Tag Archives: all inclusive

Ryanair’s new security feature blocks agent sales

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Ryanair’s new security feature blocks agent sales

Nov 18, 2011 08:00AM GMT

Ryanair has made what is being seen as the most aggressive move yet to prevent travel agents booking its flights using the screen-scraping method.

A new verification step has been added to the Ryanair booking process, identical to the system many sites already utilise to ensure the inquiry is being made by a genuine human being rather than a machine.

It is understood the new procedure, that requires the customer to enter a unique code, was introduced this week. Agents could still book flights manually, but taking large numbers of flights by screen-scraping would be impossible.

On Holiday Group chief executive Steve Endacott said the move could present a major challenge for a number of UK-based dynamic packaging agencies, some of whom he estimated are up to 60% reliant on Ryanair flights.

He believes Ryanair may be unaware of exactly how much business comes from the trade and, despite chief executive Michael O’Leary’s well documented antagonism to travel agents, may come to regret this latest attempt to cut them out.

“They could lose 30% of their business,” he said. “It’s a question of who blinks first; the trade or Ryanair.”

The Irish budget carrier has fought and lost a number of legal cases around Europe in its attempts to prevent third party sales, although many firms are able to get around attempts to stifle screen scraping by using companies based outside of the EU.

Endacott described the move by Ryanair as “deeply anti-consumer”.

Spain to ‘refresh’ brand with new marketing plan

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WTM: Spain to ‘refresh’ brand with new marketing plan

Nov 09, 2011 14:00PM GMT

The Spanish Tourist Office is following the lead of Microsoft and Levi’s as it plans a three-year strategic marketing plan, due to launch in January.

The Spanish Tourist Office’s new UK director, Enrique Ruiz de Lera, said Spain faced major challenges and was seeking to learn solutions from the experiences of major consumer brands.

He compared Spain to Microsoft – leading the market for many years but now challenged by Apple – or, in Spain’s case, Turkey and Croatia. Ruiz de Lera said: “These destinations are competing hard. They have excellent product and they’ve learnt from our mistakes. We need to refresh our brand.”

Ruiz de Lera also said Spain was seen as “uncool” by young people, in the same way as under-30s don’t want to buy Levi jeans because they are worn by their parents.

As part of a drive to target the younger market, the Spanish Tourist Office, is working with MTV on branded content – a first for Spain and MTV. Reality TV show Fix You will air in January.

Objectives of the marketing strategy include a drive to increase the average tourist spend by 15% in three years – a goal that Ruiz de Lera admited was ambitious.

“It’s a long shot. When we planned the goal, the economy was less difficult. But you have to be bold,” he said.

The STO also hopes to diversify the market over the next three years, both seasonally and geographically.

Ruiz de Lera also said product diversification was necessary, with a cross-selling plan to encourage tourists to experience more. “A visitor to the Costa del
Sol can add on a few days in Malaga, for example.”

The UK market was still extremely price-sensitive, he said, and Spain had to be careful not to price itself out of the market.

New TripAdvisor complaint threatens review syndication

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New TripAdvisor complaint threatens review syndication

Travel giant TripAdvisor is facing a second and potentially more serious complaint to theAdvertising Standards Authority that threatens to outlaw all third parties using its reviews to market their products.

Travolution can reveal online reputation management crusader Kwikchex has sparked a second probe by the UK advertising watchdog following a first highly publicised complaint.

The first complaint questioned the veracity of TripAdvisor’s reviews but the second claims existing advertising rules mean no reviews can be used to market product if the author’s identity cannot be verified.

An increasing number of hotel, travel agency and tour operator websites pull in TripAdvisor content, or link to it to help promote their product and improve their search engine ranking.

The Kwikchex case cites rules in the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) non-broadcast code that states marketers must be able to show a review’s authenticity by proving it was made by an identifiable and potentially contactable person.

An ASA spokesman could not confirm the second complaint had been lodged, although this is understood to have been purely a procedural issue, a detailed submission having been sent on November 2 but not yet logged.

Kwikchex co-founder Chris Emmins said: “This is potentially much bigger than our first complaint. It’s absolutely apparent that reviews are not being verified and that they are being used for promotional purposes. We think that verifying testimonials is key to fulfilling the requirements of the CAP code.”

An extract from the code on testimonials and endorsements states: “Marketers must hold documentary evidence that a testimonial or endorsement used in a marketing communication is genuine, unless it is obviously fictitious, and hold contact details for the person who, or organisation that, gives it.”

The code does allow testimonials to be used by third parties from a “published source” without permission of the author, however this places the onus back on the originator of the review to authenticate it and Kwikchex believes TripAdvisor’s current procedures fail to do this.

In the submission Kwikchex makes reference to a number of cases in which it believes the CAP code is being breached. These include use of TripAdvisor content on hotel website Accor, Thomson’s tour operator site and tourism body VisitLondon.

Separately to the challenges to TripAdvisor, the UK government is working with a number of companies on a charter for online reviews to promote best practice led by Ed Davey MP, minister for consumer affairs for the Department for Business, Skills and Innovation.

Andrew Mabbutt, managing director of Feefo, an online review service and one of the firms working with the government on the charter, said:

“The ASA’s view on use of reviews that can’t be authenticated will be awaited with particular interest in the travel sector where TripAdvisor reviews are widely used for marketing purposes.

“We feel it is vitally important that any reviews used are at the very least checkable in terms of the person who posted them and if they are not then they either be flagged up as such or not made public until they are.

“This issue is becoming more and more high profile and it is important companies, review sites and regulators alike get to grips with it before there is widespread loss of public confidence in what can, and should be, a powerful marketing tool.”

Tripadvisor said it could not comment on the second Kwikchex complaint as the ASA had not confirmed it was investigating it.

The ASA confirmed to Travolution that the investigation into the first complaint was nearing a close although the recommendations had not yet been put to council and it could be a few weeks before any decision is made public.