801 not out

Another 100 posts are live on the InterTubes. Time again for my regular "not out series" recap where I go through the last 100 posts and remind you of the themes that have been dominating the blog. I started almost three years ago with 101 not out and continued with 201, 301, 401, 501. 601, and 701 not out. This comes at a time that the BOOT passed the 100k visitor mark.

Two new segments for the Blog

• Seat Reviews including Qantas Economy, Qantas Premium Economy, JAL Business, BA Business, Singapore Raffles and United Business ; and
  
• Business traveller tips - what to pack, what to wear and getting through security.

Meta search action a-plenty which I tried to summarise in my post "Meta-search vs Online Travel Agents: the three main differences and why they matter"

• TripAdvisor launching air meta-search and received criticism (including from me) for allowing too many reviews from non-travellers
  
• Travelzoo launching Fly.com
• Kayak branching into content and review meta-search through expanded Travelpost
• Yahoo! went the other way and euthenased FareChase
• Cheapflights launched in Australia with a sub-par product
• Car meta-search company Oodles topped the car traffic numbers in Australia
• Sidestep founders came back with the oddly named Voyij
  

While also having time for Travel Discovery and Inspiration sites such as:

• event based search site Joobili
• the high profile Triporati
• data loving Tripbase

...and we found out how much Expedia paid for VirtualTourist and OneTime

BOOT interview mania with start ups and industry shakers

• Alfonso Castellano of TripSay (part 1 and 2)
• AsiaRoom came out of the closet, launched direct contracting and the BOOT found out more about them and their TUI ODS stable-mates including revenue numbers
  
• Jim Hornthal of Triporati
• Yen Lee of Uptake
• Reuven Levitt of Tripbase (part 1 and 2)
• Steve Hafner of Kayak
  

oh...and...a plane actually landed on water

701 not out

This last 100 posts has flown by. It is time for my regular "not out series" where I recap the last 100 posts and remind you of the themes that have been dominating the blog. I started almost three years ago with 101 not out and continued with 201, 301, 401, 501. and 601 not out.

I spent a lot of the last 100 posts attending and covering the big online travel conferences of Oceania, Asia and the US. A couple of highlights:

From TRAVELtech in Sydney

• Richard Noon of Webjet estimating the Australian turnover of Expedia, Zuji and Travel.com.au; and
  
• WorldNomads the inspiring Footprints charity program with the fantastic marketing and conversion benefits.

From Eyefortravel in Sydney

• Me talking about helping consumers navigate too much information;

From WebInTravel in Singapore

• Alfred Chang of Ctrip sharing his views of the market share "online" in China;
• Ram of PhoCusWright hosting an interesting round table on India with heads from Makemytrip and Yatra; and
  
• Phillip Wolf and Ram Badrinathan of PhoCusWright and me talking about online travel, Google, UGC, the Economy and (of course) Asia.
  

From PhoCusWright in LA

• I tried to sort out all of the trip planning sites and mobile applications;
• We heard interesting stories from the bosses of Expedia, Priceline and Kayak; and
• We came across the interesting way in which an offline publisher in Germany (MairDumont) is supporting and online trip planner (TripWolf).
  

While I was busy at Gabfests the world went into an economic death spiral:

• XL went bust, Alitalia too (kind of); But
  
• Uptake, HomeAway, and TripWolf managed to raise some money, bucking the trend.
  

I touched on some (in my view) interesting themes including

• Whether or not BA did a good or bad job point all of their Highlife content online;
• Whether or not Google has too much influence over how we design our websites and content strategies; and
• Whether or not you should use paid search as a place for a he said, she said bitch fight.
  

And in BOOT news

• We watched live on the Internet as a family member escaped from the horrors of the attacks on Mumbai
  
• We hit 1,000 subscribers;
• You heard me talk to Addison Schonland;
  
• I saw a man die at Hong Kong airport;
  
• We joined the Recombobulation Revolution!!!
  

I'm having a blast writing, I hope you are enjoying the reading.

PS - in case you happen to be counting this is actually post 703

601 not out

Every hundred posts I do a quick summary of what has been dominating the blog. A regular "not out series" to keep readers up to date. Started first with 101 not out and continued with 201, 301, 401 and 501 not out.

A number of different industry themes came out in the last few months

• Gotcha Capitalism - how companies (including travel companies like Budget) hide fees and charges that undermine the advertised price. Not even Moose Hunters are safe.
  
• Airline Bad news is everywhere - bad news days for airlines became band news months and weeks. But clearly it is all the fault of those thieving, stealing, cheating oil speculators
  
• Start up changed names as the URL trading industry heated up - Kango became UpTake, Vailoma became TripSay and Bezurk became Wego
• BAR - I argued that BAR does not build brand in hotels
• India - Expedia entered the market, maybe bought a slice of TravelGuru and Ram from PhoCusWright and I talked and talked about what this meant for a heating up region. Revenue Management seems to be the first thing to be burned
  
• Content: is there money in it and if so what is the mode?. TripAdvisor think so and are buying up everything they can to prove it. The money is also starting to flow in Asia. But there is also trouble as the eyeball chasing advertisers are beginning to hold onto their money
  
• Last-minute model on hiatus: I called the Last-minute booking model on hiatus and maybe dead (model not company). Others picked up the story (without crediting me); and
• Mobile : I started the first in a series of thoughts on mobile technology and online travel.
  

And on the fun/quirky/ranting side

• Qantas to decided to give up on rewarding frequent flyers by introducing a flawed and plain out nasty to consumers AnySeat rewards program. You now have to fly to the moon (literally - 2.5 million miles) to be able to book a first class seat to New York
  
• BOOT made it into the Australian Financial Review but that did not stop Google from accusing me of being a Spam merchant
  
• We had a first competition on the BOOT with rude consequences
• As always the most consistent part of the blog - that no matter how much hope it wont be the case, the in-flight entertainment system on Qantas failed again and again; and
  
• Phillip Wolfe of PhoCusWright (with a lot of help from Rod Cuthbert of Viator) brought together a great group of online travel players in Sydney. The BOOT tried to the same thing in London and ended up with a much smaller (but no less interesting) group of bloggers.

And the BOOT got his butt kicked with a genuine, take not prisoners, hopefully never to be seen again Royal Flush.

I am still writing, hope you are still reading.

501 not out

Time has passed and the posts keep flowing. Time for my "not out series" - a regular summary of the last 100 posts that I first started with 101 not out and continued with 201 , 301
and 401.

Just like the 401 update it has been deals, deals, deals that has dominated the last 100 BOOT rants:

• Wotif evenutally managed to by Travel.com.au/Lastminute.com.au despite a fight from Webjet and a cunning move from AOT. Followed up almost immediately buying Asia Web Direct;
• TripAdvisor launched a new version and continued its targeted site buying spree with HolidayWatchdog;
• TravelCLICK was sold to Genstar and the BOOT called it first;
• The Asian acquisition bonanza continued as Priceline returned to the market though an acquisition of Agoda, ;
• Sidestep disappeared in a flood of newly raised Kayak cash; and
  
• Venere bought Worldby.
  

Cash flowed into online travel:

• Fastbooking took Euro35mm;
  
• Worktopia grabbed $5mm;
  
• Bezurk got "an undisclosed sum" from News;
  

I spent some interesting times on the phone doing start up interviews with:

• Yen Lee of Kango;
  
• Gregg Brockway of TripIt;
  
• Martin Symes of Bezurk; and
• Kellie Pelletier of Kayak.

In the weird world of quirky news:

• bags fell from the sky;
  
• The president of Sri Lanka got bumped and was not happy about it;
  
• Man fired dog and bragged about it; and
  
• nobody, I repeat nobody is doing anything naughty naughty in the new Singapore Airlines double bed suites.

Oh and Qantas turned from being the flying Kangaroo to the thieving Rat.

But I saved my most angriest post for number 400 - the last in this seasons. When the new Australian government said they were doing me a favour by continuing to allow Qantas to over charge me on flights to America.

If you're still reading then I'm still writing.

401 not out

Time for my "not out series" - a regular summary of the last 100 posts that I first started with 101 not out and continued with 201 and 301.

Without a doubt this recent period of posts on the BOOT have been dominated by consolidation and deals:

• Lonely Planet admitted that it could not meet the challenges of the Internet on its own and sold out a majority stake to the enterprise division of the BBC;
• Opodo shed Karavel with the story being broken by an blogger from the inside;
• TUI made a bad decision in buying asiarooms and once again search traffic predicted a deal;
• the battle for Travel.com.au (who now own the lastminute.com brand outright in AU/NZ) is not yet over with Webjet and Wotif at each others throats and AOT sitting not so quietly on the sidelines;
  
• Rakuten made some healthy profits and set itself for further expansion by selling out of Ctrip;
• the Flight Centre privatisation fell in a heap in an embarrassing way for the Flighties board;
  
• rumours flew that Priceline want Travelzoo and the comments section filled up with a debate on the merits of this idea; and
  
• we have the as yet to be confirmed rumour that TravelCLICK are about to be bought.
  

In other general news

• every media outlet there is ran a story about how bad the US air industry is prompting me to run my own series of the Airline Industry brought to you by BusinessWeek, the Legal Fraternity, Wharton, NPR, the Economist and Pizza Hut. Conclusions were that the US air traveller is stuffed and no-one is taking responsibility. In fact Marion Blakely quit as head of the Federal Aviation Authority to join the peak airline lobby group the Aerospace Industries Association;
• the T-List is soon to be a book. The BOOT submitted three stories:
• UGC vs Editorial. What's better? What's the balance? What's more 2.0?;
• Helping Airlines Stay on top; and
• the fourth phase of online travel - "too much information"; and
• it looks like Dead Herring for Red Herring.
  

and in quirky news

• one muppet shouted at two others;
  
• a lion, a crocodile and a buffalo tried to sort out their differences the old fashioned way; and
• the BOOT saved the world by defusing a jar of olives.

I hope you're enjoying reading because I am enjoying writing.

301 not out

Time for the speedometer post following on from 101 not out and 201 not out where I look at the last 100 posts on the BOOT.

My thoughts in the last 100 posts have been mostly around branding and loyalty in community and page view based models (so called Travel 2.0) and in the Generation Y consumer:

• First broke down online travel into three phases - "Find me a cheap ticket", "help me with a hotel recommendation" and now "what do I do next";
  
• Then looked at the concept of building and maintain scale in these services. While the costs of market entry are much lower than for retailers, the burden of innovation to retain loyalty i higher;
• Next discussed whether or not there was a "middle ground"in response to comments from Ian McCaig of Lastminute.com; and
  
• Finally, looked at loyally in Generation Y comparing three styles of branding - Revlon branding, Harry Potter branding and Night Club branding.

On the general news and commentary front;

• offered a bit of advice to airlines that may or may not be low cost any more and those trying to run non-airline brands;
  
• introduced guest editor Mike Potts of e-interactive who put up a number of stories (here, here and here for example). I asked for others to come forward (with no response);
• proved that I am going soft in 2007 by giving snaps Lonely Planet and defending Qantas;
  
• saw the dead rise with Ryanair and Expedia cutting a deal for Expedia to take over the Ryanair Hotels business;
• watched the battle in China is being won by ctrip as eLong lost a CEO and went back into the red;
  
• helped spread the tech meme of the T-list with a small start then see it explode into an overwhelming number of links;
  
• started a vicious rumour about Amadeus in France;
  
• wondered why pilots were suddenly drinking more than usual (and then trying to stumble into the cockpit);
• of course it would not be the BOOT without random animals with a story on rampaging rabbits in Milan; and
• finally - gave the wife a moment to scream for the sanctity of the hills of Tuscany.

Hope you enjoying reading, I am enjoying writing.

201 not out

If doing it twice makes a tradition, welcome to the traditional BOOT speedometer post marking 201 entries in the blog (101 not out is here).

The last 100 posts have clearly been dominated by meta search companies with my Business of Meta-Search Travel (BOMST) side line including:

• Boom time capital raisings for Sidestep, Farecast and a mind blowing round for Fare.net;
• Content deals, UGC deals, elephant deals and product launches a-plenty for Sidestep, Kayak, Lonely Planet and Bezurk; and
• Debates, advice and interviews with start ups Hotelsbycity, Asiatravelmarket and Travelpost.com (in fact I still owe Hotelsbycity an answer)
  

But the other sectors were just as busy:

• The PE firms went crazy buying everything in sight - Flight Centre, Qantas and Sabre.
  Even the smaller guys had a taste of the PE goodness with eDreams and GoVoyages joining the feast;
  
• Qantas managed to annoy me even more than usual by first ignoring me, then playing a game of "no it doesn't" every time someone told them that the Qantas VOD system was busted and finally by being involved in a mile high story what wasnt;
  
• Travelport continued its acquisition fever by merging Worldspan into its Galileo business. In a display of the power of search engines and search logs - the BOOT called the deal early based on record traffic from Atlanta, Denver and Parsippany to the BOOT in the weeks leading up to the deal;
  
• The Transportation Security Agency in the US went a bit crazy and started arresting every Tom, Dick and Harry;
  
• I went a bit video crazy with new business seats that are just plain old, 1950s nostalgia that looks a lot like 2007 marketing and a poker vid makes to sweat more than a Friday night stand-by; and
  
• I bade farewell to full time venture capital work at Netus (though I am helping them out on a project part time at the moment)
  

Things to watch in the next 100 (ie my predictions) are:

• Priceline changing its approach to Asia. With the Hutchison Whampoa group no longer a shareholder and the Asian growing fast - Priceline has to make a new move;
• Heating up in the full service online battle in Australia as Webjet, Travel.com.au, Expedia and Zuji all launch new products but all of them will fail to achieve the growth rates of the hotel only leaders Wotif.com and HotelClub/RatesToGo;
• More rumours and maybe a deal or two around the Travelport break up;
• Even more meta-search and UGC/Travel social networking launches in Asia Pacific, Europe and America; and
  
• More consolidation between the offline players (like the MyTravel-Thomas Cook deal in Europe and the MFS/S8 merger in Australia) as they try and make up for missing the online revolution.
  

And finally through some strange quirk that I did not plan, we had a lot of animals on the blog in this 100 from elephants to dinosaurs to suicide bomber donkeys.

Oh- and England won (some of) the cricket.

101 Not Out

Have now completed more than 100 posts in this blog and am enjoying myself - hope you are too. Being part of a smaller team focused on more than the travel biz I was missing having people to rant at. Nothing beats coming out of your office and ranting (in)coherently at people who have to look like they're interested because you are their boss..but this comes close.

Lots has happened in a hundred posts

• Wotif floated, did its first major online marketing deal and hinted at acquisions
• Webjet (eventually) put together its hotel strategy, came out with some big results (and charges) and is working on some creative marketing plans
• I ranted about Qantas and the the airline gods paid me back by sending me to Brisbane and denying me a chance to walk around Tokyo and charging me a fortune for free tickets
  
• Expedia went live in Australia, raised a shed load of money for as yet unknown reasons and (presumably) fired their auditors for being idiots
• Travelocity branding spread to Asia and the CEO was so excited about the product that he ...well...quitely mentioned it to a few friends
• The boom came back because RedHerring said so and meta-search is attracting millions
• Oh...and a few things happended at Cendant/Travelport but I wasn't really paying attention....

Hope you have enjoyed the story so far