Exclusive: Travelzoo’s Brian Clark on Fly.com

Published: 16 Mar 2009

Exclusive: Travelzoo’s Brian Clark on Fly.com

The recent past has witnessed a couple of significant developments in the travel meta-search engine category.

While a section of the industry is working on strengthening its meta-search and user generated content combination, a player like Travelzoo, known for its travel deals publishing business, announced its entry with Fly.com.

Fly.com was introduced in beta last month.

Fly.com will allow users to find the best prices, including combinations of Fly.com results and deals published by Travelzoo.

Commenting on how Travelzoo is in a position to exploit its previous strengths or synergise with what has been achieved so far by the company, its SVP and GM of Search Products, Brian Clark, said, “Travelzoo’s Top 20 and Newsflash delivers the highest quality travel deals, and now with Fly.com brings real-time air fare availability. Each will feed off each other, with Fly.com delivering the best air fares to those seeking travel deals, and Travelzoo.com offering great deals to Fly.com users looking for the best air fare. We believe, ultimately, that 1 plus 1 will equal 3 making Travelzoo.com and Fly.com the best online travel resource for consumers seeking high value and an exceptional online experience.”

In an interview with EyeforTravel.com’s Ritesh Gupta, Clark spoke about the timing of the launch, plans for Fly.com and much more. Excerpts:

EyeforTravel.com: Could you provide an insight into the timing of this launch especially when TripAdvisor has launched a MSE and Kayak is getting ready to re-introduce Travelpost? How do you think Travelzoo’s business model is going to be differentiated in the time to come?

Brian Clark: We at Travelzoo see tremendous strength in the meta search sector, and the promise of the business model. Users are drawn to the simplicity and efficiency of the model, and suppliers respect the cost efficiencies and ability to maintain direct contact with their customers through meta search.

Travelzoo’s business model will still focus on our core capability the Travelzoo’s Top 20, which has seen significant growth as well as focusing on Fly.com and providing differentiators that add value to the consumers and suppliers.

(In case of MSE + UGC - it can be pointed out that unbiased meta-search and UGC may seem to be perfectly compatible but the real challenge is how do you build in sophisticated collaborative filtering and recommendation engines that depend on individual tastes as well as recommendations).

EyeforTravel.com: In its analysis, Hitwise has pointed out that many of the visitors to TripAdvisor are researching travel plans, so combined with the fact that many are already visiting metasearch websites, flight searches are a natural extension of services to the audience. Considering that Travelzoo had a total unduplicated number of newsletter subscribers of 14.6 million as of December 31, 2008, could you provide an insight into how do you intend to capitalise on this traffic?

Our subscribers are the perfect audience for Fly.com, and they have been asking for travel search capabilities for a while. When we find a travel deal, we let our users know via email, and in some cases we will now direct them to Fly.com to match the great deals with specific itineraries.

As far as our subscriber base is concerned, we just surpassed 15 million subscribers.

(In the U.S. alone, Travelzoo has over 10 million subscribers to its Top 20 list and Newsflash email alerts. During Q4 2008, Travelzoo added a total of 733,000 new subscribers to its email publications. In North America, the company acquired 488,000 subscribers, at an average cost of $2.75 per subscriber in Q4 2008 compared with 361,000 subscribers at an average cost of $3.73 in Q3 2008).

EyeforTravel.com: Can you reflect upon relationship with OTAs? Which ones have you signed up so far?

Brian Clark: We are working with some great OTAs, but have not settled on our final portfolio of OTA partners.

EyeforTravel.com: According to Compete, online travel agencies are using travel meta search the most. Five percent of the OTA traffic comes from the travel meta search engines. But airline/carrier websites convert this traffic the best (2x their average website conversion rates). How do you assess the utility of MSEs for airlines and OTAs going forward?

Brian Clark: We think Fly.com works very well for both airlines and OTAs. Travelzoo has a very passionate, targeted audience, and Fly.com now provides an efficient funnel that drives conversion, regardless of whether it is an airline or OTA.

EyeforTravel.com: Late last year, Compete had pointed out that most of the MSE activity has centered around selling flights (in case of Kayak, the flight vs hotel activity split is 81 percent for flights, 78 percent in case of SideStep, 97 percent in case of Farecast, 95 percent in case of Mobissimo and 64 percent in case of Yahoo!’s Farechase property). In fact, it was being said that to continue their successful growth, meta search will likely turn to other categories such as lodging, car, and package products. How do you assess the situation?

Brian Clark: We agree. Diversification is key to Fly.com’s success, whether it be category or even geographic diversification.

EyeforTravel.com: Different travel search engines have different strategies – for instance it varies from transaction focus versus Multi-phase focus (Planning -> Shopping -> Buying) and listing revenue focus (CPC, CPA) versus Advertising revenue focus (CPM, CPC). What’s your area of focus and which are the ones where suppliers/ other clients are most comfortable with?

Brian Clark: Our user strategy is focused on the simplicity, efficiency, and crispness of the user experience. Our monetisation strategy is, again, focused on diversification, so CPA-based revenues from listings and CPM/CPC-based revenues from advertising are equally important.

From a comfort factor perspective, we find that suppliers are most comfortable with the strategies that profitably move the needle for their business models.

EyeforTravel.com: What are your expectations from Fly.com and where do you foresee this brand in the time to come?

Brian Clark: Fly.com is a great complement to Travelzoo’s core travel deals publishing business. We believe Fly.com can become, over time, its own stand-alone brand while remaining highly integrated with Travelzoo.com.

Related links: Travelzoo on EyeforTravel.com

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