Airbnb acquires HomeAway and consolidation in meta-search are among some of the predictions for 2015.
Philip Wolf, Founder, Phocuswright
1. The thing you will remember most about 2014 (personally)
The contents and news of one global tragedy after another, and a personal inadequacy to digest them.
2. The news headlines/developments that defined travel in 2014
Expansion of sectors beyond the basic air/hotel/car thing
3. Three predictions for travel for 2015
• Google’s dominance for customer acquisition dependency shows first clear signs of weakening.
• Airbnb acquires HomeAway.
• We won’t recognise the mobile app landscape one year from now.
Rod Cuthbert, CEO, Rome2Rio
1. The thing you will remember most about 2014 (personally)
I guess I can be forgiven for saying that the sale of Viator was — after 19 years — the biggest event of 2014. Besides the personal connection, the sale gave a rubber stamp, finally, to the tours and activities market, and we’ve seen significant investment and general activity in that space since then. That can only be a good thing.
2. The news headlines/developments that defined travel in 2014
There was a whole lot of stuff happening in the hotels space with OTAs and meta search companies, but frankly I found that pretty boring. It’s like old news recycled, with different product names but the usual suspects involved. More interesting to me was the frenetic action in the ground transportation sector: Uber’s growth and crazy missteps; the string of sky-high-valuation investments in taxi-hailing apps; the rapid proliferation of ground transport aggregators; and the emergence of companies like Loco2 and Capitaine Train, doing such a fabulous job of rail bookings after so many others have failed to get this right.
3. Three predictions for travel for 2015
• I am hoping the industry moves away from the ridiculously counter-intuitive model it derives so much revenue from right now, sending site visitors to competitors in return for referral fees. That’s like stepping into a Macy’s store, telling the assistant you’d like to buy a shirt, and hearing the reply “Sure, we have shirts. I’ll also show you some from Nordstrom and JC Penney, because theirs might be nicer. Or cheaper.” That’s just so dumb, it has to stop.
• We’re clearly going to see consolidation around ground transportation players: there are too many companies active right now and some M&A is a certainty.
• Finally, I expect to see Google do a lot more in travel, but using Maps as the consumer entry point. They already have great intra-city journey planning and have been building it out aggressively to include inter-city trains in many parts of the globe. Soon they’ll be able to tell you most ways to get between many places, and where to stay when you arrive. When it comes to multi-modal journey planning Rome2rio has set the bar quite high, but it’s good to see them giving it a red hot go, as we like to say in Australia. Competition is always a good thing.
Andy Sleigh, General Manager, APAC, Skyscanner
1. The thing you will remember most about 2014 (personally)
Watching Japanese PM Shinzo Abe’s welcome speech for WIT Japan, followed by Recruit Lifestyle’s CEO’s keynote in English – a sure sign that this massive market is embracing inbound travel and tourism in the run up to the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.
2. The news headlines/developments that defined travel in 2014
• Alibaba’s spin-off of Alitrip Just the tip of the iceberg of big moves in online travel from the giant after its $25bil IPO.
• More acquisition activity – Priceline and Open Table, Expedia and Wotif, Skyscanner’s own acquisition of mobile developer Distinction; travel companies are acquiring innovative companies to scale, localise and capture the end-to-end customer journey.
• Wearable tech makes more strides This next phase in hardware innovation sounds the call for travel tech companies to chart their paths towards this new frontier in mobile.
3. Three predictions for travel for 2015
• More of the world’s biggest ecommerce players waking up to the fact that online travel is still massively fragmented and ripe for disruption. If they can get it right – which won’t be easy – by any means.
• More big moves in online travel off the back of Amazon’s move into hotel bookings.
• Mainstreaming of collaborative consumption. The success of share economy start-ups like Airbnb will see a greater proliferation of such services. More hoteliers, tour guides, on-ground transportation, tourism bodies will explore incorporating elements of the sharing economy model to their businesses.
Jens Uwe Parkitny, Vice President Digital Marketing & Distribution, Asia Pacific, Accor Asia Pacific
1. The thing you will remember most about 2014 (personally)
Personally: Our family vacation in New Zealand on the occasion of the opening of my Chin Women from Myanmar photo exhibition at the Pataka Museum in Porirua, New Zealand (March – June 2014).
2. The news headlines/developments that defined travel in 2014
• Priceline acquiring OpenTable for US$2.6 billion, and TripAdvisor acquiring restaurant reservation service, La Fourchette, in Europe. “Travelers are diners”, and PCLN and TRIP adding value to their customer proposition and tapping into another huge growth market globally.
• AirBnB and Uber headlines reflecting the fast rise of the sharing economy model globally
3. Three predictions for travel for 2015
Mobile, Social & Sharing Economy models continue to drive change in consumer behavior. China will see further acceleration in smartphone penetration, a massive increase in mobile travel bookings as well as in travel-related social media platform activity .
Kevin May, Editor, Tnooz
1. The thing you will remember most about 2014 (personally)
Deciding to write a book which has absolutely nothing to do with travel or technology (http://halotheviolatorbook.com/)
2. The news headlines/developments that defined travel in 2014
Priceline buying OpenTable and TripAdvisor buying Viator signified that the destination is the next battleground in online travel.
3. Three predictions for travel for 2015
* Big shake-out in ground transportation web services (taxi, ride-share, etc), via a combination of mergers and failures
* Increased acceptance of the “sharing economy”-type accommodation providers in corporate travel.
• Consolidation in the metasearch sector as too many brands to go round, possibly another OTA buying in.
Timothy O’Neil Dunne, Managing Partner, T2Impact
1. The thing you will remember most about 2014 (personally)
I travelled more flights. Slept in more airports. But perhaps the thing I noticed and remember more than anything else is that we are finally burying our legacy past in travel distribution. It’s a very good feeling. However I still see those who cling to the past in legacy thinking. This is not defined (necessarily) by age. Risk avoidance seems to be still pervasive and unwillingness to change continues to be a business problem. Sadly that has not changed
2. The news headlines/developments that defined travel in 2014
• The floating and removal of the Costa Concordia. Finally giving closure to the relatives of those who lost their lives in the accident.
• MH370 and MH17 – defines the fact that travel is a soft target for terrorism.
• Excess supply in APAC of flights
• The lowering of the price of oil AND the ability of airlines to make decent profits as a class.
• 2 GDS IPOs. (Travelport and Sabre).
• Sale of OpenJaw Technologies to GuestLogix
3. Three predictions for travel for 2015
• Emergence of data driven products and services in travel
• NDC will become meaningful for Airline Product Distribution – even if not widely deployed
• No one will solve the Availability Cache problem and it will get much worse (before it gets better).
• Featured image credit (Past & future sign): IvelinRadkov/iStock
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