Posts Tagged technology
What is really useful …. to a travel agent…!
Posted by murray in Latest News on July 6th, 2010
So, we are, what? 10 years in? 20 years in? to the internet, with all it’s developments. Every five minutes, we are told about this or that “new” internet “tool” and how each and everyone of them is going to “revolutionise” travel. Well, do they? What has really proved useful to the average agent-in-the-street? I can’t speak for everyone, of course, but I will tell you what I find invaluable on a day to day basis.
Needless to say, I cannot live without my GDS. I am not going to debate the pros and cons of each, but you need one. Further, you need to be able to work it and by that, I mean by using the “native” or as some would say “cryptic” entries. Point and click is a waste of time. It has been tried but never really caught on and as long as you know your entries, working using the native language is very much faster.
What else? Google Earth is essential. Now, when I am asked for a hotel, no matter where it is in the world, I can ask the client where the meeting is and then say “Yes, I have a hotel booked. You come out the hotel, turn left and it’s about 300 yards down on the left hand side” – And I can do that for any address, anywhere in the world.
Expedia is next. “Expedia is a booking system” I hear you cry. Well, it is – but have you ever looked at a fare on your GDS and thought “That doesn’t look right” or “I wonder if I have missed a very much cheaper way of doing this itinerary”. Now, as we all know, you either have contracts for CAT45 etc fares, or you don’t. So, if in doubt, I will run the itinerary through Expedia. You have to be a bit careful with connections and times but it means that you can be sure your fare is right and that you have not missed something. Further, it allows you to weigh up options – an Expedia fare may be cheaper, but is it worthwhile making two changes (say) instead of one, to save maybe £30 on a £800 fare.
Tripadvisor has its uses. We all tend to book the big groups, mainly because we know, then, that we will get a standard. If we book Leading Hotels of the World, it will be good. Hilton, NH, Marriott or Ramada are safe for middle management, Intercontinental for the boss and Mercure, Novotel or Ibis for the clients lesser (but nonetheless important), troops. Trouble is, the group hotels, the “safe bets” can be full and then we may be working in the unknown – and this is where Tripadvisor comes in.
Wegolo is an invaluable asset to know, as well. This is almost like having a GDS for the low fare carriers – and it’s global, too. Odd low cost types pop up on the GDS system but this can be more of an irritation than anything else – How many of us have managed to do a USA connection from, say British Airways to JetBlue! Worse, airlines such as Aer Lingus who try to get the best of both worlds and wind up falling in between the two. Airlines should be either a) On or b)Off GDS systems. Wegolo lets you check (and book) on low cost carriers that may exists practically anywhere in the world – without having to, effectively, remember all sorts of airline names – and not to mention, remember their routes as well.
I should also mention seatguru. I don’t use seatguru that often but GDS seat maps are, though accurate, not as clear as seatguru can be. Especially when one has a very particular client. Also useful for seat pitches and the like.
Apart from the obvious email, the most useful mobile communication tool is the humble SMS text message. Iphone apps have their uses, but no internet access, no app. The SMS text message gets through, no matter what. It lurks in the ether and when it sees a chance – zip! – it’s there. This I know from my experience trying to communciate with my brother who was caught up in 9/11. Mobile phone calls were neigh on impossible – but a text message got through, each and every time. If there is a disaster, communication lines get clogged – fast. Whereas the iphone-dependent person cannot get through, the SMS person can get through to their agent. A big plus, when the chips are down. (And so is having an agent). The same applied, incidently, during the more recent volcanic ash saga.
Do you know any other really useful tools?
Travolution Summit – Really!
Posted by murray in Latest News on April 20th, 2010
Reading through the tweets that have come along all day, courtesy of various people attending this “high-tech” summit, one has to stifle a bit of a yawn. It’s not that the stuff coming out is not valid, some of it is interesting – the thing is, that it is in the forum of this “thing of tomorrow” summit arena – and what seems to get many excited is stuff that traditional high street agents have known all along.
Take the statement from Frommers about pictures being most important and video not so important. The Director of Frommers, no doubt, felt like he was talking to his Year 6 class. This is why traditional agents liked brochures (I am talking pre-universal-internet, here) – and still do. We have known this all along, that pictures count. We also knew that people rarely, if ever, use videos – or CD’s – as witness the number of dusty video tapes that used to adorn some forgotton backwater of any agents shop. Yet, this information was picked up by nearly all and re-tweeted ad nauseam. We traditional agents knew that, tell us something we don’t know.
Then people ask about the silver market and are people missing out. Well in the on-line world, they may be; here again, the traditional agents sigh: Yes, we know about that – actualy, traditional agents know quite a bit more than that – they pursue all markets – hard (we have to) – if a client has money and an agent can get it off them – he or she will. We have heard it all before, the pink market was another one (late to mid 90’s, I believe).
Then again, the Bing bloke says that 25% of searches go straight to the back button, back to the search page. Reflecting on this, I can only assume that Bing is not very good at producing search results, if people have to have another go …. perhaps what one is looking for, is on page 3.
“41% of cruises were booked by Daily Mail readers”, thunders another. Really? You believe that? Without so much as a by-your-leave, this nugget is picked upon, without any form of verification and tweeted, again ad nauseam. These techy types will believe anything. 41% of Daily Mail readers book cruises, possibly. The Daily Mail advertising sales department really scored a hit, there!
Step forward the Bing Bloke for another nugget: It takes 2-4 weeks of research from first search to purchase. Again, if I was Mr Bing, I think I would be a tad more cautious with bandering my weaknesses. Any self respecting high street agent would be upset if it took longer than 20 to 40 minutes from first encounter to a sale. True, we allow people to take the brochure away, but with some well placed advice and good agent guidance, let’s say that we would see our client back in 2 to 4 days. Internet sales types clearly have an awful lot to learn.
Whilst we are on about “too much information” or rather, being careful with what you share – Lawrence Hunt said that lowcosttravel group is the 20th fastest growing business in the UK. Now, no-one in travel wants to hear that. You see, many of us remember other “fast growing” travel groups – let’s start with Court Line, Intasun, Exchange Travel…. Not to mention Xcel and a few others. We, who are really in travel, don’t want “fast growing”. We want to hear the adjectives such as “sensible”, “well-established”, “prudent” and above all, “reliable” – not “fast-growing”. True, there are some of that ilk that we have lost over time, but there will always be some fall out.
There seems to be an issue with many of the speakers and, I fear, those who are sending out the tweets. They clearly must know a lot about technical stuff, about the web – and about re-inventing the wheel – yet many seem to know naff-all about travel.
The Hidden Mysteries…
Posted by murray in Latest News on April 17th, 2010
We have not grasped this at all. Nothing is moving which operates over the height of, say, a double decker bus. If, that is, you can get on one. It is not a question of a later flight, or even tomorrow or even the day after tomorrow. Europe is grounded – and we are all going to stay grounded for a while yet. I have never come across this – even after the calamity of New York, there was something that could be done, we knew, at least, that in a few days time something could be done. Now, we don’t.
There is a great mass of humantity which stretches across the continent of Europe, indeed, of our globe who all wish to be somewhere else and that somewhere else, is home. We cannot, at this stage, even think about starting a new venture.
So what will we discover? Air travel, at best, for anyone who travels cattle class, is a miserable experience. Even before you start, you are faced with long lists of what you cannot do, followed by long queues, followed by more people telling what you cannot do, followed by being confined to your seat, followed by more queues, followed by people assuming that you are hard, psychotic terrorist until you can prove otherwise, followed by…… To get home, you have to do it all again. America is wondering why their tourism is down, airlines wonder the same.
I should add that it is different for the budget airlines – they do exactly what they say on the tin, and no more – we have come to accept that – so for them the issue is not as dire.
Coupled with this, air travel has now demonstrated it’s vulnerabilities. Air travel was always vulnerable to extremes of weather; now it also is vulnerable through strike action, it is vulnerable through acts of terror – now it has shown that it is vulnerable through it’s own technology. Aircraft engines are designed to fly at x thousand feet or they use too much petrol. They are not designed to cope with ash in the high atmosphere – although the famous case of the Jumbo came through, having gone right into an ash cloud – as technology advances, it becomes more sensitive – more fickle, even – we do not realise this until an event such as this occurs – and this is a great failing of technology – it may be clever, but it is not robust. If British Airways had kept a few Vickers Viscounts knocking about the place, many may be able to get home. Think of cars, a battery failure on a modern car means you are stuck – in the old days, you just got out the starting handle.
The increasingly vulnerable nature of air travel coupled with the unpleasant general experience is a poisonous brew. The vulnerabilities may, in some measure, be addressed. The experience – the “holistic travel experience” can be easily dealt with. Airlines, however, choose not to. Indeed, with things like unbundling of fares, they are intent on making that experience even worse.
Then there is the matter of choice. People can choose which airline to fly on and all airlines compete. What may have been missed, is that people may choose simply not to travel, unless absolutely necessary. Worse, it may be the premium traffic that decides not to travel. Not because of cost (though that is an important aspect) simply because it is all simply too much like hard work. What is dangerous for airlines, is that firms may discover that they can manage very well without having people flitting about the place. After all, global business managed to get on before the advent of mass air travel. Firms may decide that a person based at an outpost, with greater executive powers, is a better way of doing things than someone having to go there all the time. An example of this (on a different level, of course!) was British “Gunboat Diplomacy” where decisions were made and actions taken by young naval officers without the benefit of even being able to telephone a higher authority. It actually worked rather well (at the time).
Then we will have the knock on – and for the airline business, this just adds to the cost. Premium traffic can just decide not to travel. Premium traffic has the financial ability to hole up in a nice, comfortable hotel and wait until it is all over, premium traffic has satphones, communications technology, a yacht that it may be able to call on – even a mate with a light aircraft. What airlines have to deal with, when the skies re-open, is us normal people. People on cheap tickets, away with the family, on charter flights, who now have maxed out credit cards, no cash and are sleeping at terminals. Premium traffic does not want to travel in amongst all this – so they wait. Revenue not only falls, but airlines then have to spend money flying with aircraft full of people whom they may even have to pay, rather, compensate, for being on board.
This is not the end, not even the begining of the end. In realising how vulnerable air travel is and by realising how miserable air travel is for many people – and above all, by doing something about those aspects – it may just be the end of the beginning.
…all getting very silly…
Posted by murray in Latest News on April 13th, 2010
Image: Daniel St.Pierre / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Usually, with the BTC stuff, I have to read it several times before any lightbulbs start to flicker. It is all good stuff, but being a simple-minded sort of chap, it takes a while to understand the thrust of what they are on about.
A typical BTC missive arrived with a thud into my email in box. Another weighty tome, a bit like dropping the Encylopedia Britannica onto the desk and saying “precis this by this afternoon”. This time, I followed through about this bloke from Farelogix, Jim Davidson, but not of the “nick, nick” variety, who seems to have a bit of a bee in his bonnet about, well, about an awful lot really.
I have read some of the Farelogix press releases. They do not make sense. For example, one dated Feb 2010 talks about “…consumers generally make their reservations through a travel agency… where overall cost is a primary requirement” In the next breath we have “…Many travelers would welcome access to a new world of convenience and add-on choices available directly from their mobile device prior to departure.” Erm, Yes. If cost is a major concern, they are hardly likely to want to add stuff on, are they? Another statement runs “..Airlines can offer individual travelers a variety of add-on services, such as seat upgrades, priority boarding…” Wow! Farelogix has found the holy grail – have their mobile service and Hey! Presto! your $9 ticket will get you a seat in first class – and you join the front of the queue.
Mobile technology has it’s place and will become more popular – but I think the prophets of mobile technology need to take a reality check. You see, according to them, we agents should all have disappeared just after Graham Alexander Bell said “Look, these tin cans and this piece of string – could we make communication better?” We have had the telephone – and we are still here. We have had the fax machine – and we are still here, the mobile phone, the internet and the internet on mobile phones – and we are still here. We have had our commission taken away, so clients pay us a fee – and we are still here. Why? Simple – because in the final analysis, man is a social animal – we like to communicate and I mean really communicate. As in: talk a bit about the weather, what the last trip was like, the bloke/ bird that we sat next to (depending on orientation) a bit of banter, a laugh or as the Irish say, for the craick…..
For all Farelogix may go one about how their kit may be the best thing since sliced bread, that social element can never, ever, ever be replaced by any form of technology. And it is that social thing which makes us belong – and why real agents will always have a place.
HS2 – At Last – But Not Visionary
Posted by murray in Latest News on April 9th, 2010
High Speed 2. About time. Non stop from London (Euston) to Birmingham (Somewhere) at 225mph. 14 trains and hour each one 400 meters long (interesting fact, I suppose, but not being a train spotter I am not in the habit of measuring train lengths in any meaningful way. Trains are long. Always have been.)
This new line will run right behind where I live, though in a tunnel. I am not going to object for various reasons, none the least of which is that it is in a tunnel. I am also not going to object because this sort of infrastructure in the UK is long overdue. The Victorians built our railways, in 1936 Mallard achieved 100 mph and….. nothing. Even Old Beardie’s awful (in my opinion) Pendolino trains struggle to keep up to the standards of rail travel achieved in the 1930’s. Railways further disintegrated after privatisation mainly because the new railway companies first task was to get rid of anyone who knew how to run a railway.
There is, in HS2, a lack of vision. The service runs into Euston. No problem there, save for the fact that Euston is at, well, Euston – in the same way St. Pancras is a good station – just impossible to get to. There are no intermediate stops – and the link to Heathrow airport is but a dotted line for people to think about. There may be a reason for that, of course. Airlines, having seen what damage High Speed Rail does to domestic air travel in Europe, may be none to keen to see it developed here.
What could be added to make this a really useful start? We could do with an M25 gateway. A “parkway” style interchange, built near the M25 with a sod-off 4 lane motorway access and egress onto a sod-off car park. An extension to Heathrow should be built at the same time – not as an afterthought, so too the connection to HS1 – the Channel Tunnel – to give connections (at 225mph) – from the Midlands and also sooner-rather-than-later Scotland and the North.
We also need some intermediate stops – apart from the M25 gateway, about half way. The whole development around my way only happened because of the railway (yes, back in 1858) and with the demand for housing being what it is, the inclusion of a half way stop would make possible housing development in comfortable, country surroundings, with easy access to London – as well as taking pressure off the green belt.
So, good idea – but where is the joined up thinking?
Why Airlines and IATA Need To Tread Carefully…
Posted by murray in Latest News on May 16th, 2009
Airline revenue falls, BSP revenue falls – BSP being, amongst others, the monthly income payment that airlines received from travel agents – panic sets in. So, what are we talking about? The figures do look big – BSP churns some 240 billion dollars worth a year; a fair chunk of that being from the 58,000 travel agents world wide. IATA-BSP lost, last year 85 billion in bad debts – horrors! Well, not really when you bear in mind that this represents some 0.35% of turnover (an expression used loosely). Now, airline revenue comes mainly from BSP – some 80% to be exact – which means that travel agents – online AND offline – still represent the main source of airline income, despite the increasingly despotic attempts by airlines to drive traffic away from the various agency networks.
Of this BSP income for the airlines (and about 95% of the world’s airlines are in IATA BSP – and certainly nearly all of the “legacy” carriers) 80% of the UK airline income is generated by just 140 of 1,300-ish UK IATA agents – and half of it by just 30 agents (thank you, Travel Weekly).
The knee jerk reaction of airlines is to demand that BSP (and so, agents) start paying every two weeks rather than monthly, as they do now. In other words, the airlines get less money but on a more regular basis. Failing that, in order to “stop the bad debts” (which is running at, you will recall, 0.35% of turnover) IATA BSP wish to impose bonding on everyone who looks even slightly less than gold plated. This, at a time when bonds and loans are, of course, very easy to come by.
From this, we can deduce that airlines have clearly failed the marshmallow test. Take now! And hang the consequences! Well, What are the consequences? Agents, especially, will remember British Airways arrogantly proclaiming that they “Did not owe agents a living” whilst taking away the commission paid on airline tickets. Fine, said agents, who went away and in the words used in a PhoCus Wright study promptly “….. responded strategically, tactically and most of all aggresively to adapt, survive and succeed” in other words, showed the airlines two fingers and got on with the job of selling travel.
The worm turns, agents (and remember I mean online as much as any other; even Expedia and Travelocity are agents) do not owe airlines a living, either. There is a mutual dependency – the likes of Travelocity are very good at what they do, retailing (or shall we say, distributing content) whereas airlines are supposed to be good at what they do, which is shipping people from A to B. Travelocity et alia make a profit; airlines don’t – which says an awful lot about who actually owes whom, what. Airlines (and to a greater or lesser extent IATA) still ponitificate Canute-like about what they are going to do. Actually at the moment, they can. Just. Where they are taking their eye of the ball, if they ever had it on the ball, is by not watching those BSP statistics. That 50% of their income is dependent upon 30 agents – such as AMEX -at present.
Any precipative action, such as going to two week payments may well have exceedingly uncomfortable side affects, say 80% of their income coming subsequently from 30 (or less) agents. Why is this? Simple – “Divide and Rule”. Airlines could only pontificate and rule the roost because they had a wide and diverse distribution network through many channels, they did not need to really listen to any one product distributor simply because there wasn’t one. Yet, since the demise of commission, there is – or rather there are 30 of them and as they impose more onerous restrictions that number will fall, or rather that 30 will control and ever greater share of the income pie – and that is when you really start to sweat.
You do not need to be an expert to see this all too clearly. Where do you buy your daily bread? Yes, TESCO, Sainsbury or ASDA . Where did you buy your last PC? Yes, PC World or DELL. Your last thingy for fixing that irritating squeak? Yes, B&Q, WICKS (or Halfords, depending). Take the old IBM story where arrogance spawned Microsoft. Or just take a look what has happended to the local pub, even. All these are examples of what happens when people take a short term view by people with a short term interest. Airlines are lining themselves up, very nicely, thank you, for exactly the same treatment. They will soon be told what they can sell, where they can sell it and for how much. They behave or wallop! All that valuable, say, BA, trans-atlantic traffic goes to AA or UA or VS.
Of course, airlines say that they “talk” to the agents (Talk rather than “communicate with” – of course) but to whom are they are talking? Yes, you are right, to that 30. And that 30 have their own agenda, which is, of course, to control 80% or 90% of that BSP revenue, not 50%. I do not know what the critical mass is, but it cannot be far off. So, AMEX becomes the air travel business’s answer to B&Q. If you are an airline, you do what AMEX says, or you get nothing. Up to you, of course. Yes, they can distribute themselves and will have to. What we have here, however, is a service providor, a maufacturer, trying to retail and as I say, retailers are a lot better at retailing than manufacturers. Just look down the Times Rich List. Even Old Beardie once answered the question “How do you become a millionaire?” with “Start with 10 million and open an airline”.
So, airlines need to think things through (they won’t) and so does IATA (it can’t – think, that is). IATA is a body which believes that Stalin’s way of doing things was rather soft. And Airlines, like Sir Anthony Eden, still think they rule an empire. Things have changed dramatically over the last ten years or so and will indeed continue to do so. It is just intereting to note that the very architects of that change process, those that pulled down the orginal edifice with first checking to see what still needed support, now find themselves in turbulent air whereas those they lectured about that change, the agents, have quietly and efficently got on with the job. Airlines and IATA can talk the talk, they just cannot walk the walk.
Off Loading Costs
Posted by murray in Latest News on May 2nd, 2009
Here we go again! As airlines run out of profit and money, the hunt is on for more bits and bob’s they can pass on, so as to keep “low” prices. It seems to me that the time has come to step back and take a deep breath.
Airline travel is not a cheap item. An Airbus costs a lot of money, so does the petrol, the crew, getting it up, getting it down, getting it loaded, off-loaded. Hell! Even parking the thing up, costs a lot more than £2.40 at the local NCP.
What we have here, is a situation where someone wants to sell a service cheaply, which inherently costs a lot of money to provide. A situation where one now wants to charge a reasonable fee for something which over the years, one has spent many thousands of Dollars telling the world (quite successfully, as it turns out) people can have for next to nothing. And people wonder why there is a problem.
The latest bette noir is the GDS cost – the cost of getting the seat from the aeroplane to the client. This should be paid for by the travel agent (online or offline) and …. Whoooah! Stop there. The travel agent is not going to pay for anything. The client will pay, always has done and always will. What has come about over the years, is a price for a service whereby one has somehow managed to fool the various advertising standards people, of many countries, that the £1.00 (or $1.00) that appears on the promotional stuff is a valid figure. It isn’t. What we really have, is an industry where “transparency” is not a word which features in their dictionary. Air fares are not transparent. Exactly the opposite. Many charges appear after the “fare” and are buried under various codes which are meaningless to the travelling public.
But let us go back further. What are airlines about? What do they really want to do? The so-called “low cost” airlines are about simple A to B stuff, 2 hours or less, you get exactly what it says on the tin and no more. Fair enough. They do not need the GDS (that said, it is getting increasingly difficult to track them down. From a business travel agent’s point of view, sites such as “Wegolo” are proving increasingly invaluable as a “low cost GDS”). For legacy airlines, it is a different picture and these airlines need to decide what business they are in and if they, indeed, wish to continue in it.
A lot of business travel is not about going from A to B. It is about going from A to B and C, D and very often E as well. It does not all start from the home country and involves bits of the world which involve many agents grasping for their atlas (or, in modern terms, Google Earth). Here, the GDS is invaluable. This is where it does it’s job. The thing is, many of these flights involve going from airline to airline, changes of flight at various points en route and lot of general fuss and what-not. The key elements in being able to do this are: 1) The ability to interline and 2) The relevance of the “minimum connecting time” or MCT. The former allows one to mix airlines on one ticket and the latter, to regulate the time one needs to make a change of airline. If all airlines go “me only” (that is, come off the GDS and go it alone on their own websites), the all flights become just, what is known as, “point to point”. So, if you want to go from, say, Cairo to Dublin via Larnaca (’cos that is where the connection is) in old money, you get, on one ticket: Cairo to Larnaca to Dublin. The airline would interline (hence, on one ticket) and the MCT applies so you can be booked thorough and so, you make your “1 hour and a bit” Larnaca connection – most importantly, if the connection goes all pear shaped, you are able to get on the next available connection without having to worry.
BUT – in new money, that does not happen. You can only buy a ticket Cairo to Larnanca and then have to buy another ticket Larnaca to Dublin. Now, the MCT does NOT apply. You have to arrive at Larnaca, collect your bags, go through security, walk around to departures, re-check-in… and how long should you allow? If you miss your connection flight, tough. Buy another ticket.
Even more (airline) stupidity: This interline traffic is valuable stuff. Since, secretly, airlines have been dumping cheaper interline fares what is left becomes worthwhile traffic. You must have a GDS to book it and invariably (now! here’s the rub!) you need an agent to book your travel. Many airline reservation department, these days, are staffed by pretty clueless types from all sorts of places whose training is very precise (no “holistic” travel training) and if what you want does not drop in front of them straight away, they just can’t cope. Indeed, getting them to tell you their name can be a major thing…. sometimes.
The GDS, therefore, contributes a major and vital element, not only in airline traffic but generally, in making the whole concept of business travel possible. The GDS systems have been fiddled with by the EEC and various other bodies who are intent on making a very clever and practical system, which works into a cumbersome and pedantic system that doesn’t. It is not a question of viewing the GDS as a cost to be moved, the GDS is a lifeline which should be nurtured and developed (and in the case of Amadeus, just made to ruddy well work sensibly) – it is a cost that should be in the price of the ticket, because without the GDS, advanced air travel would simply not work.
Innovation in Travel
Posted by murray in Latest News on April 15th, 2009
We have these great competitions for innovation in travel. Up pops yet another application for some soft fruit named communication device or for a gizmo that is sold complete with a child of 6 to show you how to work it or some really clever add on for a ZX54 website with a section zappo thingymajig that is very popular in the lower regions of Southern India – or something that allows me to call Mars from 32,000 feet. Great. Fantastic. Wake me up when someone works out how to get an ipod to make a real cup of tea.
After the GDS (which, given that it is 1970’s technology is really rather clever) nothing much happened as far as the coal face of travel was concerned until… along comes Google Earth. Many looked at Google Earth and Ooooh-ed! and Ahhhh-ed! a bit but it is only lately that I have realised how clever it is – more importantly, how invaluable a tool it is for the travel agent. Here is something that makes life so much easier for the business travel agent – indeed all travel agents.
It can tell you which airport is closest to an address, which hotel is nearest to such and such an office or conference centre – and even (if you can get in close) how to get from the hotel to the office you want to go to. Is it a short journey? Yes, (you can say to the client) “Out the hotel, turn left, go along two stops of the dual carriageway, sharp right at the lights, 100 yards on the left – can’t miss it, guvn’or.” I am not saying this about somewhere local to Gerrards Cross, I am talking about a small factory, just south of Peking.
Just the other day, I had to get a crew to a private yacht (that’s the sort of client I have) near to Hilton Head – using Google Earth I was able to identify the airport – Ah! Ha! Your wrong, using Google Earth I was able to tell that Savannah was actually closer to the actual yacht mooring – and so was able to advise the client that they had a much shorter journey to pick up the new crew – and was even able to tell them how to get there (actually they did not need the last bit, though it does look good when you are talking to a client – it seems to them that you, the agent, have an incredible depth of knowledge!)
I am only just starting to find out what else it is useful for – perhaps to the extent of having a look at a potential clients house – does it look like the sort of house which indicates that they may be the “right sort of stuff”. You can see the cheaper hotels, bed and breakfasts, caravan parks (eh? For a business agent?) conference centres… You can search using postcodes (very useful!) and if you only know part of a location, slowly, slowly home in to what you are looking for.
You can keep your ipod apps – who wants irritating mobiles at 32,000 feet, anyway? You can keep your ability to look up what time the XYZ flight from Beirut is due – I know what time it’s arriving – anything from the West arrives early and anything from the East arrives late -or how to find a fish and chip shop just off the A23 – my vote goes to Google Earth!
Credit Crunch Travel
Posted by murray in Latest News on April 15th, 2009
A Victorian 747
Saving money has nothing at all to do with travel agents, online or offline, neither has it anything to do with negotiating contracts with airlines or fee levels with TMC’s. It has nothing to do with taking a later plane or going around the houses to get from A to B. It has everything to do with your company culture and how you view the need to travel. I have heard quite a few senior company officers talking about how little they have travelled this year, compared to last; “Do you know, this time last year, I had already made 20 trips, this year I have only made 3!” They say, proudly. To which I reply “Really? And your company has not gone bust, nor has it fallen apart at the seams?”
What this shows, is that we focus too much on the cost of travel and not nearly enough on the reason for travel. I am not, for a moment, suggesting that no-one needs to go anywhere – what I am saying is that it is time to seriously think about why one is travelling in the first place, ever bearing in mind the maxim “The quickest way to save money on travel, is not to travel in the first place”.
Why do we need to travel so much? Let’s face it, the “global economy” is not new. The East India Company, Tea Clippers, the Chinese trips of Zhou Man and Yang Qing – hell!- even the Romans fought a war with the Persians whilst trying to open new trade routes to the Far East. At that time, one could not consider simply popping over from Amsterdam to Peking for a meeting – such would take many months and was fraught with many dangers – and would take many months to get back home again.
Yet today, we have instant global communications, we have video conferencing, we have means of communications that makes one wonder, if such were available to the ancients, what would they have achieved!? The Victorians, who forged the way in many respects to introduce us to mass travel and who laid the groundings of our modern internet, traded throughout the world without the need to “pop over for a meeting” yet today, in many corporations, we do not seem to be able to manage a weeks’ work without having to criss cross the globe.
The ability and feeling of need, to travel became ingrained in our business psyche somewhere along the way. Certainly, in the New World, there is the view that “ability to be there” somehow equates with showing dynamic ability, the “can do” approach – Why? What needs to travel is knowledge, know how, management skills – and that does not always require the human form to travel with it. Perhaps the biggest reason for excessive travel is the failure to delegate; the need to excercise immediate control, in turn, the failure to place the right person in the right place to begin with and then to empower them.
The problem is not technology, the problem is that we have not really learnt how to use it and how to incorporate the use of technology into the way we do business. The need to be there, physically, is not as important as we think it is. It is here, at such a fundamental level where we start to save money on travel – asking ourselves – Why?
Future Technology
Posted by murray in Latest News on April 9th, 2009
Technology will be important in the future of travel. This is not news. The travel business was at the forefront of technology whilst many of today’s travel journalists (and many of those generally in travel) were babes in arms – or even just a twinkle in their parents eyes. As long ago as the 1960’s airlines came up with the Computer Reservation System – and it was so far ahead of it’s time that one did not even need any further clarification as to what it did for a living. Within a few years, a system was available within the travel business that could book anyone from a point on the globe to another point on the globe, easily, quickly and securely – and this included car hire and hotels. When etickets came along, one just needed to turn up and take off.
What about Viewdata? Another ’70’s bit of technology that enabled agents to book holidays, ferrys and such in the same way. Instant guaranteed online availability and secure booking for all. Okay, so you had to go and visit a person in a shop to do it but it cost you (the customer) nothing. So sucessful was viewdata, that it survived for over 20 years with little change.
Nowadays I look with consternation as techy types try to emulate 1960’s and 1970’s technology within the medium of the internet. How can we have come so far, yet have so much trouble to replace that man in a shop? How can it cost so much? Why is the travel industry so keen to throw everything out of the window – before it has found something new – that works – to replace it?
It is not technology that is the issue. It is the thinking that goes with it. Many cannot see the wood for the trees. When the internet came along, travel providors made the leap from internet = cheap distribution to internet = get rid of all other distribution channels faster than you could say “… the flight departing from Gate 7″. People have now realised that it is not quite that straightforward. Even so, the travel business is still dismantling the age old distribution systems that already exist, without producing a viable alternative.
Legacy airlines (I do not include the low cost carriers – that’s another story) and operators alike suddenly see the holy grail of cheap distribution slipping from their grasp – worse, their control – and are invoking desperate measures to try and restore that control. This frightens them. With the traditional system of many small agencies, one could divide and rule. If airline A said this was going to be, it was so; because no-one was big enough to say any different. Many retailers did not like this, but the system worked and all in all everyone got along. Overnight, some opertors and legacy airlines decided that they did not like the established system and the new-fangled internet was the long awaited panacea. Airlines and Op’s arrogantly assumed that they would simply sell direct to clients, and the retail arm would just “go away”. Kismet.
They forgot (because they had, in the meanwhile, got rid of everyone with the experience of years who could have told them) that retail is King. Always has been, always will be. Therefore, retail is highly dangerous. It is a very brave person that removes “divide and rule”. They forgot that their skills are in providing holidays or flights and not in retail. This is why people like Thomsons acquired Lunn Poly. They had a company that was good at providing holidays and a company that was good at flogging them -even so, Thomson did not neglect the rest of the then agency network.
They also forgot that retailers are not stupid (in a nation of shopkeepers!!) and retail being retail, retail found ways around minor issues like the cutting of commission. Now, airlines and operators find that they have to fight rearguard actions on two fronts. Because of their actions, retail has consolidated (as it did in DIY or Computers and of course, food) Suddenly, airlines find that they are not dealing with lots of little people (who can be ruled over) but a large chunk of their premium traffic – premium traffic – is coming from a much smaller (and decreasing) number of large retailers. Tail wags dog. Front 2 is technology. Costs have just shifted from “commissions paid” to “technology” and in certain cases (as British Airways say) “bounty”. Millions of pounds are having to be spent just keeping up – worse, it is spending on keeping up with the cheap stuff. How much are you going to put behind selling a seat for £10? Why bother? How much are you not going to spend on looking after the person who sells the seat for £3,000? If one had thought this through, one would have let the retailers bear the burden of developing internet systems – even if one did have to pay commission. In any event, nemesis!
People need to see the wood for the trees. The Emperor’s New Clothes. It is not technology that is the issue, it is understanding where that technology may lead, what it is for, who may lead it, asking the right questions not just developing technology for technology’s sake – and is re-inventing the wheel the best use of resources?
