travelinsights100

The PhoCusWright perfect mini storm session was facinating, and featured a great panel of industry titans. Doug Quinby hosted Tina Fitch (EZRez), Rod Cuthbert (Viator Inc), Kenneth Purcell (Iseatz.com), and Ranjan Singh (Isango!).

Here is a summary of the session with some thoughts at the end. These are not quotes, but I tried to capture the main points:

The point was brought up that there are thousands of varied suppliers, what is it that they want?

RS: Differentiation

TF: Sexy representation and and easy to implement system.

KP: Multi Payment options, ie reward miles etc. Also are looking for priority placement.

What do consumers want from these sites?

TF: Consumers want alternatives during the buying process, early packaging options and multiple paths to the booking. The business should have the capabilities to upsell during and after the initial booking. (Email followup/rewards)

RC: Consumers treat destination product differently than other ingredients of the travel picture. Flights, hotels and cars are like bugers, fries and drinks, while activities are purchased after, and are like the dessert. There is not a large opportunity to bundle with other travel products.

RS: I agree and disagree. There are ‘Why not’ products like hop-on hop-off tours that can be bundled well with other products, and the ‘Why’ products which are often the reason WHY people are traveling to these destinations.

KP: Things like groud transport/parking are the most relevant to bundle with other travel products. 80% of the sales we see are in the transfer/parking market.

Will you look to develop Mobile apps?

RC: It is a great opportunity, however we would need an infrastructure upgrade to accommodate our vouchure confirmation model.

RS: Technology maturity will need 3-5 years.

Will these transaction based sites eventually change over to an ad based revenue model?

TF: We give our customers the tools to decide. They can combine onsite booking as well as ads.

Thoughts

This is a developing market that really lacks an underlying infrastucture. The lack of standardization is a barrier to further innovation. There are underlying issues such as the lack of consolidated availability means that consumers are often given bookings that can not be confirmed, and in certain cases, have to wait for a confirmation email. Free sell products represent the minority of destination suppliers, and there is a massive opportunity to bring these long tail suppliers online, well that is probably why I work with Rezgo ;)