Consistently, as I look at the statistics on my blog, one of the top blogs is the one where I talk about the biggest GDS (Global Distribution System) company. This week was no different. I can only imagine that the rumors about Sabre buying Abacus are fueling the renewed interest in my 2011 blog “Who …
What if Sports Authority only had one door into its sports shoe department and it was marked “professional athletes only”? That would make no sense whatsoever. Right? What about the moms that buy sports shoes and the kids that wear them and the amateur athletes, oh and the dads. Sports Authority knows that they need …
Travel industry Distribution is like Sport Shoe Sales – or rather it should be. Read More »
It is a Labor Day tradition for AAA to report the number of people traveling by car for the long weekend. This weekend is no different. Highest Labor Day Travel Numbers Since Recession AAA Travel projects 34.7 million Americans will journey 50 miles or more from home during the Labor Day holiday weekend. This makes …
The numbers don’t lie – stop the obsession with the air traveler Read More »
For my regular readers, I want to apologize for missing day four of the new series. Sometimes life just gets in the way. Miss the first post in this new series – Alphabet Soup of Success? Click HERE and go back to the beginning. ——————————————————————- The next letter in our Alphabet Soup of Success is …
As I look back through all of my blogs, the second most popular one is “Who is the biggest GDS”. (For those wondering what the first most popular blog was, it was the one “To Delta Airlines: I would have built the website for $80 million…..“). Well, it is time to put this argument to …
Tonight as I looked through my most popular blogs, in the top 3 was a story in my Pedigree Series about Orbitz. At the time of the article, just a little over 2 years ago, their market cap was just $233m and they were embroiled in a battle with American. The suit is now history …
According to a report from ComScore, U.S. consumers spent more than $100 billion on online travel bookings last year, making 2012 the first year ever that the $100 billion figure was surpassed. U.S. travel e-commerce sales reached $103 billion in 2012, up 9 percent from the previous year. This is a big deal, right? After …
The $100b spent online by travelers is still just a fraction of what could be Read More »
Travel Distribution is an interesting, complex animal. Shoppers are incredibly fickle and they love to compare prices. And travel suppliers love to fill their airplanes, rooms, cruise ships, etc., at the highest possible rate of course! There is an ongoing debate that is playing out in the marketplace about the value of third party distributors, …
Want consumers to buy direct? Wishing won’t make it so. Read More »
To set the stage, we don’t have a lot of billion dollar transactions in the travel space. So before you chide me for comparing the Kayak acquisition to the Worldspan acquisition in 2007, hear me out. Just six years ago, Travelport announced its intention to purchase Worldspan for $1.4bn. Yesterday Priceline acquired eight-year old Kayak …
The Shifting Distribution Landscape – Kayak gets bigger value than Worldspan Read More »
Retrospective – Part 3 of a 4 part series (for Part 2 click HERE) In my last blog, we talked about how mini-computers impacted the travel ecosystem and how they helped travel agencies consolidate booking information from multiple sources for reporting and accounting purposes. They vastly improved productivity, accuracy and timeliness and were especially useful …
Flashback 1995 – This is not a drill. This is not a drill. Read More »
