Comments on: Lack of innovation in Travel http://www.travel-rants.com/2009/09/13/lack-innovation-travel/ Sun, 29 Jan 2012 01:52:48 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Andrew Smith http://www.travel-rants.com/2009/09/13/lack-innovation-travel/#comment-155991 Andrew Smith Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:35:06 +0000 http://www.travel-rants.com/?p=4899#comment-155991 Agree entirely Matthew Teller, one of the fears we see in international education marketing in Australia is that we have to go through physical marketing managers who mediate...and may even use internet to attract traffic, enquiries, direct bookings etc. to themselves directly. Meanwhile, they are still commissioning offshore events that do not work.... but they get a free flight out of it..... We tell many in marketing, sales, PR, promotions etc. who ignore the internet that they are already redundant, and will be bypassed in future if they do not adapt. Agree entirely Matthew Teller, one of the fears we see in international education marketing in Australia is that we have to go through physical marketing managers who mediate…and may even use internet to attract traffic, enquiries, direct bookings etc. to themselves directly.

Meanwhile, they are still commissioning offshore events that do not work…. but they get a free flight out of it…..

We tell many in marketing, sales, PR, promotions etc. who ignore the internet that they are already redundant, and will be bypassed in future if they do not adapt.

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]]> By: AH http://www.travel-rants.com/2009/09/13/lack-innovation-travel/#comment-152567 AH Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:43:20 +0000 http://www.travel-rants.com/?p=4899#comment-152567 Hi Darren I concurr with John, there has been a lot of innovation in the industry as a whole, although I would suggest much of that has been driven by cost cutting. An iterative process, rather than true ground breaking innovation. {BTW, an old but interesting book on the topic is the Innovators Dilemma, which also talks about how consumers aren't necessarily all that open to innovation} A personal pet peeve for years has been the screeds of paperwork & tickets I'm expected to carry with me - when the airline can't be bothered to print a ticket and mail it to me anymore becuase it's all 'e-ticketed'. Yeah right. Just try turning up at most airports with just your passport to hand. Air New Zealand have done some decent things, although it more revolves around cost cutting than real innovation (again!). I can at least checkin the night before for my domestic flight, allowing me to walk straight to the departure gate. Not that there are real queue's at NZ airports compared with Heathrow, the other London airports or even Glasgow for that matter. My new local airport is literally a one room shed where I can turn up 2 minutes before the flight leaves and still get on the plane. Now we also get to 'process ourselves through the departure gate' on domestic flights. which still involves two AirNZ staff standing around taking a boarding pass off of you to pass it through a scanning machine as if we're just too incompetent to do that ourselves. I find that offensive, not innovative. One thing I thought was going to be really innovative from AirNZ was their iPhone application - yes sorry, I am one of those 12% who has one. It keeps my bookings stored electronically and displays a 2d barcode for the scanners at the gate. Finally!! I can actually purchase an electronic ticket, and not have to carry a single peice of paper. Yippee!! I was so excited. Except when I allow my iPhone screen to be scanned at the gate, they insist on printing out a small piece of paper with my flight number on (duh!, as if that's important as I walk down the air bridge) and seat number - like I'm going to lose my iPhone walking down the airbridge and not stop to look for it before sitting down on the plan to fly to the other end of the country.. So ho hum, innovation and the paperless 'electronic ticket' is almost there. Just not quite. BTW- sorry for the long post, I don't really do short, which is why I'm not a blogger.. ;) Hi Darren

I concurr with John, there has been a lot of innovation in the industry as a whole, although I would suggest much of that has been driven by cost cutting. An iterative process, rather than true ground breaking innovation. {BTW, an old but interesting book on the topic is the Innovators Dilemma, which also talks about how consumers aren’t necessarily all that open to innovation}

A personal pet peeve for years has been the screeds of paperwork & tickets I’m expected to carry with me – when the airline can’t be bothered to print a ticket and mail it to me anymore becuase it’s all ‘e-ticketed’. Yeah right. Just try turning up at most airports with just your passport to hand.

Air New Zealand have done some decent things, although it more revolves around cost cutting than real innovation (again!). I can at least checkin the night before for my domestic flight, allowing me to walk straight to the departure gate. Not that there are real queue’s at NZ airports compared with Heathrow, the other London airports or even Glasgow for that matter. My new local airport is literally a one room shed where I can turn up 2 minutes before the flight leaves and still get on the plane.

Now we also get to ‘process ourselves through the departure gate’ on domestic flights. which still involves two AirNZ staff standing around taking a boarding pass off of you to pass it through a scanning machine as if we’re just too incompetent to do that ourselves. I find that offensive, not innovative.

One thing I thought was going to be really innovative from AirNZ was their iPhone application – yes sorry, I am one of those 12% who has one. It keeps my bookings stored electronically and displays a 2d barcode for the scanners at the gate. Finally!! I can actually purchase an electronic ticket, and not have to carry a single peice of paper. Yippee!! I was so excited.

Except when I allow my iPhone screen to be scanned at the gate, they insist on printing out a small piece of paper with my flight number on (duh!, as if that’s important as I walk down the air bridge) and seat number – like I’m going to lose my iPhone walking down the airbridge and not stop to look for it before sitting down on the plan to fly to the other end of the country..

So ho hum, innovation and the paperless ‘electronic ticket’ is almost there. Just not quite.

BTW- sorry for the long post, I don’t really do short, which is why I’m not a blogger.. ;)

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]]> By: Alex Bainbridge http://www.travel-rants.com/2009/09/13/lack-innovation-travel/#comment-152114 Alex Bainbridge Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:28:14 +0000 http://www.travel-rants.com/?p=4899#comment-152114 I could give you 5 interesting ideas that haven't been done yet in online travel! Existing companies are doing a pretty good job of raising the barrier to entry for new entrants. You would be amazed as to how much money is spent on web projects. Innovative people can't get past those barriers. Frankly if I were talking to an entrepreneur with web skills I would probably take on another industry right now..... one where you can build supplier relationships without having to go through complex, expensive, legacy systems. Too many entrepreneurs digging for gold and not enough selling shovels..... what the innovative B2C travel entrepreneurs need is innovative platform companies who are replacing the legacy platforms. Actually that is where we sit with TourCMS.... I could give you 5 interesting ideas that haven’t been done yet in online travel!

Existing companies are doing a pretty good job of raising the barrier to entry for new entrants. You would be amazed as to how much money is spent on web projects. Innovative people can’t get past those barriers.

Frankly if I were talking to an entrepreneur with web skills I would probably take on another industry right now….. one where you can build supplier relationships without having to go through complex, expensive, legacy systems.

Too many entrepreneurs digging for gold and not enough selling shovels….. what the innovative B2C travel entrepreneurs need is innovative platform companies who are replacing the legacy platforms. Actually that is where we sit with TourCMS….

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]]> By: Olein http://www.travel-rants.com/2009/09/13/lack-innovation-travel/#comment-152113 Olein Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:17:01 +0000 http://www.travel-rants.com/?p=4899#comment-152113 I get so fed up of poor customer service doled out by hotels to guests. I had another instance this week where a client had a genuine complaint and was ignored by staff - promised a bottle of wine in compensation but this didn't appear and so on. This from a 4 star hotel in Rome. I was there at the end of the phone line, listening to the tale of woe and liaising with the UK operator who I booked it through (who were supportive and did their best to resolve). If there is a problem with a hotel, I'm finding it is mainly a city centre hotel rather than a resort hotel. The hotel industry needs some innovation - staff that care about their customers! Good customer service shouldn't be an innovation - it should be automatic. How do we get this message across when hotels are full and there is no incentive to lure the guests back? I get so fed up of poor customer service doled out by hotels to guests. I had another instance this week where a client had a genuine complaint and was ignored by staff – promised a bottle of wine in compensation but this didn’t appear and so on. This from a 4 star hotel in Rome. I was there at the end of the phone line, listening to the tale of woe and liaising with the UK operator who I booked it through (who were supportive and did their best to resolve). If there is a problem with a hotel, I’m finding it is mainly a city centre hotel rather than a resort hotel.

The hotel industry needs some innovation – staff that care about their customers! Good customer service shouldn’t be an innovation – it should be automatic. How do we get this message across when hotels are full and there is no incentive to lure the guests back?

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]]> By: Mark Seall http://www.travel-rants.com/2009/09/13/lack-innovation-travel/#comment-152084 Mark Seall Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:49:27 +0000 http://www.travel-rants.com/?p=4899#comment-152084 I know what you mean. Although the Internet has done a good job at providing greater transparency and has dis-intermediated the booking process to some extent it has brought with it a new problem - that of navigating an extracting useful information from a very cluttered on-line environment. Although many new start-ups are doing things in this area (sometimes it seems as if almost everybody is trying to innovate with a new travel site) very few seem to have gained much traction, and very few seem to solve the real exam question - "How can I find out about and book travel to XYZ?" I also suspect that Tech Crunch doesn't give travel start-ups too much coverage due to the sheer number of them.. A while ago I wrote this post: http://www.travolution.co.uk/blog/2009/05/is-the-travel-sector-stuck-in.php bemoaning travel innovation, which lead to a new idea we have had called OfferMeaTrip. Can't really say too much about it now, but we are hoping that we can launch something *innovative* in the next few months that can answer some of our own criticisms. I know what you mean. Although the Internet has done a good job at providing greater transparency and has dis-intermediated the booking process to some extent it has brought with it a new problem – that of navigating an extracting useful information from a very cluttered on-line environment.

Although many new start-ups are doing things in this area (sometimes it seems as if almost everybody is trying to innovate with a new travel site) very few seem to have gained much traction, and very few seem to solve the real exam question – “How can I find out about and book travel to XYZ?” I also suspect that Tech Crunch doesn’t give travel start-ups too much coverage due to the sheer number of them..

A while ago I wrote this post: http://www.travolution.co.uk/blog/2009/05/is-the-travel-sector-stuck-in.php bemoaning travel innovation, which lead to a new idea we have had called OfferMeaTrip. Can’t really say too much about it now, but we are hoping that we can launch something *innovative* in the next few months that can answer some of our own criticisms.

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