Contents
The Hidden Cost of Complex Online Pricing • Fly to Space in 2013 • Who’s Who in AeroSpace • Brazil to Get US Visa Waiver • Russian Online Travel Surges • GateGuru on WP7 • Super-7 Travel Aspirations
The Hidden Cost of Complex Online Travel Pricing
Travel companies have been creating increasingly complex pricing models in the pursuit of additional revenue. Many factors now go into pricing models, such as: package inclusion, dates/times, same day booking discounts, ancillary fees, commissions, coupons and other discounts, business rules, etc. Much of this information comes from different sources. Outputs of some sources are required as inputs to other sources, meaning that at least parts of the pricing calculations must be done serially. All this complexity comes at a cost—in the amount of time it takes a travel site or app to calculate prices. There’s a great quote from the linked article:
“For many readers, a 10-second response time might sound like a pipe dream but in Google time, 10 seconds is about 9.8 seconds too long.”
“Online searches can take 20, 30, 40 or more seconds – which is the kiss of death for sales conversions.”
It has been known for years that website delays as short as 250 milliseconds can negatively impact revenue and user experience. Successful travel businesses will need to take that into account when developing pricing models.
Farnborough: The Ultimate Bucket List Item: Space Travel in 2013
Farnborough England and Paris France host the world’s premier airshows, Farnborough in even years and Paris in odd years.
Sir Richard Branson used the occasion of the Farnborough show to announce that his Virgin Galactic venture will make the first commercial passenger flight into space in 2013, carrying Branson and his two adult children on the SpaceShipTwo space plane. For a mere $200,000 you can book your own spot.
Branson also announced a new Virgin Galactic space cargo service that will place small satellites in orbit using “LauncherOne,” a new rocket that will be air-launched from the same WhiteKnightTwo aircraft that is used to air-launch SpaceShipTwo.
Farnborough: Who’s Who in Aerospace
In conjunction with this year’s show in Farnborough, CNN has run a number of aerospace industry articles. This one profiles many of the biggest names in the industry.
Brazil to be added to US Visa Waiver Program
The United States and Brazil signed an agreement to establish a Visa Waiver Program Working Group. Good idea for the U.S., since Brazilians spend more in the U.S. than travelers from any other country: an average per traveler of $5,114
Russian and Eastern Europe Travel Market to Make Big Online Shift
PhoCusWright reports that just 16% of Eastern Europe’s total travel market was booked online in 2011, but that figure will reach nearly 23% by 2013 as the online market awakens.
Popular GateGuru App Comes to Windows Phone 7
Super-7 Travel Aspirations
What a week for travel aspirations! I’ve found more features published in the last few days than anytime in the last few months. Since I couldn’t pick just one, I decided to link to seven of the best. If at least one of these seven features doesn’t make you want to travel, you’re not a traveler at all.
Slideshow: The 25 Best Places in the World to Photograph
Hotels I want to Stay At: Four Seasons Safari Lodge Serengeti in fall 2012
Bucket List Candidates: Lake Como and Varenna, Italy
National Geographic Channel Instagram Contest Winner
Slideshow: 31 Beautiful Waterfalls
American Express Travel + Leisure
Humanity.TV
Can a couple of guys wandering the world and shooting video with dSLRs compete with big-budget travel documentaries? Check out Humanity.TV and decide for yourself.
TravelTekker 