I was waiting for my suitcase this afternoon in Terminal C at Newark Airport, having just arrived on a Continental flight from Orlando, where I attended the PhoCusWright conference, when I saw a sign on the luggage carousel. It cracked me up. If you want to retrieve "odd size items" like skis, boxes and car seats, you'll have to meander over to the "odd size area behind carousel 9," the sign reads. Hey, it sounds like a lot more fun than walking over to a normal-size area to retrieve your odd size items.... Read More

TripAdvisor next year plans to introduce summaries of a hotel’s reviews – a way to provide a quick highlight of the gestalt of the property and its amenities – as a means for consumers to avoid having to wade through hundreds, even thousands of user critiques about a single hotel. That news came from TripAdvisor president and CEO Stephen Kaufer as PhoCusWright president and CEO Philip Wolf conducted an “executive interview” with him on center stage on the final day of the PhoCusWright conference in Orlando. Kaufer noted that the Bellagio, for instance, has some 3,100 reviews on TripAdvisor, a daunting read for consumers interested in the hotel.... Read More

Dubai-based airline Emirates is behind an amazing new Apple iPhone application which acts as a translation tool by taking a picture of the handset users mouth and then animates to produce a range of phrases. Built to translate English into French, German and Arabic by Lean Mean Fighting Machine in London, the app is a bit rough around the edges and difficult to set up - but it works. Here is a demo video.... Read More

SEO tip #2 - Outsourcing and cheap SEO: Although it may seem an attractive prospect, cheap, outsourced SEO options often lack the skill and knowledge required to produce results. Outsourcing link building can be dangerous as links built too fast or from “bad neighbourhoods” can damage your visibility in the search engine results.... Read More

The Affinity Shopper project by Amadeus IT Group won the PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit top prize after beating off competition in the final round from Translations.com, Gliider and EveryTrail. A reasonably worthy winner, some are saying, and an unusual one given that many believe innovation comes primarily from smaller companies who have to throw their efforts into creating something new in order to challenge the status quo. Affinity Shopper is a classic skunkworks project from within one of the largest travel technology firms on the planet, so kudos to Amadeus for attempting to create something it, and some others, say is a game-changer.... Read More

I caught up with Expedia Inc. President and CEO Dara Khosrowshahi this afternoon, a couple of hours before he was scheduled to appear on center stage before all the attendees at the PhoCusWright conference in Orlando Nov. 19. I asked Khosrowshahi, who was decked out in a pinstripe suit as we sat outdoors in the Florida sun, whether he expected to be breaking any news in his "executive interview" with PhoCusWright President and CEO Philip Wolf later in the afternoon. Referring to a recent contract battle with Choice Hotels, Khosrowshahi said he didn't think so because "we've made enough news lately." Khosrowshahi declined to get into any of the contract details, but said the Choice contract is similar to deals with other chains, adding, "I was confident we'd get it done." He said he didn't expect to see any major disruptions as larger chains' contract renewals come up.... Read More

Cheapflights has stuck rigidly to its price comparison model for over a decade but it turns out that the UK-based firm, which has established successful websites in the US, Australia, Canada and elsewhere in recent years, is diving into metasearch at last. Tnooz understands chief executive Chris Cuddy will reveal his company's surprise move in a session at the PhoCusWright conference in Orlando later today. At this stage the company is remaining tight lipped as to exactly how it will move into what is already a busy metasearch arena, countries it will target, technology strategy and any associated marketing campaign.... Read More

Traxo, one of the companies featured in the PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit this week and a fledgling trip planning and itinerary management service, is one of many firms that suffers when the tech-heads at Facebook fancy a change. Founder and chief exec at Travo, Andres Fabris, fresh from unveiling his new company to the wider travel industry, says Facebook notified Traxo a few weeks ago that it would be changing the protocols associated with its Connect tool. Now this might sound a bit trivial to some but, as Fabris admits: "It's a pain the butt."... Read More

Hugh Jones, president and CEO of Travelocity Global, and Barney Harford, his counterpart at Orbitz Worldwide, shared a stage at the PhoCusWright conference in Orlando Nov. 18, outlining their companies' growth strategies. Harford talked a lot about hotels and firing up OWW employees to focus on international hotel growth, where Orbitz is pursuing a modified retail model [consumers pay a deposit up-front as commission and the remainder to the hotel at checkout] in some Asia-Pacific markets. Jones told the gathering that Travelocity's focus would be to become a better retailer. He hardly mentioned hotels.... Read More

I have to admit that I was pretty much underwhelmed by most of the innovations at this year's Travel Innovation Summit at the PhoCusWright Conference. Although I have written about a couple of innovations that I really like, there is one innovation that seemed to get very little attention during the tcamp and post summit discussion is SpeedRFP. In a nutshell, here is why I like what SpeedRFP has done.... Read More

PPC tip #2 - Exploit the long tail: Google says that over 60% of searches made each day are new. Make sure that you build your campaigns to cover these long tail specific searches. Tap into this audience and drive online bookings by using individual hotel names rather than just resorts, as well as including specific dates.... Read More

I have followed several conferences in the last few months on Twitter from my desk, but this week I followed my first conference on the go from Tweetdeck on my iPhone, and it was a pretty interesting experience. The first day of PhoCusWright 2009 found me in transit from Boston to Orlando to get to the venue in time for the opening reception. Here was my travel itinerary and corresponding Twitter usage:... Read More

Tnooz conducted its first U.S. event last night, #tcamp1, starting at 9:30 p.m. at the PhoCusWright conference in Orlando, and it began a little raucously as big-wigs from #tcamp1 sponsors Amadeus, its sibling TravelTainment, TripCase and Tourabout sat on-stage to review the day's events, competing with the not-so-hushed voices of hob-nobbing attendees armed with alcoholic beverages. A section of the crowd -- representatives from all over the travel-techosphere -- just wasn't in the mood at first for another panel discussion after sitting through almost three dozen, 12-minute presentations at the Travel Innovation Summit earlier in the day, but Tnooz Editor Kevin May, the low-key, grand-master flash of the evening's town hall-style event, eventually got the throng's attention as he meandered throughout the room, microphone in hand. One of the most-speculated about questions was how many of the day's innovating presenters -- ranging from 10Best Solutions at 9:15 a.m. to Travelport's Journey Manager around dinner time -- would survive to pitch their stuff next year at this time.... Read More

The PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit is over. Of the 33 presenters, four will be chosen to go through to the Center Stage presentation and compete for the winner’s trophy. Here is my pick for the top four (and four more I wanted to pick but did not hear enough to know).... Read More

It's tough to be an online travel agency these days. So many booking fee cuts and a plethora of rate guarantees to navigate. Thus, Orbitz, feeling a pinch from the Travelocity Price and Service Guarantee, basically matched its terms by extending the Orbitz Low Price Guarantee to the gamut of travel websites.... Read More