The travel industry is possibly the most mature online industry. Still, online travel not only attracts some of the most interesting start-ups concepts (semantic web, anyone?) around, it also attracts entrepreneurs for the second time around. What makes successful online travel entrepreneurs want to go back for more?

Sam Shank of DealBase

The online travel industry is big: for 2008, revenues are estimated  at $95B, roughly more than a third of the revenues of the travel industry as a whole (source). Every year online travel increases its share of the travel industry revenues, so it is no surprise brilliant entrepreneurs keep on entering this business, especially because so many aspects of the online travel buying and managing experience still need enhancing. Sam Shank, CEO of DealBase who previously founded Travelpost.com, Gregg Brockway, the CEO of TripIt who started Hotwire, and our own Elliott Ng of Uptake, who sold Loyalty Matrix to Responsys , came together to discuss serial entrepreneurship in this space. The panel, put together by the Stanford Global Entrepreneurial Marketing program, brought together the speakers of the “sister” panel at TravelCom, and was titled “Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Online Travel”.

TripIt

Sam, Gregg and Elliott are  focusing on how to create a better experience for the online travel end user- and they’re building companies to achieve just that. Sure the times have changed since they first started. Most notably,  for a company to achieve success it needs less capital and less people. The lowering of the barrier to entry allows much more innovation to flow into the industry, but has also made it much more critical to create high quality technology from the get-go. “You get what you pay for”, said Brockway when he talked about his first experience trying to build a technology–quick and dirty. In essence, the panelists agreed that if you have a solid technology to build on, you can really grow your business instead of having to worry about patching up the code every time you want to do something new. Another challenge of this new wave of start-ups is recruiting: since less people are needed to run a company, the ones that are hired need to be the very best available on the market, which means much more time is spent recruiting talent.

Online travel is a very fragmented space. A giant like Expedia only makes $3B in revenues (source)- less than 4% of the industry revenues. There is space for a  disruptive enough technology to offset the big players and take over a big chunk of the market, but currently what most dynamic entrepreneurs are focusing on is to provide a better customer experience. Despite having changed the way we make our travel plans in the past 15 years, online travel is still clunky and not always user friendly. It works like a charm if you know exactly where you want to stay and where you want to go, but if you’re exploring different options, have flexible travel plans and are researching the best deals there isn’t really much out there. That’s where the tools provided by the new travel companies become really groundbreaking. They still leverage on the contents of existing companies (review sites, hotels, airlines, booking services, etc), but they reorganize information in a way to make your life easier.

Start at UpTake and figure out where you want to stay based on your own needs: a beach vacation for the whole family or the girls getaway you need. Then with DealBase the bargain-hunter in you can browse thousands of deals classified by location, activity and price to get the lower price on your trip. Finally, send all your confirmations to TripIt to get them organized with the TripIt tools, and then share them with the rest of your traveling party and add everything to your calendar in chronological order. Really, who doesn’t want an easier life?

MOFILM U12 UGC Contest

 Renaissance Hotels & Resorts wants you to create short films about Renaissance for the MOFILM U12 Contest, with the winner(s) getting all the aforementioned goodies.

The Renaissance contest is a part of the MOFILM U12 User-Generated Content competition (that’s ‘You to the Power of 12 – U12′) at the Cannes Lions 2009 Advertising Festival, held in the South of France from June 21-27. 

Renaissance will award prizes to the top three winners, with the first place winner receiving a 7 day/6 night trip to a major film festival of their choice over the next year in Paris, New York, London, Hollywood, Toronto, Miami or Sydney. 

The first place winner will also join Spike Lee at the Cannes Lions 2009 Advertising Festival held in the South of France the 21-27 of June where they will compete against the top films selected by the eleven other top brands participating in the MOFILM competition for the chance to win a festival grand prize of $12,000 and an apprenticeship with Spike Lee on his next film or ad project.

Renaissance, along with 11 other brands, including AT&T N.A., Best Buy, PepsiCo (Doritos), Hewlett Packard, Kodak, Nokia, Philips, Telstra Australia, Unilever (Omo),Visa and Vodafone, is providing a ‘creative stage’ for individuals who submit their entries, with a collective audience of around 10 million worldwide.

The finale of the competition, dubbed as the ‘Oscars of the Advertising World’, will be hosted by Spike Lee, and offers a total of $120,000 in prizes across all 12 brands and a chance to be on set of Spike Lee’s next production. MOFILM has teamed up with film industry professionals to offer creative advice to entrants via MOFILM’s Twitter page (@MOFILMugc) at designated dates and times throughout the duration of the competition, to help assist in the creation of video submissions.

In a press statement, Tina Edmundson, senior vice president, lifestyle brands and Renaissance operations, said that “Renaissance Hotels & Resorts is a brand for passionate travelers, who may be visiting for business or for pleasure, but whenever and wherever they travel, our guests delight in the discovery process.  They want to know what’s out there, what’s new, what’s local, what’s not typically their everyday routine. This is why we are excited about being a part of the MOFILM project and to discover these new and emerging filmmakers with the passion to tell the Renaissance story.”

The last entries will be accepted on June 8, 2009 at 8:00 am GMT. Individual brand winners will be announced on June 15. The top three finalists will be announced on June 25 and the grand prize winner will take the main stage at Cannes on June 26, after they will have provided the ultimate in “consumer feedback.” The U12 competition is open to everyone.

Visit www.mofilm.com for complete guidelines and information.

Don't be heavy-handed with your camera phone.

Christopher Elliott, author of the popular travel industry blog Elliott.org, recently posted a bold suggestion for dealing with poor customer service on a trip: Whip out your phone or digital camera and start filming. Along the same vein, he also suggests that folks who have experienced poor treatment by airlines or hotels blog about it.

The theory behind both suggestions, of course, is that many people — whether it’s the leader of a large nation or a hotel clerk who only thinks he’s that important — will only be on their best behavior when they realize people could be watching. And if that works for individual service people, it goes double for corporations.

Social media and the lowly camera phone have already made their impact on big issues like human rights abuses. More quietly, but just the same, they are stopping customer service abuses too. Elliott cites one example of an airline changing its policy on shipping foldable bikes after a passenger blogged about it.

And if you think employees won’t be impressed that you’re filming, look at this case of the grandmother who was arrested when she refused to delete footage of a mild altercation on a JetBlue flight.

What happened to that granny shows what a powerful message you send when you turn on a camera, but it also shows the risks. In her case, she wasn’t trying to accomplish anything, but still she ended up a lot worse off than she had been, being led off the plane in handcuffs.

As a reporter, I know that many people react emotionally to any kind of recording device. Elliott said most employees won’t decline to be recorded because that would make them look bad, but in my experience lots of people decline to be recorded, especially when they’re in the course of doing their jobs. They also tend to get ticked off or frightened when a camera or tape recorder comes out.

So I’d say take Elliott’s advice when the situation really warrants it. If you fly to a tropical resort and get stuck in a room with no AC when you were promised state of the art, film away. But remember that although the filming alone may get you better treatment, you are doing this to collect evidence, not to be a bully. If you act intimidating or imperious, or imply that you are a member of the media (whether you are or not), the reaction is likely to be more extreme. Not only is it unethical to say you’re media in order to get perks (whether you really work for the New York Times or New York Bagels), some people will interpret any mention of media affiliation as bullying and abuse of power. It’s happened to me.

Personally, I feel like my mom’s tactic of taking down names is usually enough to remind service people to mind their ps and qs. If you choose to film, be prepared for a battle — and remember that your actions will be recorded too.

Photo by Compujeramey, used via Creative Commons license.

Travel industry: Don

Industries are getting used to receiving a helping hand from the federal government these days. The travel industry, not to be left out, asked Congress in April to respond to the latest decline in tourist arrivals by creating a new travel promotion program.

Which must have made the sting particularly sharp Thursday when travel industry execs heard Vice President Joe Biden say he was advising his family to stay off airplanes and subways because of the H1N1 flu (a.k.a. swine flu). The industry’s spokespeople are too polite to say so, but it surely felt like putting a hand out for help and getting it slapped away.

The VP’s staff was quick to “clarify” that Biden meant nothing like what he said. It’s very lucky for the travel industry that the average American probably doesn’t consider the vice president a prime source of medical advice anyway. To tell the truth, comments I’ve heard seem to indicate the public doesn’t give much credence to the federal government at all in this situation.

Still, the U.S. Travel Association felt the need to urge Americans to ignore the veep and listen to doctors, none of whom have publicly told people to stop traveling by plane or subway at this point.

So what are bona fide medical professionals advising Americans to do about travel? Depends which professionals you ask. While the Centers for Disease Control has advised against travel to Mexico, the World Health Organization has not. (That might be good news for bargain seekers, because if you’re bold enough to vacation in Mexico right now, there are deals to be had.)

For those who do go to Mexico, the CDC recommends that high-risk people (such as pregnant women, the elderly and small children) consider bringing anti-flu medications on their trip. For all travelers, the CDC recommends making sure you’ve had your flu shot, knowing how to use your health insurance coverage while away, and of course practicing good hygiene to prevent spread of disease.

As a traveler, I wish the CDC would say more. Since my family is headed for a large water park resort next week, I’m really curious (and a little worried) about whether we high-riskers (I’m pregnant and I’ll be going with my small children and my elderly grandparents) should be avoiding places where travelers converge. I recently heard from another family headed for a Disney theme park with the same doubts.

But it’s not the kind of thing the industry is going to want to hear, unless the advice is, “Go ahead!” I worry that Biden’s gaffe will make the government reluctant to issue more travel advice, even if it is warranted. And I’m confident that it will make some people less likely to listen, even if advice is issued. Now that the government and media have been branded as overreacting, that public impression is going to stick.