World Perspective

TRAVELtech continues. Rod Cuthbert CEO of Viator gave a major presentation this morning. There were very few slides, rather than rely on photos of destinations and activities to tell her story.

A number of these photographs show the harsh side of the consumer travel to the extreme of the image of terrorism and images of panic to the drudgery of endless lines at airports filled to kill people who wish that they were on holiday rather than take a vacation. From that point, he talked about how it becomes difficult for a consumer to travel. The uncertainty of the time of arrival, the difficulties of travel in economy class, the need for variable degree limit what you can carry on board etc.

When travel becomes difficult, he says, people start to think about their discretionary spending and think of alternatives outside of the trip such as LCDs, the new generation of game consoles and systems for its home - cinema. Do not have data for this purpose but I agree with him. Travel used to seek other forms of involuntary displacement of competition (international / domestic retailer vs retailer, supplier vs provider). Not sure what the answer is or how we open our market to the fight Harvey Norman, Best Buy or Dixons in the world, but it reinforces the need to maintain the purchasing process and consumption simple for consumers.
TRAVELtech: Hotelscombined - bringing the meta-search and affiliate marketing package