Online Travel Continues to Boom

According to RBC, within the U.S., online travel sales account for 43% of total travel sales. That number is projected to increase marginally to 44% by the end of next year. Analysts believe that increased online sales will be driven by the continued adoption of mobile devices. Meanwhile, online travel sites are expanding their international

Read Full Article »

Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Steve Singh, CEO of Concur (Part 1)

Business travel can be a pain, especially when it comes to knowing you can and can’t include on your expense account when you return. Concur is one company that will help you remain compliant with your company’s policies and still enjoy your trip as much as possible. Founded in 1993, Concur is a leading provider

Read Full Article »

Catching Up on Readings: Design In The 21st Century

Time for another round of recap since the last one on May 10 … See what you have missed, and catch up.

Deal Radar 2008: Yatra

Yatra is a travel company which provides availability and booking facilities for air travel, hotels, buses and car rentals worldwide. Besides its strong online presence, Yatra also offers its services through mobile phone and retail mediums. Founded by Dhruv Shringi, Manish Amin and Sabina Chopra in 2006, the company currently is based in 10 cities

Read Full Article »

Deal Radar 2008: Groople, Interesting Use of Context

Groople is an online group travel site, which helps with searching, planning and booking group travel. (Read my Interview with Groople CEO Mike Stacy) Groople is different from Expedia and Kayak in that it serves only group travelers, no individuals, and is thus a great focus on a specific “Context“.

Vertical Travel Ad Network CEO Cree Lawson (Part 4)

SM: How big is the market? How do you calculate TAM? What is your business model? CL: We’ve reviewed a great deal of research on how large the market is for online travel advertising and very specifically banner advertising on travel websites. Forrester says that online travel advertising is an $8-billion-a-year industry in 2007, growing

Read Full Article »

Vertical Travel Ad Network CEO Cree Lawson (Part 3)

SM: What was the market landscape like when you founded the company? CL: When we started Travel Ad Network, Google AdSense had just launched its textlink product and everything was about textlinks and performance advertising. No one talked about users; it was all about clicks. And the terms “branding” and “online” weren’t used in the

Read Full Article »

Deal Radar 2008: Kayak Consolidates Travel

As we have discussed, Online Travel is a large category, and active in entrepreneurship. Web 1.0 produced giant companies (Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, Priceline), and in Web 2.0 we have a couple of vertical search engines that are pulling ahead. Kayak, the world’s largest travel search engine, receives more than 6 million unique visitors per month.

Read Full Article »