23 Musings

ComScore has released some figures on traffic growth in January for the UK. As expected travel features prominently.

January is the peak booking month for holidays in the UK and as such the number of web users researching and buying is much bigger than any other month of the year.

January's figures show that the biggest increasing category in travel was hotels/resorts with a 54% increase in traffic from Dec-Jan. Airlines were next with 46% and online travel agents third with 43%. Quite where tour operators come in there is a bit of a mystery to me, it would be really interesting to see them broken out to compare with OTA's.

Within travel two websites saw huge growth, First Choice grew 140% and TUI Group 122%. British Airways, Moneysupermarket Group and Priceline all feature as well with good growth.

Nothing unexpected in any of this but it does highlight the gaps in ComScores data as the market as a whole is not very well represented.

Of course it would also be intriguing to know if their booking numbers increased by similar percentages...

PhocusWright has released it's 2008 Travel Trends report which looks at some of the developments in the marketplace that it expects to dominate the year. There's a brief overview here.

In short they expect:

• Mobile to grow (no massive surprise there, it's been coming for years but travel has been very slow on the uptake)
  
  
• Consolidation in the industry to continue (again a safe bet, I don't think we've seen the last of the mergers, however this year I expect to see online only concerns looking at mergers to stimulate growth and increase market share)
  
  
• Social and e-commerce approaches to converge (strange one this, I know there's a lot of social experiments that are totally unconnected to a companies e-commerce facility but this will continue as players find their feet in the social waters. Any decent foray into social should always have an e-commerce edge anyway, even the most brand focused campaign should be aiming to drive bookers at the end of the day)
  
  
• Metasearch to come of age (this could be the biggy! I'm waiting for Kayak or someone like that to launch fully dynamic packaging through metasearch, that could be a clincher that sees off the competition. I also expect tour operators to move towards a more metasearch model online by supplementing their product through GDS')
  
  
• Media-based pricing (interesting move from Expedia earlier this year that has triggered this one, will certainly be interesting to see if others move this way, especially those with their own stock as price flexing to match their media spend will be more difficult)
  

I think they've missed one big thing that we will begin to see on travel websites and that's intelligent or guided search. My number one complaint is the lack of relevance in cross/upsell offerings that are pushed at you during an e-commerce process. The rise of tagging and meta data on products will help push this forwards (as well as the rise in technologies that provide this kind of functionality). Another interesting area to watch will be semantic web, expect to see a travel site of some sort try to get this right this year. Interesting year ahead!

Here's an amusing look at the web back in 1996, the year I started designing myself. I would provide links back to some of the sites I built using the internet archive but sadly all have so many broken links they aren't worth viewing. I'll post up anonymised screenshots of a range of sites I've built another day...

If only web design was still so simple :-)

ComScore have released figures for the biggest U.S. web properties for December. MarketingCharts have the detail here. Obviously, retail is the big show, and as usual Yahoo just pip Google, even though they have many more pages. Google should overtake them soon.

Travel shows with Expedia in 41st place. January should be a very different story as travel sites shoot up the rankings.

Full list of the top 50 below:

IMRG the online retail analyst is to release a report stating that it is critical that retailers invest in online as more of the UK population shift to making their purchases through the web. They say that retailers who refuse to move online risk losing half their business over the next ten years as they estimate that 50% of all retail will be online by 2018.

Growth of the online retail channel outstripped all other channels in the run up to Christmas and the volume of shopping online in 2007 was up over 50% on the previous year. This kind of growth is expected to continue (although slowing gradually).

I believe this will apply to travel even more quickly than retail. The shift to online is happening much more quickly and it's possible that half of all travel bookings could be online within the next two years in the UK. The U.S. is already there according to the report here. Investing now will put you in a good position to capitalise on that growth. It's especially important for any travel companies who don't have a web presence yet (there really are some who don't still) as they really need to get their brand known online and get their online marketing processes in place asap.

Wondering what all the fuss is about the semantic web? Not understanding all the geek speak that goes along with it? Watch this video then; makes it all a lot simpler...

Drawter is great! Just found this gem of a site and it's already come in useful.

Now I'm a hand coder of HTML, have been for 12 years, so perfectly happy creating HTML and CSS in a text editor. Sometimes though I just want to do something simple and quickly and that's where Drawter helps.

It allows you to create basic HTML layouts using CSS really quickly by drawing out the elements you want and then generating the code.

Highly recommend you have a play. Obviously it's great for beginners too as you can see the layout and then relate the code back to it (a good way to learn).

I've been thinking about how useful services such as this could be and then I come across one that already exists, and it's made Time Magazines top 10 websites of 2007.

Dontforgetyourtoothbrush.com is an online holiday checklist tool. Not for planning and booking your holiday itself, but rather for allowing you to plan the run up to going away. All the useful stuff like getting the dog into kennels and booking a taxi to the airport.

It gives you a planning list to help you remember what you need to do when in advance of going away. A packing list, to help you remember what to pack. You can then choose the elements of both of these that you'd like to print or email to yourself (or others).

Very useful, and it works pretty well!

However, I'd like to export my planning list to a calendar. Outlook, iCal and hCalendar (Microformat) compatibility would be a real benefit with a service like this. I'd also like it to integrate with other services so if I put in that I require a taxi to get to the airport it would offer me local taxi firm numbers.

This strikes me as the kind of thing travel companies should be providing themselves. It's simple, will engage your customers and gives loads of upsell opportunities. Might get my thinking hat on...

Sometimes it's good to sit back and have a laugh at the industry you are in. This one made me chuckle!

I had a good read of the new specification for HTML 5 last night. It's supposed to break us free from the constraints of HTML 4 and the browsers (at least it will allow browser manufacturers to take things one step forwards). HTML 5 introduces a lot of interesting new features such as semantics, API compatibility, improved form controls and more. Some of the simplified mark-up should also make barriers to entry much lower, I also believe that the creators of WYSIWYG tools will find it much easier to create new web based tools to create sites based on HTML 5 due to the simplification of the document.

Rather than write a full review I suggest you go and read the write up from A List Apart here.

A report has been released by Anderson Analytics as the results of a survey of the Marketing Executives Networking Group (a 1,700 strong network of marketers at VP level or higher). The survey asked what marketing concepts these executives thought were going to be the top trends and concepts in 2008.

Worryingly, when asked which marketing concepts they felt were going to be most important the second highest answer turned out to be SEO!

Now, I don't know whether marketers are unsure what search engine optimisation is or perhaps this was a particularly 'offline' group of marketers, but SEO is already hugely important and in my eyes if you haven't grasped that yet then it's a bit late. Saying that it will be the second most important concept next year is amazing to me. It's been part of my life for 12 years and is really just part of the routine I go through for any digital project.

Here's the rest of the list:
If you had to ask me what some of the concepts I thought were important for next year were (in digital), I'd say:

• Offline/online translation (getting your offline campaigns translated in a seamless manner onto digital media, something that really isn't being done very well at the moment)
• Viral (campaigns should always be thought of as viral if they touch the web)
• Widgets (cross pollination of marketing campaigns online using widgets)
• Social media (yes, it's huge this year, but next year should see it mature and the launch of OpenSocial will make it more important than ever)
• Banners (controversial one this but we are now at a stage where banners should become more like widgets and really start to become properly engaging, whether this will happen I'm not sure as most agencies who design banners aren't particularly forward thinking)

Underpinning all of those, and every other online marketing concept, should be SEO.

What do you think the key concepts of 2008 will be?

I blogged the other day about the increases being seen by retail websites on Black Friday, Nielsen reported an increase of 10% year-on-year. I wrote that I still expect a 15-20% increase in web traffic year-on-year for the online travel industry in our peak booking months of January and February.

Well, Hitwise have been looking at the web traffic figures for Cyber Monday (another traditionally busy online shopping day) and they're reporting an increase of 26% year-on-year.

Now that's really encouraging for the online travel peak period. Travel sites tend to see the same if not more year-on-year growth than retail sites. A lot of this growth is down to the increase in web users every year as more people get online and begin to trust e-commerce as a way to make purchases. In travel that growth tends to be more pronounced.

That said, I'm still sticking with my prediction although erring more towards the higher end at 20%. Is your infrastructure ready to cope with it yet??

Yesterday I blogged about the peak online travel booking period and what people can expect to see in the coming peak trading window of January and February. I said travel websites were showing year-on-year web traffic increases of 15-20%.

Nielsen have just released data on the increases seen by the retail industry on Black Friday (one of the busiest days of the retail calendar). They're reporting increases in traffic of 10% year-on-year. They're also talking about the increasing influence of the crowd and say consumers are discussing tactics and swapping tips on where to shop online. The other big story of this year is the increasing influence of incentives and discounts.

So what does this mean for travel? Well, I still stand by my 15%-20% up prediction. Travel has seen more growth throughout this year than retail and I strongly believe this January will be the busiest yet by quite a margin (for us if not for the market as a whole). All the data I have supports this. For retail, who have been operating at a much more mature level than travel online, to be 10% up it bodes well for the traffic increases travel websites can expect. The influence of the crowd and incentives will also play a big role this January, with many travel providers planning sales and discounts through the peak season.

Again, I urge all travel webmasters to get their sites in order quickly or risk watching your brands web experience become a sticky, slow experience for the consumer.

A great presentation from Elliot Jay Stocks at the Future of Web Design the other day:

According to the Times online.

Thanks to Travolution I've been made aware of this list of travel websites that the Times say are the best 50 of 2007.

There are quite a few I've not seen before so it's worth a look.

A PricewaterhouseCoopers report is confirming what I had surmised many months ago. Online travel agencies (the likes of Expedia and Opodo) are beginning to lose business in favour of the customers booking direct with suppliers.

They say that online travel agencies are losing their competitive edge and now that suppliers of travel products are maturing in their use of the internet it's not all going their way anymore.

This has been coming for a while. The agencies have got so powerful that they've let their fingers off the pulse. Airlines and hotel chains are engaging online marketers themselves instead of purely relying on the distribution channels they used to use. They now control their own inventory and therefore their own destiny (and profits).

Loyalty schemes have a lot to do with this. Airline frequent flyer points are a massive draw and encourage direct booking, hotels now have similar schemes and the online travel agents can't replicate these.

This trend is only going to continue unless the aggregators work out new ways to add value for customers.

The other issue which the report doesn't mention is the impact tour operators may be having on the online travel agencies. Tour operators are getting more web savvy too, employing better quality people and better quality tactics to position their offering more effectively online. As tour operators websites improve and product offerings get more dynamic (through the introduction of new reservation systems, something that is going on at many tour ops) the online travel agencies are going to lose further ground.

Pingdom is a great little service which tests your website for uptime that I use on a number of sites and services. I was lucky enough to get a free account having beta tested it.

Anyway, they often have some quite good insight on their blog. The latest post is one that's really close to my heart, it's all about one of the most viewed pages on the web, the good old 404 error page.

In the post '23 percent of the top US websites have bad 404 pages' they discuss what a difference a well thought out and constructed 404 page can have on your websites usage.

404 pages are an inevitable problem for everyone. They can come about in a number of ways such as badly configured links, badly named files and links from search engines which point to old pages.

Of course, you can put some decent error handling in place if you want to to capture all 404 responses and redirect to the new version of a page or the best match for the page request. However there will always be occasions when you can't avoid a 404 and can't do anything to guess where to send the user so you need this generic page to present to users.

The biggest culprits are those which don't have custom error pages at all and purely present the standard browser error page.

The next worst are those with unintelligible error messages and no links to any useful sections of their websites.

The way to do this properly is to make it light hearted and useful. Admit the error, don't make the user think they've messed up. Offer a way out, provide useful links to the main starting points of your website, don't make it a dead end. And most of all, make it a valuable page, if you're selling something make sure users who find the 404 page know what you do, it can even be an opportunity to promote your products.

So online travel is motoring along as ever. Sales are rising and the number of participant websites is growing all the time. However, in the U.S. the word (courtesy the NY Times) is that 9 percent fewer people booked travel online this year than in 2005. This has come from a Forrester research survey of 60,000 U.S. web users. It is the first time since Forrester began tracking Internet spending a decade ago that a category (in this case online travel) has lost shoppers.

Another survey (results coming soon) from PhoCusWright shows that the percentage of travel shoppers booking online has dipped while the percentage booking offline has risen.

Is this something to be concerned about? Maybe. There's a few reasons this could be happening. Perhaps customers are looking to book more and more complex trips, and therefore aren't booking online as they feel the confidence instilled by a travel agent is necessary before parting with money for an adventurous trip. Or perhaps users are beginning to backlash against the standard online travel functionalities that haven't changed much in the last ten years.

Henry Harteveldt, Forrester’s online travel analyst says “Customers are tired of spending two or three hours trying to find the airline or hotel or vacation package that meets their needs.” He says (like I do) that sites need to step away from asking for specifics in order to complete a search. He says “Nowhere can you say, ‘I have this amount of money to spend on a trip. These are my interests. This is where I live. Show me my options,’” he said. “Whereas online retailers have done a much better job of improving the shopping experience in recent years, the travel industry has been standing still.”

The NY Times article goes on to discuss the lack of innovation that is due to outdated reservation systems and mentions the Travelocity Road Trip Wizard I discussed earlier. Yes, lack of functionality in reservation systems is a major issue, also the technological complexity of querying multiple bed banks and GDS' makes user intuitive searching almost impossible to create.

So, who is going to be in a position to benefit from this trend of user/customer decline? It could be the tour operators. Many of them are in the process of upgrading their systems to new dynamic package capable ones which will interface much better with intelligent search functionality. Also, they don't need to query the bed banks as often as they have contracted bed stock so can cache availability and present it in a much more usability focussed manner than the likes of Expedia with their multi-connections to other suppliers. Of course the only problem is the lack of innovation generally at tour operators and also the desire they seem to have to become the next Expedia. That's not the way forwards anymore. Rather than trying to emulate the online travel agents, tour operators should be trying to become the next big thing.

Travelocity has launched their latest tool to help customers plan their perfect holiday. The latest addition (I blogged about one of their others here) to the stable of user friendly trip planning tools is the Road Trip Wizard.


The Road Trip Wizard is aimed at users seeking a way to build up a road trip itinerary online. It's much closer to the kind of trip planning tools I've always thought were the next logical step for the online travel arena (more on that in a post coming soon). It's really flexible, allows multi destination plans to be made and is a definite move away from the normal route of having to specify dates and destinations before getting any results (or even content in some cases) back from the website your querying. This is a very good thing! It's actually fairly unintuitive for users to be asked such specifics when they first hit a website. Imagine the scenario of the travel agents, never are the first questions you're asked 'what date, how long, where, how many people', it's more likely to be 'what kind of holiday, what kind of weather, what kind of experience' this is where we need to get to in online.

The wizard allows you to select a starting point and then search around it for places to stay and things to do (and you can of course book them), then you can select a next point for your journey and do the same again. It will then plot a route on a map and warn you if it thinks you're driving too far in a day etc. You can specify more details about yourself and the party, even down to the reason for the trip, and it gets even more clever based on the personas you've created. The intelligent engine behind the wizard scours a database of over 5 million points of interest making it extremely powerful.

At the end of it all you have a very detailed plan of where to stay, what to do and the driving directions to get you from point to point.

The Road Trip Wizard is a piece of technology created by a company called LeisureLogix, Travelocity is the first to launch an application using the platform. There are obvious aplications for UK tour operators as well, it could quite nicely be applied to the (currently very popular) flydrive holidays that are often sold to the east and west coast U.S. This would allow a UK tour operator to sell a flight into Orlando for instance and then allow a user to book a car and a range of hotels across the country, flying back via a west coast airport such as San Francisco. Integrating this technology with a dynamic packaging engine would be incredibly powerful! I'd also like to see it ported over to cover South Africa as well, it would be a great way to plan a Garden Route road trip. Tools like this are a definite step in the right direction for online travel.

Well now you can find out!

Those lovely people at A List Apart have surveyed 33,000 people who make websites and made the results public.

Here's the link to the PDF, makes for really interesting reading (once you get past the demographic data).

Most interesting fact for me was that 77% of respondents say they keep their skills current through trial and error. Perhaps the industry needs to take a long hard look at providing more development opportunities for their employees?