News

I am always on the watch for news items on Lonely Planet. Like many children of the 70s and 80s, I have powerful and joyful memories of trips that consisted of a backpack, a round the world ticket and a Lonely Planet book. In a time before email, GPS and mobile phones, Lonely Planet was the way to navigate your way around your lost youth.... Read More

It is over a week since Thomas Cook snapped up the Intellectual Properties Rights for the BlueSky Travel Systems software which runs a large part of its reservation system, yet much of the saga remains a mystery. In a statement sent to Tnooz this week, Thomas Cook responded to a number of questions arising as a result of the acquisition of "certain assets" last week. The tour operating giant says it cannot say how long the team which was created within a week of BlueSky going into administration will be working on the iTour project.... Read More

So, finally. Ask many people why they visit online video sites and often enough many will say to look at funny clips that were sent to them from friends or colleagues. The viral nature of such clips is perhaps the quickest route to getting an online hit and, in turn, position a brand as having a good old fashioned sense of humour. Travel is no stranger to such activity, so here are just a handful of those produced by travel firms over the years - and a few others.... Read More

TripIt, the itinerary-management company, expanded its TripIt Pro premium service to support international mobile alerts, international billing and point-tracking for numerous loyalty programs outside the U.S. As with the U.S. launch of TripIt Pro in the summer, non-U.S. subscribers to TripIt Pro can lock in a charter member rate at $49 per year if they sign on by the end of November, and renew annually at that rate. If they subscribe later, the rate would be $69 per year. TripIt co-founder and President Gregg Brockway says he was shocked at the volume of requests for the service that came from outside the U.S., and the international launch meets that need.... Read More

There is an interesting chart flying around the web today regarding US online travel agencies. Posted initially on the Business Insider, the chart is from consultancy and investment house Barclays Capital and includes actual and estimated booking numbers for three of the main OTAs in the US from 2005 to 2013.... Read More

Back to professionally produced video content for third parties. Cathy Bartrop of travelguru.tv says the days of a big budget producers - say, for example, a TV channel - coming along with a huge film crew, shooting footage for days on end, throwing a five-minute segment into a travel programme and disappearing with the copyright are over. Nowadays - mostly because of the emergence of the web as a significant and valuable distribution channel - tour operators and tourist boards will rather pay for an independent production company to come along, hand over varying lengths of footage and do as much as they can to retain the copyright.... Read More

Most popular travel websites in the US for the week ending October 24 2009. Data includes Top Ten travel search terms and the Top Ten Agency, Airline and Destination/Accommodation sites.... Read More

It turns out that the Delta-Northwest merger and the integration of the two airlines has a lot more twists and turns than originally envisioned. Several publications, including the New York Times, are reporting that the two Northwest pilots, who passed up their aircraft’s scheduled landing at Minneapolis-St. Paul airport last week, say they were distracted because they had broken out their personal laptops so they could discuss Delta’s new pilot-scheduling system. At least they weren't texting. The Airbus A320 they were flying likely wasn’t outfitted with Wi-Fi yet.... Read More

Most popular travel websites in the UK for the week ending October 24 2009. Data includes Top Ten travel search terms and the Top Ten Agency, Airline and Destination/Accommodation sites.... Read More

While only a minority of corporations use automated tools to analyze their travel data, the proportion of such software-equipped companies is rising. That's the good news. The down side is that the percentage of travel managers who value the benefits of such tools is falling.... Read More

Trivago and TripAdvisor could be squaring up for a battle of the review sites in the European courts after it emerged today that one is accusing the other of bidding on its brand name on Google. The row centres on marketing activity through pay-per-click advertising in Germany, where Trivago is a significant player in the online hotel review space alongside TripAdvisor. Trivago says the Expedia-owned TripAdvisor is bidding on its brand name and using the same term in the headline copy of ads appearing in Google search results.... Read More

Southwest Airlines makes much out of its Bags Fly Free campaign, but JetBlue, which doesn't charge for the first bag, is relatively silent on the topic. One reason for JetBlue's lack of marketing about its baggage policy is that it may not make sense to tout a policy which you soon could abandon. JetBlue President and CEO David Barger told financial analysts last week that the airline is almost in "lock-down" mode at the moment when it comes to introducing new products to boost ancillary-services revenue because the carrier is in the process of switching from Navitaire to Sabre as its internal reservations-system provider, and the transition is slated to be completed in the first quarter of 2010.... Read More

Nobody likes a show-off, but when a travel company has a dedicated department for creating what can be loosely described as "other cool stuff", then online video is clearly the best way of showcasing it. Take lastminute.com and its Labs department. The division within the UK-based online travel agency has spent much of the past year developing a handful of neat applications for mobiles and some interesting user experience work under the Pronto brand.... Read More

The airline industry is in tailspin, hoping for a recovery some time maybe next year. It will take years to make up for last year's losses. But it’s basically always the same story; losses in bad times wipe out the profits of previous fat years. In good times the airline bosses get obese and act like there is no tomorrow.... Read More

Fledgling metasearch engine fly.com will launch in Germany later this year as part of its ongoing expansion programme outside of North America. Although up and running for a month or so in the UK, Travelzoo-backed fly.com officially announced its arrival in the country via a press release this morning amid a tightening of the metasearch market in recent weeks. The addition of fly.com and TripAdvisor's flight search into an already crowded sector is raising the stakes for new entrants as the likes of TravelSupermarket, Skyscanner and Cheapflights have a reasonably firm stranglehold on the market.... Read More