We’re in the business of spotting trends in online travel. Tell us what you think and a free EyeforTravel conference pass is up for grabs

In this month’s You Said It! we outline a handful of new, recurring and re-emerging trends that have come up in our interviews and research with you, the online travel industry, over the past month. We are, after all, in the business of spotting new trends that could help you sell more in a competitive landscape. We’ll be delving into more depth about these in the coming month.

Add your comment below telling us about trends we’ve missed or giving us your views and you stand to win a free EyeforTravel conference pass. Last month’s You Said It! winner is Christian Mischler, co-founder and chief operating officer of mobile-only website HotelQuickly. Well done Christian! We look forward to seeing you at one of our events.

1.     In trip services and push notifications: the trend of the year?

In this online travel trends piece Bob Rogers, co-founder of DealAngel, a firm recently acquired by the Russian online travel agent (OTA) OneTwoTrip, says they are currently working hard to build a lot more in-trip services. “This is an area that has been neglected by all OTAs,” he says, adding that, “once a person is travelling, there is virtually nothing going on”. EyeforTravel’s managing director, Tim Gunstone, couldn’t agree more. “You’d have to be very strange to book all your activities before your trip,” he says, pointing to the growing battle for tours & activities inventory. “Most tours are happy to sell in advance but so far fail to see why they should spend money selling to clients who are in their own town.

You’d have to be very strange to book all your activities before your trip

Mobile on trip booking could change this,” he says. And with browsing set to become free in Europe by 2015, he wonders if the travel industry will finally wake up and grasp this opportunity. Google is already on the geo-local case with push notifications from Field Trip, which allows user to, in its own words ‘learn about everything from local history to the latest and best places to shop, eat, and have fun’.

2.     Google moves: rising cause for concern?

Google threat, or Google opportunity? Okay so this is a well-worn headline but how are hotels feeling with the recent news that Google has signed an agreement with Room 77, for its hotel booking software, which will allow this giant of industry to cater to travellers looking to book quickly while on the move. Despite protestations from Google that it doesn’t want to take away direct business from hotels, Gina Baillie, EyeforTravel’s general manager isn’t convinced, and nor should the industry be either. Tell us what you think in the comments box below!

3.     Mergers afoot and travellers more footloose in Asia

It is all go in Asia-Pacific where by 2030, 49% of all passenger traffic globally will be within the region or between countries in the region and the rest of the world. Little wonder then that there are rumours of price wars and potential mergers or acquisitions of the big names; could we see Baidu acquiring C-Trip or elong before the year is out? EyeforTravel conference director Emily Assender says the fact that tours in Asia are now heavily regulated could mean that independent travel is set to boom. One sign is that TravelMob, Asia’s answer to Airbnb, has recently been given $1m in funding. Another signal is the growth in the low-cost carrier market, particularly in Japan and South Korea, but also in Hong Kong where multiple LCCs could threaten Cathay’s domination. Oh and if you need any more proof about Asia’s growth trajectory, Macau’s gambling revenues are now 7x those of Las Vegas.

Independent travel in Asia looks set to boom

4.     Airline merchandising: making a mobile comeback

It used to be that airlines would try to upsell at the point-of-sale but now they can do so at countless points of the customer journey. As such, airlines are signing up merchandising agreements for ancillaries and are increasingly looking to XML technology to do so, but standards remain a challenge. So the big question now is how can brands market ancillary products better (including things like branded fares?), and more effectively, and are the global distribution systems doing enough to help?

5.     The ability to consolidate data from various sources is a growing trend but must become more mainstream

This trend is one that comes from Chinmai Sharma, vice president of revenue management and distribution, Louvre Hotels Group. It is increasingly common, he says, for hotels to have a two-way interface between the PMS (property management system) and CRS (central reservation system), making it easier to access full transactional data from either source. But, he adds, that the process of adding more meaningful data from ecommerce platforms (traffic/conversion) and from CRM databases is still a new phenomenon and one that needs to become more mainstream.

6.     Legacy systems or an open source approach?

Ewan Nicolson is a senior analyst at Skyscanner who says, in the data field, one of the biggest challenges is both technological and architectural. “We’re getting to the stage that the tools we grew up with (SQL and Excel) aren’t really cutting it anymore,” he says. Solution, anybody?

7.     Forget a focus on conversion, the consumer is the word  

OTAs, metasearch engines and hotels are in a battle to win the consumer, says global conference director Emily Assender, and so the ability to personalise your offering remains a key trend. The industry may be getting better at this, says Conor O’Connor, co-founder of Hot Hotels, but it in a multichannel, multiplatform world, there is still work to be done to ensure a seamless experience. So to what extent should brands be looking to shift from Google Analytics to Universal Analytics, for example, which is now out of beta? And how far away are we from one-to-one personalised pricing?

Tell us your thoughts in the comments box below and you stand to win a free EyeforTravel conference pass. Here you will join us and other industry leaders in hearing how you can harness the latest trends to sell more travel product