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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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SuperShuttle in New York – Make that Super Shittle

by RobertKCole on August 8, 2011

I am a fool. I wasted three hours of my older daughter’s life that she will never be able to recoup – Thank you SuperShuttle.

This is a story about brand loyalty, shifting business models and what happens when a company completely loses focus on the customer experience.

Dilapidated Outhouse
Creative Commons License photo credit: Richard Elzey

Super Shuttle's New York operation is a lot like this outhouse. Dilapidated, barely functional and, from a customer's perspective, it stinks.

It all occurred with the best of intentions. My 20 year-old daughter was planning her first solo trip to New York City to visit friends. The flight planning was easy and the lodging was settled as she was staying with a friend. The one twist was that since she was funding this trip herself, she wanted to be cost conscious. The first challenge was the transfer between LaGuardia Airport and the friend’s apartment in the Financial District.

Four options were considered:

  1. Taxi Cab – Door-to-door from LaGuardia to apartment – One Way Fare: $37.50
  2. Shared Ride – Door-to-door from LaGuardia to apartment – One Way Fare: $17.00
  3. Airport Bus/Subway – NY Airport Service from LaGuardia to Grand Central Station, change to 4 or 5 subway train – One Way Fare: $14.50
  4. City Bus/Subway – M60 Bus from LaGuardia, transfer to 4 or 5 subway train at 125th & Lexington – One Way Fare: $2.50

Option 1, the taxi, despite being recommended by her friend, was eliminated due to the additional cost. Option 4, the city bus was eliminated as she was traveling alone, lacked familiarity with NYC transit and the East Harlem transfer. Options 2 & 3 were very close in price, but again, as it was her first time in New York alone, we opted for the shared ride option.

It was particularly reassuring (at the time) to see that Super Shuttle’s familiar blue vans served New York City. Since its inception in the early 1980′s, I had used SuperShuttle sporadically, normally for extended trips when keeping a car parked at the airport for a couple weeks simply didn’t make sense. Having always had positive experiences, there was no reason to consider much had changed over the 10 years since I had used them last – after all, they had expanded to serving 33 airports.

I was a loyal, albeit infrequent customer, who didn’t think twice about trusting this company to provide a great experience to begin my daughter’s visit to New York, so we booked and pre-paid for round-trip LGA-Manhattan transfers on SuperShuttle through Orbitz.

Wow – I could not have been more mistaken. continue reading →

Tagged as: customer relationship management, customer service, strategy, travel

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Transforming Hotel Industry Growth Strategy

by RobertKCole on August 3, 2011

It is not often that one is able to corner three hospitality industry leaders and ask them about the challenges facing the industry – specifically how marketing, information technology and distribution can be better aligned to satisfy hotel brand growth objectives.

Transform Your Growth Strategy Now - Removing barriers between hotel technology,marketing and operations

Industry Expert Panel: Video of HITEC panel discussing the 'Transform Your Growth Strategy Now' RockCheetah/Amadeus white paper

Recently, at the Hospitality Financial & Technology Professionals annual HITEC conference in Austin Texas, I had the pleasure of moderating a panel comprised of Flo Lugli, Executive Vice President Marketing, Wyndham Worldwide, Mike Blake, Chief Information Officer, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, and Caryl Helsel, Director Central Reservations & Revenue Management, ARAMARK Parks & Destinations.

The three panelists were refreshingly forthcoming and candid in their remarks concerning some of the most daunting challenges facing today’s hotel industry leadership.

As they recover from a dramatic economic downturn, hoteliers are launching initiatives that rely on information technology to accomplish marketing objectives and profitability goals. However, as staffing and financial resource availability remains highly constrained, executive management must employ strategies that most efficiently utilize technology to help drive business growth.

A key conclusion of the white paper was that over the next three years, organizations within the hotel industry require an IT Pathfinder to help align hotel business and technology priorities. Each of the panelists did an outstanding job of providing examples of how their organizations are managing the challenge of advancing technology initiatives with fewer resources than in years past.

Most enlightening were the panel’s comments regarding critical nature of these initiatives and how they would serve as the foundation for brand and operational success over the years to come.

The following is a twenty-seven minute video summarizing the highlights of the white paper and the panel discussion:

A Discussion Between Industry Experts from Amadeus IT Group.

To read the white paper’s executive summary, please see my blog post from earlier this year, White Paper: Bridging Hotel Business and Technology Priorities.

The full white paper is available, free of charge, for download here: Transform Your Growth Strategy Now [Registration required]

My sincere thanks go to Flo, Mike and Caryl for doing a terrific job on the panel and validating the conclusions of the white paper, as well as Amadeus for its industry insights and sponsorship of the white paper.

NOTE: Please don’t hesitate to watch the video – I am not nearly as stern or grouchy as the placeholder graphic might imply… and, despite the severity of the economic challenges facing the hotel industry, that fire alarm to my immediate right was not a prop… ;)

Tagged as: customer relationship management, HFTP, hospitality, hotel, innovation, insight, marketing, mobile, recession, strategy, technology, travel, trends

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TRAVEL – The Less You Take, The More You Get

July 10, 2011

Cross a beach, a blanket, a bag & a bunny… and what do you get? A stripped-down travel experience that proves the less you take, the more you get.

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Social Commerce – Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

June 30, 2011

Social Commerce will evolve from the intersection of social computing, location based services and mobile technologies. Travel companies leveraging SoLoMo-Commerce (SoLoMoCo) will have an unprecedented opportunity to engage customers, create value and capture profits from an enhanced set of technologies by applying creative, traveler-centric marketing strategies.

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Seven Travel Planning Steps – Impact on Hotel Distribution Strategy

June 21, 2011

My presentation, “Seven Travel Planning Steps and Their Impact on Hotel Distribution Strategy” for the Hospitality Financial & Technology Professionals Annual HITEC Conference in Austin, Texas did not focus on traditional distribution focused on the luxury hotel and resort customer, hospitality industry distribution channels and the future innovations that may be expected to impact the global hotel industry.

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White Paper: Bridging Hotel Business and Technology Priorities

June 9, 2011

The hotel industry requires an IT Pathfinder to help align hotel business and technology priorities over the next three years so the industry can successfully leverage information technology to drive business growth and profitability. A RockCheetah/Amadeus IT Group white paper, “Transform Your Growth Strategy Now – Remove barriers between hotel technology,marketing and operations” explores the role an IT Pathfinder can play in facilitating hospitality industry business transformation.

Read the full article →

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