Michael Bennett from Cheapflights.com gave a nice talk on Wednesday, encouraging airlines to consider new marketing methods as online sales (and advertising spending) grow. Mr. Bennett challenged the crowd to identify leading brands in the online space: Search? Google. Auctions? Ebay. Jobs? Monster. Books? Amazon. Each category killer an easy slam-dunk for the sleepy CASMA faithful.
What about the travel vertical? Can any brand dominate? FMV considers the question…
An Online Travel Agent?
Expedia may be the closest to domination, but the gnome’s not a believer, and neither are we – in ANY of the OTA’s. Count the reasons. Supplier-direct sites continue to improve their functionality without fees. The meta’s are gaining a voice and also cross-shop suppliers. What happens if the airlines start to experiment with holding back content? The OTA future value-added service proposition isn’t clear. We leave the rest to you.
OTA’s do offer a consistent storefront to shop and buy a complete travel experience. Is that really a strong enough advantage? We doubt it because many buyers don’t care. After all, not all air trips need a hotel room, or vice versa. More importantly, you can bet that sites with strong air and hotel brands are working hard to offer more robust purchase options for broader travel categories. In fact, go ahead and get it tattooed on your bicep: JetBlue, American, and Midwest Express airlines all said as much in the other morning session!
So a supplier site then?
Could a previously pure-play supplier sell enough travel to become a virtual Allegis, only an Allegis that’s tougher than Chuck Norris? Maybe an airline that’s a really savvy marketer sans the airline snobbery (e.g. Ryanair), but even then, the consumer base is simply too segmented. Try to picture a Willie Loman type booking three-hundred Motel 6 stays each year at SPG.com. You can’t, and neither can we.
So you’re saying it won’t happen?
FMV doesn’t see the travel killer looming on the horizon, but never say never. Well, maybe you could say never if Walmart, American Express, Kayak and Aeroplan weren’t around – but don’t get it tattooed on your bicep. Unless you’re Chuck Norris.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I tend to agree with your view of the dominance of OTAs and IMO, its fading and making way for the smaller guys like Kayak and my favorite, Sidestep. These sites are as you pointed out, able to give supplier direct prices without the fees that is associated with OTAs. As a result they get better fares the majority of the time. It will definitely be interesting to see how the travel sector changes in the near future.
Post a Comment