CONTINUED FROM BACK COVER
Tod sees two issues holding businesses back: “Companies are not asking the right questions and not finding the right person to answer questions.”
He said: “They need to ask better questions. A bad question would be ‘Tell me the top pages on the website’ or ‘What pages do people leave most regularly?’ A better question would be: ‘Tell me the pages that new prospects leave most often and never return.’ “Knowing the top exit page is useless – it’s usually the homepage. A business is interested in where new customers fall out and don’t come back.” Tod added: “People research travel multiple times. So where they left the last time you saw them is what is important. You can start to reach an understanding of the root cause of departures. People most often leave a hotel site because there is no availability on the date they want, not because of anything to do with the page design. The conclusion might be ‘we need more inventory’.” Tod argues data expertise should be bought in: “It should be a critical hire in a company. It requires a very definite set of skills – a scientific set of skills – to work with raw data.” He suggests an OTA with 50 staff “could easily have a team of three or four” working on data analytics. Complying with privacy laws and
maintaining consumer trust will become tougher, he warns, saying: “No consumer says ‘I want to be tracked’. Why would they? We have to be hugely concerned with obeying the law. “Lots of people block tracking – look at the popularity of blocking tools. That is one reason you never get perfect data. “Most organisations have buckets of customer data and when the new Data Protection Directive becomes law, companies will have to track and delete data in all of them.” ❯ Matthew Tod is due to speak on ‘Unleashing the Power of Data’ at The Travel Convention in Slovenia on Tuesday, September 23. To register go to:
thetravelconvention.com
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travelweekly.co.uk — 21 August 2014
travelweeklybusiness THE TRAVEL CONVENTION 2014: Preview by Ian Taylor
BUSINESS MODELS: ABTA TOFOCUSON CHALLENGES POSED BY NEWONLINE ERA
Abta chief Mark Tanzer has warned that the industry faces a second online transformation which will leave no business model unchanged.
The association’s chief executive told
Travel Weekly: “We’re entering phase two of travel and the internet which is the real transformation. Phase one was based on choice and price comparison. “But consumers don’t want lots of choice.
Now the move is towards multi-platform – to online and offline rather than online versus offline – and travel is becoming more like a publishing business, with more emphasis on peer reviews and personalised content.” Tanzer said: “There are new consumer demands, there is big data and Google, and there is new airline capacity. “I don’t think a single company can say it has a business model that is going to see it through the next 10 years.” The theme of next month’s Travel
Convention is ‘The Power of the Personal’. Tanzer said: “The Travel Convention will look at the underlying changes in the market and ask whether people have business models that work. “We’ll ask how you cope with the changes and move to practical suggestions of how one can structure a business.”
SCOTLAND: ABTA WILL CARRY ON WHATEVER THE VOTE
Scotland’s referendum on independence will take place three days before The Travel Convention, with a ‘yes’ vote likely to shape debate. Abta chief executive Mark Tanzer said the association has not done any detailed planning for the changes an independent Scotland would bring. But he insisted: “We’ll continue providing services to our members in Scotland.” Tanzer wrote to the Scottish Assembly earlier this year to ask if MSPs were ready to
Tanzer: ‘Everybody has to look at their business model afresh’
He cited the rise of accommodation
rental site Airbnb and other peer-to- peer businesses as examples of the new challenges, saying: “People feel it’s unfair and a great commercial threat. “Is Airbnb paying tax? Are they looking
after health and safety? Are people letting properties legally?” But Tanzer said: “Travel is a sufficiently segmented market that there are lots of ways to succeed. If you get the proposition right, demand is still there. It’s about getting a model right for the future. Everybody has to look at their model afresh.” ❯ The Travel Convention takes place in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on September 21-23. Full details:
thetravelconvention.com
address the issues of financial protection for Scottish travellers. He said: “We’ve not had a clear response. Their assumption seems to be that things will just carry on. [However], we’ll be there to provide whatever services our Scottish members need.” Tanzer said holidays sold in Scotland and currently protected by Atol would be protected as non-licensable product by Abta’s bonding system in an independent Scotland. He suggested: “A vote to stay together
would give a fillip to the UK. “If it’s for independence, there will be
implications in Scotland – not just about the currency but the Scottish Parliament will have to make decisions about travel regulations, financial protection and so on.”
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