Russia is big in social media. According to Natalya Koroleva from Редкая марка (a marketing agency in Moscow): Russia ranks first in the world in social networks involvement Huh? 1st? Don’t know if that can be true. But after Natalya’s presentation I’m convinced that the russian Internet or Runet is worth a closer look. It’s …
Google has been reported to be in talks to pay $1 billion to acquire ITA Software – a software company specialized in travel industry. ITA’s customers include Kayak, Tripadvisor, and a number of major airlines. The acquisition would enable Google to become the metasearch for travel information such as flights and accommodation. Considering Google’s vast …
Not long ago all you had to do to protect your brand online was to acquire the domain name. Just getting the .com domain was good. If you wanted to be on the safe side, you acquired also .net and .org etc. A bit longer ago some people paid millions of dollars to purchase the …
I thought these things happen only in books. What we have here is a battle between two very interesting travel businesses! I’ve read many business strategy books about how companies innovate to beat their competition and update their strategy according to market changes and apply game theory to best utilize their competencies and so on. …
Opodo(*) made a study of their bookings of January 2009. Comparing with the same period last year, it’s apparent that short city breaks in the eurozone are not this year’s things. The trend is that people are traveling to the southern hemisphere and that people are taking one longer holiday instead of a few short …
Continue reading ‘Travel Trend: City Breaks Down, Southern Hemisphere Up’ »
Do you think that an airline would have a customer service staff reachable over phone? I did. But now I know better. :-) I had the most curious conversation with a Lufthansa representative at their ticket desk at the Frankfurt Airport about a canceled flight: Me: My flight from Seattle was canceled. I’d like to …
Continue reading ‘Flight Canceled? A Curious Conversation Regarding Compensation’ »
Hotels.com is having some serious hiccups in its booking confirmation mailer. I booked a hotel using Hotels.com and they billed me alright but failed to send the confimation mail. I had to call to their service desk where they told me that “We’ve been having a lot of problems with getting these confirmations mailed.” The …
Hitwise published a report of travel website rankings in the U.S (pdf, 216kB). According to the report, the Top-20 sites get almost 50% of all visits to travel sites. And Top-100 sites get about two thirds of visits. Winner takes it all, eh? Absolute visitor numbers are not estimated in the report, only relative values. …