Hotel Teatro Heeds TripAdvisor

Some in the travel industry, namely Professional Travel Guide and Star Service Online, among others, advise consumers and travel agents, respectively, to disregard consumer-written hotel reviews like those on TripAdvisor and other review sites.

These reviews, the argument goes, are unreliable, fraudulent and dangerous.

But, these companies should know that the hotel industry itself pays very close attention to TripAdvisor, for better or worse.

Heather Turner tweeted the other day about Hotel Teatro, a boutique property in Denver, which leverages TripAdvisor to its advantage.

HotelMarketingStrategies quotes Hotel Teatro General Manager David Craig on how the property uses TripAdvisor reviews.

"We also spend the first portion of every staff meeting reading our newest TripAdvisor reviews aloud to the group," Craig is quoted as saying. "This establishes a forum for recognizing favorable performance and for developing solutions where we have areas of opportunity."

And Craig advises repeat guests, who corresponded with the hotel about their pleasurable experiences: "Thank you for taking the time to relay the details of your experience at Hotel Teatro. I am so glad that you had a wonderful visit. If you’d like to share your experience with others, I encourage you to do so at www.tripadvisor.com."

No word if Craig advises any unhappy guests to do likewise.

However, Hotel Teatro's strategy of paying close attention to what is being said about the property on TripAdvisor, and doubtless in other social media outlets, has helped the hotel achieve its TripAdvisor Popularity Index Rating of #2 out of 148 hotels covered by TripAdvisor in Denver.

Hey, TripAdvisor is very far from perfect.

But, smart companies and astute travelers would be wise to take its reviews into account instead of pretending they don't exist or have no merit.

Innkeeper CEO has an In at TripAdvisor

Any smart company should monitor the social-media airwaves and at least listen to its critics.

AT&T, for example, just recycled Seth the Blogger Guy in a YouTube video designed to quell criticism about its delayed MMS service and other iPhone service issues.

In a similar vein, you have to give TripAdvisor some credit at least for reaching out to its critics and making a few tweaks to its hotel-review policies, although the modifications so far haven't been earth-shattering.

Jay Karen, president and CEO of the Professional Association of Innkeepers International, has met periodically with TripAdvisor officialdom and presented the company with a list of pet peeves from his B&B constituency.

Karen won't take credit for any policy changes, but he undoubtedly has had an influence.

The changes have ranged from minor to significant.

For example, TripAdvisor initially permitted hotel reviews up to five years after the guest supposedly stayed at the property. Karen pushed for one year instead.

"They left it fairly liberal from the get-go, because at first they needed to populate their site with reviews," Karen says. "[TripAdvisor President and CEO] Steve Kaufer said this in a meeting with me, but he said now that their site has plenty of reviews, that they certainly could look at that policy. So, they changed it to three years. A step in the right direction, but I think a few more steps would be good."

Of course, the downside in this is that there is no verification of when -- or if -- someone actually stayed at the hotel or inn.

Other changes have been a bit more important.

Earlier this year, Karen suggested and TripAdvisor changed the way it displays Best Deals.

Previously, beneath the display of a property like the Jersey Cape Motel in Cape May, N.J., TripAdvisor might have displayed Best Deals: Jersey Cape Motel, but provided links to intermediaries and other properties that were competitors of the Jersey Cape Motel.

Today, at the suggestion of Karen (and perhaps others), TripAdvisor has changed the display to Best Deals: Cape May. Thus a bait and switch is eliminated and the properties' brands are not being misused.

"Another change that looks to be forthcoming, which I have lobbied for, as well, is for B&Bs to have links on their [TripAdvisor] pages that go back to their own websites," Karen says.

Today, since most smaller properties still are absent from global distribution systems or large online travel companies like Expedia, you'd be hard-pressed to find an advertising link to the Jersey Cape Motel or similar properties on their TripAdvisor pages. Thus, if you want to book that property under review, you'd have to find another way to do it outside of TripAdvisor.

"We’re hoping in early 2010 for there to be a reciprocal link program for B&Bs," Karen said. "This would be a big change for our industry."

Change at TripAdvisor has been a slow-go. That's because TripAdvisor has been unbelievably successful with its current formula despite all the "noise" out there from people like Karen, me and countless others.

Karen acknowledges that TripAdvisor officials have been good listeners, but he likens the pace of change over there to re-positioning an ocean-liner.

Almost everyone in the hospitality industry now acknowledges the importance of TripAdvisor and consumer hotel reviews, and the lodging industry is grappling with best practices.

Perhaps TripAdvisor should convene a blogger/hotel industry summit to move the conversation forward.

However, my best guess is that will not be happening any time soon.

If it weren't handled properly, with all the passion generated on the hotel review issue, the meeting could degenerate into something like one of those healthcare-reform town hall meetings.

Business and democracy -- whether we are talking about hotel reviews and the advertising/media business, or healthcare reform -- can be a noisy thing.

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Orbitz Engages in Media-Network Building with Lodging.com Rebirth

Orbitz Worldwide recently brought Lodging.com out of mothballs and is engaging in some nation-building.

Or, should I more aptly say, some media-network building.

To understand what Orbitz is attempting, think the TripAdvisor Media Network, which has been clicking its way to success on a global scale for its Expedia Inc. parent.

Lodging.com, founded in 1995, acquired by Orbitz ancestor Cendant in 2002, and all but retired as a URL until recently, is part of the OWW Away Network. That network is part of Orbitz's hoped-for answer to TripAdvisor's gains in the media business.

"The relaunch [of Lodging.com] reflects Orbitz Worldwide’s focus on monetizing under-utilized assets in its portfolio of travel brands and better monetization of its non-transacting traffic," said OWW spokesman Brian Hoyt.

That "non-transacting traffic" element is key as Orbitz, like other online travel companies, is hoping to monetize the legions of lookers who don't book. The solution, as the OTCs see it, is facilitated search or even metasearch.

The soft relaunch of Lodging.com, which uses facilitated search to promote the booking engines of Travelocity, hotels.com, Expedia.com, Kayak, Mobissimo, Priceline, OWW brands and others, follows the relaunch of another retired OWW brand, Trip.com.

Also part of the Away Network, Trip.com is a travel search/media site for flights, hotels, cars, vacation packages and cruises.

While Trip.com offers the full gamut of travel inventory, sister brand Lodging.com has a hotel focus.

In addition to providing facilitated search for hotels through partnerships using the booking engines of all the aforementioned OTCs and metasearch companies, Lodging.com partnered with Vast.com, a vertical search company, to offer vacation rentals, bed and breakfasts, inns and campgrounds, Hoyt said.

"The relaunch of Lodging.com will test how consumers respond to various travel search offerings, and its user interface is likely to change over time," Hoyt said. "The site will remain in beta until its functionality has been thoroughly tested among consumers."

Asked whether OWW was considering a metasearch launch, in addition to the one-booking-engine-at-a-time approach inherent in facilitated search, Hoyt replied: "For now, we are focused on beta testing a facilitated search platform blended with Vast.com's listings for vacation rentals, campgrounds and B and Bs."

The "for now" part is important. Certainly the strategic thinkers at Orbitz have pondered the launch of metasearch, as Expedia has done through TripAdvisor flights and Travelzoo has done with Fly.com.

Orbitz has a long way to go to compete with TripAdvisor. Other than the Orbitz brand itself, OWW doesn't have a brand, in its Away Network or elsewhere, that can compete at the moment with the TripAdvisor brand.

But, the resurrection of Lodging.com and Trip.com are huge steps in the right direction for OWW. Together with OWW's emphasis on building its hotel business, the Away Network initiative is another signal that Orbitz, under CEO Barney Harford, is beginning to get its act together.

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Sherman Meter Blends New Hotel-Review Cocktail

The travel industry is grappling with a fix for sometimes-suspect hotel reviews, and the latest entity to offer a solution is Shermans Travel, a deal-publisher and media company.

Shermans Travel believes it has found a credible formula in its new Sherman Meter Rating.

This new beta test of the Sherman Meter Rating closely follows the move by professional-review website Oyster Hotel Reviews to require consumers to use Facebook Connect if they want to pen hotel reviews. Oyster feels having consumers shed their anonymity will lead to more reliable reviews.

And, the context for the Oyster.com and Shermans Travel review experiments is months of controversy about the usefulness of user-generated content in general, and hotel reviews on TripAdvisor.com, in particular.

In its announcement, Shermans Travel gets a little carried away in its hype for the Sherman Meter, billing it as a "proprietary meta-search tool."

It may be proprietary, but it is not a metasearch tool in the sense that you cannot compare reviews from various sources in grid-like fashion.

But, still the Sherman Meter indeed offers a hedge against review manipulation by hotels, and it is a useful contribution to the debate.

The Sherman Meter rates hotels by aggregating consumers' reviews from sites like TripAdvisor, Yelp and Yahoo Travel; tosses in "professional" critiques from Concierge, Frommer's and Fodor's; sprinkles it all with its own expert assessments; and comes up with a percentage of positive reviews with a corresponding color code.

If the Sherman Meter is green, then the reviews generally are positive. Yellow means the reviews are mixed, and red points to negative reviews.

Darren Frei, editorial director for ShermansTravel.com, tells me that the aggregated user reviews, the professional reviews and Shermans' own expert reviews get "roughly equal weight in our proprietary algorithm."

Hence Sherman has figured out a way -- however imperfect -- to hedge against hotel industry/pr/marketing gamesmanship.

That's because Shermans utilizes the "wisdom of the masses" in sometimes hundreds or even more than 1,000 consumer reviews from a variety of websites for a particular property; the opinions of the professional or guidebook crowd; and also Shermans' own staff-formulated reviews, with the latter being "a qualitative evaluation independent" of the Sherman Expert Review displayed on the website, Frei says.

Given that Shermans Travel -- which publishes deals, provides a travel search engine and has a print magazine -- likely makes most of its money in the media/advertising business, is there an advertising bias in the Sherman Expert reviews?

Frei says: "All of Sherman's Expert Reviews are selected and managed by our in-house editorial staff, which evaluates and edits hotel reviews without input from the advertising department."

So, what are the results?

I just spent the last eight hours or so checking out the Shermans Meter for a variety of properties and found similar patterns.

Let's consider, for example, the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City.

The Sherman Meter assesses 1,310 user reviews from a variety of websites, "professional reviews" [more on this later] from Fodor's and Frommer's [Concierge doesn't rate the Waldorf], and the opinions of Shermans' own experts, and gives the Waldorf a 76 percent, or green, rating.

Incidentally, the Sherman Expert Review for the Waldorf is descriptive, but neutral and doesn't really tell me whether the wallpaper is pealing or whether I am guaranteed to get a Brangelina sighting.

Independent of Shermans Travel, TripAdvisor, using 1,051 traveler reviews of the Waldorf, gives the property four stars and a 72 percent TripAdvisor Traveler Rating, in the same ballpark as the Shermans Meter.

Then we arrive at the so-called professional reviews.

It turns out that Concierge.com doesn't rate the Waldorf.

Fodor's rating actually isn't a professional rating. Instead Fodor's provides a 3.4 "member rating," meaning the Fodor's rating turns out to be another consumer-review compilation.

However, I found the Fodor's Review of the Waldorf valuable because, unlike Sherman's Expert Review, at least the Fodor's Review offered pros and cons about the property, including Fodor's opinion that the "rooms [are] not contemporary; very public lobby includes loads of tourists hoping for Brangelina sighting."

And, I have problems with the Frommer's review methodology and the fact that the Shermans Meter gives it substantial weight.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but it appears that Frommers.com, which features Arthur Frommer periodically railing against user-generated content, doesn't post negative reviews. Its hotel ratings are: 0 stars (recommended), 1 star (highly recommended), 2 stars (very highly recommended) and 3 stars (exceptional).

Thus, there are no reviews of hotels that are not recommended. Where is the credibility in that?

Frommer's rates the Waldorf three stars [its highest rating], or exceptional, and is lone among the above review sites to do so.

And, the actual Frommer's Review of the property, like Sherman's Expert Review, is descriptive, but neutral and not very insightful.

Meanwhile, Oyster.com, which relies on journalist reviews and just added consumer reviews using Facebook Connect, gives the Waldorf four stars out of five, and doesn't yet offer a consumer comment about the hotel.

Like Fodor's -- and unlike Shermans and Frommer's -- Oyster.com at least serves up some pros and cons about the Waldorf, including its opinion that the property has a "top-notch gym and spa (among New York's best)."

So, where does this leave us?

Shermans, with its mix of consumer, professional and its own expert reviews on the Waldorf, has the same overall view of the Waldorf as TripAdvisor does, despite all the allegations about TripAdvisor's suspect consumer reviews.

TripAdvisor doesn't come out looking so bad, although I know I am discussing merely one, large, well-known property. (And, it is easier to manipulate rankings for smaller hotels.)

The expert reviews offered by Fodor's and Oyster are cool because at a minimum they are unafraid to ruffle some feathers.

And, Frommer's review stands out as the questionable one in the crowd because Frommer's stands alone in its assessment that the Waldorf is exceptional.

Meanwhile, there's raveable, which slices and dices 1,469 user reviews of the Waldorf and analyzes what might seem like a morass of complexity and transforms it into some clear and effective metrics.

raveable outlines its methodology here.

Instead of having to wade through 1,469 reviews and murky star ratings, raveable gives the Waldorf an overall rating, plus ranks the property on its service, the rooms and value. It also outlines where the Waldorf stands not only when measured against all other New York City hotels, but also evaluates its stature amongst the other four-star hotels (49th of 62).

The question then becomes: Would travelers rather rely on the opinions of admittedly seasoned experts on Frommer's, unvetted consumer reviews displayed on TripAdvisor, concise analysis of consumer reviews on raveable, journalists' critiques on Oyster.com, or Shermans sometimes-flawed mix of user reviews, professional reviews and its own experts?

The jury is out.

And, consumers likely will vote with their feet -- or their browsers.

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Monday's Travel InsideOut

It’s all in the family at Travelzoo. CEO Holger Bartel announced that the deal-publisher and metasearch company will sell the assets of its money-losing Asia-Pacific division to Ralph Bartel, who controls Travelzoo. So it may be that Ralph and the board decided to sell the division to Ralph, which buffs up Travelzoo stock and takes this money drain off the books of the public company.

e-tid.com: Travelzoo plans Asia Pacific sale:
Deals publisher Travelzoo is to sell its Asia Pacific division to focus on its European, North American and Fly.com operations.

For the twelve months ended 30 June 2009, the Asia Pacific division reported revenues of approximately $1.5m and an operating loss of about $7.8m. Read more

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I think I know why Oyster.com, the website featuring journalists’ hotel reviews, began requiring travelers to post reviews through Facebook Connect while TripAdvisor abstains from such a policy. See if you agree?

Dennis Schaal Blog: Why Facebook Connect Fits Oyster.com Strategy: TripAdvisor lives and dies by its traveler-written hotel reviews and the advertising money it takes in from the ads positioned "around the rails" of those reviews, while Oyster.com's business is based on journalist-written hotel reviews. Read more

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Social justice it ain’t. The better term might be social-networking injustice. That’s what happened apparently when a thief stole a laptop and then boasted about the heist on the victim’s Facebook account. No big travel angle here for me, but lots of travel afficianados are interested in Facebook, Twitter and the gang.

Mashable: Thief Brags About Stealing Laptop on Victim’s Facebook Account: Talk about adding insult to injury: a burglar who has stolen a laptop and other properties from a woman’s house has later logged into the victim’s Facebook account and bragged about the deed, complaining that the TV in the victim’s house wasn’t good enough to steal. Read more

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Apparently a passenger bill of rights law is not a slam dunk for the travel industry so industry groups and pundits will gather in Washington, D.C., Sept. 22 to discuss the issue. Maybe they should meet on a tarmac at Reagan National Airport instead to ensure a proper environment for the discussions? Just sayin'.

Eventbrite: Examining a Market Failure?: On Tuesday, September 22, 2009 consumer groups and travel industry organizations will conduct a Stakeholder Hearing in the Hart Senate Office Building regarding airline passenger rights. The purpose of the hearing is to examine passenger safety-related problems such as extended ground delays. Desired outcomes from the hearing include a better understanding of passenger safety problems; best practices from the EU in the area of passenger rights regulations; and the potential efficacy of proposed Congressional solutions. Experts representing all sides in this debate have been invited to participate in this hearing. Read more

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Stock picker Jack Hough steps away from the pack enamored with online travel stocks, and places Priceline.com among three popular stocks that he believes will disappoint.

SmartMoney: 3 Popular Stocks Priced to Underperform: I like Priceline.com, but no more than I like Expedia (EXPE: 22.12, -0.65, -2.85%), Orbitz 3 Popular Stocks Priced to Underperform (OWW: 4.74, +0.08, +1.71%), Hotwire and the rest.
Read more

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CruiseOne, the cruise agency franchisor, is taking steps to make it easier to attract new franchise owners. It sounds like a nice installment on future agency relationships.

Travel Weekly: Franchise now, pay later, says CruiseOne: CruiseOne, the cruise agency franchisor based in Fort Lauderdale, rolled out a financing plan for prospective franchise owners.

Under the program, new "Level One Franchise Owners" would pay $2,500 toward their initial franchising fee rather than pay the full fee of $9,800 up front, and CruiseOne finances the remaining cost of the franchise. The new franchise owner then pays in 24 monthly installments. Read more

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It looks like the woes of the hotel industry, plus the unattractiveness -- to say the least -- of mortgage-backed securities are a foundation for less development of new hotel projects.

Reuters.com:Data shows US hotel projects fell further in July: NEW YORK, Aug 14 (Reuters) - The number of U.S. hotel projects in development fell 26 percent in July, another illustration of how the financial woes of the industry have curbed growth, Smith Travel Research data showed this week. Read more


Travel InsideOut is a Dennis Schaal Blog daily feature. Get a thorough-going look at the day's travel industry top and tangentially interesting stories. Feel free to comment on them below.

Travel InsideOut is Copyright (c) 2009 by Dennis Schaal. All rights reserved.

Why Facebook Connect Fits Oyster.com Strategy

I have some additional thoughts about what I see as the positive step that Oyster.com took when it began requiring that its consumer reviews be penned through Facebook Connect.

It's great that Oyster.com's user-generated content won't be created anonymously and this adds to review credibility.

However, using Facebook Connect is a limited solution because so many potential review writers don't use Facebook or even other social-media websites.

From a business perspective, that's OK for Oyster.com while it wouldn't work necessarily for businesses like TripAdvisor.

That's because TripAdvisor lives and dies by its traveler-written hotel reviews and the advertising money it takes in from the ads positioned "around the rails" of those reviews, while Oyster.com's business is based on journalist-written hotel reviews.

Unlike websites like Professional Travel Guide, which sees professional reviews as the end-all and be-all, Oyster.com is smart enough to know that it has to dabble in consumer-written hotel reviews and social media.

But, if Oyster.com doesn't attract a fraction of the user-generated content that TripAdvisor does when Oyster.com mandates vetting through Facebook Connect, then Oyster.com will have to live with that.

Oyster.com's differentiation in hotel reviews is through its journalist-written reviews.

And, that differentiation has a lot to do with the, well, differences between Oyster.com's and TripAdvisor's hotel review policies.

That is not to excuse TripAdvisor from its obligation to do more to ensure the credibility of its own reviews.

But, from a business standpoint, this may explain some of the differences between the two approaches.

Consumer Hotel Reviewers Have to be Seen to be Believed at Oyster.com

With all the controversy about fake hotel reviews, Oyster Hotel Reviews, the new website featuring professional reviews by journalists, began requiring consumers to use Facebook Connect if they want to rant or rave about a hotel.

The Oyster Blog unveiled the new policy in a post, You’ve Gotta Be Seen to Be Heard: Oyster Hotel Reviews introduces Facebook Connect.

"To ensure all user comments are consistent with Oyster’s standard of providing high-quality, authentic information, we require all commenters to log in through Facebook Connect to submit feedback," the company wrote. "The way we see it, if you’re willing to attach your identity to your commentary, you’re willing to stand behind what you say."

"We’re building a community of sincere and credible hotel evaluations drawn from the experiences of our own hotel experts and from you," Oyster added. "No anonymous mudslinging; no PR propaganda."

Oyster's policy is a great step in the right direction in trying to ensure the credibility of reviews.

Is it a panacea?

No.

Can hotels or others still game the system?

Yes.

Does requiring travelers to use Facebook Connect serve as a bit of a deterrent to casual review-writers who might otherwise trash a hotel for no good reason behind the veil of anonymity?

Sure, it does.

But, this is not tamper-proof.

Consumers, or hotel employees, can easily sign up for fake or misleading Facebook accounts: They merely need to provide name, e-mail address, password, sex and birthday.

And, consumers posting reviews on Oyster.com need not have stayed at the property they are reviewing as is required on Priceline.com and some other websites.

Priceline, for example, only solicits reviews from customers after they've completed their stay at the property, and I respect this policy.

But Priceline customers still post reviews semi-anonymously.

With Priceline's user reviews, you have to take the word of "John" or "Sara," with no link to a profile or clue about who these people really are unless they decide to provide some detail in the review.

Oyster's stipulation that consumers writing reviews do so through their Facebook accounts does provide a level of credibility, and that's great.

So when Kim-Marie Evans writes on Oyster.com that the W New York Times Square doesn't "seem to deep clean the rooms, given that it's somewhat of a party hotel, I wish it were more thoroughly cleaned," we sort of know where she is coming from.

And, kudos to Oyster for going this route because consider all of the SEO (search engine optimization) benefits and stickiness attributes, which advertisers love, that Oyster is sacrificing.

Granted that Oyster has just launched consumer hotel reviews through Facebook Connect, but Evans' review of the W New York Times Square is the only user review about the property that Oyster has posted.

In contrast, the thousands of reviews that TripAdvisor can attract are a major factor in its not reforming its review-writing requirements despite all of the guff.

TripAdvisor, with its freewheeling-review policies (no proof of stay required and the ability to write anonymous critiques) has 443 reviews of the W New York Times Square.

The SEO lords at Google, Yahoo and Microsoft love this wealth of content, as do TripAdvisor's advertisers, because it adds to the user experience and attracts consumers who are deep into the trip-planning process.

TripAdvisor, too, can take this review bonanza and slice it and dice it for use on the websites of its subsidiaries like Family Vacation Critic. TripAdvisor gets more SEO love for doing so.

Oyster, of course, is not the first to use Facebook Connect as an entryway into user-generated content.

TechCrunch, for example, uses Facebook Connect as one of its several alternatives for leaving a comment on its website.

"Enter your personal information to the left, or sign in with your Facebook account by clicking the [Facebook Connect] button below," TechCrunch states.

So, in sum, congratulations to Oyster for using its pearly whites and putting some teeth into its new consumer-review policy.

The policy isn't a 100 percent solution (few are), but the hotel-review writing issue is evolving and steps like Oyster's will help.

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Kayak's Hafner Awaits Google Hotels

Kayak CEO Steve Hafner thinks "it's only a question of time" before Google begins displaying hotel pricing, a move that could change the online-travel ecosystem.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak, Hafner says he is much more concerned about how Kayak, the leading travel-metasearch player in the U.S., would navigate Google's souped-up role in facilitating hotel transactions than about the maneuverings of rivals like TripAdvisor, Fly.com, Bing Travel or Mobissimo.

"Google is by far the biggest source of travel information for consumers," Hafner says.

That point was confirmed for me last night when I drilled down a bit into what Google has been doing on the hotel front.

When I performed a Google search for Chicago hotels and then selected Hotel Allegro reviews, I accessed a link that produced:

• The property location in Google Maps;

• Overviews of the hotel and property details;

• Some 619 user reviews and ratings of Hotel Allegro from the likes of TripAdvisor, Priceline, HotelGuide and others;

• 50 photos and videos from the hotel itself and other content providers;

• 683 Web pages about the property, and

• Advertisements from Expedia, DealBase, Travelzoo and Hotelsmax.net.

The "look and feel" of this compilation is not very attractive, but that can be improved. And, with so many consumers launching their trip-planning through Google searches, you could argue that Google already is the most comprehensive "hotel website."

With speculation rampant about Google's next move in travel, Hafner believes he knows where Google is headed.

"Google doesn't care about flights," Hafner contends. "Hotels is where they'll enter."

He continues: "Hotels are a comparatively easy entry point and yield the highest margin for Google."

I blogged a couple of weeks ago about the Brave New World of Google Travel 3.0, arguing that Google may continue to build out its apps, from flight links to Google Maps, to put a heavier stamp on its travel offering, now that Bing Travel has raised its profile with its prominent integration into Microsoft's Bing search engine.

Hafner's theory on Google's evolution in travel is consistent with that line of thinking.

As it already does for products ranging from books to digital cameras, Google might display hotel price points in default displays and then advertisers could use Google Checkout to drive hotel transactions, Hafner says.

"So imagine a list of OTAs [online travel agencies] and suppliers, with Google Checkout to help facilitate conversion," Hafner says. "Pretty powerful."

And, Google already has another app, Google Base, featuring a data API, which perhaps could accommmodate hourly hotel pricing updates, Hafner says.

Some have argued that Google, with its market cap of $143 billion, doesn't worry about relatively little things such as Bing Travel.

But, I think with travel being such a large part of Google's advertising business, Bing's deft integration of Bing Travel in Google's own backyard has been an embarrassment to Google.

So, how would implementing hotel pricing -- and this could merely be Google's opening shot in travel-inventory pricing -- impact Google commercially?

"My guess is that it would be cannibalistic since many advertisers run their SEM [search engine marketing] campaigns on a same-session loss," Hafner says. "And, Google's opportunity to increase search share is relatively small (since it already owns 70 percent of queries in the U.S.) But, they'll probably need to move to this approach anyway to counter Bing etc."

In travel, as in other sectors, when Google bobs, the entire industry weaves.

There are lots of issues to sort out.

How would this impact the hotel-direct channel?

Who would be the winners and losers?

"It's an open question what role players like Kayak would have in a new ecosystem like this," Hafner says.

Google, by implementing hotel pricing (and who knows which travel segment after that), could certainly be disruptive.

Why would consumers navigate to TripAdvisor to read hotel reviews or to Kayak to compare prices, if they could do it all and get a more comprehensive look through Google?

Why go directly to a hotel website or to an online travel agency if you can get user reviews, maps and pricing on Google?

I received an inquiry from a business publication in Japan several months ago, asking me for answers when unfounded rumors were swirling that Google was going to launch "another Expedia."

Don't look for that sort of scenario. Google isn't going to become a travel agency.

Instead, there is plenty of room(s) for Google to expand its reach as a hotel kingmaker.

Friday's Travel InsideOut

Hold onto your hats because Microsoft's take in the Yahoo deal may be less than meets the eye. And, anyway, as travel advertisers mull the value proposition, does anyone know how to spell d-i-s-t-r-a-c-t-i-o-n?

Advertising Age: Sorry, Microsoft Will Not 'Own 30% of the Search Market:' Now that the Yahoo deal is finally done, many observers seem to think Microsoft's new search business will be just like Google's -- only a bit smaller.

Specifically, they think that Google has 65% of the market and Microsoft will have 30%, so Microsoft's search business will basically be half the size of Google's. Read more

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TripAdvisor, like everyone else, realizes that organic is the trend in almost every supermarket that you see, but does it translate into a tasty growth strategy for TripAdvisor Flights?

Dennis Schaal Blog: TripAdvisor Answers Back, Infers Fly.com Who?: Brian Saltzburg, a former Travelocity guy who is general manager of new initiatives at TripAdvisor, took great umbrage at my post yesterday, Fly.com Toe-to-To With TripAdvisor Flights. Read more

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Orbitz Worldwide’s ebookers re-upped with Amadeus through the end of 2012 for global distribution system (GDS) services, complete with the usual array of incentive agreements and shortfall penalties.

Securities and Exchange Commission Item 1.01. Entry Into A Material Definitive Agreement: On July 28, 2009, ebookers Limited, a wholly-owned, indirect subsidiary of Orbitz Worldwide, Inc. (the “Company”), and Amadeus IT Group S.A. (“Amadeus”) entered into an amendment (the “Amendment”) to the Global Access Agreement, dated January 1, 2004 (the “Agreement”), extending the term of the Agreement to December 31, 2012. Under the Agreement, as amended, Amadeus provides certain of the Company’s ebookers websites with access to travel supplier content, including air, hotel and car reservation information. The Company receives incentive payments based on the number of reservation segments it processes annually through Amadeus. Read more

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So, with its bid for Frontier Airlines, Southwest Airlines not only would cross a new frontier with a bunch of additional routes, but an acquisition could also be a big headache for United Airlines.

USA Today: United, beware! Southwest's bid for Frontier spells trouble, analysts say: United, beware. That's what several industry observers are saying after yesterday's surprise announcement that Southwest would make a bid to acquire Frontier Airlines. If its bid is successful, Southwest's acquisition of Frontier would eliminate a pesky competitor and give it access to new domestic and international routes Southwest does not currently fly. Still, "the biggest impact of Southwest’s potential bid to buy bankrupt Frontier Airlines may fall on United Airlines," writes Scott McCartney, "The Middle Seat" columnist at The Wall Street Journal. Read more

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Segmentation and re-packaging are the names of the game, as Rentalo.com evidently believes with its launch of three lodging websites with varied twists.

Arthur Frommer Online: Rentalo.com Creates 3 New Websites to Deal With 3 Kinds of Accommodations: Time was when international travelers made their lodgings choices from among either hotels or guesthouses -- nothing more. That process of selection has apparently become far more complex, and the big accommodations website, Rentalo.com (www.rentalo.com), has this week split its internet services into three different categories of housing. Though they have retained an overall website of all their products for those who can understand it, they have created three different subsidiary websites, each one containing several detailed groupings of accommodations that fall under each of the three headings. So if you're still able to follow me, here are the three new websites for you to consult, apparently an improvement on the former single site. Read more

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Travel InsideOut is a Dennis Schaal Blog daily feature. Get a thorough-going look at the day's travel industry top and tangentially interesting stories. Feel free to comment on them below.

Travel InsideOut is Copyright (c) 2009 by Dennis Schaal. All rights reserved.

TripAdvisor Answers Back, Infers Fly.com Who?

Brian Saltzburg, a former Travelocity guy who is general manager of new initiatives at TripAdvisor, took great umbrage at my post yesterday, Fly.com Toe-to-Toe With TripAdvisor Flights.

Saltzburg didn't trash Fly.com specifically, but he made some pointed remarks about what he characterized as TripAdvisor Flights' organic-growth strategy versus those competitors which grow through unsustainable marketing spend.

Hint, hint: I think he was referring to Fly.com.

After all, Travelzoo reported this week that it spent $9.6 million in marketing in the U.S. and Canada in the second quarter, an increase of $2 million from the second quarter of 2008. And, Travelzoo attributed much of the jump to "a $914,000 increase" in Fly.com marketing.

But, first, here's Saltzburg's main beef.

Saltzburg, who heads up the TripAdvisor Flights metasearch effort, argued that the data which I used from Compete Inc. in yesterday's post "grossly under-represents" the number of searchers and visitors using TripAdvisor Flights and wrongly gives the impression that the gap between the TripAdvisor metasearch effort and Fly.com is surprisingly narrow.

The TripAdvisor official added that the Compete portrait of the metasearch market "doesn't accurately represent the trajectory of our business."

Michael Redbord , a travel analyst for number-cruncher Compete, told me yesterday that in an effort to get an apples to apples comparison between TripAdvisor Flights and competitors like Fly.com, Kayak/SideStep and Bing Travel, Compete measured traffic that came directly to domains like TripAdvisor.com/flights and TripAdvisor.com/cheapflights and didn't take into account searchers and visitors that arrived from "third-party lead generators."

Those lead generators, I believe, include Expedia Inc. units in the TripAdvisor Media Network, including SeatGuru, CruiseCritic and SmarterTravel etc.

Hence, that may be part of the reason behind what TripAdvisor perceives as a larger-than-advertised gap between TripAdvisor and Fly.com, both of which launched their metasearch offerings within a few weeks of one another in February.

Although TripAdvisor regularly boasts about its "more than 25 million monthly visitors," Saltzburg, citing competitive reasons, declined to disclose any numbers about TripAdvisor Flights.

However, Saltzburg did say that the number of searches conducted through TripAdvisor Flights in the second quarter was "significantly higher" than the 2.4 million that Fly.com disclosed.

Asked for Fly.com's take on the numbers and TripAdvisor's point that the gap is wider than Compete portrayed, Brian Clark, general manager of search products at Travelzoo, said: "Other data show Fly.com moving up the ranks as well. Hitwise shows Fly.com as the #18 most popular website under Travel – Agencies for June, which was only our 5th month of operation, and only slightly behind Bing."

Clark added: "I'm not sure where Hitwise puts TripAdvisor Flights. We’ve asked them where that site is in their rankings and they said they would 'look at the site.'”

Meanwhile, Saltzburg went on to show why he considers TripAdvisor Flights to be a different beast than its competitors.

"We are on a slow and steady growth trajectory that we feel great about," he said, adding that TripAdvisor measures itself against major OTAs and not against most of the metasearch crowd.

Saltzburg said TripAdvisor's strategy, unlike unidentified others (hint, hint) is to grow TripAdvisor Flights organically, to leverage the TripAdvisor Media Network, and to build the offering in a sustainable manner.

He claimed TripAdvisor Flights has used paid advertising to attract merely "a single-digit percentage" of its external traffic.

"We haven't had to invest negatively in our business," Saltzburg said, referring to companies who allegedly tear down profits to garner traffic.

Putting the TripAdvisor Flights-Fly.com faceoff into context, Travelzoo spokeswoman Mindy Joyce noted that "Expedia Inc. is a much larger company than Travelzoo Inc. -– over 35x larger ($2.9B to $80M annual revenues). They have many more resources which will help them drive traffic to TripAdvisor.

"With that said," Joyce continued, "we do have over 10 million active U.S, subscribers who receive deals from Travelzoo that drive traffic to Fly.com directly, and with recent fare calendar enhancements using Fly.com technology, Travelzoo e-mail subscribers have new tools that help finding airfares easier than with any other site. We are using the tools that we have very effectively."

Joyce pointed to Fly.com's 85 percent growth in traffic from May to June as evidence of Travelzoo's leveraging of its subscriber base.

"It does make us a highly relevant player in the space, only 5 months after we launched," Joyce added.

So, is Fly.com's growth strategy, replete with its marketing spend, a sustainable endeavor?

I went for an answer to someone renowned in the travel industry for having a point of view.

And, Steve Hafner, the CEO of Kayak, inferred that the jury is out on Fly.com's marketing strategy.

"I really wouldn't know if it's sustainable or not," Hafner said. "We spend a lot more and it's been sustainable."

Meanwhile, like TripAdvisor, Kayak has its eyes on other issues and competitors.

Said Hafner, "Overall, I'm not terribly interested in Fly.com, TripAdvisor or Bing. I'm much more interested in navigating a potential Google entry."

I blogged about where I thought Google was trending in The Brave New World of Google Travel 3.0.

Hafner has a somewhat different take on Google's possible entry.

Fodder for another day:)

Fly.com Toe-to-Toe with TripAdvisor Flights

Travelzoo's Fly.com is displaying surprising strength in metasearch when measured against TripAdvisor's flight-search tool in terms of unique searchers and unique visitors when you consider that Travelzoo is starting from a much smaller base.

TripAdvisor flights and Fly.com were launched within a couple of weeks of one another in February.

In dueling presentations with financial analysts this week, Expedia Inc. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said TripAdvisor's flight metasearch offering is performing "extraordinarily well," with its searches exceeding the 2.4 million in June which Travelzoo attributed to Fly.com during the Travelzoo conference call.

Khosrowshahi said he wouldn't release TripAdvisor flights' numbers, but I will detail some. Please note that Travelzoo cited "searches" and I will detail "unique searchers." Here are some numbers that the travel team at Compete Inc. put together for me:

• Unique searchers in June: Kayak/SideStep 7,263,159; Bing Travel 1,525,604, TripAdvisor Flights 1,066,847 and Fly.com 913,637.

Compete travel analyst Michael Redbord puts Fly.com's strength in perspective.

"Compared to Fly.com, when you consider the pre-existing monthly traffic delta between respective owners Travelzoo and TripAdvisor, you're talking 4 million versus 12 million uniques (Compete June numbers)," Redbord says. "The opportunity for TA to leverage its existing engaged user base is probably at least 3 times as large as Travelzoo leveraging its own to drive traffic to Fly.com."

In terms of monetizing metasearch, the number of total searches is a more relevant metric than unique searchers or unique visitors. The number of searches that a unique searcher might conduct can vary widely from website to website.

But, Compete's unique searcher numbers, if they are to be believed, portray some better-than-expected Fly.com strength in relation to its competitors.

And, Compete's June numbers place Fly.com ahead of TripAdvisor flights in terms of unique visitors, 1,257,037 to 1,241,229. Again, that shows some unexpected muscle from Fly.com, a sort of David versus Goliath story.

Fly.com and metasearch is a key part of Travelzoo's growth strategy, along with subscriber growth for its deal newsletters. As part of that subscriber growth strategy, Travelzoo began publishing show and event advertising in its North America newsletters and is starting to do likewise in Europe and Asia-Pacific.

With the kind of unique searcher numbers and total searches that Fly.com is starting to post, it looks like Fly.com has the potential to fly.

Travelzoo reported that it spent $9.6 million in marketing in the U.S. and Canada in the second quarter, an increase of $2 million from the second quarter of 2008. And, Travelzoo attributed much of the jump to "a $914,000 increase" in Fly.com marketing.

Thus, Fly.com already is a player.

After all, the advertising/media business is hot.

TripAdvisor revenue accounted for about 10 percent of Expedia Inc. revenue in the second quarter.

Now, you know why the rise of metasearch start-ups seemingly is endless while the online travel agency business is saturated.

Friday's Travel InsideOut

It's probably not that effective for its marketing reputation that Orbitz lost two top marketing executives in the past two weeks.

AdAge: Orbitz Loses Its Two Top Marketing Execs: CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- The top two marketing executives at Orbitz have left the company only weeks after it named a new creative agency of record, an Orbitz spokeswoman confirmed. Read more

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The guff that TripAdvisor has received about fake reviews hasn’t dissuaded a tourism promotional body in the U.K. from talking to TripAdvisor about a new review initiative.

Travolution: TripAdvisor and VisitEngland in talks over user review strategy: VisitEngland has held discussions with TripAdvisor as part of its strategy to review the current accommodation grading scheme. Read more

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In an earlier proceeding, a judge found that $184.5 million was "warranted" in an Expedia breach of contract case. If a proposed settlement is half of that amount, then we’re still talking substantial dollars in Washington State.

Dennis Schaal Blog: Expedia Reaches Proposed Settlement in Washington State Consumer Class-Action: Expedia Inc. reached a proposed settlement with a certified class of consumers in Washington State related to hotel taxes and service fees.

The amount of the proposed settlement was not disclosed, but in late May, Superior Court Judge Monica Benton found that $184.5 million in damages, allegedly covering "services fees" collected from Feb. 18, 2003, to Dec. 11, 2006, "based on Expedia's breach of contract is warranted." Read more

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Are leisure destinations like Las Vegas and Orlando on some sort of governmental-meetings blacklist? What happens in Washington stays in …. Well, this sort of policy would be ridiculous.

UpTake Travel Industry Blog: Congress calls for Investigation of Federal Travel Blacklist: US House Representatives from Florida and Nevada have asked for an investigation to find out whether a travel blacklist bans government agencies from holding meetings in certain leisure-oriented and holiday resort cities. Read more

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With traffic down amidst a capacity cut, JetBlue notched a second quarter profit and expects to remain flying in the black for the rest of the year.

ATW Daily News: JetBlue finds profitable formula, expects full-year surplus: JetBlue Airways yesterday reported a $20 million second-quarter profit, reversed from a $9 million loss in the year-ago period, and said it expects to remain in the black in both the third and fourth quarters. Read more

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The FAA proposed mandatory repairs to some Boeing 777 aircraft, many of which are operated by American Airlines.

Wall Street Journal: FAA Seeks Mandatory Engine Fixes on Certain Boeing 777 Jets: U.S. aviation regulators, prompted by the 2008 crash landing of a British Airways Plc jetliner near London, proposed mandatory safety fixes Thursday intended to prevent ice accumulation inside the fuel systems of certain Boeing 777 aircraft. Such problems can lead to dangerous reductions in engine thrust. Read more

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Travel InsideOut is a Dennis Schaal Blog daily feature. Get a thorough-going look at the day's travel industry top and tangentially interesting stories. Feel free to comment on them below.

Travel InsideOut is Copyright (c) 2009 by Dennis Schaal. All rights reserved.

Thursday's Travel InsideOut

It’s definitely a tough thing to hack when your company’s Twitter account gets hacked and the Twitter help desk screens its phone calls.

Dennis Schaal Blog: Update: Travelzoo's Twitter Account Hacked and Just Try To Get Someone from Twitter on the Phone: I reported yesterday that Travelzoo's Twitter account was suspended.

Travelzoo spokeswoman Mindy Joyce told me today that the account, which has some 8,000 followers, was hacked by an unknown party on Sunday. Travelzoo couldn't even get into its own account, and the deal-publisher on Monday asked Twitter to suspend the account, which it did. Read more

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Shout-outs to the Budget Travel Blog and TripAdvisor for taking decidedly different angles in their bids to stimulate travel.

Budget Travel Blog: Should you take a staycation?: NO. Your mind won't be refreshed unless you change your routine. So get away from it all! Read more

PR NewsWire/Yahoo Finance: Photos: As Temperatures Heat Up, TripAdvisor Bares All Revealing Top 5 Naked Events and Top 5 Nude Beaches: NEWTON, Mass., July 23 /PRNewswire/ -- In honor of the recent Nude Recreation Week, TripAdvisor is bringing opportunities to go "au naturel" out into the light, from a massive skinny-dip to relaxing sans suit on sunny shores. TripAdvisor®, the world's most popular and largest travel community, today announced the top 5 naked events and top 5 nude beaches according to TripAdvisor editors and travelers. Read more

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United Airlines purposefully sought to ease into its introduction of its new credit card policy, presumably to test its workings and to avoid creating a stir. But with much of the nonair segment of the travel industry miffed at its prospects and politics coming into play, United’s new policy may soon be in the spotlight.

Travel Weekly: United could be headed for congressional hearings: United’s plan to cut off a number of agencies from its credit card merchant accounts could become the focus of congressional hearings as early as September. Read more

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Meanwhile, United Airlines could be a company to watch -- from Standard & Poor's perspective.

Seeking Alpha: S&P Not So Friendly to United Airlines: Standard & Poor’s has placed United Airlines NYSE: UAUA) on CreditWatch with negative implications, due to concerns about its cash flow and liquidity. This despite the fact that the airline company reported a smaller-than-expected loss on Tuesday. Read more

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The decline in leisure and business travel, coupled with adverse publicity about an AIG junket, contributed to the forfeiture of a St. Regis-managed property in Dana Point, Calif.

Wall Street Journal: Resort Where AIG Held Sales Junket Is Foreclosed: The owners of the 400-room St. Regis Monarch Beach resort, the site of a maligned retreat last fall for top sales performers of bailed-out insurer American International Group Inc., turned over the beleaguered property to its mezzanine lender, Citigroup Inc. Read more

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Expedia took a step to expand its footprint, striking a deal with an airline consolidator in India.

TravelBizMonitor.com: EAN signs deal with Travel Boutique Online: Expedia Affiliate Network (EAN) has announced a partnership with Travel Boutique Online (TBO), India’s airline consolidator. The Expedia global hotel portfolio consists of more than 100000 properties, which includes an extensive choice of one to five-star properties, individual guest houses and Bed and Breakfast units. The organisation’s size and scale enables EAN to offer the broadest spectrum of accommodation options at best prices, both in popular and emerging destinations. Read more

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Travel InsideOut is a Dennis Schaal Blog daily feature. Get a thorough-going look at the day's travel industry top and tangentially interesting stories. Feel free to comment on them below.

Travel InsideOut is Copyright (c) 2009 by Dennis Schaal. All rights reserved.

Brave New World of Google Travel 3.0

With Google’s recent introduction of City Tours and Favorite Places, speculation is rife that Google will 1) enter the travel market, 2) launch an online agency and become another Expedia, or 3) develop or acquire a metasearch engine to compete with Microsoft’s Bing Travel.

Of course, travel and advertising insiders know that Google already is a huge travel industry player, having become a king-maker ever since it debuted Google AdWords in 2000 and acquired Applied Semantics and its AdSense product in 2003.

Jonathan Rosenberg, Google’s senior vice president of product management, spoke publicly last week about how Google intends to make its travel advertising, and advertising in other verticals, more effective.

“I think it is the case on the vertical side that there is a lot of opportunity to get incremental monetization gains where you can further qualify the leads better for the advertisers,” Rosenberg told analysts. “So for example, the finance area and the travel area are areas where there’s a lot of opportunity to do that, so that you end up putting more information in the ad and then incrementally getting more information from the customer so that you can further qualify whether or not the customer in the finance area is interested in a particular type of mortgage, and then you send them to an advertiser with whom they are more likely to consummate a specific transaction that that advertiser is willing to pay for. So there’s a lot of opportunity there.”

But, clearly the early, but too-soon-to-call success of Bing and Bing Travel, may have caught the Googlers in Mountain View a tad off guard.

However, any Google further foray into travel is not just about Bing Travel, the metasearch and fare-prediction engine formerly known as Farecast.

After all, Google quietly unveiled Flight Links, a BookingBuddy-like flight-search engine, in October 2005 and at the time Google officials were adamant that Google would not enter the travel metasearch arena.

The prevailing thinking among Kremlin -- I mean -- Google-watchers at the time was that Google would not expand its presence in the travel industry because it would then be competing with its largest advertisers and that would crimp its AdWords program. Expedia, Marriott and American Airlines would be very angry.

But, as one industry wag reminded me yesterday, that was then and this is now.

The world has changed -- as it has a tendency to do.

Consider that in addition to Microsoft’s integration of Farecast into Bing Travel:

• Orbitz has relaunched Trip.com for air, hotels, cars, packages and cruises, featuring booking engines from Expedia, Hotwire, hotels.com, Priceline, Travelocity, Kayak, fly.com, Holiday Inn, Orbitz, CheapTickets and many more.

• Expedia’s TripAdvisor introduced flight metasearch.

• Travelzoo, which long has published deals and operated SuperSearch, entered the metasearch fray with fly.com. (A comparison of SuperSearch and fly.com is a good illustration of the differences between multi-booking-engine search and classic metasearch.)

• And, travel firms like TripIt, Kayak’s TravelPost, TripAdvisor and FareCompare, with its more than 170 Twitter accounts, are getting their social-media game-faces on.

The days when Google had to be overly concerned that entering the travel sphere in a deeper way would alienate its advertisers are long gone. Just look at Trip.com, BookingBuddy, igoUgo, BingTravel, TripAdvisor -- the list is endless -- to see incestuous travel industry advertisers participating in their competitors’ products and playing click arbitrage.

So, with a huge proportion of vacation planning and booking beginning with Google search, what will Google do next in travel?

I don’t think it will launch an online agency and become another Expedia. After all, the online agency business model is under pressure and that’s why we now call them online travel companies.

They are edging away from over-reliance on the needle-in-a-haystack endeavor of trying to convert hordes of travel lookers into bookers and are ratcheting up their media/advertising businesses. See Trip.com as the most recent effort.

Google could buy a Kayak or another metasearch company to bring Google's travel offering up to speed to compete against Microsoft’s Bing and Bing Travel.

But, with all of that brain power in Google Labs, it might not need to buy anything. After all, Google has operated Flight Links for years, and certainly has the know-how to do something special on its own in travel or travel metasearch.

A third path for Google would be to accelerate the development of its travel apps like Flight Links, City Tours and Favorite Places, monetize the hell out of them and roll them up into something new, as-yet-undefined and very Web 3.0-ish.

Whatever path Google takes to further develop its travel offering, one thing is certain: With apologies to Kayak and Bing Travel, there will be no debate that Google's offering indeed will have its own "look and feel."

Monday's Travel InsideOut

In travel, Google already enables flight search through online travel company booking engines, and now it is upping the ante by experimenting with City Tours. No monetization yet in the tours' current rudimentary form, but you can imagine the possibilities.

New York Times: Google Ventures into Travel: Google is quietly wading into the world of travel with the launch of Google City Tours, a trip planning tool that seeks to make “holiday planning as easy as searching the Web.” Read more

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Vegas.com turns to mobile ad campaigns for hotel bookings that are very last-minute -- often after the traveler has arrived at the destination. In Site59 lingo, I would take it a step further and characterize the ad campaigns as targeting people booking at the 61st minute.

UpTake Travel Industry Blog: Vegas.com hits Jackpot with Mobile Search ads: Google’s mobile advertising division has started providing stellar results for the search giant’s major desktop customers like Vegas.com. Read more

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Under congressional pressure, United blinked on its new credit card policy, which would have begun today.

Travel Weekly: United offers chance to delay start of new credit card policy: United Airlines, responding to a request by U.S. lawmakers, agreed to as much as a 60-day delay in implementing a policy that would cut off a number of travel agencies from access to its credit card merchant accounts. Read more

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Thinking SEO and able to segment its content, TripAdvisor branched into the family travel market.

Dennis Schaal Blog: TripAdvisor Launches Family Vacation Critic in its Own Image: TripAdvisor, with an assist from its Cruise Critic brand, last week quietly launched Family Vacation Critic, which adds into the TripAdvisor Media Network another hotel review site and advertising/media business. Read more

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Priceline looks to Booking.com as flight-booking fees appear to be history.

Yahoo Finance/Investors Business Daily: Name-Your-Price Keeps Travel Web Site In The Fast Lane: Web travel agency Priceline faces stiffer competition for online flight dollars now that bigger rivals have dropped booking fees, something it did two years ago. Read more

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Apparently the NTSB has many holes to fill in its investigation of what caused the hole in a Southwest jet's fuselage.

Dallas Business Journal: NTSB: Southwest jet had no obvious decay: The National Transportation Safety Board has released a statement saying the aircraft skin on the Southwest Airlines Co. aircraft that ended up with a hole in the fuselage earlier this week seems to be in good condition and there are no obvious signs of surface corrosion or mechanical damage. Read more

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Travel InsideOut is a Dennis Schaal Blog daily feature. Get a thorough-going look at the day's travel industry top and tangentially interesting stories. Feel free to comment on them below.

Travel InsideOut is Copyright (c) 2009 by Dennis Schaal. All rights reserved.

TripAdvisor Launches Family Vacation Critic in its Own Image

TripAdvisor, with an assist from its Cruise Critic brand, this week quietly launched Family Vacation Critic, which adds into the TripAdvisor Media Network another hotel review site and advertising/media business.

As with TripAdvisor, people can write reviews of "family-friendly hotels" without any proof that they have stayed at the property.

Family Vacation Critic represents a crafty move by TripAdvisor because some of the content of Family Vacation Critic amounts to a repackaging of TripAdvisor content -- and some of the repackaging is a carbon copy.

For example, if you look up Bishop's Lodge Resort & Spa in Santa Fe on TripAdvisor, you'll see that it gets a 3.5 TripAdvisor Traveler Rating.

If you scroll down and examine the traveler reviews by trip type, you'll see that 22 are family oriented reviews. And lo and behold, the review at the top of the heap is entitled: Beutiful (sic) lodge with a great view and very relaxing enjoyable time with family.

You know where I'm going with this, right?

You'll find a snippet of the same review on Family Vacation Critic if you scroll down the page a bit.

It's just a snippet of the review -- that's important.

Because when you click on that review to read more of it on Family Vacation Critic, it links you back to TripAdvisor.com.

So what TripAdvisor has done with Family Vacation Critic is launch a site that will bring it extra eyes/traffic, bring it new advertising/media revenue from the new site, and drive more visitors to TripAdvisor.com itself to bolster its traffic and advertising dollars there.

Family Vacation Critic's terms of use give it relatively free-wheeling use of user-written reviews. It's unclear to me whether reviews written on Family Vacation Critic can be posted on TripAdvisor.com, but I am betting they can. The terms state: "You hereby grant Family Vacation Critic the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display any message or photo posted or uploaded to Family Vacation Critic's forum or in our published user reviews (in whole or in part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or later developed."

So TripAdvisor basically is leveraging its existing relationships with hotels, adding some family oriented content to Family Vacation Critic to take advantage of a hot travel sector, and segmenting existing reviews and content from TripAdvisor.com to increase its already substantial footprint.

Sure, there are seemingly unique features on Family Vacation Critic, and the site is only in beta and will evolve.

For example, a Deals tab on Family Vacation Critic offers direct booking on the hotels' websites.

TripAdvisor doesn't have a Deals tab per se. Perhaps the Family Vacation Critic Deals tab will lead to a similar positioning on TripAdvisor.com.

After all, deal publishing and "deals" are hot, with existing entrants like Travelzoo and new entrants like getaroom.com and Voyij.com.

Family Vacation Critic undoubtedly will be an effective way for TripAdvisor to slice and dice its content, and to continue its impressive growth.

Updated: Wednesday's Travel InsideOut

Travel Weekly posted a new story , correcting a story posted in Wednesday's Travel InsideOut. Travel Weekly now states that United did not mail a letter to a second set of travel agencies about its new credit card policy.

Travel Weekly: United: Only one batch of agencies informed of new card policy: United Airlines informed Travel Weekly on Wednesday that it has sent just one batch of letters to selected agencies, informing them that they won't have acces to the airline's merchant account. Read more


San Francisco reportedly won an important round in the hotel-tax battle against Expedia and Hotwire.

Dennis Schaal Blog: Expedia.com, Hotwire Reportedly Pay $35M in Hotel Taxes to San Francisco: Andrew S. Ross broke the story today that Expedia and Hotwire wired some $35 million in hotel taxes to the City of San Francisco.

If true -- and I'm trying to confirm it -- the development is a shocker. Read more

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Orbitz continues to apply pressure on Expedia's hotel business by extending Orbitz's policy to reduce its own hotel-booking fees.

Orbitz.com Press Release: Orbitz.com Extends Hotel Booking Fee Cut: Orbitz.com (www.orbitz.com) today announced the extension of its dramatic booking fee cut on all of its hotels around the world. This move follows a successful promotional trial that began in April. Read more

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My colleague Nadine Godwin at Travel Weekly produced a trifecta in her unparalleled reporting on United's new credit card policy, slated to begin implementation July 20. Her three stories follow.

Travel Weekly: United informs more agents about credit card cutoff: United Airlines has sent out a second round of letters to agents, informing them that the carrier will cut off access to United's merchant accounts, effective Aug. 3. Read more

Travel Weekly: Alaska, JetBlue not matching United's new card policy: Alaska Airlines said it has no plans to cut off agencies from access to its merchant accounts when agencies book its air services. Read more

Travel Weekly: For United, credit card policy might have unintended effects: United is cutting off credit access for several travel agencies starting July 20, but if three affected agencies reached by Travel Weekly are any indication, the carrier won’t save much on merchant fees. Nor will it enjoy the consolation of eliminating GDS fees on targeted agencies' business. Read more

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A hole in the fuselage of a Southwest Airlines 737 jet triggers inspections and safety concerns.

Wall Street Journal: Southwest Incident Renews Maintenance Worries: Federal aviation investigators are examining a Southwest Airlines Co. airplane that developed a one-foot-wide hole in its main body midflight, a setback for the discount airline just four months after it agreed to pay a $7.5 million civil fine for maintenance lapses. Read more

YouTube: Video: Southwest, Boeing Inspecting 737 Planes: View it

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Expedia Inc. takes a step to integrate TripAdvisor's content with Expedia.com.

EyeforTravel News: TripAdvisor destination content now available on Expedia: Expedia.com has launched a new interactive Drive Getaway ideas tool. The tool, developed in partnership with TripAdvisor, provides users with ideas for driving-distance trips accessible from their starting city on a single tank of gas or less. Read more

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Travel InsideOut is a Dennis Schaal Blog daily feature. Get a thorough-going look at the day's travel industry top and tangentially interesting stories. Feel free to comment on them below.

Travel InsideOut is Copyright (c) 2009 by Dennis Schaal. All rights reserved.

TripAdvisor: The Beat (of Hawaii) Goes On

Jeff Tucker of the Beat of Hawaii blog has done some great reporting on the TripAdvisor hotel-review issue.

Tucker reported last month that TripAdvisor was posting warning notices next to the displays of hotels that were suspected of gaming the review system. (It turns out that TripAdvisor had been doing this for several years, but Tucker put it all together.)

And yesterday the Beat of Hawaii disclosed that many of those warning notices had disappeared.

Tucker counted almost 100 such warning badges in June, but found only a little more than a dozen in his latest tally.

I, too, have written about this issue extensively, and see that one hotel that I focused on, the Radisson Hotel Fort Worth - Fossil Creek, still carries a warning next to its display on TripAdvisor.

Tucker points out that Hotel Renew in Hawaii went from zero (it had a warning badge) to hero (there is no warning notice anymore and it currently is rated No. 2 of 101 Honolulu hotels) on TripAdvisor.

I don't expect TripAdvisor to disclose its one-on-one dealings with hotels, but it would be nice to get some input on whether the removal of so many warning badges represents a change in policy, righting a wrong or progress of some sort.

I don't expect TripAdvisor to greatly alter its hotel-review policy because it would hurt its advertising/media business by diminishing the number of reviews and would possibly blunt its growth tear internationally.

But, some sort of process to verify whether review writers actually stayed at the property in question would be, well, a badge of honor for TripAdvisor.

Update: TripAdvisor posted a comment on the Beat of Hawaii blog about TripAdvisor's practices.

It states: "There have not been any recent changes in our warning badge policy or implementation. As we’ve said before, these warnings appear on less than a fraction of 1% of the properties on TripAdvisor, and the exact number fluctuates over time. Each of the penalty notices has an expiration date; the duration that a notice is posted is based on both the nature of the violation and owner cooperation in resolving problem issues. When a notice expires, it comes off of the site.

"As a user-generated content site, we are highly committed to maintaining content integrity and providing transparency for travelers — that’s why we implemented the red badge system. We feel it provides both a heads up to travelers, and a strong disincentive for properties who consider trying to manipulate the system.

"Thanks. We appreciate your interest in TripAdvisor, and in our mission of helping travelers plan and have the perfect trip."

I then asked TripAdvisor what happens when a notice expires, but the issues have not been resolved.

TripAdvisor told me that "if the property still isn’t playing by the rules, then the red badge warning stays up."

So, then, in TripAdvisor's view, the problem with fake reviews must have been scaled back to miniscule dimensions.

We'll see.

Wednesday's Travel InsideOut

San Francisco reportedly won an important round in the hotel-tax battle against Expedia and Hotwire.

Dennis Schaal Blog: Expedia.com, Hotwire Reportedly Pay $35M in Hotel Taxes to San Francisco: Andrew S. Ross broke the story today that Expedia and Hotwire wired some $35 million in hotel taxes to the City of San Francisco.

If true -- and I'm trying to confirm it -- the development is a shocker. Read more

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Orbitz continues to apply pressure on Expedia's hotel business by extending Orbitz's policy to reduce its own hotel-booking fees.

Orbitz.com Press Release: Orbitz.com Extends Hotel Booking Fee Cut: Orbitz.com (www.orbitz.com) today announced the extension of its dramatic booking fee cut on all of its hotels around the world. This move follows a successful promotional trial that began in April. Read more

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My colleague Nadine Godwin at Travel Weekly produced a trifecta in her unparalleled reporting on United's new credit card policy, slated to begin implementation July 20. Her three stories follow.

Travel Weekly: United informs more agents about credit card cutoff: United Airlines has sent out a second round of letters to agents, informing them that the carrier will cut off access to United's merchant accounts, effective Aug. 3. Read more

Travel Weekly: Alaska, JetBlue not matching United's new card policy: Alaska Airlines said it has no plans to cut off agencies from access to its merchant accounts when agencies book its air services. Read more

Travel Weekly: For United, credit card policy might have unintended effects: United is cutting off credit access for several travel agencies starting July 20, but if three affected agencies reached by Travel Weekly are any indication, the carrier won’t save much on merchant fees. Nor will it enjoy the consolation of eliminating GDS fees on targeted agencies' business. Read more

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A hole in the fuselage of a Southwest Airlines 737 jet triggers inspections and safety concerns.

Wall Street Journal: Southwest Incident Renews Maintenance Worries: Federal aviation investigators are examining a Southwest Airlines Co. airplane that developed a one-foot-wide hole in its main body midflight, a setback for the discount airline just four months after it agreed to pay a $7.5 million civil fine for maintenance lapses. Read more

YouTube: Video: Southwest, Boeing Inspecting 737 Planes: View it

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Expedia Inc. takes a step to integrate TripAdvisor's content with Expedia.com.

EyeforTravel News: TripAdvisor destination content now available on Expedia: Expedia.com has launched a new interactive Drive Getaway ideas tool. The tool, developed in partnership with TripAdvisor, provides users with ideas for driving-distance trips accessible from their starting city on a single tank of gas or less. Read more

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Travel InsideOut is a Dennis Schaal Blog daily feature. Get a thorough-going look at the day's travel industry top and tangentially interesting stories. Feel free to comment on them below.

Travel InsideOut is Copyright (c) 2009 by Dennis Schaal. All rights reserved.

Palin, DialAFlight, Edelman on Blog Offensive

The blogosphere is under attack from sources as disparate as Sarah Palin, leading U.K. travel website DialAFlight, and marketing and public relations strategists who attempt to manipulate posts from Mommy Bloggers to journalists.

Palin is said to be dropping out as Alaska's governor largely because of mounting legal bills tied to her defense of various ethics complaints.

But, that didn't stop Palin over the weekend from giving notice to Alaska blogger Shannyn Moore that she might be subject to a defamation suit for noting that there are rumors that there is a pending criminal investigation targeting the governor.

Palin also threatened legal action against "those who re-publish the defamation such as Huffington Post, MSNBC, The New York Times, and The Washington Post."

As others have pointed out, there is nothing like a little First Amendment bashing and prior-restraint posturing on the Fourth of July weekend.

In the U.K., meanwhile, DialAFlight sued Darren Cronian of the Travel Rants blog, Grumbletext, Microsoft's Ciao, and threatened to sue TripAdvisor over a seemingly defamatory and unsubstantiated blog and/or website comment.

The Travolution Blog (and I contributed some information used in the post) rightly points out: "Anyway, the main point here is that a travel company [DialAFlight] has taken the most extreme measure it can in order to remove unsavoury comments on blogs and forums, regardless of the profile of the 'publisher.'"

After a two-week hiatus and after issuing an "unreserved apology" to DialAFlight, I'm glad to see that Cronian is back , and blogging away.

Marketing firms and my friends who labor on the "dark side" in public relations also have the blogosphere in their sights. Attempts to manipulate blogs no longer are on the bottom of their to-do lists, but are an integral part of their mainstream strategies.

The other day, a marketing pro followed me on Twitter and she offered to send me a "pitch" about a spa client she represents.

I would rather spend two hours in a steamy sauna than take such pitches.

Meanwhile, Edelman's Danielle Wiley outlined that public relations firm's social media strategy and focus in a Advertising Age interview.

The various attacks and the "attention" that blogs are getting show that blogs truly have arrived.

It may be time to duck and cover, and then keep on blogging, unswayed by the commotion.