Mobile apps appear to be de rigeur for any travel guide company looking to peddle its content to users when on a trip, but TravellersPoint has gone back to basics with a simple but effective email system. The Norway and Australia-based community company has developed a system where anyone can email the site with a country or city name in the subject field and almost instantaneously receive reams of travel content in an email or PDF. The founders claim it is one of a kind in the travel space as most other online content publishers require the guide to be organised on the website or a fee is charged to the customer.... Read More

Lufthansa plans to launch Amadeus Affinity Shopper on the airline's Germany and U.K. websites next week, and its introduction on Lufthansa's U.S. website could take place as soon as in two weeks, an official says. Marcus Casey, who heads up Lufthansa's global websites, says the new Amadeus shopping engine, which queries users about their interests and price and doesn't begin with dates and destinations, will have a direct link on the airline's home pages. Affinity Shopper, which will have new Lufthansa branding -- to be announced next week -- on the airline's websites, will be an add-on to the existing Amadeus-provided shopping and pricing engine, and thus won't replace it.... Read More

The apparent disconnect between what the CFOs say about how appalling the economy is for customers and companies alongside what investors think is never clearer than when checking share performance for 2009. And if the performance of some travel and technology firms is anything to go it is hardly surprising that the likes of Kayak, Amadeus and Travelport - to name just three - are being mentioned as likely candidates for an IPO in 2010. Take the three big publicly listed online travel agencies in the US.... Read More

Lose the Widgets: Simplicity is what makes good websites close sales. Too many websites decide that because they have that sidebar, they can fill it up.... Read More

In some ways, Spirit Airlines is very smart. It released a short video, a takeoff on the Tiger Woods domestic incident/fender bender, showing a tiger -- the furry kind -- crashing an SUV into a fire hydrant, and the airline then offers Spirit Airlines fares for $9 each way, and a "limited time only" $35 off coupon. I can't see much tie-in between the ad's crash portrayal and a pitch for low airfares or discount coupons. But, Spirit accomplished its ends and has no worries.... Read More

In the last couple of weeks, Fly.com, with a huge marketing assist from parent company Travelzoo, introduced 20 Twitter accounts, including LAFares, DCFares, CHIFares, BOSFares and SEAFares, and plans to tweet followers airfare deals from these airports perhaps three times a week. Deal-publisher Travelzoo promoted Fly.com's new Twitter accounts to millions of Travelzoo's newsletter readers in e-mails with the headline, "NEW: Real-Time Fare Alerts from Your Home City," and some of Fly.com's accounts have already picked up around 2,500 followers. The development signals that a battle royale is under way between Fly.com and fellow flight-metasearcher FareCompare and others for the hearts and minds of the Twitteratti over airfare deal alerts. FareCompare launched 170 Twitter accounts, such as flyfromLAX, early last Summer, but has yet to attract the kind of following for its individual accounts that Fly.com has attracted in a couple of weeks.... Read More

FEEL Air recently announced the launch of a long-haul, no-frills, "feel-good" air service between Stockholm and Oslo to New York and Bangkok. I had a talk to the chief executive and founder Kai Holmberg:... Read More

Write great copy. Writing great sales copy for a website can be hard, but just stick to this format and you’ll be ok, or at least on the right road: Headlines, Content and Call to Action.... Read More

Tnooz is a big fan of mashups and any graphical reproduction to illustrate how the airline industry operates. The buzz and traffic around our recent coverage of the Casper mashup of Schiphol flights illustrates that readers are too. So for this week's fix of geekness, check out this visual representation of every flight around the world over a 24 hour period.... Read More

Privately held Sabre Holdings -- heretofore organized into Sabre Travel Network, Travelocity and Sabre Airline Solutions -- introduced a new business division, Sabre Hospitality Solutions, over the summer and is readying a "hard launch" of the unit in early 2010. Felix Laboy, president of Sabre Hospitality Solutions, says the unit consists of SynXis, the CRS and hotel distribution company; Sabre media for hotels; E-site Marketing; and Sabre Hotel RFP. One of the early fruits of the creation of SHS is that the unit has been able to blend technologies from SynXis and E-site Marketing to offer hotels mobile websites and mobile booking capabilities.... Read More

Nothing seems to ruffle Expedia Inc. CFO Michael Adler as the globe's largest online travel agency is sitting pretty, at the top of the world. Addressing analysts at the Friedman Billings Ramsey Capital Markets Investor Conference in New York Dec. 1, Adler calmly states how he likes where the trends are trending, and sort of sums up the whole thing thusly: "We think over the last several years we've proven we know how to run a travel company." That may be true, but there was little pushback at all from the assembled financial gurus during a Q & A with Adler. There wasn't much said about Priceline's gains in Europe, about adverse hotel tax rulings in the U.S., or other competitive challenges, although Adler did mention how the fee-cut frenzy turned out OK as it stimulated a lot of traffic and transactions.... Read More

Trip planning and destination guide service PlanetEye has joined the ranks of similar sites with a new division to show off its specialist content and move to bolster existing media revenues. The Toronto-based company recently created PlanetEyeTraveler as a standalone e-magazine brand to publish destination-specific news, information and reviews. In addition, chief executive Jonah Sigel says, each article utilises the existing PlanetEye mapping technology which has gained the site plenty of plaudits courtesy of its unique and exclusive technology partnership with Microsoft.... Read More

Virgin Atlantic is embarking on a new round of development work for its much-hyped VTravelled social network and says only after that will it focus its marketing efforts on passengers. The site was launched in June 2009 to coincide with the 25th birthday of the airline and aimed to be a destination guide-trip planner coupled with sharing facilities for user generated content and photographs. Virgin will not say how many people are registered with the site ("we have increased registrations by 55%") but those listed on the site stretching from before VTravelled launched to December 2009 reach around 1,660.... Read More

Google hosted a private half-day conference yesterday for folk across the travel sector in the UK. Gracing the 150 or so delegates with their presence - and presentations - were the likes of Google UK boss Matt Brittin, futurologist Patrick Dixon, and officials from Ebookers, Hilton, lastminute.com and Virgin Atlantic. The idea behind the event is to "share insights, debate fresh perspectives and discuss best practices to harness the online opportunity for the travel market moving into 2010".... Read More

My Tnooz colleague Tim Hughes is a fan of the concept of Augmented Reality. And being a bit of a geek myself I rather like the idea. But is this an end or a step on the way and if so to where or what? Professor Chris – also from Down Under (where they clearly have too much time on their hands) – recently forwarded to me a very interesting piece from TED on sixth sense technology – wearable technology that interacts with data.... Read More