The Cafe has MOVED!

Greetings Cafe Patrons - thanks for stopping by, but the Barista humbly asks you to head around the internet corner to the new location of the Cafe.  Please re-point your browsers and your bookmarks to www.intelligent.travel/fridaymorningcafe, and I hope to see you in my new location very soon.  Cheers, The Barista.

The Cafe is on the Move...Stay Tuned!

Greetings, Cafe Patrons,

Sorry for the short notice, but the Barista is closing up to "move premises" over the next two weeks, as I attempt my skills as a webmaster in creating a new website which will also house the Cafe.  This should be interesting...!

In any case, I hope to be back up and running for Friday the 19th of November.  Wish me luck! 

Of Burgers…and Buying Travel

How much does yours cost?

Greetings, Cafe Patrons.

Over the past few weeks, much has been made in the global business and economic press regarding a topic normally not infused with passion and rhetoric – currency exchange rates.  Given that one of my friends here in Australia who works for a global investment bank recently proposed a “Parity Party” for when the Aussie dollar matched the US dollar for the first time in nearly 30 years, discussing currencies is seemingly becoming as cool as property prices used to be in terms of discussions amongst friends at dinner parties.

The Economist recently had a special feature on the so-called “currency wars” that some pundits are concerned may break out across the globe.  One of my favourite (and most useful, to layman economists like myself) indices that helps understand the value of world currencies is the “The Big Mac Index” which highlights the relative costs of McDonald’s iconic sandwich across the globe.

So what do currency rates, Big Macs and travel have to do with each other?  Plenty, I might argue.

It may not matter as much if your air, hotel or car deals are localised in a particular market and you’re dealing in local currency.  Your Big Mac costs what your Big Mac costs in your own market, in essence.

However, many GDS / airline contracts, for example, are written in US dollars and with the greenback’s softening lately, this produces an interesting dynamic in the corporate travel space.  Especially with travel management company transaction fees.

TMC transaction fees incorporate a variety of factors to arrive at what a company ends up paying for their services.  And a fair bit of TMC infrastructure and revenue is made possible by the commercial relationships with GDS’s, technology providers and air/car/hotel suppliers.  No reason to begrudge that, as TMC’s are in business to make money after all.

The incessant downward pressure on transaction fees over the past decade has made this dependency on 3rd party commercial relationships vital for TMC’s to continue to provide the services companies are asking for.  However, if you’re a corporate buyer and are out in the market at the moment, or if you’re a TMC seeking a new GDS provider or preferred airline deal – check how much your Big Macs will REALLY cost you.

Many airline-GDS contracts are written in US dollars.  Therefore, with many global currencies performing well against the US dollar at the moment, the ability for GDS’s to negotiate strong local commercial deals is hampered a bit.  OK, maybe a lot, as the US dollar value of the GDS’s airline contracts aren’t worth as much as they used to be when translated into local TMC/agency contracts.

Same with airlines, as if you’re doing your negotiations with an overseas carrier for your local outbound international travel, is the carrier’s home market strong or weak from a currency perspective?  If you’re seeing the fares being offered now to try and attract Brits or Americans to come to Australia, you’ll see that they are trying to distract travellers from the fact that due to the strong Aussie dollar, its no longer cheap to spend money Down Under.  Big Macs are pricey here.

And lastly, if you’re a corporate buyer negotiating a global contract with your TMC, and you want a single price in US dollars, you may find that what used to be cheap transaction fees for markets in Asia Pacific (after converting to USD) aren’t so cheap any more.  Again – a Big Mac is a Big Mac in name only, price on advisement!

So although currency fluctuations may be the provenance of bankers, traders and speculators, the next few months could pose a conundrum for anyone in a commercial role in the travel industry.  Which is: do you know how much you’re currently paying, how much you want to pay, and whether you think you will end up paying what you think you should pay?

Which begs another question: do you want fries with that?

Travel Innovation: A Field of Dreams? Not Quite…

This field will cost me how much??

Good morning, Cafe Patrons.

I may be going a bit “American” today in my references, but perhaps you’ll indulge me a bit so that I might be able to make a salient argument.

An oft-referred to approach in technology, consumer goods, electronics, etc. is the idea of “if you build it, they will come.”  And for fans of American Baseball, you’ll know what movie I’m referring to which originated this now commonly used business buzzphrase.

Over the past few weeks, there have been the annual 3rd/4th quarter flurry of events and conferences within the travel industry – ACTE Berlin, WebInTravel, TheBeat Live, EyeForTravel Distribution Summit – to name a few.  And it seems as though much of the talk from these conferences was focused on what seems to be a growing ennui amongst industry veterans that innovation in travel is stagnant at best and downright disappearing at worst.

The blogosphere and online industry publications are also full of similar rants and exasperated viewpoints; some examples for your “light” reading pleasure: Travel Tech consultant Norm Rose - http://www.tnooz.com/2010/10/19/mobile/the-gap-between-emerging-technologies-and-the-travel-industry/ ; Travel Analytics founder Scott Gillespie - http://gillespie411.wordpress.com/2010/10/14/four-barriers-to-travel-innovation/ ; and a host of GDS, OTA and travel .com leaders sounding off at WIT: http://www.tnooz.com/2010/10/19/tlabs/there-is-no-innovation-in-travel-only-creativity/

Throughout all this debate and dialogue, it’s become apparent to a few, but not to enough of the many, that there is a fundamental issue with respect to driving innovation in travel.  I would go on to argue that this is especially true for corporate travel, which is summed up by a reply to Scott Gillespie’s posting from Michael Boult of hotel technology experts Lanyon: "Innovation is constrained when those whose problems will be solved by new approaches are unwilling to pay to be helped."

Spot on Mike.  All too often in our industry, the expectations of buyers (and I’m including both corporate travel buyers as well as TMC’s and travel agencies here) is that vendors of technological solutions have to completely build out their technology, run it through comprehensive beta and user testing, launch it to some “brave” customers, and then – and only then – might a customer say “OK you can start invoicing me now.”

The problems with this approach are many.  First off is a simple matter of cash flow dynamics.  The expectation is that the technology company has to completely fund the development of their products before earning any revenue from them, putting them deep into a hole which may take years – if ever – to dig out of.

Second is that due to this overwhelming need for the technology to start earning revenue as quickly as possible, the capabilities of many products are either dumbed down to try and attract the broadest customer base possible, or rushed to market relatively incomplete, in the hopes that “if we build it they will come.”  Yes but will they?  And if so, when?  And will you have burned through your capital by then?

The result of this is then that what’s launched to market often doesn’t really meet anyone’s needs, is looked at as being un-innovative, and therefore results in negative impressions about new technologies which stifles innovation and risk taking by the tech companies in the future.

Now I realise I’ve not provided any examples of this, although we all know some from our own experiences and I’d rather not hang out any dirty laundry outside the Cafe.  There are certainly some successes out there too of course, otherwise we’d all still be writing out airline tickets by hand.  And since I’m a guy who likes to look to the future, rather than re-hash the past, I think that’s where this dialogue now needs to go.

On that note, Cafe Patrons – where to from here?  How can we build a mutually beneficial, shared-risk culture in this industry whereby those who will benefit from new innovations are ready to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, technically and commercially, with companies ready to deliver these opportunities to our industry? 

Or – to tie this all back to my “Field of Dreams” analogy – I would argue that the approach cannot continue to be “if you build it, they will come,” but rather “if we build it together we can both be successful.”

Take that, Kevin Costner.

(image courtesy IMDB.com)

Part 2 – Corporate Travel Personalisation...And What To Do (Or Not Do) About It

In case your normal Genie isn’t available, hopefully today’s Cafe will help see your future…!

Greetings, Cafe Patrons. It’s been a fun and interesting couple of weeks since the Cafe “re-opened” with a new look and a new approach, and I think all the travel shots are starting to take effect as the dialogue is moving along fast and furious. Thanks to all the regulars and new Patrons for their participation!

As mentioned last week, based on the predictions contained within a recent Amadeus study on trends in travel over the next 10 years, there may be a significant change in the way travel products are sold and packaged, especially by airlines and perhaps to a lesser extent, hotels. The idea that an entirely new level of personalised choice and flexibility is already taking shape in some instances, as a Cafe Patron rightly commented on the fact that Air New Zealand’s new 4-tier pricing is a live example of this today.

And although I certainly didn’t mean to try and scare anyone with my thoughts last week about getting ready for these changes now rather than waiting for later, I do think that those who sit on their hands may be in a for a rough go of it if they fail to think at least a bit about what the future of corporate travel might look like.
Over the past several months your Barista has consulted with both TMC’s as well as technology companies around future direction and capabilities, and with corporate buyers about how things may evolve for them within their travel programs. As this is travel, there is no shortage of ideas, concepts and technologies all professing to help make things better. Therefore, I’ve summarised what I see are several ways in which travel buyers and suppliers can think through (and in some cases, work together) to tackle head-on the challenges and opportunities the next 10 years in travel could bring:

1. Understand The Present to Better Predict The Future: when it comes to creating a travel program which engages travellers, drives productivity, and pays off through business results, those who fully understand the culture and objectives of their company are more likely to succeed. Similarly, if you don’t know what your company’s strategies are, and don’t apply them to your thinking about how the travel program will compliment those strategies, change will be hard to manage. Is your company shrinking or growing? Are you on an acquisition spree or are you an acquisition target? How long is your company’s horizon in terms of planning – 1 year? 3 years? 10 years? By thinking ahead to understand where your company is going, and in turn what your travellers may be expected to do in terms of travel patterns, expenditure, etc. you’ll have a better chance of anticipating the impact certain trends will have on your travel program.

2. Find Yourself Some Foot Soldiers: Given the various generations that exist across any organisation today, its important that to better gauge how your travellers will react to future program changes and options you get a good cross section of them engaged now. Ask them to be guinea pigs for new technologies, products or suppliers; incentivise them to participate by giving them “preferred access” to programs or ideas that make them feel special; have them first on the list to pilot test the latest and greatest. Then, when you’re ready to take some of your ideas up the food chain to the leadership, you’ve got your “troops” on your side to back up your ideas with their feedback and evidence.

3. Start Managing Upwards Now: to the latter half of point #2, even if you have the best idea in the world, the surest way to get it shot down quickly is to ill-time your engagement with leaders or stakeholders. As in don’t wait until it’s ready to roll to let them in on it! Although it may seem premature, it’s OK to start working some ideas into your current day thinking and presentations to the organisation to start litmus testing their initial reactions and gauge your potential supporters (and detractors, for that matter.) You may even be surprised by getting a green light to move forward sooner or quicker on a future initiative than you may have thought.

4. Engage Your Suppliers – and Disengage from Those That Don’t Engage: this may seem the most obvious, but it’s also the one potentially most important. As the Amadeus report indicates, most if not all suppliers are going to be looking at all sorts of new ways to package, position and sell the value of their products. From experience, I know that most good suppliers will incorporate a future or strategy component to regular business reviews with their partners and clients, so this may be occurring today in some form or another. However, don’t just let them present to you – why not present back to them? Tell them what YOU think your company’s program will look like 2-5-10 years from now, and see how they react. And in turn, if they try to get you overly excited about a new idea because there may not be an alternative for you to consider, challenge the excitement. And if you don’t like what you’re hearing or seeing, be ready to make a move if the supplier’s strategies don’t match with your thinking.

5. Always Be Thinking in Terms of ROI: at the end of the day, travel is an expense and companies like to control expenses. Great ideas in business always need to come down to some sort of bottom line, be it revenue generation, cost reduction, future investment in growth, or a profitable combination of all these factors and then some. No matter how you look at evolving the components of your travel program in the future, the core value of travel management is maximising benefit whilst minimising cost. So even if you think that soon your travellers will be demanding seats on Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic flights (“our new sales targets are over the moon – literally – so I need to fly there tomorrow!”) if you can’t find a way to justify them financially as a preferred supplier, you’re probably better off keeping things firmly on the ground.

As with all things crystal-ball related, the above list is not all-inclusive nor does it contain all the silver bullets to address the challenges ahead. However, there’s no time like the present to start thinking, experimenting, challenging current norms, and evaluating potential future successes. After all, if you don’t think ahead, do you know who will?

So Cafe Patrons, what do you think – what other angles have I missed in the above list? Let’s hear them all!

Part 1 of 2 - Corporate Travel Gets Personal



Peronalised Cabins?  I'll take this one thanks!
(Image courtesy http://www.elakiri.com/forum/showthread.php?t=611197 - a cool trip through the 8 most luxurious aircraft cabins in the world.)

Greetings, Cafe Patrons.
First of all, I just wanted to thank everyone for reading and commenting on last week's Blogalogue regarding consolidation in global corporate programs. We'll keep that topic alive and well, as just because we have a new topic to tackle this week doesn't mean you can't still weigh in on last week's.

In keeping with the thought-provoking approach in the new look Cafe, I turned my attention this week to a hefty tome just released by Amadeus, in conjunction with Oxford Economics. The report, titled "The Travel Gold Rush 2020" is quite an interesting read, as it attempts to project trends and changes in the travel industry over the coming decade. I always find these reports fascinating to read through, as they invariably fall into a blatant promotion for whatever product/service the sponsoring organisation is fostering, or it's a thoughtful and useful review which just happens to be sponsored by an organisation who has parallel interests. Thankfully this one falls into the latter.

Although more oriented towards leisure and online travel, there was a very interesting theme throughout the report which has potential significant implications for corporate travel. And that is the idea that in the near future, air travel especially will see traditional classes (ie - First, Business, Economy, etc.) be replaced by "virtual classes." According to the report, "The future of the aircraft cabin is set to go through significant changes as customers are able to share their preferences with airlines and the airlines will be expected to meet their individual needs leading to the decline of traditional travel classes." The report later goes on to say that "In reality, what is likely is that traditional airline class structures will break down and there will be a multiplicity of travel classes in the near future."

Although I'm not altogether surprised by this prediction, from a corporate buying perspective it could prove worrisome. On the former, I'm not surprised by it as the individualisation of traveller needs and related product offerings is just a sign of the times. The "I want it now" generation coming up through the ranks demands smart phones with an infinite number of configurations to make it their own, websites and social networks with robust profile tools to allow for maximum individualisation, and an almost daily launch of travel websites devoted to allowing you to "book your travel your way."

On the latter, corporate buyers already faced with ancillary fee charges, travel application download costs, and new pricing schemes like dynamic hotel pricing are now faced with travellers who may (if you believe the Amadeus/Oxford predictions) ask for the airlines to create their own cabin class. How much will THAT privilege cost, I wonder? And will it be in policy?

Regardless of whether you believe this "personal cabin" will be a reality or not, if you are a buyer of corporate travel the message here is that if you're not already thinking about managing the growing personalisation of your company's travellers - you'd better start. And next week I'll have some suggestions on how to do this in Part 2 of this blog.

In the meantime - what do you think? Do you think travellers are headed down a no-going-back road to individual freedom of choice for business travel, or will the company win out as they do today via standardised program design? Not to worry - the Barista still makes all his shots of travel advice to order....

Global Corporate Travel Consolidation: Join In the Blogalogue!

Greetings, Cafe Patrons.

Believe it or not, I’ve just turned 8-months old as Barista of the Friday Morning Cafe. I’m not quite sure how blog years translate into people years, but I hope I’m about ready to start university perhaps?

In any case, I thought that given some increasing traffic (thanks everyone!) and a readiness to tackle some more weighty topics in the coming months, it was time to move the Cafe on from V1.0 and kick things up a bit. Next week I’ll debut a brand new look for the Cafe - an advance thanks to Mrs. Barista for most of the re-decorating – she’s a wizard!

To get things rolling for the new and improved Cafe, this week is part one of what I hope will be a provocative and interesting “blogalogue” (def. – a dialogue conducted within a blog) between the Cafe regulars and soon-to-be-regulars. Without giving too much away, I know that some of you visit the Cafe from travel management companies, some are from GDS or technology companies, some are corporate buyers, and many are corporate or leisure travellers in their own right. Given the one-to-many nature of blogs, it is often hard to get people actually “talking” about some of the topics in a structured way.

In the new Cafe, I propose to change this up a bit. Here’s how: over the coming weeks, I will be reaching out to a few of you who are regulars and some who may not yet be regulars, to see if we can’t get the comments section rolling (that’s the “blogalogue” part) around a particular topic. And if my own web surfing experience is any indication, it will have to be a pretty interesting topic to get people to join in the discussion on line.

So here goes.

As the world’s economy tries to put the recent GFC behind it, I believe that the differences at which recovery is progressing across various global markets is significant. On the one hand you have emerging and/or expanding markets like the BRIC and South East Asian countries that have basically already forgotten about GFC, while the US and European markets remain sluggish and uncertain.

From a corporate travel perspective, this patchy recovery could pose a very interesting dynamic in the coming years as many corporate travel program heavyweights traditionally are centred in the US/Western European markets. This centralised approach to travel management in those organisations have, over the past decade in conjunction with mega-TMC’s, often sought a “one global TMC, one global policy, one global program” approach to consolidation.

Given the last 2.5 years of GFC turmoil, one might then think that continued consolidation would be the norm given the relentless pursuit of cost-cutting many companies have embarked on.

However, given the aforementioned growth of certain “non-traditional” economies, there may be a counter-trend which could find more purchasing power emerging from Asia, South America or Eastern Europe than previously thought. As these markets are now powering much of the growth for many companies, these new “darling regions” could wield much more influence over how they operate. And given that many of the emerging global powerhouse companies are actually based in these rapidly growing markets, we could see an entirely new travel purchasing dynamic emerge.

So – the blogalogue question for Cafe goers is this: will consolidation of corporate travel programs continue apace, or will a new, fragmented yet regional-centric approach start to take shape?

I have a view on this, but in order to get the blogalogue going I’ll allow it to come out in response to the arguments posted by Cafe Patrons in the Comments section – see the link just below this posting. Again, I’ll be offering extra “shots” of advice to those of you I’ll be reaching out to over the coming week to galvanise the discussion – and by all means please feel free to bring newcomers to the Cafe, as again next week we will have a fresh new look ready to welcome them all!

Look forward to chatting with everyone.

Rejected!

Good Morning, Cafe Patrons.

I am serving up a special, extra strong shot of travel caffeine today, as I think we all need something potent to help clear our minds of what has been a truly befuddling week in the Australian air travel industry.

Virgin Blue was left hanging at both the US and Australian altars with two of their brides-to-be - Delta and Air New Zealand - as the US Department of Transportation rejected their proposed tie-up with Delta, and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission did the same with their Air New Zealand proposal. In both rejections, the hypocrisy seems quite evident as not only has the US DOT has approved a similar (but much larger) British Airways / American Airlines trans-Atlantic partnership but the ACCC in Australia actually approved the Virgin / Delta deal last year.

Ironically, on the very same day the US DOT rejected the Virgin / Delta marriage another Australian Government entity, the International Air Services Commission, approved a continuation of what now amounts to a duopoly on the Australia-South Africa route by extending the codeshare agreement between Qantas and South African Airways. This duopoly is thanks to V Australia (owned by Virgin Blue) recently pulling out of the AUS-SA route, leaving those two aforementioned code share partners the only direct services between the two countries.

Both regulatory bodies cited various anti-consumer sentiments in denying the partnerships, but in my mind (both as a corporate and consumer purchaser of travel) I certainly don't think either body was representing my interests. Why isn't the ACCC weighing in on the South African/Qantas code share for instance, instead leaving it to some other governmental body to ascertain the impact on the consumer? Isn't the 2nd "C" in ACCC all about the consumer?

Perhaps Virgin and Delta should hire the lobbyists that BA and AA used when petitioning the US DOT on their alliance across the Atlantic, as they obviously spun their message correctly whereas Virgin and Delta seemingly did not. Regardless, I can't fathom how the DOT could justify BA/AA getting in bed together but have decided with Virgin and Delta to, um, keep things virginal apparently.

Same for the ACCC here. They claimed that a Virgin and Air NZ partnership "...would lessen competition and increase the likelihood of ‘‘coordinated conduct’’ on the trans-Tasman route." Apparently the US DOT doesn't think the same logic applies over there, as I'm sure there will be a fair bit of "coordinated conduct" between the Brits at Waterside and the Yanks at DFW.

And just to add more insult to injury, Qantas has now stated publicly that they have a beef with Virgin's proposed partnership with Etihad. Let's not even bother with discussing the merits of airlines objecting to other airlines' plans, shall we? Of course Qantas now has issues with Virgin's plans, but does anyone have any issues with Qantas' codeshares through to Europe with BA/CX, etc? Sorry, I just said I wasn't going to go there...!

Now, I'm not advocating that all governmental bodies charged with consumer protection around the world should operate under the same guidelines when it comes to regulating things like air travel. However, I would hope that they would operate with at least the same logic. And I for one find all these rulings illogical. After all, if there is any industry on this planet that is excellent at trying new ways to fill a void in a particular part of the market, it's the airline industry (see: Southwest, Ryanair, AirAsia...and yes, even Virgin Blue circa 2001.)

If Virgin and Air New Zealand do link up and decide to start doing anti-consumerish type things like charging $1500 one-way across the Tasman, I'm sure Qantas, Tiger, Emirates or any number of future upstarts will be ready to step in and bring that consumer back with lower prices or better service or whatever will woo the customer. So why do we need endless bureaucracy combined with a lack of common sense dictating the market?

Perhaps one day I will be paying $1500 one-way across the Tasman, standing up for the entire flight, and paying a fiver to use the toilet thanks to "coordinated conduct." And if that day happens, Cafe Patrons, I may have to charge extra for that lid on your morning cuppa...

EXTRA SHOT FOR THE DAY

I'll be in Hong Kong all next week through Friday, and thanks to a jam-packed schedule and some "renovations" I'll be doing on the Cafe, we'll be closed next Friday, September 25th. I'll be back open on October 1st with a whole new look - come check it out!

Image courtesy www.commons.wikimedia.org

May the Force Be With Us...Avoiding "Air Wars" in Asia Pacific

Greetings, Cafe Patrons.

Over the past several weeks, I've been reading with interest the increasingly noisy debate going on primarily in the North American market pitting airlines vs. GDS's vs. corporate buyers vs. TMC's vs. travel technology companies vs....wait a second, I thought wars were usually between two sides??

Perhaps likening this debate to a war is a bit of a stretch, but certainly the passions that are being flamed over distribution of emerging airline and hotel pricing models are quite toasty, to say the least. At the core of these arguments lie the surging revenues airlines are generating through the unbundling of their airfares and charging as ancillary fees all things great and small during the flight. The corporate travel industry in particular is heavily affected by these types of charges as it's pretty well universally accepted that no one has quite figured out how to book, track, manage, report and account for that $9 ham-and-cheese sandwich on board or that $7.50 pillow purchase (and if the company reimburses for the pillow, does it become company property?)

Earlier this year, the debate was taken to a very public, and entirely new level, via a pair of blog postings from US industry veterans Jim Davidson of Farelogix, and Kevin Mitchell of the Business Travel Coalition. These online salvos were then followed up by what I hear was quite the entertaining session at last month's NBTA conference in Houston. If anyone in the Cafe happened to attend that session, the Barista would love to hear more about it! For the rest of our Cafe goers, if you're up for some fairly fiesty reading, follow these links in order:

Farelogix vs. BTC: http://www.tnooz.com/2010/04/08/news/fear-and-loathing-in-the-airline-industry-innovation-on-hold/

BTC retort: http://www.tnooz.com/2010/04/09/news/set-phasers-to-stun-davidson-accused-of-warped-logix-about-airline-industry/

And just this week, a group of fed up industry types (of which Kevin Mitchell's BTC is a backer) have launched what seems to be another attempt to sway public opinion on the subject, albeit with a fairly silly YouTube video of someone's grandmother reading a prepared statement off a cue card. Again, if you're up for an amusing look at this topic, check out www.madashellabouthiddenfees.com

Anyway, while all of this lively banter is going on in the North American market, it begs the question: when will it hit us here in Asia Pacific? If the level of intensity around the debate within our industry overseas is any indication, we'd better pay close attention to ensure "peace" rather than bringing out the lightsabers. That way, we hopefully can learn from this debate for our region and how we can implement steps to pro-actively manage the situation rather than let it digress into a war of words.

What particularly concerns me about this situation for the Asia Pacific region is that content fragmentation is such a way of life here that any attempts to normalise things in the past have, well, not become the norm. Depending on what you classify as a CRS/GDS, there are more than 10 distribution systems in Asia within the travel industry, and that doesn't even count the proliferation of websites and online travel agencies offering content to travellers.

Adding to the mix, and which is reminiscent of what's happened in the North American market, is the rapid entrenchment of low-cost carriers across Asia Pacific offering their own version of direct selling to both consumers and business travellers alike. Oh, and don't forget that those same LCC's are also offering unbundled, pay-for-what-you-use services for a separate fee. So the battle lines may still be fuzzy, but they are certainly being drawn.

Now I'm not going for a "Travel Distribution Nobel Peace Prize" but I do have some suggestions for us as a regional industry to consider to try and avoid a repeat of the vitriol in other markets:

1. "Legal Collusion:" there are laws and very good reasons why airlines, GDS's or TMC's can't sit at the same table to discuss these things, but there's nothing against an airline, a GDS, a TMC and their corporate customers ALL SITTING DOWN TOGETHER to discuss these issues. All the dialogue from the US laments the fact that of all the stakeholders in this business, no one has sat down together to try and work this out. The first step to getting to an agreement is agreeing that no one has agreed on anything. So let's agree to sit down and discuss our disagreements, then work to agree on how to avoid future disagreements. Agreed?

2. Corporate Buyers Define What They Really, Really Want: what are the truly big issues with respect to fees: booking? Reporting? Policy? All of the above? More than the above? If buyers aren't clear about what their challenges are, then it just seems as though they're mad because no one asked them whether they wanted these fees in the first place (see suggestion 1 above!) One group that's not precluded from getting together and collating their grievances about travel-related issues are corporate buyers, so it's time to rally those troops and put together a prioritised list of issues and proposed recommendations from the ones who really bear the brunt of these fees.

3. Remove the Protectionist Attitudes: let's face it, we operate in a fiercely competitive industry, so we certainly can't begrudge anyone trying to make money here, be it airlines, GDS's, technology companies, etc. However, we must come to an understanding that at the end of the day we all have similar interests around efficiency, cost savings, and ease of use for those who want to buy travel services so if it's possible to be altruistic in our industry, this would be a reason to do so.

On that last point, perhaps I'm being naive as the massive growth projected for the Asia Pacific region in the coming decade is certainly ripe for certain entities doing all they can to grab as much advantage as possible over their competitors. That being said, time and again in the travel industry I find that suppliers and technology companies end up going down a certain road for several years, only to hit a wall and have to re-think their strategy. How about we avoid the wall altogether?

In any case, it may just require the Death Star to be blown up by the Rebel Alliance before anyone pays attention to this looming issue out here in Asia Pacific (are we the far far away galaxy perhaps?) Just don't ask me to comment on who I think Darth Vader is in all this...

Image courtesy www.sodahead.com

Same, Same...but Different?

Greetings, Cafe Patrons.

For those of you who have been to Thailand, Cambodia or other parts of SE Asia, you may be familiar with the theme of this week's Cafe. Whether it's a fake Rolex or a hotel room that's not quite as nice as you thought it was on the Internet, you'll hear a common reply from the locals: "yes, it's same same...but different!"

Which is what was running through my mind at last week's Association of Corporate Travel Executives' Asia Pacific Conference in Singapore. And no, it wasn't because someone was trying to sell me a "Louie Veeton" handbag for my wife ("no really honey, it's a real one...same same but different...!")

As I was sat at a roundtable listening to an industry perspective presentation, one of the attendees whispered to his tablemate that "we've heard this all before, has nothing changed in our industry? It's the same thing every year." And that's when it hit me - yes it's "same same" - but quite different than it may seem on the surface.

Take content fragmentation, GDS relevance and online adoption in Asia Pacific, for example. Five years ago when I attended my first ACTE Asia Pacific conference, I was working for a GDS company and was part of a session discussing the demise of traditional distribution due to the "imminent rise of online booking and direct connects in the region." Lots of nodding heads in the audience at that one.

At the conference last week, we heard from several TMC's including HRG and BCD that online booking adoption is growing in Asia Pacific and that supplier content fragmentation continues to be the norm in this region. So there you go - on the surface it sounds like we were saying what was said five years earlier ("same same!")

But listen closer, and you'll start to hear the "but different" part of the old saying. During another industry perspective presentation at ACTE, BCD's Greg O'Neil in particular talked about this subject within a comprehensive white paper called "At The Tipping Point" in which he rightly points out that while online booking has grown significantly in the region (the "same same" part) the BCD white paper also notes that "...a further trend toward the increased use by business travelers of smart phones and other Web—enabled devices should be seen as an interlinked development with online booking." That's the "but different" part.

The great fun of being in this region is that while on the surface sometimes things seem to move quite slowly, the undercurrent is whipping along at a break-neck pace. So while some people may see things as not progressing all that fast, others realise that when you reach the back-end of a period of time in this region you can expect things to suddenly look very, very different.

Many of the GDS pros, TMC leaders and buyers I spoke with last week to various degrees all understand that a big shift is already underway in Asia with respect to travel technology, distribution and traveller behaviour. And that shift is that mobile and hand-held devices are going to drive tremendous growth in self-service in Asia Pacific that will likely put this region well ahead of the rest of the world in this space in the coming months. Note I said months - not years.

Yes, given the plethora of GDS options (TOPAS or TravelSky, anyone?) seemingly endless new online upstarts (excellent IPO, MakeMyTrip) and rapid rise of mobile social media (60% of all tweets globally come from Asia - yowza!) this market may seem to be a madhouse sometimes. But from madness often comes greatness, and it's likely that the corporate travel industry will meet again in Singapore next year and look back on what will likely have been quite a year for travel technology in the region.

And that, my tablemates at ACTE, is very, very different than what you may think it is.

EXTRA SHOT FOR THE DAY

At the risk of taking credit for something I know I had no direct influence on, I still am pleased to know that Virgin Blue is at least thinking the same way I am.

In an earlier Cafe posting I offered up several ideas which DJ could take on board to help them in their attempts to steal corporate market share away from Qantas. This week they've announced that at least one of my points - widebody planes on domestic routes - will become a reality from May 2011 when they introduce A330 aircraft on routes between Perth and the east coast. Flying to Australia's largest state on a large aircraft is just natural, as why wouldn't you want to start stretching out as soon as you possibly can?

And just in case, by some miracle there are Virgin Blue patrons starting to have a peek in the Cafe's windows, I might suggest that they next see about what they're going to do with that useless "Premium Economy" class....

Image courtesy AustralianGamer.com