p16 WTM nov7 4/11/08 19:15 Page 16
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WTM 2008
November 10-13 ■ ExCeL centre, Docklands, London
ONLINE.
WALKING THE PLANKS:
‘Supplier threat
Cutty Sark chief
executive Richard
Doughty shows off
to online agents’
restoration work on the
fire-gutted clipper to
WTM’s Adele Totterdale
ONLINE agents face a further squeeze as
(left) and Micaela Juarez
suppliers start to sell each others’ products
at its Greenwich site.
on their websites, academics believe.
The Cutty Sark is one of
Professor Dimitrios Buhalis said suppliers such
14 new exhibitors to the
as hotels and airlines were increasingly selling UK and Ireland region
all parts of a holiday to “capture” the customer at WTM this year. The
on their sites. ship is due to be fully
They aim to shape the customer’s “brand restored by spring 2010.
experience” from the moment they book their
holiday rather than when they arrive.
“What they are trying to avoid is the customer
going elsewhere to an online agent such as
Expedia because the moment they do that they
are lost,” he said.
Bed banks ‘set to
“It is getting much more widespread. I had an
email from Hilton today offering 5,000 loyalty
points for booking car hire through Hilton.”
The trend would increase pressures on
target consumers’
online agents, said Buhalis, of Bournemouth
University’s International Centre for Tourism and
Chris Gray.
Research, said bed banks had grown up dealing
Hospitality Research. BED banks are set to start increasing the propor- mainly with travel agents because most of their
But traditional high street agents could be less tion of their sales that go direct to consumers in founders came from the trade.
vulnerable because they offered a service that a bid to fight tightening margins. But he predicted they would steadily change
online retailers could not match.
Youtravel.com managing director John Kent their business models to target consumers.
and tourism academic Professor Dimitrios “If I was head of a bed bank in this economic
Buhalis agreed that accommodation-only climate I would be saying to consumers do you
TTG@WTM What we’re doing
specialists would become much more focused on want to pay £40 or £50 extra through a tour
consumers over the next few years. operator or buy a bed from us and a flight from
THE TTG team will bring you the news as it Kent and Buhalis will be speaking at a WTM Ryanair and save yourself some money,” he said.
happens – and we’ll be offering a multimedia seminar on “Tourism Futures” on Thursday, Kent said Youtravel was one of the few bed
experience at our stand UKI1600. along with Tui Travel e-commerce director Alun banks that had not yet started targeting
We will be sending daily email news alerts Williams, Monique de Greeve of the Emerging consumers more strongly.
each morning of the show and constantly Market Group and Oskar Hinteregger from the “Bed banks will increasingly go business-to-
updating the news on our website. Austrian National Tourist Office. consumer. The only one that is not is Youtravel
On Monday, TTG editor Lucy Huxley will be Buhalis, of Bournemouth University’s and we will go as well soon without losing our
filming the industry’s opinion formers giving International Centre for Tourism and Hospitality business-to-business model.”
their views in interviews that will be shown
on Travel TV at the exhibition.
On Wednesday, TTG’s features, supplements
WTM MOBILE GUIDE.
digital diary of the exhibition as well as
and Knowledge schedule for 2009 will be FROMMER’S has unveiled a free mobile travel information about how to get to ExCeL and what
unveiled on our stand. And in the evening we guide for exhibitors and visitors at this year’s else is happening in London.
will hold our exclusive invite-only party. World Travel Market.
The Frommer’s WTM Mobile Guide offers a ■
wtmlondon.com/mobile
16 07.11.2008
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