Online travel + entrepenurship news round up from past few weeks.
Article claims UNC Chapel hillto be hot bed of entrepenurial activity. Should get up to and event.
eMarketer is predicting that leisure and unmanaged travel bookings in the US will total nearly $50 billion in 2004. They just release a report on whats working for online travel marketing.
NYT article on new online travel players. Gives some details on how comapies set up direct relationships with airlines, hotels.
MSNBC article on online packaging. Also, a travel writer , brad tuttle, I haven't heard of before.
Really good buisness week article on Evite.
New online travel company called Hamlet just got $1.5 million in funding. It tracks the variance in flight prices and advices users when's the time to buy.... funding by Madrona Venture group and WRF Capital
Article with an Overview of Interactive corp, focusing on its travel business model.
article on site59 has a new search feature that shows you how to save money by leaving on a dffierent date or from a different airport.... travelocity, site59s owner will roll this out at some point. site59 is for last minute package deals only.
Newish TIA report says PDF Doc here.
Travelers’ use of the Internet to plan and book their trips continues to grow, albeit at a slower pace, according to the Travel Industry Association of America’s (TIA) latest Travelers’ Use of the Internet study. Nearly 64 million online travelers—30 percent of the U.S. adult population—used the Internet in the past year to get travel and destination information. Of that group, 44.6 million actually booked at least one travel service or product online in the past year.
The number of Americans using the Internet for travel planning remains stable at 63.8 million, reflecting slower growth in general Internet use among the traveling population. Still, the number of travelers who actually book airline tickets, hotel rooms and other travel services online continues to grow. TIA’s new report shows that nearly 45 million people—nearly three-quarters of all online travel planners—booked travel over the Internet in the past year, up nearly six percent from one year ago. And the number of online bookers doing all of their travel booking online continues to grow, with 40 percent now doing so, versus 29 percent a year ago.
TheStreet story on the huge runup on the stock of TravelZoo, written by Matthew Goldstein.
Overview articleon the online travel market from BuisnessWeek.
Scott Kessler covers onlline, and online travel for buisnessweek.
article on boston based online travel firms. written by Scott Kirsner of fast company
some stats on a survey of online travel users...
Survey: Consumers using Internet for travel from san jose mercury news
Online activity around the travel category is sky-high, according to independent research conducted by Feedback Research, a division of the Claria Corp. of Redwood City.
Consumers are searching online for their hotel, airline and car rental needs with 82 percent preferring to make travel arrangements online and 59 percent of total survey respondents citing they had purchased travel online in the past 90 days, Feedback Research says. Of those respondents, 67 percent made their purchases at either a travel aggregator site such as Expedia, Orbitz or Travelocity or a specific airline site.
Other highlights from the report:
78 percent of survey respondents who purchased from a travel aggregator site typically preferred to go there first when they begin researching travel arrangements;
50 percent of respondents who ultimately purchased from an airline site typically preferred to go to an airline site first when they begin researching travel arrangements while 41 percent preferred to go to a travel aggregator site first;
Of those loyal respondents who repeatedly purchase from 1 or 2 favorite travel aggregator sites, 82 percent reported doing so because of "good price"; 30 percent because of "good packages."
Online analysis of those respondents revealed that the average number of sites viewed per user was 2.62 and the average user came back to the travel category 11.49 times during the research period.
Of total respondents who travel for business, 24 percent usually book their travel within 1 week in advance on an airline site; while 78 percent of total respondents who travel for leisure usually book their travel on an airline site 3 or more weeks in advance.
Feedback Research analyzed the actual online traffic of Claria's more than 43 million users and surveyed a random sample of users who viewed major travel sites to compile its survey.
Article on deregulation of GDS pricing... san jose mercury news
Fast Company also publishes Transit Authority -- http://www.fastcompany.com/resources/travel -- a business travel resource center. Thanks for reading Fast Company!
Posted by: Heath | October 29, 2004 at 02:03 PM