Tnooz have published the first part of my article on supplier direct websites moving into the travel inspiration space – I’ve tried to broaden the appeal beyond just airline direct given the much wider audience of that site.
Click below to read Part 1 in this 5 part series:
Five challenges on the journey to mastering travel inspiration
Kevin May, the editor at Tnooz, asked if I was OK to split the article into 5 pieces and run it over the coming days. Given that it is well over 5 times the length of most articles on that site it seemed like a good idea. I’ve had a few people tell me how they started reading my articles on mobile only to be shocked at how little progress had been made by the scoll bar on the side of the screen.
The Tnooz article includes an old diagram, a modified diagram, and a completely new diagram. With today’s piece you get the Bow Tie Model that any regular of this site should know as well as me by now! But I’ll be really interested to get some feedback on the totally new concept that I am calling the Inspiration Footprint Matrix. That one should appear in Part 3.
There is one point that I didn’t make in the Tnooz article. In some ways my research (once all 5 parts are published) is a call out to anyone looking to invest in an industry whitepaper in order to try and better quantify some of the models I am using. There is definitely an opportunity to add custom research data around almost all of the concepts I have presented. If you are interested in doing this, then you have my full permission and support. Anything that helps industry participants better understand how to master the move away from pure transactional websites towards moving more into the inspiration sphere would be welcomed by many.
Expect this blog to go pretty quiet over the coming days, as with Tnooz publishing every day, there is only so much of my writing that any sane person can absorb.
May 26, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Cheers Martin!
Sadly for me, the tnooz article break up move worked as intended. Now this info junkie is anxiously waiting for parts 2,3,4,5!
I am wondering if by any chance you will tackle the marketing efforts required to attain travel inspiration: if they don’t know about you they’ll never find you
; especially in markets (eg. LATAM) where there is still small online share in terms of travel exploration and purchase. I bet OTAs growth in those regions is primarily driven by well executed traditional marketing efforts.
If by any chance you find yourself travelling to Argentina do ring me
Regards
Mario
May 27, 2010 at 7:56 pm
Mario, I try not be too prescriptive on marketing as there are many different approaches that could all work. I’m more interested in setting out a strategic framework for thinking it all through, as no amount of marketing will save you if you don’t get that piece right first. Hope you enjoyed part 3, as I expected that section to be the most controversial.