BOOT in Hong Kong on Virgin Atlantic (Aug 2-6)

I am on the road next week in Hong Kong. Flying Virgin Altantic. Am on a very useful ticket with the day flight sector in premium economy and night return in Upper Class. New seat review coming soon. Let me know if there are any readers in Hong Kong interested in meeting up.

Follow #APAOS for updates from Asia Pacific Aviation Outlook Summit. BOOT on stage at 2.35pm

I will be speaking and tweeting today (Thursday) from the Australia Pacific Aviation Outlook Summit 2010 at the Four Seasons hotel in Sydney (Travel Technology & Distribution day). I am on stage at 235 pm on The role of airlines and distributors in the “inspiration funnel” and will be back at 440pm on a panel for Leveraging social media to create customer interaction and brand awareness

If you want tweet coverage of the conference then track the hashtag #APAOS. I also recommend following @winglets747 and @sam_lindner for their coverage

Liz Savage (EGM Commercial) of Virgin Blue on the difference between Euro and AU Air markets

For part of today I was at the Australia Pacific Aviation Outlook Summit 2010. Highlight speaker of the seasons I listened to was Liz Savage the (relatively) new Chief Commercial Officer (now Executive General Manager Commercial) of Virgin Blue. Ninemsn is carrying the traditional news part of her speech around DJ's determination to carve a space in between the hard core low cost of Tiger yet steal premium customer share from Qantas. She announced a desire to double DJ's share of the corporate sector from 10% to 20%.

Savage's background (linkedin profile here) was with easyjet and Monarch. She took some time in her speech to share three key differences between the Low Cost/New World Carrier market in Europe and Australia. They are:

1. Number of competitors and low cost carriers: Compared to her time in Europe, Savage was intrigued to discover how concentrated market share was in Australia. This lack of competition was particularly acute for Savage when it came to LCCs. Europe is filled with point to point low cost carriers. Savage mentioned that her previous employer - Monarch - was a medium sized carrier (some 30 aircraft and 100 routes) but was also a profitable airline and of size enough to compete. In Australia, no matter how you measure the market, there a very limited number of competitors - on an absolute scale and relative to Europe;
   
2. Number of secondary airports: Savage reminded us that the success of Ryanair was in no small part due to the use of secondary airports. In Australia there are virtually no secondary airports, forcing low cost and new world carriers to sit with the same airport cost base as the full service/premium carrier(s); and
   
3. Need for an international network: European LCCs can survive and prosper on the back of point to point short haul. But given Australia's distance and market, a carrier must says Savage have an international network (either directly or a virtual one via alliances).

Great to get a new view on the Australian market. Any other major differences between the Euro and Australian air markets?

The BOOT at Asia Pacific Aviation Outlook Summit 27-30 July - Sydney

I will be speaking this week at the Australia Pacific Aviation Outlook Summit 2010 at the Four Seasons hotel in Sydney. The conference runs July 27-30. Day three of the conference (July 29) is the "Travel Technology & Distribution day".

Also speaking on the Tech and Distribution day are:

• Richard Noon (CEO Webjet);
• Claire Hatton (Head of Travel, Government and Local for Google);
• Steve Sherlock (MD Oodles);
• Shashank Nigam (SimplyFlying) and
  
• Martin Symes (CEO Wego)

I am in two sessions

Solo at 235 pm on

The role of airlines and distributors in the “inspiration funnel”

* What are the four phases of online travel?
* How consumers get from an idea to going away and making a booking
* The role of airlines, tourism authorities and OTAs in the inspiration funnel

and on a panel at 440 on

Leveraging social media to create customer interaction and brand awareness

* Making better use of existing channels vs investing resources in newer distribution avenues
* How well do suppliers understand the value proposition of social media?
* Brand management through social media
* Integrating User Generated Content into the booking path

Hat tip in advance to Martin Collings of the Shearwater blog who first introduced me to the role of airlines in the bow tie/inspiration funnel.

With hotel rooms from $999,999 thank goodness breakfast is included

Screenshot of web version of Booking.com newsletter. Says "Don’t miss out – Top destination vacations from 999999". Thank goodness you get breakfast included at that price.

Tnooz: Consolidation and M&A activity in Asia

Post live a Tnooz titled "Keep an eye on Asia for next wave of major online travel consolidation". In it I discuss how the three powerhouses of Asia - Rakuten, Wotif and Ctrip - have spent the last three years acquiring companies in Asia, Europe and America as they try to develop growth outside their respective home markets of Japan, Australia and China. I end with a prediction that

"there is more [M&A activity] to come; that we should expect to see more deals by these companies in the next three years. I would also not be surprised to see one of these companies make a major play through a big ticket acquisition in either Europe or America."

Full post here

TripAdvisor - what did they buy and when

Here at BOOT central we are trying to keep track of the acquisitions and subsidiaries of Expedia’s Tripadvisor. In earlier posts on this we tracked simply by way of a list of acquisitions in reverse date order. With what looks like two deals a year to monitor I have decided to expand the list with some more details. Here is an extensive list of all of the acquisitions made by Tripadvisor since joining the Expedia family.

Company	Sector	Date of Acquisition	Description
HolidayLettings	Holiday rentals	24-Jun-10	UK based holiday rental company (is not HolidayRentals owned by HomeAway)
Kuxun	Meta-search	30-Oct-09	China based meta-search. Kuxun means Cool Information or Smart Information
Flipkey	Holiday rentals	July 15 2009	Boston based holiday rental company
OneTime.com	Deal Search	1-Jul-08	At time of acquisition claimed 5 mm uniques and 30mm page views. One estimate puts deal at $85mm. Onetime do not like being called a metasearch company
Virtual Tourist	Social network	(same deal / company)
Airfarewatchdog.com	Deal Search	2-Apr-08	Site that monitors airline deals especially in low cost carrier sector
HolidayWatchdog	Review Site	1-Feb-08	Hotel and holiday reviews with some deal searching – UK based. Travolution rumour that price GBP9-10mm
Cruisecritic.com	Review Site	25-May-07	Cruse ship reviews and deal search
IndependentTraveller.com	Destination Content	(same deal / company)	Destinations content and information. Includes brand Family Vacation Critic
smartertravel.com	Destination Content	9-May-07	Destinations content and information
Travel-Library.com	Destination Content	(one deal buying Smarter Travel Media)	Also includes brand Frequent Flyer.com
bookingbuddy.com	Meta-search		Booking search
TravelPod.com	Blog Platform Social Network		Platform for travel reviews and blogs as well as networking
SeatGuru.com	Review Site		Reviews individual seats on aircraft to help with picking seat assignments
Everytrail.com	Trip planning	3-Feb-11	Trip planning service focused on mobile platforms

Have I missed any? Official Expedia Inc listing is here. Yes – Expedia owns Tripadvisor (you wont believe how much traffic I get for the question “who owns Tripadvisor”).