TRAVEL WEEKLY BUSINESS
ile Ryanair aims to be the ‘Amazon of travel business’. IAN TAYLOR reports from Berlin
TRIPADVISOR SAYS ITS MOBILE BOOKING CAPABILITY DOES NOT MAKE IT AN OTA
TripAdvisor has denied acting as an online travel agent (OTA) by allowing mobile customers to book hotels on its site. The travel reviews site introduced a hotel booking option for mobile users in the US last year and has started taking mobile bookings in the UK. The company now plans to expand the facility across Europe. Yet Tom Breckwoldt, TripAdvisor’s territory manager for Germany, Switzerland and Austria, insisted: “We are not becoming an OTA. You can book on TripAdvisor, but we are not managing the booking. We transfer it [to the hotel]. “TripConnect is designed for hoteliers. Bookings are transferred to the hotel system. The hotels own the traveller and are able to communicate with the traveller. The payment is done on the hotel side as well. “We have three models [for hotels]: business listings; TripConnect, which gives live availability and transfers a consumer to the [hotel] site; and TripConnect Instant Booking, where the consumer stays on TripAdvisor to complete the booking.” Breckwoldt told Travel Weekly: “We receive a commission [on bookings] but we believe there is a clear line between who is the merchant and who isn’t. As a hotel, if you get a booking, you pay TripAdvisor. If the OTA gets a booking, it’s an OTA booking.” However, analyst Vassilis Syropoulos
of Juyo Analytics, said: “I see TripAdvisor as an OTA. Who the consumer is paying
USE OF TRAVEL APPS IN EUROPE ‘LOWER THAN EXPECTED’
Travel consumers show little interest in using mobile apps despite the surge in mobile travel search, according to research. Online travel market research firm Phocuswright declared the use of apps by European travellers as “light” following a study of the mobile use of 1,000 travelling consumers over one month. Phocuswright consumer research director Marcello Gasdia said: “The reach of apps
KAYAK SCOFFS AT TRAVEL ON FACEBOOK, AMAZON AND GOOGLE
The head of travel search engine Kayak declared Facebook and Amazon “don’t know what they are doing” in travel and Google as “fun” but “inaccurate”. Kayak chief executive Steve Hafner said: “What
makes Google [travel] fun to use is it’s so fast – it’s not comprehensive and it’s not accurate.” Hafner added: “Consumers are used to Google
being fast and not being accurate. Kayak is accurate.” He said: “At what rate do you refresh content?
Tom Breckwoldt
“We are not becoming an OTA. You can book on TripAdvisor, but we transfer it to the hotel”
is a technicality. TripAdvisor is an OTA.” A TripAdvisor spokeswoman said: “This
[instant booking] is 100% live in mobile in the US and we’ve started to do a small proportion of bookings on mobile in the UK. We will extend it and roll it out in Europe.” Travel search and comparison site Kayak has also accepted hotel bookings via mobile devices since last year. Chief executive Steve Hafner said: “Users can complete a booking within Kayak. We don’t process the credit card or take the booking, we just pass it on.” ❯ Letters, page 29
wasn’t as high as we expected.” App use accounted for two-thirds of
respondents’ mobile web activity, with the typical user opening apps 25 times a day and spending 126 minutes running an app in the foreground of their phone. But Gasdia said: “Two-
thirds of app time was spent on email, social media and gaming. The uptake of travel apps was light.” Travel apps accounted for just
1% of the time, and the use of mobile web browsers was higher. Gasdia described the
At Google, they decided: ‘Hey we’re going to show everything in the catalogue even if it is sold out.’ At Kayak, we don’t do that.” Referring to rival search sites, Hafner said: “We
aren’t as aggressive on marketing because we don’t think it’s value for money. But some of our rivals don’t have a full product offering.” Asked about the entry to the
sector of online giants Amazon and Facebook, he said: “I don’t think either of those guys know what they are doing in the travel industry.”
Hafner added: Steve Hafner
“I hate the word ‘personalisation’. Any service that requires registration, you are going to lose people.”
idea that apps are taking over as “an illusion”. “The mobile web is thriving,” he said. “Travellers may spend a lot of time on apps, but not for travel. Most are active on only five to eight apps a day, and the average traveller takes only two or three trips a year. There is not much incentive to download five to 10 apps and keep them updated. “We did not see evidence of app users being more engaged
[than web visitors].”
The greatest travel app use was for airline apps “to check in or track flights”.
12 March 2015 —
travelweekly.co.uk • 77
“Travellers may spend a lot of time on apps, but not for travel”
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