Wednesday's Travel InsideOut

Some travelers may take a pass on this, but undoubtedly JetBlue’s phone lines are humming because it began selling a flight pass for $599. Purchasers get a month of no-holds-barred travel, to some extent. Let's see how this gets displayed in global distribution systems.

Los Angeles Times: A month of JetBlue flights for $599 with ‘All You Can Jet’: JetBlue Airways today began selling a $599 pass that allows unlimited travel on the budget carrier from Sept. 8 to Oct. 8. The pass, called “All You Can Jet,” which has set Twitter buzzing, could be a good deal if you plan to fly a lot that month. But not if you don’t, because it’s nonrefundable. And there are other catches too. Read more

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First, the travel industry’s best and brightest commented on this blog about the innovation failures of the online travel companies. Then, Forrester Research releases a report by Henry Harteveldt, outlining consumers’ frustrations with booking travel online. And, now iPerceptions published the results of its own inquiry, showing that potential hotel bookers are put off by the lack of usability of hotel websites. I think we are onto something:)

Hotel Interactive: Hotel Websites Failing to Meet Expectations: The hotel industry is potentially losing out of millions of dollars in reservations because too many people are not looking and then booking. No, this is not a case of people using these sites for research only. Turns out technology is the main culprit here and its shooing away potential travel buyers in droves. Read more

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If timing is everything in life, then Continental Airlines didn’t have much luck when it announced the beginning of a helicopter-service promotion for business traveler a day before last Saturday’s accident involving a private plane and a tour helicopter.

Examiner.com: Continental announces helicopter promotion 1 day before tour crash: Continental Airlines announced a Newark Airport-Manhattan helicopter promotion with US Helicopter one day before the Saturday crash of a Liberty Helicopter Sightseeing Tours helicopter over the Hudson River. Read more

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It’s an exciting day at Yale [hint: that’s secret Yahoo code for, well, Yahoo] as the company tries to reestablish Yale [you know, Yahoo] “mindshare” in light of the Yahoo-Microsoft advertising deal. To all of you travel advertisers out there -- get ready for some stick-to-the script talking points from Yahoo sales/spinmeisters when the partnership gets its wings a year or so from now.

Silicon Alley Insider/Yahoo: Yahoo CMO Talks Up Microsoft Deal In Internal Memo: Yahoo CMO Elisa Steele sent out a memo to her reports following the news two weeks ago that the company had finally outsourced its search to Microsoft. Kara Swisher landed a copy today. Read more

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Here’s a compilation of properties and chains on Twitter. It’s a relatively small list, considering the expanse of global hotels, but the ranks undoubtedly will increase.

Resideo Hotels: Hotels Using Twitter: More and more hotels are signing up on Twitter, so we decided to put together this list. It's most definitely, by the nature of the web, incomplete -- so please feel free to let us know (via email, Twitter or the comments section below) if you know of others that should be included. Enjoy -- and feel free to follow us on Twitter: @resideo Read more

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Oh, love – or is it lust – is in the air with the consummation of a partnership between Hedonism II and a swingers’ website. We hope it’s not all just a tease, but travel agents, in this deal, won’t have to split their commission with the website.

Travel Weekly: Hedonism II partners with swingers' website: A swingers’ website and SuperClubs’ Hedonism II resort in Jamaica have teamed up, and the partnership could prove a profitable connection for travel agents. 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

Here’s a Google crystal-ball double bill, featuring my interview with Google’s Rob Torres, and separately Alex Bainbridge’s post about how keyword bidding on hotel names may evolve in the next few years.

Dennis Schaal Blog: Google: We Won't Be a Copycat in Travel: After writing "Kayak's Hafner Awaits Google Hotels" and the "Brave New World of Google Travel 3.0," I spoke with Google's managing director of travel, Rob Torres, and learned a lot more about what Google won't do in travel. Read more

Musings on travel ecommerce blog: Google travel is coming… could it be a hotel PPC system?: I have been reading this great blog post over on Dennis Schaal’s blog. Kayak Hafner awaits Google hotels Well worth a read (and interesting comments too). 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. Read more

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Family strife reportedly is driving an IPO for Hyatt Hotels in the midst of the sort of down economic times that would make any family squabble. After the IPO, ownership wouldn't be all in the family, but they still would control the company.

Business Week: Though Hotels Are Slumping, Hyatt Preps for IPO: It has been a stock offering investment bankers have been drooling over for decades. Hyatt Hotels has a prominent brand name and a multibillion-dollar market value. On Aug. 5 the privately held company filed with federal regulators to begin the process of selling shares to the public. Read more

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Pundits are speculating that the Travel Promotion Act may take a back seat to the Cash for Clunkers goldrush as legislators seek to do wheelies to get out of town.

Dow Jones Newswires: Clunkers Vote Could Derail Tourism Bill Favored By Reid: WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The push in the Senate to approve a $2 billion extension of the popular "Cash for Clunkers" program could prevent Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., from bringing up a bill aimed at boosting the flow of foreign tourist dollars into the U.S.

The perceived urgency in extending the popular and economically stimulative clunkers scheme may leave no time in the crowded Senate schedule this week to turn to the Travel Promotion Act, according to several Senate aides. Read more

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It's going to be a long hard road to get the Yahoo-Bing agreement implemented and Yahoo has several out clauses if things don't go according to plan. Also, according to the agreement, Yahoo gets certain payments from Microsoft that weren't initially publicly disclosed.

Financial Times: Yahoo-Microsoft search deal has escape clauses: Yahoo’s recently announced search alliance with Microsoft has escape clauses that allow the top internet destination to pull the plug if the partnership stumbles, according to a regulatory filing late Tuesday. Read more

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From zero to hero -- suddenly online travel stocks have some legs.

Investopedia: Online Travel Stocks Taking Off: At the onset of the economic recession, online travel stocks were among the hardest hit last year. As recently as this spring, many of the companies in this space were trading at or near 52-week lows. Fast-forward a few months and these stocks look to be taking off on a trip to the top. 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.

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.

Thursday's Travel InsideOut

Oh, those doubters. Both the street and TheStreet.com express doubts about the Yahoo-Microsoft partnership, pointing to the distraction factor and the lack of “boatloads” of dough up-front payment for Yahoo. As the process unfolds, will travel companies place their confidence in Yahoo/Bing advertising?

The Street.com: Against the Grain: Buy Google: Marek Fuchs tells traders not to punish Google reflexively. View It

The Wall Street Journal: For Bartz, Some Potential Pitfalls Arise: Yahoo Inc. confirmed it will replace its search and search-advertising technology with offerings from Microsoft Corp., a long-awaited deal that could help the companies more effectively compete with Google Inc. Read more

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Now that Microsoft and Yahoo are cozying up to take on Google, what will that mean for Yahoo partner Travelocity and Microsoft subsidiary Bing Travel? Will it lead to a clash of online travel agency versus metasearch engine?

Dennis Schaal Blog: Bing-Yahoo Alliance Could Be Long-Term Issue for Travelocity: The ink barely is dry on the Yahoo-Microsoft search partnership in which Yahoo will use Bing technology as the default search engine on Yahoo websites and will lead both companies' sales efforts on CPC advertising. Read more

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Was it overkill when American Airlines filed suit against a former middle manager who took a similar job at Delta? After an adverse opinion, American moved to dismiss its own suit.

Travel Weekly: American moves to dismiss lawsuit against former employee: American filed a court motion to dismiss a lawsuit against a former corporate manager who left the airline to work for Delta in a similar position. Read more

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In fallout from the swine flu mess, Mexico City is offering travelers an unusual perk -– medical coverage.

Los Angeles Times: Mexico City offers travel insurance for tourists: Officials in Mexico City hope to lure skittish tourists with unusual bait: complimentary health insurance. Under a new program, tourists who stay in the city’s hotels are eligible for free coverage for emergency medical care, hospital stays, prescription drugs and ambulance services. Read more

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IATA says the outline for airlines appears "bleak" as cargo loads fell even faster than passenger numbers in June.

Yahoo Finance/Reuters: UPDATE 1-Airlines carry less cargo, fewer people in June-IATA: GENEVA, July 30 (Reuters) - Airlines carried 16.5 percent less cargo and 7.2 percent fewer people in June than the same month a year ago, with no sign yet of the global recession lifting, an industry body said on Thursday. Read more

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Major carrier Continental Airlines, playing catch-up with its low cost carrier rivals, is channeling some new mojo by installing satellite TV in seatbacks.

USA Today: Continental installing live satellite TV on planes: Venturing where only low-cost carriers have gone before, Continental (CAL) has become the first big legacy airline to offer satellite TV, a move that could push its peers to follow suit at a time when competition is the fiercest it's been in years. 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.

Wednesday's Travel InsideOut

Does Twitter's new home page disintermediate deal publishers a tad? The entire travel industry -– airlines, hotels, car rental firms, cruise lines, wholesalers, and destinations eventually will take note of the change that Twitter made to its home page yesterday, putting “search” front and center. All of these sectors eventually will be searching for ways to respond.

Dennis Schaal Blog: Twitter Travel Search: the Start of Something Big: Twitter relaunched its home page to emphasize "search," and the impact will reverberate for travel, financial services, lawn mowers -- you name it. Read more

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It’s a busy news day with the Twitter news above and this Bing-Yahoo development, too. A search partnership, which instantly makes Microsoft Bing a player, may be welcomed by travel advertisers as a hedge against the Google behemoth.

TechCrunch: Microsoft-Yahoo Search Deal Imminent: Analysts Weigh In: As we first reported yesterday, Microsoft and Yahoo are on the verge of announcing a complicated search and search marketing alliance that will combine the no. 2 and no. 3 players in search into something that may have a chance of competing with Google (although combined they will still have less than half of Google’s 65% or so search market share). The deal will be announced shortly after signing, and could come as early as today (Wednesday). Read more

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Jay Witzel is out as president and CEO of Carlson Hotels Worldwide.

Finance and Commerce: Joly takes over Carlson hotels: Minnetonka-based Carlson, parent company of Carlson Hotels Worldwide, announced a reshuffling Tuesday that will give Hubert Joly, president and CEO of the lodging, restaurant, travel and marketing giant, leadership of Carlson’s hotel business. Read more

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Barry Diller, the man who controls Expedia Inc. and IAC, is up to something again in the media business, pledging to "bridge the gap between traditional television and the Internet." Expedia meets Home Shopping Network meets YouTube?

Business Week: Diller, Silverman: Expect the Unexpected: You can go blind trying to keep track of Barry Diller's many twists and turns. The 67-year-old former TV programming wunderkind started as the ABC (DIS) program executive who brought America the Movie of the Week; became a Hollywood mogul when he green-lit Steven Spielberg and his Indiana Jones franchise for Paramount Pictures (VIAB); bolted to the studios, where he correctly divined that the Big Three TV world order was falling apart and launched Fox Broadcasting (NWS), which began fracturing TV's viewing audience. Along the way, Diller had a hand in perfecting the notion of online shopping when he ran QVC and then put online travel and concert booking into a higher gear after buying Expedia (EXPE) and Ticketmaster (TKTM). Read more

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A lodging industry analyst compares current RevPar woes to the aftermath of 9/11 and the pundit is pretty glum about the pace of a recovery.

Yahoo Finance/The Wall Street Transcript: Lodging Industry RevPAR Declines Worst Ever: All Segments Down Significantly and No Upturn Until 2011: n the following brief excerpt from just one of the 10 detailed interviews in the 44 page report, Lodging industry expert Smedes Rose discusses the outlook for the Lodging Industry and for the REITs specializing in that sector and picks high return stocks with sustainable dividends for investors in this industry. Read more

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Is Orbitz a phoenix rising or a company rolling a rock uphill in its attempt to build a strong hotel business?

Dennis Schaal Blog: Is Orbitz Poised for a Priceline-like Comeback?: I reported yesterday how Barney Harford, the Orbitz CEO six months or so into his tenure, is stirring things up at 500 W. Madison St., Chicago, in trying to come to grips with building the Orbitz hotel business. 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.

Monday's Travel InsideOut

Twitter, the social media site with the nebulous business model, apparently is getting set to make good on its pledge to start charging for premium services, including business accounts. In a move widely interpreted as a step in that direction, every Twitter page now has a Business link on the bottom, leading to Twitter 101, a business guide to Twitter. The business guide includes case studies, including the following one tracing the evolution of JetBlue’s use of Twitter.

Twitter: @JetBlue: It's Fun, But Does it Scale?: When JetBlue joined Twitter in the spring of 2007, it was one of the first major brands to do so. Today, the company has nearly a million of followers, and its account is often cited as an example of smart corporate twittering. But the company started out on Twitter with modest goals. It wanted to help customers. Read more

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Getaroom.com’s unpublished hotel discounts over the phone sound like a great idea so I dialed for dollars, so to speak, and put its value proposition to the test.

Dennis Schaal Blog: Getaroom.com's Phone Rates and Manner Fall Flat: I briefly and unscientifically tested the getaroom.com call center experience and wasn't impressed with its unpublished rates over the phone and its customer-service style.

Hotwire offered much steeper discounts for properties with the same star ratings and city areas in two instances, while getaroom.com's phone rate bested Hotwire's opaque rate by a few bucks in a third test. Read more

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With their Star Alliance collaboration given the green light, United and Continental plan to get very cozy in their technology relationship.

Travel Weekly: Continental, United to seek shared technology platform: Continental and United plan to forge a common information technology system as part of their new relationship as Star Alliance partners, Continental CEO Larry Kellner said. Read more

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Yahoo and Microsoft reportedly are moving closer to a search deal, an alliance that could positively impact Bing Travel if the partnership makes Bing a stronger competitor against Google.

Advertising Age: Do You Bing? Yahooers May Soon Search With Microsoft: NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Yahoo is close to making Microsoft's Bing its search provider. The deal, which would make Microsoft a more credible competitor to Google, is likely to be announced this week, and seems likely to be based on a revenue share, not on a big fat check upfront, as some at Yahoo had hoped. Read more

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Times are tough for the airline industry. But is it prudent to gouge your customers a bit more during the height of a recession by increasing checked bag fees?

Yahoo Finance/Reuters: AMR raises bag check fees for domestic flights: CHICAGO (Reuters) - AMR Corp (NYSE:AMR - News), parent of American Airlines, said on Friday it would raise by $5 the fee it charges to check a first or second bag on domestic flights. Read more

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Global distribution systems have their developer agreements, enabling third parties to build applications to their systems. But Farelogix, in making its Hawkeye point of sale application available for public download, did something completely different -- it released the application’s source code. Here's an update.

Dennis Schaal Blog: Open Source Experiment in Travel Industry a Modest Success: I was reading about open source Mozilla's challenges now that Google has entered the browser market with Google Chrome, and that reminded me that it was time to get an update about the travel industry's own open-source experiment. Read more

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In some quarters, swine flu concerns have subsided, but the problem promises still to be a thorn in the travel industry’s side. Britain recorded “a huge rise” in cases and started screening cruise passengers.

Times Online: Swine flu screening at UK airports amid fear that NHS could be overwhelmed: NHS intensive care services could be overwhelmed by a huge rise in swine flu cases, researchers have warned, as Britain’s port authorities started screening incoming passengers for the first time. 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.

Tuesday's Travel InsideOut

Hotel-security and privacy issues came to the fore with the revelations that ESPN sportscaster Erin Andrews was filmed naked in a hotel room. Details about how the incident occurred are sketchy -- the identity of the hotel is unknown, as is the filming method. Get ready for the hotel chain to take a brand hit, however temporary, if it is identified. And, the incident calls into question whether road warriors -- women and men -- need to fret about privacy in hotels or whether this was a one-time incident involving a celebrity journalist.

USA Today: How private are we in hotel rooms?: Female sportscaster filmed naked through hotel door peephole Breaking news: Word's spreading that computer hackers are using the promise of footage of a naked ESPN sportscaster in her hotel room - Erin Andrews - to spread a computer virus, according to USA TODAY's Game On. I hadn't heard about the footage until this morning, so I checked the Web and it turns out that the footage is real and made its way around the Internet last week. (No one to my knowledge has yet identified the hotel in which Andrews was filmed.) Read more

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Yahoo was slated to launch a new home page today, and the story below contains a screen shot. It will be interesting to see how Travelocity, the power behind Yahoo Travel, fares in the redesign in terms of home-page presence, and also the prominence given to various travel apps.

Wall Street Journal: Yahoo to Launch New Homepage Months Ahead Of Prior Schedule: Yahoo Inc. is expected to launch its new homepage Tuesday, months earlier than previously planned, according to people briefed on the company's plans. Read more

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ARC doesn't find anything not kosher about United's new credit card policy in terms of the ARC sales pact, but the jury is still out on other legal or antitrust issues if other carriers follow.

Travel Weekly: ARC says United's new policy doesn’t violate sales pact: ARC does not see United’s move to push some ARC agencies to be the merchant for air ticket sales as a violation of the ARC sales agreement, according to Allan Muten, ARC’s director for strategic communications. Read more

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With foreign carriers implementing pricey new surcharges, some analysts speculate that U.S. airlines will do likewise. FareCompare CEO Rick Seaney isn't buying into the trend.

USA Today: Foreign airlines raise fuel surcharges; U.S. carriers next?: Several foreign airlines are increasing fuel surcharges on passengers, raising the prospect that U.S. carriers could follow suit. Read more

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VisitEngland, which brings together the public and private sector for tourism promotion, will gauge industry and consumer sentiment on hotel rating systems and user-generated content. Will a booster organization like VisitEngland enable consumers to write their own destination or hotel reviews? Can anyone pronounce VisitEngland Advisor?

Travolution: VisitEngland considers user reviews in hotel rating shake-up: VisitEngland is to survey the industry on its Common Standards star rating system as part of a wider review which could see user generated reviews taken into account. Read more

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In the Google-Bing wars, the San Francisco Chronicle picked the "away" team, the Redmond, Wash.-based Bing, as the better search engine. Is there no hometown loyalty anymore?:)

San Francisco Chronicle: Is it better to Bing that Google?: Forget movie blockbusters. This summer's best death-cage match is shaping up to be between two technology Goliaths: Google and Microsoft. 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.

The Bing Travel Experience: So Far, So Good

In advance of Microsoft releasing its new search engine, Bing, I took Bing out for a brief test drive.

Bing has some features that are very cool, but I didn't see anything that makes me believe that Bing will significantly rain on Google's parade. (Although the impact of Microsoft's planned $80 to $100 million marketing campaign for Bing can't be dismissed.)

But, one area where Bing really sets itself apart is in the travel user experience (or UX, for you geeks out there) because Bing, unlike Google and Yahoo, has a travel innovator, Farecast, in its portfolio.

To be more precise and newsy, Microsoft has Bing Travel, a melding and rebranding of Farecast and MSN Travel (including Farecast for flights and hotels, and Orbitz for vacation packages, cars and cruises), at its disposal.

By the way, a side note to Yahoo: You decided to kill metasearch engine FareChase, but think how you might have leveraged it to enhance the travel-search experience within Yahoo search had you not been beholden to Travelocity and given the FareChase team some resources and clout in this post-Yahoo Travel, AOL Travel and MSN Travel era.

About Bing generally, one of its most appealing features is that when you move your cursor to the right of a search result, a box opens summarizing that search result.

This feature is huge because users can avoid all of those unproductive, back-and- forth clicks and decide up-front on an informed basis about whether they should click on a result.

However, I don't see this mouse-over feature as something that Google or Yahoo couldn't quickly emulate if they choose.

And, Bing has nifty Images, Videos, Related Searches and Search History features running down a left-hand column alongside the search-results page in an easily accessible, very clean-looking manner.

And, like Twitter's Trending Topics, the Bing homepage offers Popular Now links, which today featured French Open Tennis, Desmond Hatchett, Christina Aguilera and Jay Leno. (Meanwhile, Twitter's top two Trending Topics were #myweakness and, ahem, Google Wave.)

OK, so here's the travel angle.

The Bing preview version lists travel as one of only six categories or verticals (Images, Videos, Shopping, News, Maps and Travel) on the Bing homepage in a bow to the primacy of travel as a key Web category.

And, at least for flight search for now, Bing's deft use of Bing Travel, including Farecast's predictive technology, sets it apart from flight searches on Google and Yahoo.

For example, a Google search of EWR to LAX retrieves a Google flight-search box as the top result with a link to Flights from Newark, NJ to Los Angeles, CA, which defaults to an Expedia search. However, users can input their departing and returning dates and also conduct traditional, if unexciting searches of CheapTickets, Expedia, Hotwire, Kayak, Orbitz, Priceline and Travelocity in separate windows.

Ho-hum.

A Yahoo search of EWR to LAX offers no such shortcut at all. Kudos to Yahoo for its agnosticism, but users would have to scroll down to the relative boondocks of the seventh organic search result to access any reference to Yahoo Travel, powered by Travelocity.

And, now, Bada-Bing. (For international readers -- ha -- James Gleick defines the term as "American slang “suggesting something happening suddenly, emphatically, or easily and predictably; ’Just like that!’, ’Presto!’"

OK then, Presto.

A Bing search of EWR to LAX produces a much richer and more informational experience than do the Google and Yahoo searches.

The first result in the Bing search is what Bing Travel General Manager Hugh Crean refers to as an "instant answer." It comes with a link to "Cheap tickets from Newark to Los Angeles" and a "Fares Predicted to Rise or Hold Steady" graphic, both of which take the user to a wealth of tools from Farecast, I mean, Bing Travel.

Other links within the Bing instant answer resulting from an EWR to LAX search include:

$239 EWR>LAX
All deals from New York
All deals to Los Angeles
30-Day Outlook for EWR>LAX

Clicking on the graphic or main link in the instant answer brings the Bing searcher to an integrated Bing Travel page where the prospective traveler quickly finds out that Farecast predicts with 80 percent confidence that the fares will rise or be steady over the next seven days.

Users can then get details about Farecast's fare predictions, view fare trends on a calendar, search for flights (while filtering in or out their preferences) using Bing Travel metasearch or conduct one-window-at-a-time searches using booking engines from Hotwire, Expedia and Priceline.

There is just much more meat on the bone in travel searches using Bing in contrast to Google and Yahoo, largely because of Microsoft's acquisition of Farecast in April 2008.

Bing's introduction is an important development for the travel industry.

Big bad Microsoft (and it almost pains me to say this, given its legacy of Windows and Internet Explorer bullying) paved a new path when it put a travel search engine, Farecast, as the lead of MSN Travel.

And, now, Microsoft has given added weight to travel as a key vertical and has integrated it into part of its overall search strategy and not, to borrow a phrase, albeit out of context, from AOL, as some sort of "walled garden."

In the Bing preview version at least, travel has primacy on the Bing homepage. Consider that it has that prime real estate while the following are absent as standalone verticals: autos, real estate, movies, music and finance etc.

"Now we are part of an overall search strategy that will be in front of all consumers, coming through Bing and Bing Travel," Crean told me.

In fact, Crean is now part of the Bing search team, helping to develop overall search strategy, and he reports to a vice president of search.

Although Google is too, well, big and bad to admit it, I expect Bing's on-time arrival will hasten efforts in Google land to improve the travel-search experience.

And, that increased attention can't be bad for travel.

Bada-Bing.

Robert Reich on FareChase and Orbitz...Sort of

About a year or so ago, I wrote a story about Robert Reich, the former Labor Secretary. His book, “Supercapitalism,” argued that corporate responsibility is as meaningless as “cotton candy” because corporations can’t be moral or immoral, selfish or altruistic.
Basically, he said, you can’t attribute human emotions to companies because their sole mission is to improve the bottom line and bring dinero to shareholders.
I’m sure Reich wouldn’t disagree with me, though, that people make corporations tick, and behind every product launch, acquisition or bankruptcy, there are people in those corporations that either thrive or suffer.
Which brings me to FareChase and Orbitz.
I was sad to hear that Yahoo decided to shut down its FareChase metasearch operation. Assuredly, whomever was doing the grunt work over there at FareChase is either looking for another assignment or job because of the downsizing.
I visited FareChase in Kfar Saba, Israel, about a half hour from my cousins’ house, in 2001, and got to know the group of developers, who were doing some work for Orbitz at the time, and making a name for themselves in the U.S. market from a nondescript office in a small Israeli town, a few miles from the West Bank. Lior, Boaz … a great bunch of guys, and women, too.
They developed a great product, which will disappear in a few days, a victim of Yahoo’s new prioritizations.
Which brings me to Orbitz Worldwide. As I write this on March 14, OWW stock is at $1.29 and there are questions from investors about the viability of the company. Expedia’s dropping its own booking fees has put further pressure on Orbitz, which charges a booking fee. Orbitz still is dependent on air sales -- in contrast to Expedia and Priceline, with their great hotel businesses --and gets a majority of its profit from the booking fees.
Anyway, I hope Orbitz makes it. There are a bunch of good people who work there and they have developed innovative things. Orbitz led the way years ago with its TLC alerts to customers’ mobile devices, informing them of gate changes and delays. Much of the rest of the travel industry followed Orbitz’s lead on that one.
And, Orbitz’s Price Assurance program, mailing checks to Orbitz bookers if their airfare dropped in price after they booked, seems like an innovative and winning approach to me.
So, yes, corporations aren’t human and the bottom line is the bottom line for Orbitz and a ton of other companies feeling the pinch in these pressurized times. But, Orbitz offers competition, adds value, and a living for a bunch of good people who work there.
Priceline was in a similar position years ago, when it’s stock was teetering.
So, for Orbitz, let’s hope a comeback is in the cards.

Travel Metasearch Frenzy or Finale?

Yahoo has decided to scrap FareChase , effective March 25.

Say what? The decision comes as travel metasearch, or comparative shopping, seems to be kicking into high gear. TripAdvisor, bent on international expansion, recently launched its new metasearch air solution, and a few weeks earlier Travelzoo debuted Fly.com. .

There are a number of things going on that at first glance make it appear that Yahoo’s shuttering of FareChase, acquired by Yahoo in 2004 for $20 million and change, might be a unique situation.

First, Carol Bartz, occupying Yahoo’s CEO position since January, has the company focusing on all-things strategic and FareChase obviously wasn’t in the plans. And, second, Travelocity, which just renewed its agreement to be the air, car and hotel provider on Yahoo Travel, has sparred with Yahoo for years over the prominence that Yahoo gave FareChase on Travelocity turf….meaning Yahoo Travel http://travel.yahoo.com.

The thinking here is that Travelocity, which spurned participating in FareChase but now participates in TripAdvisor’s air metasearch tool alongside Expedia, may have played a key financial role in helping Bartz decide to give FareChase the boot.

However, along comes Yen Lee, the former general manager of Yahoo Travel and the current President of UpTake.com , who tells me that metasearch is “done.”

Say what (again)?

Yen was around when Yahoo bought FareChase and at the helm of the travel unit when the thing was launched. I was one of the people he tapped for the Yahoo Travel Search advisory council when Yahoo was looking for some input and feedback on FareChase’s development.

But, now Yen believes that metasearch is finished, largely because price differentiation for air, and hotel, too, is fairly miniscule. Especially when you consider that Expedia just dropped its booking fee, at least for now. (Expedia, by the way, has been experimenting with varying booking fees in divergent channels, including Hotwire, which doesn’t have one, either, for some time.)

So, if you search for a flight around two weeks from now from Expedia land (Seattle) to Yahoo land (San Francisco) using the TripAdvisor metasearch engine, you come up with a Virgin America fare ($139), an Expedia fare ($139) and a Travelocity fare ($146). Not much differentiation except for Travelocity, which is still charging a booking fee (as of this writing).

Not to mention -- which Yen did -- all of the price guarantees in the hotel industry, which make price diffentiation (metasearch’s bread and butter) a fleeting kind of thing.

So, are Travelzoo and TripAdvisor too late to the game? Is Kayak cooked?

What about a flurry of new metasearch announcements that one vendor tells me are in the pipeline?

I think Yen may be overstating the case. Despite the lack of price differentiation, the various metasearch solutions, including the predictive ones from Farecast http://farecast.live.com/? and Farecompare www.farecompare.com, still have a lot of value as aggregators and they are poised to cash in on the burgeoning media biz. Anyone who recently has spent a few hours trying to sort out flight options when trying to book a trip can attest to their worth.

And, the online travel agencies, with their allegedly broken business models, were supposed to be dead by now, too.