Web 2.0 Begins To Sprout In Travel

Throughout the last year, a lot of buzz has been
generated around the emerging impact
of a phenomenon dubbed Web 2.0. It was
about how consumers were “taking
back the Web” and relying more
on new technologies like social networking
and mashups to make buying decisions,
essentially rejecting traditional marketing
channels as sources of persuasion. All
around there are signs of this emergence.
Leading the buzz were startups like
real estate mashup Zillow (founded by
the former CEO of Expedia, Richard Barton),
and tagging site Deli.cio.us, which
gained a lot of press because of its
viral grassroots empowerment of consumers.
While many dispelled this Web 2.0 buzz
as a “fad”, strictly about
the mythical younger generation, the
explosive growth of these sites (i.e.
MySpace) both in usage and market value
proved these technologies were here
to stay.

Still,
like the winter itself, online travel
distributors and suppliers seemed dormant
in the Web 2.0 area, perhaps grappling
with the potential disruption of complete
transparency that these products and
services portended. Ironically, as online
travel agencies and suppliers were spending
more and more on traditional and first-generation
Internet marketing for customer acquisition,
in hopes of gaining loyalty at some
point, consumers were conversely abandoning
these channels for word-of-mouth, peer-driven
recommendations.

Seemingly,
with the arrival of spring, several
recent announcements have signaled that
more players in online travel are investing
in these technologies and embracing
these new behaviors of consumers in
hopes of driving new revenues.

Case
in point #1 – TripAdvisor imitates
Wikipedia.

Many hotel suppliers were at first frightened
both by the explosive growth and by
the brazen transparency that user-generated
sites like TripAdvisor and IgoUgo offered.
Seeking to infect the democratic effects
of consumers, suppliers began to post
their own glowing reviews of their properties
to these sites. Perhaps smarting from
recent articles that seemed to dispel
the utility of user-generated sites
because of the relative ease of which
they had been corrupted, TripAdvisor
has doubled-down their bets on the consumer.
It has taken charge by transforming
itself from a single-point review space
(i.e., about my hotel room) into a complete
travel experience aggregator. By launching
a new area that empowers consumers to
contribute to a serial online guide
of their experiences, effectively a
“Wikipedia” for travel,
TripAdvisor has brought currency of
user-generated reviews to the forefront,
trumping those that would seek to dilute
the purity of this medium.

Case
in point #2 – Yahoo! integrates
travel.

Clearly seeing the trajectory
of page views at MySpace in their rear-view
mirror (when school starts in fall 2006,
MySpace will be the #1 most visited
site on the Web – let that sync
in for a minute), Yahoo! is embracing
Web 2.0 strategies throughout all of
their properties, including travel.
When a consumer visits any part of Yahoo!
and enters a search query relevant to
travel (e.g., “compare hotels
in Denver”), shortcuts appear
that can whisk them off to a mash-up
where maps, user-reviews, stored trips,
as well as rates, are provided to simplify
the travel planning as well as buying
experience.
Case
in point #3 – Starwood’s
FourPoints.com and TheLobby.com.
Kudos to Starwood for its recent foray
into Web 2.0, where it has not only
sought to dabble with these tools, but
to move beyond the purely transactional
nature that so many travel providers
seem so ensnared by. Starwood now supports
the entire travel experience in ways
that more and more consumers have come
to expect.

A
definite “A for effort”
goes to the recent re-launch of the
Fourpoints.com site. Timed to correspond
with its recent rebranding efforts for
the aspirational mid-scale chain, the
site features a simple Google-like search
box asking visitors where they want
to stay. A bold move, and one predicted
by Phocuswright for some time. The jury
is still out on the utility of this
search-box approach, as how Starwood
performs at providing the results returned
from what visitors search for, and not
simply that it is search enabled, will
determine its ultimate success.
However,
search is not Starwood’s only
Web 2.0 foray. Recently announced, TheLobby.com
offers a blog featuring expert travel
journalists sharing their musings about
recent adventures. Unfortunately, Starwood
did not choose this opportunity to open
TheLobby up for its guests to contribute
their experiences as well.

Travel
distributors must come to grips quickly
with this exploding channel, embracing
and discovering ways to offer products
and services that will virally infect
these communities, telling consumers
they are truly open to this transparency.
These cases-in-point highlight companies
that are at least experimenting so that
they can become involved in this space,
and understand where the opportunities
for this buzz lie. What are you doing
to do the same?

John
Bray is the vice president of Advisory
Services at Phocuswright Inc. Focused
on the travel, tourism and hospitality
industry, Phocuswright’s Advisory
Services offers custom research and
strategic consulting services tailored
to customer needs and business issues
including Strategic Direction, Trend
and Impact Analysis, Organizational
Transformation, IT Planning and E-Business
Development.