Travelmole eWire Q&A with Graham Donoghue

July Q&A:

Graham Donoghue joined Travelsupermarket.com as managing director this month. Previously he was new media director at TUI Travel plc looking after all UK ecommerce sales and marketing. He has worked in the travel industry for 17 years.

Q: How has online travel grown in the last few years and where does price comparison fit into that? Is it growing too? Is it the most dominant sector of online travel?

A: The UK online leisure overseas market is forecast to be worth over £12bn in 2008, and it’s growing at 20% with some forecasts putting 50% of the 49m overseas trips being booked online. Travelsupermarket has seen growth ahead of this curve at +45% and continues on a similar trend. More and more consumers want to be able to compare multiple products in a variety of ways not just price and moving forward relevancy is a core focus along with comprehensiveness. Travelsupermarket (according to Hitwise) represents around 43% of the travel comparison UK market and now sits as the 4^th most visited travel agency sites behind Thomson, Expedia and lastminute.com. Travel is generally resilient during an economic downtrend as more and more people see it as a necessity rather than luxury, however value is still a key driver for many.

Q: How do you earn trust online?

A: Trust is a key brand enhancer and should play a key part in all brands’ online charter. When is comes to travel, customers tend to trust other customers way before big brands, so having reviews, forums and as much relevant user generated content is key. It’s also imported to talk about your customer promise and stand by it, in some cases even if it’s not right for your bottom line. It’s a long game. If you can get your brand up the satisfaction curve by being useful, relevant, and providing value, then that delivers loyalty and trust comes with that. Far too many companies focus on the short term gain and go for continued acquisition without thinking about long term retention. The days of big brands always winning are declining with the reduced barriers of entry the internet brings. However it varies dependant on the value and significance of the purchase.

Q: Customer demand – how is it evolving online?

A: Simple: choice, relevancy, inspiration or decision support and convenience. It’s not a one size fits all. Many customers are hybrids, i.e. they might fly on a low cost flight and stay in a five-star hotel. The market is quite fragmented. If you look at the overseas leisure market there are three key segments –  packaged (and its still a very big market), visiting friends and relatives and independent.

Q:  You have talked in the past about the importance of the role of inspiration and content in the decision making process. Can you expand?

A: Having a highly usable website is key to getting the right level of conversion but it’s also important to provide as must factual and inspirational content as part of that search or booking journey without cluttering up the experience. This could range from a simple map with a hotel geo coded to 360 images of a property or destination, syndicated reviews, video or intuitive up-selling. The websites that will do well in the future are the sites that can cater for the customer who knows what they want, the customer who wants to go any time any place and the customer who just wants help, all with a sprinkling of relevance.

Q: Where do you see search and travel going? What is the next frontier for online players?

A: Search is ok at the moment but not good enough. At the moment search does not understand intention well enough. Comparison helps a lot with this but it needs to be taken up a level. Relevance needs to play a bigger part or if you want customization, too many sites try to make assumptions about what I want and get it badly wrong. No one has yet built a travel inspiration tool that can do what a travel agent can do.  

Q: How is technology advancing the online travel spectrum?

A: More and more technical advances are happening that allow much more flexibility in the way a front end website works. This in turn leads to improved usability and experience. It’s important to keep abreast of these developments and look at new and more emerging channels. I think the iphone has broken through the glass ceiling in terms of UI and the always-on model.