working together

Welcome to TTI Europe’s leading travel technology initiatives and standards organisation.

A word from the chairman

As I write this month’s newsletter article, I am touring the highlands of Scotland in my motorhome; something I have always wanted to do. It reminds me that there are some truly beautiful places that we have all yet to discover and often right on our own doorstep. When the sun shines the UK truly has it all! Whilst away from the hubbub of normal working life, it gives me time to reflect on what I think is important and key to all of us in the travel industry. It strikes me that each and every one of us is going through our own digital revolution in all that we do, both in our professional and social lives. After all, although I am in one of the remotest parts of Scotland I am still able to connect to the Internet (albeit on a fairly slow connection) where I am then able to speak to both of my sons via free web applications such as Skype and WhatsApp, via a lap-top or even a mobile device whilst they, as well as I, travel the world. For example my eldest son is in Canada at the moment and yesterday we had a very clear WhatsApp call between us, with me in Oban in the Western part of the Highlands and him in Calgary. We were also able to share all of our pictures and videos in real-time. I am also, of course, able to research all of the nice places to visit each day in my locality via my smart phone as I travel around and even, if needed, able to access all of my work documents via the cloud as well as

read all of my e-mails on the go. But the best bit is that I can now store all of those pictures and videos back to the cloud as I take them for easy access, sharing with friends and family via social media applications such as Facebook and, of course, safe storage. Remarkable when one stops to think of it compared to how we used to do these things and not that long ago really, but this type of activity is how we all now work and play and they are each in their own way digitally transforming our lives. In terms of TTI’s activities over the past few months: on Tuesday 2 June this year we held our Summer Forum once again in conjunction with our partners at ETOA. The subject discussed was “The Hotel Distribution Revolution” a hot subject that many of you will know is close to my heart! We heard from some excellent speakers and had some lively debate on issues such as ‘Is meta-search seen as an opportunity for hotels to once again sell direct or is it just another channel that needs its own commission?’ Also, ‘How is the recent judgement on best rate guarantees affecting the marketplace and are intermediaries the hotel’s friend or enemy?’ My thanks go out to all of the speakers for making the day both lively and informative for all that attended. As usual, presentations from the day are now available via

the website. Looking ahead to TTI’s programme of events for the rest of this year, our TTI autumn conference will be held on Monday 21 September and will focus on the subject that I started this month’s newsletter with, the digital transformation of travel and how Cloud and Digital Asset Management are subjects that are now “Top-of-Mind” with travel industry executives and leading travel brands today. And then finally, our Winter Forum which once again will be held in conjunction with World Travel Market – entitled the WTM Travel Innovation Summit in Association with TTI which will be held on Monday 2 November. Details of these events and venues will as usual be posted on our website and will follow in due course. In the meantime, I trust that you are all, like me, enjoying your summer holidays with friends and family and that business is looking good for you all. I very much look forward to catching up with each and every one of you at one of our events as detailed above later this year. Happy holidays to one and all!

Digital Transformation

Joerg Esser, Head of Long Tail and Managing

Director Hotels4U, Thomas Cook

Giles Rhys Jones, Director of Marketing

what3words

Mark Holt, CTO, thetrainline.com

Steve Dobson, IT Security Director, ATCORE

Julia Stent, Commercial Director, Top10

Steve Keenan, co-Founder, travelperspective

Michael Gwilliam, Marketing Manager, EMEA

Thunderhead

Andreas Nau, Managing Director Central Europe

Expedia

The quarterly TTI newsletter Issue 59 August 2015

TTI Shareholders:

by Peter Dennis, Chairman

full details & registration at www.tti.org/conference

Autumn Conference Monday 21 September - London

Our customers are undergoing a paradigm shift in

the way that they conduct business with us. Digital

transformation has become the new imperative.

Customers use multiple devices to interface with

our businesses and their shopping habits are

changing as they take advantage of shared

information about our products across social media

and review sites.

Travel companies are realising that to meet the

demands of the evolving consumer and competitive

environment they must undergo a digital

transformation. Organisations may need to be

streamlined, marketing and business strategies

need to be evolved that take into account the new

realities, current technology may need to be

replaced.

For this conference, TTI has assembled a team of

expert speakers who will examine the subject from

a variety of aspects. If you interested in your

business surviving well into the future, it is essential

that you attend this conference and learn more

about digital transformation.

Speakers:

Event kindly sponsored by:

The Hotel Distribution Revolution

Forum Report

First there were hotels. Guests phoned

to make a reservation or walked in

through the door. Then came the

internet and a new way of marketing

and distributing rooms and everything

began to change.

Setting the scene at TTIs recent forum

entitled the 'Hotel Distribution

Revolution' was Yahya Fetchati, chief

operating officer of Bookassist. He

moved from the period when hotels

walked away with 90% of their profit

with 10% going to a

handful of travel agents

to today's complex

distribution landscape.

Fetchati took the

audience through four

defining developments in

travel, specifically the

hotel industry, in the

past 20 years that

illustrated how

distribution works.

The rapid pace of

technology

development, the birth of

ecommerce, the ongoing

fight for market share

and changing

customer behaviour

have all contributed to the current

landscape.

The first development needs little

further explanation, except to say the

web has changed the way consumers

search for and buy travel and the

advent of social media and mobile

devices have all contributed to a

'perfect storm.'

"There were those companies that saw

the importance of investing in

technology and those that did not are

lagging behind."

The development of the transactional

web has led to the emergence of three

groups - early innovators such as

online travel agencies, aggregators and

more recently disruptors.

The innovators invested in new

technology while existing players

struggled to keep up with change. They

also understood the importance of

content. However, as more and more

content became available, yet

fragmented, there was a need for

aggregators and so metasearch was

born.

Finally, as the proliferation of social

media and smartphones has increased

we have seen the emergence of

disruptors such as peer-to-peer

accommodation providers and mobile-

only companies.

"Hotels did not

react to any of

these three

groups. That's a

massive

problem. How

will people find

you as a business and why book on

your website?"

Fetchati went on to explain the

importance of being visible, maximising

conversion and controlling distribution

which has also added to

complexity with new

players such as revenue

management

companies, online

marketing specialists

and channel managers

having sprung up.

All of these

developments, he said,

have turned distribution

into a 'battlefield' with a

constant fight for market

share.

Consolidation in the past

couple of years is also

about gaining power and

control and while the

value of hotel companies

shrunk that of online travel giants has

been increasing.

The OTAs are also investing in hotel

booking technology so as to complete

the circle in terms of acting as third

party suppliers as well as access to

technology services for hotels to take

business direct. The final defining

development, according to Fetchati,

has been the change in consumer

behaviour. Guests form and publicise

(Continued on page 3)

by Linda Fox

The fire alarm was activated. We all had to wait outside whilst the firemen checked that the Strand Palace Hotel was not actually burning down..

opinions without the knowledge of the

hotel.

"They act differently, buy differently,

think differently. They are using

multiple devices and interacting with

your business through multiple touch-

points."

With the impact of digital

developments front of mind, Jutta

Moore, managing

director of the Moore

Hotel Consultancy,

stepped in to bring

things right up to date

with the latest rate

parity rulings.

She said that in some

countries best rate

guarantees are

starting to fall away,

while others are

awaiting further

rulings. However, it's

time for hotels to

decide how to best

offer their services so

that ideally guests

book direct.

Moore said that the

independent hotel sector had been

more daring and creative in terms of

what it offers while chains are still

driving rate parity and remain too

dependent on OTAs.

"OTAs make it so easy to make the

booking in three/four clicks whereas

hotels try to add every eventuality into

the booking and have not invested in

this area."

Moore predicted that the market would

stick with rate parity for the

foreseeable future because that is

what the technology has been set up

to do. She added, however, that

hotels would start to experiment with

different scenarios in terms of which

OTAs to work with.

Speaking from the coalface of hotel

distribution, CitizenM commercial

director Lennert de Yong compared

how hotels did business in 1999 with

2015.

"How did we sell rooms, how did the

organisational structure work, what

kind of people did we need, what was

the sentiment?"

From the hotel side, little has changed

but in the outside world everything has

changed in terms of how people buy

and hoteliers and managers need to

know a huge amount more than they

did.

"We're heading for trouble because a

couple of companies have collected

all the knowledge and filled in the

knowledge gap and we're frustrated

as hoteliers. Somehow we expected

business to be the same."

De Yong added that there's

competition for guests coming from all

angles and the only loyalty customers

now have is to their phone.

While the debate over rate parity and

price control rages on, he said that it

will come down to the experience

provided by the hotel during the stay

and that is where the industry should

be investing. "We have to follow the

guest and what they want, what they

buy and what they download. They

will not want us to discriminate on

channel."

While the hotel distribution picture

might seem gloomy, there are reasons

for optimism. Overall, the sector

continues to grow, according to

Sharon Doyle, and there is plenty of

opportunity out there. She agreed that

the technology that drives hotel

distribution has changed and the

market becomes more complex every

day. But, there is still

opportunity.

She talked of the multi-

billion dollar value of the

hotel industry and yet

companies such as

Expedia and Priceline

are only involved in

about 5% of the sector.

"There is a huge portion

that is not with the OTAs

and while we definitely

want to keep an eye on

them, there is still a lot

of opportunity."

To tap into it, she said,

the industry needs to be

digitally focused. Doyle

went on to advise the

audience on the need to understand

the complexities of the market and the

importance of having the right skills on

board.

She also talked about the need to be

truly global in terms of understanding

other countries and how they are

dealing with rapid technological

development in areas such as mobile,

digital payments and new channels to

market such as WeChat.

Doyle concluded with some thoughts

on big data and the importance of

considering what data to share to

provide customers with the best

experience.

"The industry is changing and it

seems scary. There's lots happening,

it's growing and remains strong and

we can take advantage of that but we

really need to consider digital

premises."

(Continued from page 2)

Our four speaker (from left to right): Yahya Fetchati—Bookassist, Jutta Moore—Moore Hotel Consulting, Sharon Doyle—GTA, Lennert de Jong—citizenM Hotels

Social Media Corner

Social Media Advertising

Facebook currently demonstrates the future revenue model for every network. With all major brands actively building communities on the network, Facebook has progressively closed down organic audience reach “to reduce user’s timeline clutter” with brand content and now generally speaking, businesses need to pay to engage.

That’s going to mean an increasingly costly investment to stay engaged, but stopping social due to future media costs isn’t a serious option for brands.

We’ve put together this quick guide to social media advertising in the main social networks to help clarify what works best, in which channel to deliver what objective.

Facebook Top line: The network has the most comprehensive offering for ads, feeding on the interactions of 890m daily users to enable business to accurately target practically any audience to achieve many objectives.

Key Benefits: The most effective ads you can buy in social media for driving convertible traffic – in volume. Well targeted, contextualised promoted posts can deliver exceptional click through rates. Combined with a good campaign mechanic they’re excellent for gathering data from genuine prospects and growing your community too.

Ad types: There are 3 principle ad placements available on Facebook; Desktop Newsfeed, Mobile Newsfeed and Right Hand ads. There are a wide range of ad units that work within these placements. The look and functionality of these varies based on your chosen objective. Ads targeting video plays or website clicks look different from like ads targeting community growth, or app installs.

Targeting: Facebook has comprehensive demographic and contextual ad targeting options, which are its greatest strengths. The network also enables advertisers to set up powerful custom audiences using their brand’s own email data. Once loaded, you can use the same data to create lookalike audiences who match your existing customer’s Facebook profile.

Twitter Top line: Despite recent poor sales figures and an initial resistance to commercialisation from its user base, Twitter’s 500m daily interactions give the

network prime position for real time marketers with a sophisticated range of advertising products.

Key Benefits: Consistently one of the best ways to drive leads more cost effectively than other networks, especially if you have a Twitter audience already engaged with your brand. Twitter cards are an excellent way to collect good quality data direct from the network and use it to drive highly targeted traffic to your website.

Ad types: Similar to Facebook. The prime ad units offered amplify native Twitter functionality with promoted tweets and ads that drive post engagement. But ads that drive follower growth, app installs and video views are also a prominent offering.

Promoted Tweets are set up either as posts you have already made that you want to boost in a way that seems organic, or they can be set up especially as ads that don’t appear in your feed or search results, and carry website conversion tracking – in a very similar to the Facebook Promoted post option.

Follower Ads are set up and automatically optimised to drive users back to your own profile with a “follow us now” message to encourage new followers.

Apps & Video Ads are set up to drive specific objectives such as video play and app installs and can both be highly effective, especially on mobile.

Targeting: There’s a wide range of targeting options including location by country and area, broad and narrow matched keywords, @user profile names, your own data, languages and gender, along with platforms & devices.

User experience is a key to the targeting decision you make on devices and platforms. For instance, only serve mobile ads if the content is really optimised for it. Stick to desktop ads if you have big long forms or detailed campaign copy on landing pages.

LinkedIn Top line: With its substantial ownership of professional networking in most Western market places, LinkedIn provides a solid base for B2B awareness and recruitment advertising, though lead generation is still most successfully delivered by genuine organic networking and engagement.

Key Benefits: Quality traffic to your website and the most engaged users of any of the “Big 3″ social networks when they arrive. Conversion isn’t as strong from paid media as it is from earned, but sponsored updates drive good brand engagement with organic posts and standard ad units can deliver excellent returns for recruitment.

Ad types: There are two main types of ads available to book on LinkedIn.

Sponsored Updates are set up very similarly to Twitter’s promoted tweets and are posts you have already made to your timeline boosted to deliver impact that feels organic. Direct Sponsored updates only appear in the timeline of your target audience when they are logged in and active on the network.

Adverts, like Facebook’s Right Hand ad placements, are similar to standard website banner and button ads. Similar to those on Facebook, these ads generally deliver lower click through rates than sponsored newsfeed ads.

Targeting: You can target by a good range of standard demographics, but also extensively by company, role, skills, education and membership of LinkedIn Groups. Like Facebook’s lookalike targeting, audience expansion enables the targeting of audiences similar to those.

Conclusion Advertising for engagement and traffic in these networks isn’t going away either, but the right approach isn’t as complex as it might seem.

By creating the right content to attract and maintain customer’s attention and developing the right campaigns that drive results against more commercial business-wide objectives, brands can thrive in social.

As a final thought – adopting a test & learn culture with all advertising is essential. This is certainly the case for social media; the networks themselves are all still discovering what ads will work for their growing and maturing audiences.

Eleven years since Facebook was launched, social networks are finally reaching maturity in many markets and with maturity comes some serious earning potential.

by Anthony Rawlins, Digital Visitor

TTI on Twitter

You can keep up with all the latest news from TTI by following us on Twitter.

Follow @TTI_org

TTIcodes Summer Update

TTIcodes is continually breaking new ground and this summer has seen TTIcodes expand its UK Tour Operator Suppliers as both TravelSupermarket and Ice Lolly roll out products designed around holiday offers. Whist it is still a work in progress, it is anticipated that by the end of the summer the majority of UK based Tour Operators will be mapped on TTIcodes ranging from the large operators such as Thomson (TUI UK) and Thomas Cook to specialist operators such as Olympic Holidays, Caribbean Classics, Red Sea Holidays etc. The UK late holiday market is interesting in that it also brings into play numerous tech providers such as Sunshine

Technology (Formerly Kwik Holidays), JHL (Juana Hortorum), and TTS et al, each of whom seamlessly append the appropriate TTIcode to holiday offers for numerous travel agencies throughout the UK to promote and sell. This enables TTIcodes clients such as Ice Lolly and Travelsupermarket to make it easier for consumers to compare holiday offers for the same hotel. The illustration below shows TTIcodes being used within the Ice Lolly Application.

by Peter Hazel

Breaking New Ground

Six new departure/arrival locations have been added to FerryXML to cater for services to and from the Isle of Wight. They are: Portsmouth (Gunwharf Road) Portsmouth Harbour Station Ryde Pier Head Fishbourne Yarmouth

Lymington Version 1.2 of FerryXML encompassing these enhancements is now available for members to download from the TTI website.

by Tony Williams

Enhancements to FerryXML

TTI is associated with a number of trade organisations. Here is a round-up of their news.

News from our Associations

AITO has recently completed its first Travel Insights survey in conjunction with Spike Marketing. Just on 40 AITO members took part and sent

the survey to their own databases which provided a collective result as well as company specific reports for the participating companies. Just over 28,000 responses were received which provided a very solid base of information covering demographics, customers holiday buying habits and preferences. It was no surprise when customers were asked: ‘Which was the most important source of information in helping customers to decide on their holiday’, that browsing travel websites

came in at top position (52%), advice from friends/family second (35.4%), Google or other search tool third (32.4%) and reading customer feedback online fourth (32.1%). This is great news for AITO members as their main consumer marketing thrust at present is customer reviews on AITO.com. With over 3,500 impartial comments on the site and growing daily, AITOs customer reviews have been the real success story of the Associations new website. Kate Kenward, AITOs Executive Director said: ‘It’s a natural fit. Special interest travellers love to research their holidays in detail – it’s part of the holiday experience. Third party feedback is also a very important part of the decision

making process as the 2015 AITO Travel Insights has revealed. AITO members’ reviews have been very well picked up by Google which even shows their AITO star rating on specific searches.’ ‘AITO HQ has just developed a review widget for members to use on their own websites which reflects their customers comments on AITO.com. This adds extra validity to their own websites along with impartial authentication from their Association which many are saying is worth its weight in gold.’ AITO.com has been nominated in the British Travel Awards ‘Best Travel Review/Ratings Website’ category for the first time this year.

In June and July ETOA welcomed members to three events including

seminars on hotel distribution and customer ratings and reviews and three days of networking, business meetings and conference sessions at the 5th annual City Fair. Registrations are now open for the forthcoming edition of Showcase Digital taking place in London on Tuesday 29th September. TTI members can attend for free.

Registrations are now being taken for the Global European Marketplace (GEM) taking place in London on Friday 30th October. Contact ETOA today to secure your place as spaces are limited. Travel sentiment in Europe’s key long-haul travel markets is upbeat for the peak summer travel period as shown by the latest results of the Long-Haul Travel Sentiment Survey, a joint initiative of the European Travel Commission (ETC), the European Tourism Association (ETOA), and Eurail Group.

The survey provides the European tourism sector with early indications on travel demand developments from non-European markets. The latest results indicate strong growth potential from long-haul markets for Europe in the peak summer holiday season (May-August 2015). Despite continuing volatile economic conditions and political tensions, survey data collected in the five key markets of Brazil, China, Japan, Russian Federation and the United States of America highlight the enduring position of European destinations in travellers’ minds.

IFITT Hangouts on air Throughout the year leading up to ENTER2016 eTourism conference, IFITT is hosting a series of discussions with experts from academia, industry, and/or destinations on various hot topics in ICT and tourism. They are organized bimonthly and are broadcasted live on IFITT’s Google+ and YouTube Channels. IFITT’s seventh hangout on air will be held on August 13, 2015, at 7.15 pm ECT. The topic of

the discussion will be “Sharing Economy“. Join our discussion on the sharing economy in tourism and get to know how it will transform travel and tourism from our panel, which will be Dzmitry Bazkho (Airbnb), Courtney Ries (Travel Portland), Dianne Dredge (Aalborg University), Szilvia Gyimothy (Aalborg University), and Marianna Sigala (University of South Australia). Iis Tussyadiah, IFITT Vice president will be the moderator of the talk. Follow IFITT Hangouts here: http://www.ifitt.org/events/hangouts-on-air . IFITT ICT4D Scholarship IFITT has an open call for application for its ICT4D Scholarship. IFITT will fund young

talents coming from developing/ emerging countries, to provide a positive impact onto their respective communities through the application of ICT. Submission should be connected with a Master or PhD thesis, having a clear orientation to electronic tourism and local development. Submission Deadline is the September 1, 2015. For more information on the ICT4D Scholarship, please, visit: http://www.ifitt.org/ict4d-scholarship

A new parliament brings with it new agendas and refreshed perspectives. Ensuring that the interests of the youth, student and educational

travel sector are heard, BETA held its latest evening on the Terrace of the House of Lords

and welcomed over 160 members, industry stakeholders, MP’s and Peers. Our next event is a Youth Industry Seminar on Big Data. Is it just a big hype or does it represent real change in technology and business? An expert panel will debate this issue and use range of case studies to offer some tangible advice and information to

attending delegates. We will shortly be inviting entries for the 2015 British Youth Travel Awards, with categories from Best Use of Social Media, Best Marketing, we look forward to celebrating the crème de la crème of the British youth, student and educational travel industry.

Project Management Committee Discussions

TTIcodes There have been a few customers issues in terms of mapping. The meeting concluded that the best course of action was for Peter Dennis to meet with Andreas and sit down and resolve any outstanding matters. There are now over 200 suppliers using GIATA so more mapping issues are expected due to the high volumes generated. RESCON2 We have put a lot of time and resource into this project but unfortunately there has been very little interest from members. Tony Williams has prepared a document which we have put online for download. The solution is currently only viable for viewdata customers hence the probable lack of interest. So the project will be shelved for now unless there is renewed interest.

Locale Codes This has been on the back burner due to the focus on TTIcodes. We are scheduling a meeting and will press ahead with this opportunity. A speaker from mapping app what3words will be at the Autumn conference and what they are doing may well be relevant to our Locale Codes initiative. Conference & Forums We have decided to contact all non-members that attend the conferences about joining TTI. We have also decided to advertise the events in the online press. Autumn Conference—21 Sept The event is now organised with excellent speakers and sponsorship. Winter Forum– 2 November We will once again be running the WTM Travel

Innovation Summit in Association with TTI. WTM Tech Café TTI is sponsoring the Café this year. For more information see the following article. Project Management Committee Team We are looking for new projects not only to attract new members to the management team but also to comply with one of our main objectives. Possibly a standard for activities data interchange? Any other ideas? Please contact us.

by Tim Wright, Codegen

A Warm Welcome to New Members

Top10

TTI Events 2015

Project Management Meetings (All members welcome, contact Liz if you would like to take part) Wednesday 16 September- by conference call Thursday 10 December - by conference call

Conferences & Forums Monday 21 September - Autumn Conference Monday 2 November - Travel Innovation Summit at WTM

Travel Technology Initiative Ltd, Registered office: Victoria House, 51 Victoria Street, Bristol, BS1 6AD Company Registration Number: England 2398368

Published on behalf of TTI by Genesys - The Travel Technology Consultancy - www.genesys.net

Advertise in this Newsletter

If your company wishes to place an advert or an advertorial article in this newsletter, please contact liz.rylance@tti.org

Our last project meeting took place on 2 June following the Summer Forum.

TTI Tech Café

The Travel Tech Show at WTM offers Travel & Hospitality Technology Suppliers the platform to promote their product to a unique audience. In partnership with TTI, WTM is offering the TTI Tech Café a much needed facility opposite the Travel Tech Theatre and at the heart of the New Exhibitor Pavilion, a popular feature to The Travel Tech Show at WTM. The TTI Tech Café will be open to all the exhibition visitors, exhibitors and press, selling

hot drinks and light snacks. In 2014 this was the busiest in-hall Café. There is potential for 4 sponsors who will benefit from their branding in and around the Café, pre and post show branding via the WTM website, email communication and PR exposure. Each Sponsor will have a 5sqm fully fitted ‘pod’ within the Café and be classed as Exhibitors. As an Exhibitor, the Sponsors will have all the benefits of Exhibiting, i.e. 3 Exhibitor Badges,

access to the Speed Networking Sessions, MyInvitation process, mobile app and website listings, etc. Plus Sponsors can pre-purchase vouchers for their clients to use in the TTI Tech Café. Please call Jo Marshall to discuss details of price and availability – 020 8910 7982, jo.marshall@reedexpo.co.uk