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 …
How about getting 10% more clicks to your Order Now page by changing button colors? Or 135% higher clickthrough on your landing page by using giant buttons? Test your design intuition at Anne Holland’s Which Test Won. They host real world A/B tests for a number of landing pages, homepages, lead generation pages, etc. It’s …
Earlier this year the Tourism Queensland, Australia posted a job announcement for the Best Job in the World. The idea was to promote Queensland as travel destination through multiple media channels, heavily including social media. Applying for the job became a competition, and boy did that competition get coverage on press! Kevin May wrote an …
Noun: green travel [green tra-vul] 1. Having fun while making the world a better place. 2. Adventures that money can’t buy. – also ecotravel, ecological travel Green travel helps protect the nature. You travel to the Great Barrier Reef to experience the clean waters, colorful corals, and a myriad of different fishes. The locals make …
I travel somewhat often and mostly by plane. And I’ve been worried about the ecological impact of flying. Thus I was happy to find out about a list by Finnair (the biggest finnish airline). Finnair claim that carbon emissions can be cut by up to 30% by following these three simple rules: Choose modern airplanes. …
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 …