I don’t disagree with this but I was wondering what other countries have that we don’t?

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Hi Darren. I would have to agree with you. Some of the “innovation” coming out of the travel and tourism industry is shit, to put it bluntly. How many more flight and hotel search websites do we need? I disagree with your point about apps though.

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We’ve covered almost 140 startups on Tnooz in the past 12 months, through our TLabs Showcase.

I wonder how many of these are truly innovative ideas……..

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Thanks for the read. It got me thinking. I think the issue for me in terms of innovation lacking is in public transport in the UK. There seems to be very little being done to encourage us to ditch the car. I don’t really think about catching a train because at the weekends, you know you’re going to end up catching a bus somewhere along the line, or if not, the chances are you won’t find a direct train.

And with trainlines improving across Europe all the time, we need better links across the UK in order for people to be able to take advantage.

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You mention clones of other sites and you’re right to a certain extent, however there are some really good exceptions. One particular website that stands out is Kayak, which has a whole bunch of innovative features that are more common in the US travel sites. Amongst these is “My Trips” which can create your travel schedule, just by simply forwarding on your airline/hotel/car hire booking email. Also the Explore feature is one to check out too, which allows you to visually see what your holiday options are just by inputting your departing airport and budget. This trend towards “crowdsourcing” where company websites are making use of user generated queries and content, is going to get bigger and more tailored for user experience. Isnt it interesting to see what other people are searching for, such a nosy nation that we are

Skyscanner is another one of my favourite, with its clean, slick interface aggregating all the budget destinations and prices together by scraping from the airline websites.

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Darren

I agree, but think it is longer….

All I have seen really is different ways of doing the same thing. A few consumer friendly developments but the last real innovation in travel was Virgin Galactic.

Or is it like our space program, big but people just assume it is American?

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@nick – I would argue that 1) Virgin Galactic is not innovative and 2) not really a tourism product.

it’s a toy for its CEO and very rich folk to experience around 15 mins of weightlessness. Not tourism.

Innovation is something that changes the “game” – challenges the status quo to overhaul their models, creates a new way of doing things.

Space “tourism” is not that. It doesn’t impact on the rest of the industry.

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Hi Darren,

I think innovation is scalable, for instance, we have just innovated within the car hire industry by introducing an app that replaces the usual printable car hire voucher.

Now not having access to a massive PR machine most folks will not have heard about it. Actually only 1 travel/tech site/blog has even made mention to it (Kevin at Tnooz). So perhaps there is innovation out there but its simply not being given the chance to shine?

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Hi Darren,

I see innovation the same way Kevin describes below “Innovation is something that changes the “game” – challenges the status quo to overhaul their models, creates a new way of doing things.”
With UK car rental companies you are required and the customer expects, to show a paper format of a “voucher” which confirms the rental is pre-paid. Our app totally alters the way this information is displayed by making the “voucher mobile”. A great example of the app in use was yesterday, when a customer called to say they had forgotten to take their voucher, they simply downloaded the app from the app store, logged in and presented that to our supplier. Our app changes the way customers collect their vehicle.
I appreciate car rental isn’t the sexiest product and to most this will seem pretty mundane but the point is; this is an innovation which will probably go unheralded but I know others will copy it, so perhaps there is innovation out there, it just depends how you perceive the achievement.

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Darren

This is a REALLY interesting topic – not least because earlier this week I went to the AGM of SMEIA (or SME Innovation Alliance – a body of high tech entrepreneurs banding together to get heard – check out http://www.smeia.org ).

OK – A LOT of the AGM was way over my head (I was listening to inventors – physiscts, programmers, chemists), but we were talking about major new innovation, REAL innovation, game changing stuff…

BUT – the reason SMEIA is a not for profit, lobbying organisation is – in a very condensed nutshell- that there is little or no network to support and fund this high-tech innovation. There exists a red-tape wall of inertia and complexity which seems designed to thwart not nurture success. From badly written/expensive patent applications (there were at least two people there who had been through years (one person 12) of litigation to claim royalties on their inventions), to total lack of funding or willingness to lend from banks (I think 100% had been privately funded – adn largely personally and by friends and family), to a complete lack of workforce – so work is shipped out overseas,.
These were not fly-by-night-nere-do-wells . SMEIA’s patron is Professor Steven Hawking , Will Hutton delivered the keynote address as one of the organisations advisors. These audience contained businesses selling to Microsoft, creating new power sources, building planes, creating camera lenses, etc.

So, I wonder. If we cannot support innovation in (arguably) its purest form – super high tech, what chance do we have anywhere else? If business and government is not supporting innovation, creating an environment in which the UK not only is a nation of thinkers, but doers, then what chance do we have to see this cascade across all industry – including travel?

The Government has told us that SMEs are key to the future of this country, that private business must pick up where the public sector has left off and, to be more specific, the travel industry has been earmarked as a key industry for growth and to help the economic recovery.

But, as far as I can tell, from a national and perhaps even institutional level, we are doing everything we can to DISCOURAGE innovation – in whatever form it appears. It is much safer to rehash the old than risk creating the new. Moreover it is easier to follow in footsteps than set new precedents, much easier, and much more lucrative (and far less painless).

Without innovation, industry will die. So, I guess (at the end of MY OWN rant ) where to next? How to next? Hard questions that need, IMHO, revolutionary answers.

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Darren

The same would of been said of Holidays and Cruises that we all take now… someone has to be first.

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[...] MD got in a discussion on the popular Travel Rants sites regarding the state of innovation within the UK travel industry, sighting our app as proof [...]

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I was chatting with a friend/former colleague about this the other day who is now running his own (non-travel) internet startup with what seems to me to be a more innovative idea than many.

He thought that a big cause of the lack of innovation generally in the UK, as you allude to, is investment. Whereas, for example, on the West Coast of the US there are liteally 1000s of investors willing to throw money at totally unproven innovative ideas with the hope that something at some point will stick and turn a profit, in the UK all the investors who believe they are at the cutting edge actually aren’t because they aren’t willing to take any kind of risk.

If the business model or product can’t be shown to be almost immediately profitable then UK investors really aren’t interested, and thus so many great ideas must get lost because the innovators themselves can’t afford to lift it off the ground off their own back.

It’s probably a cultural thing more than anything else – whereas in the USA speculation is the key part of accumulation with innovation a key part of it, UK attitudes are rather more conservative for the most part and so nothing actually sees the light of day to be tried out.

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I think Monica had a great question. I would love for an example of a country that is really innovative in this area. Who ” knocks it out of the park” and thinks outside the box?

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