My consumer thoughts on the PhoCusWright ITB conference
By Darren Cronian on Sunday, March 15th, 2009

Last week I attended the excellent PhoCusWright ITB conference in Berlin and as someone who does not work within the travel industry it was interesting to observe companies talking about the future of travel. The majority of my thoughts are from a travel consumers perspective.

My consumer thoughts on the PhoCusWright ITB conference

Interacting with consumers

Social media is about people, it’s about interacting with people online, and many travel companies seem afraid of that. They’re small niches and big travel brands using social media, all thinking outside of the box. Last month I asked on Twitter if anyone had recommendations for hotels in Berlin.

A number of companies replied, one of them being Travellerspoint. They sent me a link to a map of their Berlin accommodation near the venue. I admit I would not have gone on to their site because I had always associated it with hostels, but, interacting with me online meant that they got my business.

To me as a consumer, it really is as simple as that.

Highlights of the PhoCusWright conference

The conference featured some good talks but I want to highlight my favourites.

Perfect Social Travel Guide

Sebastian Heinzel, Tripwolf
Jan Kooman, HotelVideoReviews.com
Diarmuid Russell, Lonely Planet
Jerome Touze, WAYN

Quite a lively discussion and I got the impression that a lot of trip planning sites are struggling generating revenue. Especially since companies are cutting their advertising spend. One speaker said that the perfect social travel guide combines user generated content and the most trusted content you can find. I’d agree.

Best Practices in Mobile Applications for Travel

Pablo Alvarez, Lastminute.com
Stefano Galastri, SIA Internet
Michael Lacy, Handy Group
Gerry Samuels, Mobile Travel Technologies

I have said before that travel industry has not got to grips with mobile technology and after listening to this talk I still think it will be years before they start to realise the potential. Lastminute.com seems switched on and is developing innovative apps for the G1 Android and Apple iPhone.

Next Generation Excellence in Tourism Marketing

Ryan Bifulco, Travel Spike LLC
Roger Carter, TEAM Tourism Consulting
Konrad Plankensteiner, Tiscover AG
Olaf Schlieper, German National Tourist Board
Martin Schobert, Austrian National Tourist Office

I found this conversation really interesting because I feel that tourism boards do not interact and inspire travellers online. As a consumer, if I have a question about Austria or Germany I would like to ask that online and receive a response, and it was good to hear that Austria has a presence on social media sites like Twitter.

Interview with Marc Charron of Trip Advisor

As much as I like using Trip Advisor I feel that hiding the fact that they’re part of the Expedia group of companies is not good when they portray themselves as an unbiased website. That so, you cannot help but think that the launch of their flight comparison site really fits their business model.

It was interesting to her that they are going to work closer within the vacation rental market, with its reviews and it would not surprise me if we see an acquisition of a vacation rental site to increase their portfolio of rentals for FlipKey, one of their recent purchases.

Five minutes of Fame

I have to say that I was not overly impressed with any of the travel startups that introduced themselves on the stage. None of them really caught my attention. I did like the look of Your Tour, but it would have been good to have had a live look at the site rather than look at screenshots.

Consumer thoughts

During the talks I felt myself getting quite frustrated. As a consumer I can see so many benefits of mobile and social media. It’ll never happen for those companies that cannot think outside of the box. It’s a crowded marketplace; consumers want and have choice, if you cannot offer what we want we will simply go elsewhere.

Surely it is not all about making money but thinking about ways to build the brand and create a community feeling. Sometimes the travel industry in my opinion tries to over complicate things by making sites too ‘flashy’ and really what we want is an easy way to search and then book our holiday.

PhoCusWright ITB page

Tomorrow I am going to write about those people that inspired and impressed me at ITB but in the meantime why not visit the PhoCusWright page to view photographs of the conference and Berlin. I am also interested in your thoughts on some of my comments in this post.


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11 responses to “My consumer thoughts on the PhoCusWright ITB conference”

Claude | 15 March, 2009 at 3:24 pm

Darren,

“Social media is about people, it’s about interacting with people online”

I agree, it’s seems simple process: Plan, listen, join, engage conversation and grow!

In fact many cies don’t have time to handle all the conversations around. In particular in many small tourism board or small tour cies, people do only their day job and are not very motivate to do more…

I think “time consumming” is the main problem to handle this social media World.

I am wondering how many hours you spend online with your blog, twitter, and so on ;-)

You can’t hope the same motivation in public tourism board or for all

Best regards

Claude

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Gareth K Thomas | 15 March, 2009 at 9:52 pm

Darren, thanks for posting your thoughts on the conference. I’d really like to go to one of these conferences in the next year or so.

Your thoughts on mobile are interesting. I think that now consumers are able to use the web on their phones (I know this has been possible for a while – but now people actually seem to be using it down the pub, whilst on the train, etc.), the travel industry needs to step up. Our priority is to develop something for the property managers we work with (back-end updates to the site), but would be good to offer something to consumers too.

Agree with you about tourism boards. However I do think that Visit Wales does a good job. They inspire travellers and are proactive in the digital world. Creating a number of impressive sites.

Cheers – Gareth

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Jared Salter | 15 March, 2009 at 10:22 pm

Thanks for the nice summary. It was nice to meet up in person with everyone we meet in the blogosphere. My favorite part of the Mark Charron interview was when someone said “Who is the customer is the wrong question. Instead we should know ‘when’ is the customer.” The point being that features trying to predict consumer travel behaviors are fighting an uphill battle because our travel preferences are so dependent on timing.

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ITB Berlin 09 Recap « Joobili Blog | 15 March, 2009 at 10:32 pm

[...] bore you with a full recap, put if you’re interested you can find detailed reports here, here, and here. Instead I’ll just share my favorite moment. The European CEO of TripAdvisor [...]

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Sam | 16 March, 2009 at 11:20 am

Good summary Darren. And thanks for highlighting Travellerspoint. I have to admit, seeing as you ‘rant’ on ocassion about your trips/stays, I did hesitate when I saw your tweet come through looking for accommodation :) That said, that’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it? Belief enough in your own products that you are happy to recommend them, regardless of who is using them. And of course in this day and age of open communication, if your product isn’t all it’s cut out to be, people will find out quickly!!

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Martino Matijevic | 16 March, 2009 at 2:39 pm

Darren, enjoyed reading the article. I see I missed quite a bit by not being at the ITB this year. Will be following your reviews.

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Pete Meyers | 16 March, 2009 at 2:45 pm

Thanks for posting a thorough review of ITB, Darren. We didn’t make it to the conference this year and appreciate getting the highlights.

Regarding TripAdvisor, in what way are they hiding their relationship to Expedia? Clicking on their “About Us” link leads to a paragraph that says: “TripAdvisor and the sites comprising the TripAdvisor Media Network are operating companies of Expedia, Inc. (NASDAQ: EXPE).”

That said, I think their flights search is going to do well and I wonder if they’ll start including user reviews for individual carriers and routes.

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Sheila Scarborough | 19 March, 2009 at 3:16 pm

Keep yelling at companies and tourism bureaus about mobile, Darren. You are right on the money. They ARE too slow and they ARE being left behind.

After our SXSWi travel blogging panel in Austin last week, Lonely Planet’s Matthew Cashmore showed me the LP iPhone app, which is full of travel content right there on his mobile. He showed me their Austin info, and as a local, I recommended at least one place for them to add – loved having input right there!

I’m happy that Lonely Planet has done this but frustrated that other high-quality travel content organizations (and magazines!) can’t seem to move fast enough to make an iPhone app. I know several talented but equally frustrated people within those organizations who see what is happening and are shoving their bosses along as fast as they can, but they can only do so much on their own.

The C-suites must wake up.

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Firstgreen | 19 March, 2009 at 10:10 pm

It will be interesting to see how FlipKey develops for vacation rental owners. Having trusted reviews ‘trip advisor’ style is a great idea for building consumer confidence when choosing a rental.

“it would not surprise me if we see an acquisition of a vacation rental site to increase their portfolio of rentals for FlipKey”

I thought homeway had bought them all?

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Darren Cronian | 24 March, 2009 at 3:42 am

Apologies for the lack of replies to this post.

@ Claude

I agree it is time consuming, and I spend way too much time on sites like Twitter, but I did a small poll the other day (only 5-8% of my followers took part) but 73% had never heard of my blog until they joined Twitter – so raising awareness of your brand, I do think social media works.

@ Gareth

I think mobile is just going to get bigger and bigger, with more phones coming on to the market, 3G, and the new generation of phones like the iPhone and G1 etc. For me as a traveller to be able to get destination information and advice on the move is very useful.

@ Sam

I wanted to mention the interaction on Twitter because I think its important to give a scenario. Yes, its time consuming, and yes, companies want to see a profit, but some point companies will have to realise its about community and more and more companies want interaction online – be it social media, forum or online help.

@ Pete

I think Trip Advisor hide their association with Expedia quite well on the site – how many consumers actually visit the about us page – I bet very few, I know I have never visited it until now. Why don’t they have a notice at the footer of their site, or do they have something to hide?

@ Sheila

Lastminute.com are doing some good things with mobile, but as you say, its very few companies that are jumping on the bandwagon. I think they will realise in time, and for some companies it’ll be too late. It was interesting to read all about SXSWi, would love to go one year.

@ First Green

What’s your real name? I think FlipKey could emerge within the vacation rental market, it was quite a slow, quiet takeover from TA, but as I mentioned it would not surprise me if they break in to the market and buy-out, the question like you mention, is who.

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Martino Matijevic | 24 March, 2009 at 8:39 am

Darren, I’m not sure TripAdvisor deliberately hide their association with Expedia. I just don’t think they want to openly advertise it. Both brands are very strong and want to exist in their own right. They may crosslink and crosspromote, but they seem keen on retaining the identity.

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