Groping for Group

Groople is starting to generate some buzz for targeting online group travel. They recently appointed Mike Stacy as CEO. Mike was also part of the Cendant/Travelport machine, initially heading up marketing and sales at Cheaptickets.com before leading efforts to integrate Orbitz after that acquisition. Stacy says that group is a $40 bil market not online yet. A number of sites have purported to offer group but it had always ended up in an email to the customer care centre to be fulfilled offline. Keep a watch on Groople to see if they (1) automate this and (2) make a stand-alone business out of it. The first is a big challenge but I think the second even more so. We have seen a lot of new and reborn second tier online travel business emerging in this latest internet flurry. Making new products into a stand-alone business will not be easy.