fairquote city pairs top Google
June 30th, 2010 | 
Author: As a first result, if the city pair is entered into the search box of Google, it comes up, mostly as No. 1. This is an encouraging result to have 120 million keywords in the right order.
Keep on going, Fairquote
Zurich Singapore ZRH SIN city pair is entered into the search box of Google
Posted in 
Crewless flying
I have been working for the airline industry for the past 22 years and worked for airlines as well as IATA, the international air transport association. As a seasoned traveller I was always bemused of the seasoned cabin crew member, telling you when to wear a seatbelt or bringing you food when they like, not when you like. Now, after we successfully mastered ticketless travel, we should seriously consider crewless flying. What on earth is so different to be in a bus or in an airbus? Does a bus need a bus crew?
But what about security? Here are some answers:
When serious turbulences occur, the steward/ess is buckled up. When there is a health issue: “is there a doctor on board?” IMy car handles the fasten seatbelt warning without a human safety expert shouting at me, the phones can be more effectively jammed electronically and the invention of auto reclining seats is already made. Finally, bus accidents are far more often than airplane incidents and the death toll of “cabin crew members dying versus passengers saved due to cabin crew present” is not really in favor to keep them on board.
So what do I need the crew member for? Are they risking their lives to provide passenger required services?
The surprising answer is: they are on board because we have regulations like we had for paper tickets. They are needed to bring me food when I do not necessarily need it and must walk on my behalf when I call him/her for a glass of water. They can also sell things from vending machines, close the overhead baggage lockers, and hand out blankets or make announcements.
Why don’t airlines put an end to this? First class passengers can bring personal butlers on board, who can sit where the crew used to sit. The business class gets a mini-bar in it’s seat and owns the key to it and the economy guest pulls drinks and food from vending machines, who now fit since the trolleys, galley and cabin crew is outside the plane… Passengers can stroll around and fetch something from the vending spot for their neighbor, the airline is up selling real food liked and paid for and tickets get a lot cheaper. To make flying safe, have one or two air marshals on board who can intervene in case of troublemakers. Just like in a train. One conductor for a normal train of 300 passengers suffices to restore order and keep the peace.
Dr. Winfried Boeing
Social Media ~ Bush fire or Fire Storm?
A number of years ago I was deeply immersed in the evolution and early rapid growth of that world class airline – Cathay Pacific. Those of us who were working at that great company were so wrapped up in our own world and our own successes, that perhaps our orientation got a little unfocused. A friend said, I thought unkindly at the time that we were so blinded by a green mist (the colour of the airline) that we had lost focus on some of the realities of commercial life. So too perhaps with Social Media, the phrase and the component parts, FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, LinkedIn, Flickr, Delicious and all the foreign language versions seem to dominate marketing and distribution conversations, just as it seems that there is no world outside the Social Media fog and fog it is. Scarcely two years old and growing like topsy, this tidal wave of data and comment has come out of nowhere and threatens to engulf conventional mechanisms and processes. While some question whether the Social Media phenomena can continue to hold sway and indeed wiser heads will argue that the marketing challenge of creating and then meeting a need has not changed, there is no doubt that at least short engagement with Social Media must be on the agenda of every serious marketing entity. Social Media in essence is about engaging with the customer and using that engagement both to understand their needs and to create a brand relationship that will survive and endure. Current experience points to ten keys concepts
1. Use SM to engage with potential and current customers and use it to build brand loyalty. If the customer is talking to you, then you had better listen. One major hotel group recently tracked 1 million mentions in a period of 2 weeks ~ their customers are talking.
2. Be prepared: Don’t start your SM journey without an opinion of what it can do for you or without the resources required to transact.
3. It is not all positive, so preparation for negative events (the Twitter Storm) is a necessary part of the engagement. You may have no choice. The recent Nestle and KitKat event being an extreme example.
4. Traditional marketing skills still apply, it is just moving faster. A lot faster, but it is easier to scale.
5. Don’t forget the offline world ~ it is still the majority of business, albeit declining rapidly. Make sure that both your on and offline strategies are integrated. Your customers’ are!
6. Recognise different personas in the same individual and set strategies accordingly. This is no different from the traditional world. Tim Hughes of BOOT.com describes this as the EveryYou ~ many versions of One
7. Don’t forget the search engines. Paid search is still the most effective means of gaining attention, it converts better and is not going away anytime soon
8. Trial & Error ~ its not expensive, but you need to agile and listening carefully. Refine, refine, refine.
9. Quality material makes a difference. Text, Images and Video. With so much material out there, you need to make a statement
10. More than ever your brand is transparent to the customer. If you don’t act up to your promise, they will see it. Engaging with SM calls for openness and sincerity. Conduct your SM strategy with with Energy & Passion and you will be rewarded.
Don Birch
fairquote issues newsletter no 2
three months after its initial release of the fairquote newsletter, we issued the newsletter no 2-
here we go – enjoy reading the hot fairquote newsletter 2.
Last joke:
hot in the press was the Iceland’s last will – “after my financial death – put my ash over Europe”
Fairquote’s IPAD video
The IPAD is a new toy for us, and certainly arrived at the right moment. Nothing looks better than a city-pair webpage on that device, and our slogan Fairquote is “one-click travel” is not really applicable any longer. We need to consider calling it “one-tap travel”, and the IPAD will be in the hall of fame for a great invention.
See the Fairquote launch video in action – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_HXEONVpzo
Interview with Don Birch – Top 5 travel trends in Asia
By Ritesh Gupta
Figures released recently by the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) show that the numbers of international visitors to the Asia Pacific region grew by 2.2 percent year-on-year in October 2009, improving the overall position for the year (10 months) to just four percent down when compared with the same period in 2008.
October marks the third straight month of above the line gains for international visitor arrivals to the Asia Pacific region. The growth rate of 2.2 percent achieved in October is by far the best year-on-year improvement in a very depressed year.
From an expert’s perspective, Don Birch, managing partner, China Opportunities Partners Ltd, says Asia has survived the big recession better than most and is as always recovering the fastest.
Birch, who is scheduled to attend the Travel Distribution Summit Asia 2010 (to be held in Singapore, April 28-29), spoke about the Top 5 Asia travel trends in 2010. Excerpts:
EyeforTravel: What according to you are going to be the Top 5 Asia travel trends in 2010?
Don Birch: My five picks are as follows -
Social Media, ignore it at your peril! Travel is an emotional buy and Social Media is the accelerating vehicle for consumers’ emotional out-pourings. As the functionality of ‘making a comment’ about something continues to get easier and easier and more mobile, expect the aggregated effect of Social Media ~ the ‘wisdom of crowds’ to be a major driver in traveller preference and perception of product value. If your travel product has a low Social Media perception, then this will drive down price and make it much harder to sell. Improved instant on-line language translation will ensure that the travel experience becomes universal.
Mobile. With the arrival of iPhone and iPhone lookalikes in Asia, the mobile device will develop a growing role in the traveller’s journey. Initially supporting supplementary and information services, the Mobile device will increasingly become acceptable for bookings and payments, especially for low value items and domestic journeys. It already has a majority share of such transactions in Japan and South Korea. The biggest obstacle today is international roaming charges, which make Mobile use overseas prohibitive in the short term except for business use.
Moderation. While Asia has survived the big recession better than most and is (as always) recovering the fastest, the Asian consumer is still cautious and the business traveller still recovering from the economic shocks of 2008. As a result, expect Moderation in travel behaviour. Less in-the-front-of-the plane journeys and more circumspection in product choice and certainly less ostentation, except perhaps the Chinese mainland traveller! This means more of a focus on value (or perceived value) and more time spent researching price options using the Internet ~ Social Media rules!
Meta Search will have a bumper year. Through a combination of improved technologies, better presentation and more price competition between the travel suppliers, Meta Search will do well. Travellers are increasingly better informed and they will use Meta Search to valid their value choices.
Smart Meetings. While there is no substitute for meeting the customer or colleague face to face, both the price and the functionality of remote meetings have improved significantly in the past few years. High end services provide uncanny ‘same room’ presence and numerous low cost Internet services make it easy and simple to conference call across the world, interfacing voice, video, interactive presentations and text. While it is true that Asians above all prefer physical presence, the facilitation of Smart Meetings will mean that at least some of the journeys will be in cyber-space rather than in the back of a plane.
EyeforTravel: How do you expect the balance of power in distribution to shift or shape up this year in the Asia Pacific region?
Don Birch: All over the world, the unchanging home truth of the travel business is that the product inventory evaporates at mid-night or as the plane pushes back from the gate. Couple this with the historical experience of boom and slump capacity cycles, then in recessions or slower periods of growth the distributors will have the upper hand. As economically we expect things to be a little slow for the next year or two and with the (lagged) surge in capacity, especially in hotels soon coming on line, we can expect the distributor to do well. Indeed, the Distributors’ role of managing complexity will be enhanced as consumers struggle to distinguish between the myriad of available and constantly changing offers.
Those Distributors who embrace technology (to enhance functionality and reduce cost) and focus upon creating value will do especially well. Indeed there is a market segment story here, where the better the understanding and the focus on any given market segment, the better the value is understood and delivered and so the better the price or margin.
EyeforTravel: What are you most looking forward to at TDS Asia? Who are you most looking forward to meeting at the event?
Don Birch: The great thing about Travel Distribution Asia is that it draws in such a wide range of knowledge and experience. It attracts some of the leading players in their respective fields and provides a real insight into what is in their thoughts and what could be coming next. From experience, I am usually blown away by the quality of the content presented each day and my one regret is that it is impossible to put to action all those ‘neat’ ideas that I scribbled down during the course of the sessions.
EyeforTravel: How do you assess the situation from a traveller’s perspective – who continues to get attracted to various means of travel planning and booking options?
Don Birch: On the one hand is getting easier ~ easier to get the information, much more transparency, easier to book and easier to pay. But on the other hand, things have become impossible. The array of choice and options is bewildering and often overpowering ~ a little knowledge is dangerous! There is also the law of unintended consequences. For example, in England many travellers who recently made their own travel arrangements, often using automated self packaging tools, found that they were uninsured when one of their travel providers went bankrupt, whereas with a conventionally purchased tour they would have been compensated.
All this means that the traveller must be as alert as ever, albeit that the issues have changed. The need to select trusted and recommended travel intermediaries and suppliers does not change and so while the shift to the automated booking path in all its modern forms will continue, those travel entities that create and build upon consumer trust will continue to do well.
Don Birch is scheduled to be part of the Travel Distribution Summit Asia 2010 (to be held in Singapore, April 28-29).In all, there will be more than 50 expert speakers during the two-day event.
For more information, click here: Travel Distribution Summit Asia 2010 (to be held in Singapore, April 28-29)
Or contact:
Marco Saio
Global Events Organiser
7-9 Fashion Street
London, E1 6PX
Direct Line: (+44) 020 7375 7219
ash in the air – cash in the air
We were impressed how fast news travel – and how the world stops turning by ash. The IPAD is showing me clouds of dangerous materials up in 10’000 feet. I watch a video on a plane landing in London Heathrow, like millions of others. How can this world work without planes? Impossible. 6 million people “stranded”. No University classes since the teachers are sitting idle in New York. Really worth a story? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8633733.stm
It was so nice and quiet, but the flights resume today-.-
Iceland, send me cash, not ash.
Launch of Fairquote websites – see attached list
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launch -1 day – daytime activity – iPad in Switzerland
This post indicates we are probably running a night shift to ensure proper launch. Unlike Apple, who announced today that the international launch of the iPad would be delayed by one month, we seem to be fine. Apple, in contrast, blocked “MY IPAD” from accessing the Apple Store (sorry – you are too early for us and you seem to be in Switzerland – and Switzerland is getting the iPad only in May, how did you get it over there ??). Other people told me that my iPad will be not allowed entry into Israel, since the signal is too strong. I agree, since the iPad finds unbelievable weak signals. I also can live with the fact to leave my iPad at home when travelling to Israel, since I have never been there in my life yet. On the other hand, Easyjet announces daily flights Geneva-Tel Aviv and we are not just setting the site alive, we also have contacts in Tel Aviv. Definitely, Israel, I will travel soon and hope the iPad issue is resolved by then.
Templates for fair quoters
we have been looking for some tools, and here it is, a template for one of the city pair websites.
City-Pair Info Website
