Comments on: Improving online travel experience forum

By: Darren Cronian

Darren Cronian — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 01:24:38 +0000

@ Mark

This blog isn’t about reviewing travel websites I am afraid. The reason for a forum would be to allow travel companies to receive consumer feedback about their own website and to discuss the online travel experience – what we can improve etc.

From the comments left so far I would be concerned that companies would use it as a platform to promote their site, rather than discuss real travel consumer experiences.

Report this comment

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 01:16:19 +0000

Hi Darren,
LOL@your comment to Murray. Can’t agree more. I worked in a retail travel agency in AUS for 4 years, managing a branch for 2, and saw the trends at the front line of Australia’s largest travel company. Any ‘easy’ bookings, point to point fares, domestic packages etc and ‘easy’ clients, the ones you enjoyed booking and were friendly and laid back, all went to the web. This left only those people are make you want to poke yourself in the eye with a pen everytime someone mentions their name or those that, even worse, would book everything online but come to you to fix their mistakes or to issue something they couldn’t work out on the web. These people didn’t even realize how insulting that was. So, I decided to do something about it and carve into the niche of around the world airfares and are soon to launch our own Aussie site dedicated to planning around the world trips. I’m keen to thrash out any ideas on a forum and will hopefully comment on a post soon so we could get some feedback on the site.

Regards
Mark Trim
Director, RoundAbout Travel

Report this comment

By: Charles

Charles — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:42:07 +0000

Yep I think that a forum would be a great idea. As an online holiday retailer we would love to hear what conusmers want from their online travel companies. I know that as an industry we have let consumers down for some time now. Too many of us just stick a flight or hotel search engine on our site and think we cater for the customer.

Flight and holiday engines only cater for the consumer who knows exactly where and when they want to go. What about the 8 hours of research that often preceeds that? How can we help make that as painless as possible? Booking a holiday should be an enjoyable experience. The first 30 minutes is, then it turns into a chore as you get bogged down in researching rainfall, sunshine, hotel facilities, transfer times, flight times, prices etc… As I have said on another post we are developing a holidayfinder tool which hopefully cuts out a lot of the pain but I am sure views from a forum could really help us to improve the tool no end.

Report this comment

By: Darren Cronian

Darren Cronian — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 19:07:57 +0000

@ Murray

Preaching about travel agencies all the time isn’t going to make people change their mind – online travel booking is here to stay. You either rmove with the times or get lost in the crowd. They are issues and limitations with online travel and thats what needs discussing.

Report this comment

By: Murray Harrold

Murray Harrold — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:57:17 +0000

Yup, sorry about this folks. There is already an excellent place you can go. Never crashes, you can interact with it at will, has no technology start up costs, it comes with the latest “eye contact reality visualisation effect”, realtime communication functionality and er….., it’s free….It’s called a Travel Agency. They have been doing it ever since Mr Thomas Cook said, “Do you think I could sell any of these coach tickets?”

Report this comment