Youtube just for ‘oldsters’?

With no chink in the grey clouds of economic downturn as yet, travel technology companies are bracing themselves for some tough times ahead and thinking how they can find a silver lining.

At a recent Amadeus briefing in London, I was told that now more than ever TMCs are looking afresh at their technology and trying to come up with ways to maximise efficiency.

People are looking at speed, access to greater data and a software solution that can provide this, says Amadeus, and it plans to keep on working to meet this need in ever more efficient ways (and thus does not plan to reduce the 300m euros it spends on research and development every year).

Managing director UK and Ireland Stephane Durand told the gathered journalists: “The demand for touchless transparency and access to information is greater than ever at the moment. Control over spending is a large part of the discussion and it’s up to us to facilitate that and provide a consultancy role to help companies manage their data properly.”

The IT solutions provider was upbeat about the long term future of travel and believed it could weather the economic storm through consulting well and selling the right tools for a recession – let’s hope their private equity owners Cinven and BC Partners, who’ll be feeling the pinch like everyone else, keep the faith.

The holy grail of the big three GDS providers Amadeus, Sabre and Travelport is to regain full content in a world where web is king.

This month saw Travelport edge closer to the goal with the announcement that it had struck a three-year full content deal with BMI that includes access to web-only lowest fares (Sabre is also in on this one).

There’s a game of catch-up going on here that must be frustrating for these guys. They pretty much ran the show in the corporate travel space pre-internet and now they have their work cut out in a big way, trying to adapt to multi-platform selling as quickly and smoothly as they can.

Systems that talk to each other and can deal with information collected online, offline and via mobile phone are absolutely essential in today’s travel environment as travellers use a series of hardware, software and web solutions to make the journey from browsing to booking.

In a world where sales of smart phones are set to overtake laptops in the next 12-18 months, life’s going to be tough for the reseller who can’t collate data from any number of sources quickly and efficiently in order to present the client with that precious management information they’ll be needing to drive down costs.

This month we reported that Holiday Extras has advertised for staff on YouTube and it reminded me of a conversation I had the other week with my baggy-trousered, Calvin Kleins–revealing skateboader nephew, Tom. I happened to mention a viral I had been watching on the site and he pulled a face. “Youtube’s so over”, he told me, going on to add that noone he knew bothered with the site much as it was for “oldsters”.

Once the devastation at being described thus had subsided (I am 38), a Google search revealed that yes, indeed, far fewer teens and early twenty somethings used the site than I expected. In fact, two thirds of YouTube users are over 35.

But if you asked a cross section of people in the travel industry, I am willing to bet that they would be labouring under the illusion that the site was cutting edge, youth-centric and a must-use marketing tool.

Web 2.0 is a fast moving environment and just when you think you have got to grips with where to market your products and services, the bandwagon rolls on.

Better keep reading those Phocuswright reports in order to keep in the know about what the industry’s next consumers are up to – or perhaps just call Tom.

by Dinah Hatch