consumers become more aware of how to "beat the system"? Would you agree that it's not a matter of "if" but "when"?

BBC confirms paid GBP £89.9m for 75% of Lonely Planet at a trailing P/E that looks to be higher than Expedia

At the time of the announcement of the acquisition by BBC Worldwide of 75% Lonely Planet there was no mention of the price paid by the BBC. This week the BBC Worldwide have published their 2007/2008 annual review containing the some more information.

The BBC acquired 75% of Lonely Planet for GBP £89.9m valuing Lonely Planet at GBP £119.9m. The sale included a put option for two years (expire 31 Oct 2009) for the remaining 25% to BBC.

Travolution is also reporting (more) plans for a website relaunch and reports that Lonely Planet's sales to March 2008 were £23.1 million for a trading profit of £4.3 million. Ultimately there were losses of £2.1 million due to site development costs and the web business losing £3.2 million from sales of £2.3 million.

That puts the multiple for Lonely Planet's valuation at somewhere around 5.2x trailing revenue. To put this in perspective Expedia is trading at 1.85 times trailing revenue (according to Yahoo! finance). To be fair, this not a very good comparison as I am sure the margins on publishing (Lonely Planet) are significantly higher that than the margins on a business still heavily dependent on air (Expedia). However if we assume that Lonely Planet's profit is a good proxy for earnings then their trailing P/E is 27.9x compared to Expedia's 17.83 (according to Yahoo! finance). That seems odd to me (unless I am getting my numbers wrong).

Here is the full Lonely Planet section of the review

"On 1 October 2007, BBC Worldwide acquired a 75% shareholding in the Lonely Planet group of companies for a total cash consideration (including acquisition costs) of £89.9m. Goodwill of £73.2m was recognised and is being written off over its estimated useful economic life of 20 years.

Under the terms of the purchase agreement the other Lonely Planet shareholders may exercise an option to sell all or part of their 25% stake to BBC Worldwide at any time up to 31 October 2009. As the minority shareholders are deemed to have retained the risks and rewards of ownership for their 25% shareholding, the put option liability has been recognised in reserves rather than as an increase in the cost of investment."

My analysis back in October last year of the sale announcement is here.

Lonely Planet to open an offline store at Sydney Airport with help from Lagardère

Last week TripAdvisor announced another step in its plan for world online travel content domination with the acquisition of a meta search engine (OneTime.com) and a large travel social network (Virtual Tourist). Lonely Planet - arguably the number one offline travel content company - has gone completely the other way by announcing plans to open a Lonely Planet concept store at Sydney Airport. This store (I am quoting from the DFN Digital article)

"...will sell the full range of Lonely Planet books and a range of travel accessories and gift items. It will also feature online interactive portals showcasing Lonely Planet’s digital content, and staff will be trained to offer specific travel advice to travellers."

In other words, books, magazines and young people who should know what they are doing. The store will be operated by Lagardère Services Asia Pacific who are famous for running Airport book stores and news agents.

I had hoped that after the sale to the BBC, appointment of new online staff and attempts at launching new onlien products that Lonely Planet would finally take the steps necessary to turn themselves into an online content company and join the now 15 year old online revolution. But instead the quote from Lonely Planet sales and marketing director Howard Ralley about putting the Lonely Planet brand on a store front is that it is

"an exciting evolution for our brand. It's something we've discussed for some time."

I think that this was time that should have been spent opening up the brand, site and content to online distribution. Am I being too harsh? Do you think that the next frontier for Lonely Planet should be offline?