As the Expedia-Choice Hotels contract battle enters the next phase, their strategies are emerging as Expedia sought to woo franchisees and Choice accused Expedia of evolving from supplier to revenue manager. In a sort of disintermediation move, Expedia Inc. went directly to Choice franchisees, attempting to woo them in a communique, obtained by Tnooz. It states: "Choice inaccurately lays the blame for failure to reach acceptable terms for working together squarely on Expedia's shoulders." Expedia adds: "While we no longer are offering Choice hotels on our websites, we are hopeful that we will be able to work with you and Choice in a mutually advantageous manner in the future."... Read More

Unseasonably hot news from Finland today as it emerges that mobile handset giant Nokia is busy in the Federal District Court in Delaware, US, with plans to sue Apple over patent infringement. Nokia is taking Apple to task because the company "infringes Nokia patents for GSM, UMTS and wireless LAN (WLAN) standards" - in other words, critical elements of Nokia's technology for handling wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption. At a corporate level this could be quite a scrap, given the enormity of what is a stake (the action relates to every iPhone shipped since 2007!) and the size of the companies involved.... Read More

A new Forrester Research study confirms what we've known for some time: Online travel agencies struggle to differentiate themselves. The study, "The Online Travel Brands that Win with U.S. Leisure Travelers," did conclude that U.S. online leisure travelers find that Expedia.com offers the widest array of destinations and the best customer service, Priceline stands out for its pricing and value, and hotels.com gets the highest marks for its hotel content. But these three OTAs, which bested Travelocity, Orbitz, Kayak and Hotwire in the survey, shouldn't clear space for these honors in their trophy cases because almost half of the survey respondents had no opinion about the respective brands, and the differences, even among the winners, weren't all that dramatic. Where the report gets interesting is where the authors, Henry Harteveldt and Elizabeth Stark, suggest solutions for what they say consumers view as "a homogenous beige mass" of travel intermediaries.... Read More

Taking the professional route to produce online video can be daunting - not least because it is naturally going to more expensive compared to some of the examples from Day One. Crews are needed, locations sourced, permission required (often from government agencies), meaning the whole process feels less webby than that used to produce the supposedly edgy clips found on YouTube.... Read More

Travel companies that dismissed micro-blogging service Twitter ("Why do I want to know if someone is eating a bagel or not?") may well be rethinking their strategy this morning. News initially from Microsoft's Bing and a few hours later from Google confirmed that tweets from Twitter will be included in the search duo's organic results. Bing has a rudimentary service up and running already. Google's integration is expected to begin over the coming weeks. Facebook status updates are likely, too. So what?... Read More

It's heartening to learn that Verizon Wireless has been dispatching generator-powered mobile sites to Angel Stadium in Anaheim, Calif., where Thursday's New York Yankees-Anaheim Angels baseball playoff game will be held. Although, as of this writing, the home-team Angels have lacked for energy, the COLTs (Cells on Light Trucks) units are designed to boost "rapid and short-term network response," says Verizon Wireless, for calls, and text and pic messages transmitted by fans at the stadium or just regular folks in its environs. We hear that AT&T, beset with complaints about lack of adequate 3G network coverage for its Apple iPhones, likely could use some COLTs, too.... Read More

Most popular travel websites in the US for the week ending October 17 2009. Data includes Top Ten travel search terms and the Top Ten Agency, Airline and Destination/Accommodation sites.... Read More

Fledgling UK travel start-up PitchUp has secured what could be an interesting partnership in its early days after collaborating with TomTom, Europe's biggest satellite navigation firm. Vistors to the site with a TomTom device can send the location and details of any of the site's 5,000 properties (such as campsites, caravan parks) or an equal number of points of interest from around the UK and Ireland. The "Add To TomTom" functionality works by opening the user's satnav's desktop tool on its host computer and automatically placing the relevant content onto the device.... Read More

Whenever a new tech product comes out, you always wonder whether it lives up to its promises. I wrote several months ago about the rollout of Travelport's Agencia desktop for Canadian travel agencies. In a post earlier today, Graham Wareham, Air Canada's senior director of product distribution, says progress has been slow in the integration of agency bookings through Agencia with the Apollo GDS. This is what Travis Christ, president, The Americas, Travelport GDS, has to say on the issue: "Travelport Agencia integrates neatly with the Apollo GDS, aggregating all Air Canada and GDS content into one display. [It] integrates the profile, and creates a PNR with all passenger and fare information.... Read More

Video portals such as the omnipresent YouTube have allowed travel companies and organisations of all shapes and sizes to push their identity to run alongside their content. So whereas in the past a marketing message might have been restricted to a 30-second spot on TV or down-page ad in a newspaper, companies can create a wider, all-encompassing, (mostly) subtle message by using and dressing the real estate alongside the core content.... Read More

The U.S. Dept. of Justice inquiry into Sabre's termination of its developer's agreement with Farelogix in March and allegations of anti-competitive practices has headed into Canada. Graham Wareham, senior director of product distribution for Air Canada, says the DOJ recently interviewed him "with a big series of questions" about Sabre's market position in Canada, and the tack that the airline is taking with travel agency customers. Wareham says the DOJ reserved the right to return with further questions for Air Canada, which distributes its inventory through both Sabre and Farelogix. "I personally see this as a huge negative for the customer," Wareham says, referring to the Sabre-Farelogix dispute.... Read More

There is another way beyond simply guessing whether extra charges will be incurred at the airport check-in desk. Time to test the No-More-Excess Digital Luggage Weighing Scales then...... Read More

In the third of a series of exclusive interviews, Tnooz Node Claude Benard meets chief executive of Swiss start-up HouseTrip, Arnaud Bertrand. He discusses funding, partnerships, business models and wider travel trends in Europe.... Read More

It has been a busy day for the beancounters at Thomas Cook Group with news that not only has it spent a rumoured £20 million to become a second tier sponsor of the London 2012 Olympics but has also parted with a sizeable amount of money to shore up its software development. Tnooz has learned today that TCG has acquired some elements of the former BlueSky Technologies business in a package that could reach around £1 million. A spokeswoman for the company would only confirm that a deal had been completed for "certain assets" of the company following BlueSky's collapse into financial administration in late-September.... Read More

What's next for ITA Software? The Cambridge, Mass., travel technology firm has a thriving airfare pricing and shopping business, as evidenced by its recent QPX deals with Southwest Airlines and Air Canada. But with half of ITA's employees working on its fledgling airline reservations and departure control system, one technology consultant, who closely follows the company, terms ITA's loss of the Air Canada reservations system project "a debacle" and says it is an open question whether ITA, now without any customers for this product, has a place in the airline res system market at all. ITA Software co-founder and CEO Jeremy Wertheimer says the reservations system "is working" at full scale and "we're talking to all people who want a system and we're looking to a brave few who want to be early adopters."... Read More