PhoCusWright FYI

Travel 2.0 Embraced in the Old World

Travel 2.0 met "Old Europe" in the guise of the ornate 19th century Théâtre Plaza, where executives of leading travel firms across the world met at The PhoCusWright Travel Conference, at Hôtel le Plaza in Brussels, Belgium, 25-27 September 2006. Industry heavyweights and startups alike pondered an increasingly competitive travel landscape in which two of every five Euros spent on travel in Europe will be online by 2008, and a lingering sense of a passing of the guard was overtaken by a scene in which giants and startups alike are leaping into the next generation of online travel. No longer tethered to the transaction, travel Web offerings aim to engage travelers' imaginations, connect them to informative resources (including each other), and empower them to envision, discover and purchase their travel experience online.

Yet there remain uncountable nuts and bolts issues to be assessed. How level has the Internet really made the travel industry playing field? How can an independent or chain hotel assess the cost of online direct distribution? What place is there in Europe for metasearch -- integrated in a travel portal, standalone, affiliated with other sites such as social networks? Does user-generated content represent a truly impartial resource when it has been previewed, parsed, edited or mediated?

These were questions asked by the presenters themselves, and the responses (via SMS, blog and the floor) were equally evocative of the challenges of next generation distribution and marketing capabilities. No one took the bait when an audience question begged for guidance on shaping marketing budgets in an era of auction-based media payments, but the answer was clear in the content of the entire PhoCusWright event: nimble, open-minded players will win in a field of next generation marketing and distribution challenges.

The conference brought together travel industry executives from across Europe and around the world for three days of workshops, PhoCusWright analyst presentations, executive roundtables, point-counterpoint face-offs, and keynote speakers.

Workshops covered online competitive intelligence, optimizing hospitality distribution channels and dynamic pricing. These key topics continued to get plenty of airtime during the conference sessions on days two and three.

Registrants are also part of the PhoCusWright community as participants in the conference Web site, where networking tools, attendee and conference information and speaker presentations mingled with conference information, blog entries and private communications between attendees.

Travel 2.0 continued...
On November 13-15, 2006, a superior group of speakers will address their peers as Travel 2.0 Confronts the Establishment at The PhoCusWright Executive Conference in Hollywood, CA USA. The conference will open with workshops led by Exmplar, Yahoo! and comScore, and Nurun. Learn more.


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