The age of hybridization does not seem to be confined to airlines. We now have a new form emerging - hybrid intermediaries.
Strictly speaking it really isn’t that new - for the past 15 years, since the first online travel agencies appeared, there has been open warfare between most of the traditional travel agencies and the traditional agency intermediary.
This is a battle that the smaller independent agencies have largely lost.
In the early days of Expedia, a joint venture was formed called AXI – created to provide Expedia Technologies combined with American Express’s back end and customer services.
It eventually foundered due to widely differing expectations of the two parties, then Microsoft and American Express Travel Services.
In the early part of the new century – the OTAs started to evaluate how they might leverage their expertise in the traditional agency space.
So the major players – Travelocity (who already had purchased a corporate entity and renamed it GetThere), Expedia (who purchased a Seattle based agency amongst several others, now named Egencia) and Orbitz (who started Orbitz for Business from scratch) put down a TMC footprint.
And now the latest incarnation of the tentacles of the OTA is based on the model that the OTAs are offering their services to the traditional agency community.
Expedia has offered for many years a program that allows agencies to make commission on selling some products - such as hospitality - from the Expedia supply chain system.
Orbitz was first out of the box last week with their “Orbitz for Agents” program.
Not to be outdone Expedia has brought to the US market its UK travel agent-friendly offering TAAP (standing for the catchily named Travel Agency Affiliates Program), which of course should not be confused with TARP (which we all now know stands for Troubled Asset Relief Program.
[There is of course no truth to the rumour that internally at Expedia’s offices in Bellevue that the original Expedia project name was to be TARP for Travel Agent Resuscitation Program.]
The programs work on the basis of a fee for the access to the program (£40 or $100). In return for this the programs offer access to the OTAs buying power.
Orbitz is offering for the first 50 agencies who sign up and transact, preferred rates for one year, thus indicating they don’t have lofty goals for the project.
Expedia is waiving the fee to those who sign up and transact before the end of April. The Expedia program is also rolled out worldwide with offers in Asia-Pacific as well as The Americas and Europe.
No word from Travelocity who might feel a tad conflicted on the subject.
Just chalk this one up to more fragmentation and more co-opertition in the intermediary space.
With the big OTAs now offering just about every possible version of an intermediary – is there anything that they do not touch?
And that is just on point for their strategy - to be the big 800-pound gorillas in the intermediary space.
As we can see from the US based ARC Reporting – the non-mega and non-OTA business is not doing as well as the big guys. http://www.arccorp.com/agtsegment/index.jsp
Those signing up for the program might want to ask themselves how these programs can help them differentiate their products and services, or are they becoming just another cog in the giant machine.
The age of hybridization does not seem to be confined to airlines. We now have a new form emerging - hybrid intermediaries.
Strictly speaking it really isn’t that new - for the past 15 years, since the first online travel agencies appeared, there has been open warfare between most of the traditional travel agencies and the traditional agency intermediary.
This is a battle that the smaller independent agencies have largely lost.
In the early days of Expedia, a joint venture was formed called AXI – created to provide Expedia Technologies combined with American Express’s back-end and customer services.
It eventually foundered due to widely differing expectations of the two parties, then Microsoft and American Express Travel Services.
In the early part of the new century – the OTAs started to evaluate how they might leverage their expertise in the traditional agency space.
So the major players – Travelocity (who already had purchased a corporate entity and renamed it GetThere), Expedia (who purchased a Seattle based agency amongst several others, now named Egencia) and Orbitz (who started Orbitz for Business from scratch) put down a TMC footprint.
And now the latest incarnation of the tentacles of the OTA is based on the model that the OTAs are offering their services to the traditional agency community.
Expedia has offered for many years a program that allows agencies to make commission on selling some products - such as hospitality - from the Expedia supply chain system.
Orbitz was first out of the box last week with their Orbitz for Agents program launched a few weeks back.
Not to be outdone Expedia has brought to the US market its UK travel agent-friendly offering TAAP (standing for the catchily named Travel Agency Affiliates Program), which of course should not be confused with TARP (which we all now know stands for Troubled Asset Relief Program.
[There is of course no truth to the rumour that internally at Expedia’s offices in Bellevue that the original Expedia project name was to be TARP for Travel Agent Resuscitation Program.]
The programs work on the basis of a fee for the access to the program (£40 or $100). In return for this the programs offer access to the OTAs buying power.
Orbitz is offering for the first 500 agencies who sign up and transact, preferred rates for one year, thus indicating they don’t have lofty goals for the project.
Expedia is waiving the fee to those who sign up and transact before the end of April. The Expedia program is also rolled out worldwide with offers in Asia-Pacific as well as The Americas and Europe.
No word from Travelocity who might feel a tad conflicted on the subject.
Just chalk this one up to more fragmentation and more co-opertition in the intermediary space.
With the big OTAs now offering just about every possible version of an intermediary – is there anything that they do not touch?
And that is just on-point for their strategy - to be the big 800-pound gorillas in the intermediary space.
As we can see from the US based ARC Reporting, the non-mega and non-OTA business is not doing as well as the big guys.
Those signing up for the program might want to ask themselves how these programs can help them differentiate their products and services, or are they becoming just another cog in the giant machine.