25 April 2008

Travolution Summit soundbites:

Lastminute.com co-founder Brent Hoberman told delegates at the technology summit this week that travel sites had become too complex to answer simpler user enquiries.

The internet entrepreneur said the thousands of travel sites on the web were now ââ¬Åâœfantastically complexââ¬~ but could not respond with a ââ¬Åâœstraight answerââ¬~ when consumers asked for specific preferences like ââ¬Åâœsomewhere hot, somewhere less than six hours away and somewhere thatââ¬â¢s golf and child-friendly.ââ¬~

He said: ââ¬ÅâœEveryone has these amazingly complicated databases but they are not making it easy at the front end. They need to be a lot simpler.ââ¬~

Mr and Mrs Smith cofounder James Lohan revealed that he is taking the upmarket travel site to the US in three weeks, something that Lastminute has historically baulked at. 

Lohan admitted: ââ¬ÅâœItââ¬â¢s been a bit more complex than we thought it would be but a little naivety pushed things along. We will be taking a road-show approach, taking the US city by city.ââ¬~

US metasearch company Kayakââ¬â¢s cofounder and CEO Steve Hafner said no travel site had yet managed to successfully integrate user-generated content into their site in a meaningful way. He said: ââ¬ÅâœTripAdvisor is great for hotel reviews but it does not tell you the whole story. A site that can mix reviews with availability will have a successful product.ââ¬~

by Dinah Hatch

• PRINT
• SEND TO A FRIEND
• SHARE

Post your comment

Your Comments (1)

, be the first to post a comment.
Your email:

Your comment title:


Your comment:

Email other comments made to this story

5 characters

• Integrated solutions
  
  

  Couldn't agree more with Brent Hobermans comment. Researching, planning and buying travel online hasn't become any easier in the past seven years or so despite the proliferation of websites all offering travel buying functionality. On the contrary, the consumer has to spend hours on different sites to pull all the information and products together and then hopefully be able to book it all again on different sites. Where is the fully integrated solution? As he correctly states, a few simple questions can't be answered by travel sites and return a totally relevant product. We really haven't gone beyond the air, hotel, car model to a single destination to offering an online solution for complex bookings. No wonder there seems to be a renaissance for well qualified and trained travel agents. To move to the next level technology has to be deployed that is relevant to solving consumer questions.

  By Joe Buhler, Saturday, April 26, 2008