During the OpenTravel Alliance half day session at Eye for Travel’s Distribution Summit in Chicago, we had an opportunity to discuss new and emerging distribution channels including, believe it or not, destination marketers.  Although many of the comments were not particularly supportive of this model, I think there is a huge opportunity for destinations to open up distribution and generate revenue, not only for themselves but for their...

Packaged goods in traditional retail have a very different meaning to packaged goods in the travel space.  In retail, a packaged product is a product that is sold in a “package”, ie. a box or a blister pack (literally packaged).  In travel, a packaged product is one that is a combination of two separate products packaged together, for example a hotel room and a concert ticket.  Then there is dynamic packaging, the concept of being...

Joe Buhler sent me a link to a New York Times article titled “Worst Part of a Trip May be Booking It“.  The article describes how frustrating the on-line booking experience can be for many consumers and how far behind the travel industry seems to be in comparison to other e-commerce sectors.  We continued the conversation along with William Bakker from Tourism BC about what needs to be done to improve the on-line booking...

Before you can run, you must first learn to walk.  You’ve all heard this many times in your lifetime.  Although the saying is overused, it is used because it is true.  Although the saying can be applied to travel product distribution,  in many cases the players are not even crawling yet.  The challenge with any travel product distribution is that it is, unlike tangible goods, an information exchange rather than a physical product...