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November 15, 2007

PhoCusWright – Expedia CEO part II

During his closing speech at PhoCusWright, Dara mentioned briefly an effort at Expedia to re-platform their technology infrastructure. So what does re-platform mean? Often the plumbing aspects of travel technology are not a common topic at any show including PhoCusWright, but here the re-platform initiative has a direct bearing on how Expedia works with suppliers. It concerns re-engineering their middleware […]

November 15, 2007

PhoCusWright – Expedia CEO

Dara began with a nod to the new media based deal with IHG. He said Expedia’s focus is to change the traditional impersonal relationship with consumers to be more individualized. Three areas of focus: (1) email (2) Segmentation (3) Search experience – lodging search experience to the next level.(1) Email – described Amazon’s email follow-up after search. Booking window, length […]

November 15, 2007

Second Life Discussion-PhoCusWright Day 2

Cathy Schetzina led a discussion of Second Life with STA, Carnival Cruises and Starwood. The primary benefits of launching a Second Life site was described by the panel are PR and gaining experience in a virtual world. The panel agreed that the initial buzz regarding Second Life has faded somewhat lessening the value of free PR that was prevalent earlier […]

November 14, 2007

Live from PhoCuswright – Michelle Peluso CEO Travelocity

Michelle talked about general travel industry themes such as the need for better customer service, air schedule reform and economic indicators pointing to a downturn in the economy. She admitted that OTA interfaces have been stale for some time. She pointed to Travelocity’s Experience Finder as a different way to approach travel verses the traditional linear method. She emphasized the […]

November 14, 2007

Live from PhoCusWright Private Equity – Karl Peterson TPG

The PhoCuswright conference kicked off with discussion of private equity investment in the travel industry with Karl Peterson. Karl emphasized that PE is in for the long run. He disputed the theme of the recent Business Week article which used the term of “strip and flip” referring to the process where PE buys public company, extract profits and then splits […]

October 25, 2007

Kango

Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting with Yen Lee, president of the new travel search company Kango. For those who do not know Yen, he has an extensive background in online travel most recently as the head of Yahoo! Travel. So what is unique about Kango? The company is building a semantic travel search engine. Rather than simply displaying […]