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2011 PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit Predictions

by RobertKCole on November 15, 2011

The PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit offers thirty travel technology companies the opportunity to pitch a panel of judges comprised of industry leaders on their customer value proposition, technology platform and business model.

Predicting the opening odds for the 2011 PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit
Creative Commons License photo credit: Louish Pixel

Based on the number of punks trying to stuff the ballot box, there's big money to be won or lost betting on the 2011 PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit - just like betting on the companies themselves...

Leveraging the wisdom of crowds (attendees of PhoCusWright are supposed to be smart people, right?) and in the interest of having some fun, everyone following the conference on social media were invited to predict the top six winners before the actual presentation sessions started. Think of it like handicapping a horse race.

But before we review the results of the handicapping exercise, a bit of unanticipated editorial commentary on the process is necessary…

[Climbs onto Soap Box...]

At first glance, the raw results showed two clear favorites in the Emerging and Established company categories, with the Startup group looking like a tight four-way competition. Unfortunately, upon closer scrutiny, it seems that certain “fans” of various demonstrators (you know who you are) felt that their faves needed a little boost in the voting.

How could I tell? Well, they only voted for their company once – not for 2nd 3rd or 4th place as the other people did… Yes, individuals from multiple presenters were either lazy or stupid in their approach to astroturfing the vote tallies. The singular votes represented a whopping 51% of the total votes cast – a material number with a highly atypical voting pattern that was clearly differentiated by the other respondents.

Morons. Didn’t they know that a cardinal rule of astroturfing is to blend in with the crowd?

By sheer coincidence, I just authored a three-part series for Tnooz on how black-hat fake review optimizers combine social media and SEO techniques to undermine the reliability of travel reviews sites. Take a look at the second installment: Fake Review Optimization – How black hat masters beat the travel system

So here’s the moral of my sermon.

Considering that the motivation exists to game a goofy poll that has no bearing on the outcome of a judged competition, one can only imagine what steps these reprobates are willing to take when real sales volume and profit are on the line. More evidence travel marketers and their technology partners might not be as trustworthy as one would hope.

There is an excellent case for punishing this behavior by posting the names of these groups on a wall of shame. I won’t – the actions may have been undertaken by a single individual and not condoned by the company. They get a pass this time, but one never knows when I might need a good example of social media abuse for a speaking engagement in the future…

Sparing you the gory details, let’s just say an adjustment was made to mitigate the impact of these highly irregular votes. Does this mean the scrubbing process was perfect? No. Just like with review spam, it is very possible the smarter / less lazy ballot stuffers went undetected {sigh…}

Does this action invalidate the reliability of the survey? In short, no. The survey never claimed a scientific sample or process. The results were always to be based on what I call Trustularity – results that look reasonable and superficially appear to have authority based on their presentation. I merely took measures deemed necessary to clean the data to improve the veracity of the results.

This is exactly why PhoCusWright went to a 100% judging process – In the past, audience votes (which had to be done in person, with only one vote per terminal during a defined time frame) were skewed toward larger companies with more personnel attending the conference.

It was a smart move to eliminate the audience component. Next year, I’ll see what I can do to create a more reliable method to gauge authentic audience sentiment. And maybe add interactive parimutuel betting…

[Descends from Soap Box...] continue reading →

Tagged as: innovation, marketing, mobile, search, technology, travel, Web 2.0

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Handicapping 2011 PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit

by RobertKCole on November 12, 2011

Each year, PhoCusWright presents The Travel Innovation Summit where travel technology companies showcase their latest applications for an audience of influential travel industry leaders and investors.

Travel's Battle Ground at the 2011 PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit
Creative Commons License photo credit: c.a. muller

PhocusWright picked Travel's Battle Ground as the theme for 2011's Travel Innovation Summit. Cool - I hope they let the finalists dogfight!

Last year, I handicapped the event by polling press, bloggers and the participants themselves to get an insiders perspective on the competition. The voters only identified two of the seven finalists from the 32 entries. Pretty poor guessing by the so-called experts…

This year, tying in with The PhoCusWright Conference’s theme of Travel Unleashed, I am subscribing to the wisdom of crowds and letting everyone participate in the handicapping process.

With thirty-one companies entered and demonstrations running from 9:00am to 6:00pm, the day can be a bit of a marathon. Hopefully this page will serve as a convenient quick reference for the competition (links are provided to all web sites, plus the respective Twitter accounts,) but for the overly ambitious prognosticators, links to the judges LinkedIn profiles and their company websites are also provided.

Sorry, again the temptation to introduce a parimutuel betting application was resisted. Wagering on the results of this competition is probably one of the few activities more risky than investing in the companies themselves… Anyone electing to use results from this survey as the basis for investment decisions may also want to seek professional counseling before signing any checks…

Please make your predictions and share the survey with your friends & colleagues. Let’s see who are the audience favorites and underdogs before they even hit the stage.

If you can not see the survey above, please Click Here to open the survey in a separate browser window.

For those tree-haters who prefer a printed version, here is a link to a PDF Version of the 2011 PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit Survey.

Please note: Voting will close at 12:15am Eastern Standard Time, Tuesday, November 15, 2011.
The participants are listed alphabetically by category. continue reading →

Tagged as: innovation, marketing, mobile, search, technology, travel, Web 2.0

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A Faster Way to Search Google Flights – Cut and Paste

by RobertKCole on September 15, 2011

Google Flights heralds Google’s formal entry into the travel meta-search arena. Much has been made of the absense of intermediaries such as online travel agencies and meta-search competitors in lieu of direct booking with the airlines. Unquestionably, the game has changed.

Google Flights Releases Air Search Powered by ITA Software

Since the announcement of Google's acquisition of ITA Software, everyone knew it was going to be a game changer

The Fairsearch.org immediately reacted with a blog post asking if partners will be coerced into working with Google, if the new search technology will secure premium placement in search results, or if the content will be intermixed with search results. Valid questions. To which Google will undoubtedly reply with something along the line of “whatever provides the greatest utility to our users and yields the greatest benefits to our partners.”

As with all things Google, democratization of information and disruption of established business practices typically involves a balancing act between users and partners where the scale normally (and appropriately) tips toward the user’s end of the spectrum. Many partners understandably don’t like this and Google Flights will certainly be the poster child of the coming US Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights hearing.

For now, let’s forget about all that – there will be plenty of coverage in the coming weeks on the strategies, symbolism and voodoo surrounding Google’s deeper dive into travel. Much will be conjecture, lots will not be true, and some will be flat-out crazy.

One thing however, is for certain – Google Flight Search changes everything, but in more ways than you might think. It actually enables a very old school approach to searching air fares. continue reading →

Tagged as: airline, Google, innovation, online travel companies, search, technology, travel, travel search

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What are Most Trusted Sources for Hotel Reviews and Ratings?

by RobertKCole on September 9, 2011

Hotel reviews and ratings are a hot topic of discussion and it’s getting hotter. Recent PhoCusWright research finds 43% of travelers are influenced by social media and that two-thirds of hotel reviews are submitted on Online Travel Agency sites, with the remaining 34% posted on travel review sites. However, various groups are also accusing TripAdvisor of not doing enough to identify and eradicate phony hotel reviews.

Five-star Hotel Plaque
Creative Commons License photo credit: jcberk

Hotel ratings and reviews are an invaluable resource for travelers, but with no industry standards and a black-hat element of the industry transitioning from Online Reputation Management (ORM) to Fake Review Optimization (FRO) can they be trusted?

All of the action isn’t necessarily taking place online. Earlier this year, Forrester Research found 29% of leisure travelers would work with a traditional agent, if they could find a good one. That statistic is sharply up from 23% in 2008.

To make matters worse, there are no global standards for hotel ratings, subjecting the prospective hotel guest to a litany of rating scales, often graded by vague, inconsistent, and frequently contradictory measures.

Regardless, the stakes have now been raised dramatically. User generated reviews now factor into search engine results, so enterprising Search Engine Optimization specialists, perhaps recently thwarted by Google’s Panda updates to its search algorithm, have now turned their sites on exploiting the system by doctoring user reviews to enhance search engine rankings.

Some intrepid pioneers brazenly promote their ability to bury negative reviews with positive ones originating from 10,000+ IP addresses and thousands of email addresses. Not surprisingly, there is no mention of these reviews originating from actual guests, a blatant violation of US Federal Trade Commission official guidelines governing endorsements and testimonials. Similar rules prohibit such black-hat practices throughout Europe and elsewhere.

Google itself is also making waves in the review space as it solidifies its local strategy surrounding its Places pages – already a hotbed of activity with hotel price ads pitting hotels against online travel agencies, this time using context sensitive inventory and pricing as the weapons of choice. Simultaneously, with Google’s launch of Google Plus, the decision to require individuals to identify themselves only by using real names adds an additional method to structurally inhibit illegitimate reviews from anonymous sources.

Perhaps Google’s most bold move is its purchase of Zagat, and its highly curated, yet crowd-sourced review platform. With Google internalizing a respected review platform, undoubtedly with an idea of expanding it dramatically, it gets much closer to the deep content that drives customer engagement, validation and relevance. This is particularly important when leveraging semantic search technologies capable of introducing much needed context into travel search processes.

Who Do You Trust?

So, where do travelers look for recommendations regarding their lodging choices? The burning question is more importantly, whose advice do they truly trust and act on when making a hotel reservation?

Considering the fact that I interact with a large number of sophisticated travelers, I prepared a brief 1-page survey to find out whose hotel reviews and ratings the travel cognoscenti trust. The resulting 34 potential sources are roughly divided into three categories – types of individuals, prominent hotel review sites and general categories of sites hosting reviews.

The survey has been designed with a single question and should take only a couple minutes to complete.

Please Scroll Down to rate more sources of Hotel Ratings and Reviews.

Thank you for taking the time to complete the survey. I am expecting to see some surprising results.

Tagged as: customer relationship management, Google, hospitality, hotel, insight, marketing, online travel companies, poll, reviews, search, social media, statistics, travel, travel agency

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Handicapping PhoCusWright’s Travel Innovation Summit

by RobertKCole on November 15, 2010

The PhoCusWright Travel Innovation summit provides an unparalleled opportunity for companies to showcase their latest and most prized works of development wizardry to an audience of influential travel industry leaders.

Chaos Calls at the PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit
Creative Commons License photo credit: antitezo

Chaos Calls is the PhocusWright Conference theme as Travel Innovation Summit presenters take aim at the well established industry players.

Handicapping this event is a difficult challenge – There is no daily racing form, and aside from Goby participating, and Amadeus winning last year, there is little in the way of past performance comparisons.

Embracing the spirit of the PhoCusWright Conference’s Chaos-Calling theme, it was difficult resisting the temptation to launch a full parimutuel betting operation (although no one can deny that it would add an interesting new dimension to the competition.) Instead, I reached out to the learned experts also attending the conference including the press, bloggers and the innovators themselves to capture their predictions.

With several companies have been in stealth mode, operating limited beta programs and in some cases, using the stage of the Innovation Summit as their launch platform, in no way should these predictions be considered scientifically derived.

The best description of this projection would probably be aggregated guessing – in many cases, with no basis of experience with a majority of the products being presented. In other words, if you are reading this, keep your money in your pockets.

The group was asked to predict finish order of the top seven companies, ultimately encompassing the three runners-up, three finalists and the Best of Show winner. There were 22 total responses.

To simplify the voting process, votes were taken without consideration to the categories of each participant, so the respondents were voting based on their prediction of innovation, not who would win in the various categories.

The following 32 companies are competing for the Travel Innovation Summit’s coveted “Best of Show” award: continue reading →

Tagged as: innovation, marketing, mobile, search, technology, travel, Web 2.0

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Orbitz Improves Its Hotel Search – Is It Enough?

by RobertKCole on August 10, 2010

The Orbitz press release boldly announced “Orbitz Launches Groundbreaking Hotel Search Experience with Industry-Leading Property Comparison Features.”

It's New and Improved, but What Is It?
Creative Commons License photo credit: Erik Charlton

The Orbitz hotel user interface may be new and improved, but is it enough of a dramatic step forward to catch the attention of travel shoppers?

Wow, sign me up! Nothing grabs my attention better in online travel than a big leap forward for hotel search innovation.

In reality, calling the enhancements “groundbreaking” or “industry-leading” is a stretch. These changes are incremental, mostly derivative and unfortunately not significantly innovative.

Not to denigrate this big step forward for Orbitz, but given the hyperbolic claims of the press release, I was expecting changes that would dramatically surpass the current hotel search paradigms.

Orbitz has definitely provided a more Kayak-like experience, with some improvements like including user ratings when mousing over a property on a map, but in many cases, Kayak still offers better functionality.

What was added?

  • Google Maps, including street-view
  • Location, hotel classification, customer review score, amenity and brand filters

What was removed?

  • Hotel neighborhood / star classification matrix

Orbitz’ attempt to translate the airline carrier/number of stops matrix display to a hotel star rating/neighborhood format never really resonated with users due its inability to categorize and differentiate a hotel product that is much less commoditized than air travel. continue reading →

Tagged as: Expedia, hotel, innovation, Kayak, online travel companies, Orbitz, Priceline, search, travel, travel search, Travelocity, user interface

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Impact of Structured Data on Travel Search

May 6, 2010

Search is radically changing to become more contextual, relevant and focused on producing the right answer for the user. Structured data sourced from the Deep Web is essential to provide a solid foundation for linked data to define semantic relationships between pieces of information. This is what transitions the web of documents to a web of data. The resulting relevant, convenient and highly personalized search experiences create trust. Whoever earns the trust of the consumer wins. The endgame for Web 3.0 players has never been more clear. Presented at the Open Travel Alliance 2010 Advisory Forum.

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