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Terms like Travel 2.0 and Web 2.0 get thrown about in conversation and it can seem that everyone but you knows exactly what they mean.
Yet push someone for a definition and people come up with all sorts of different explanations or they struggle to define it all.
So this post attempts to give a simple working definition of Travel 2.0. But more importantly, we hope to highlight what that really means for travel and tourism businesses and why you need to care.
But given that no two people seem to agree on precisely what Travel 2.0 and Web 2.0 actually mean, we’re doing the blog equivalent of a duet. We’ll both throw our thoughts in and to avoid making you dizzy, I’ll indicate which or us is proclaiming, so you know who to argue with at the end!
So, we need to pin down Web 2.0 before we tackle Travel 2.0 …. so Web 2.0 in no more than 20 words please:
Vicky: Community, interactivity, reciprocity, two-way marketing conversation, the long tail, create, modify, self-publish, user generated content, rich media, collaboration, see Wikipedia.
Stephen: Technically: blogs, RSS, flash media (no flash = no YouTube). Economically: (almost) zero cost to entry. Socially: critical mass of chatterers.
So where does Travel 2.0 fit in?
Vicky: Travel 2.0 is a term coined by our friends at PhoCusWright, as CEO Phillip C Wolf explains in this article:
“Travel 1.0 started around 1995; it was characterized by the shift from offline to online reservations and was dominated for a decade by three things: price, price and price.…. Travel 2.0, our industry’s collective fulfilment of Web 2.0, embodies how companies can differentiate themselves in a vast, dynamic space…. New travel researching and planning approaches are empowering consumers in unprecedented ways…. Travellers are keen to take control and find/create the perfect trip, not just the cheapest trip.”
What I take from that is Travel 2.0 is moving on to be more personalized, customer centric and experience centric. At the same time user communities and online tools have evolved for the traveller themselves to share experiences, to help search and define what it really is they are looking for and to pre-experience this though levels of multimedia content before they even make a purchase decision.
Stephen: I think it’s no coincidence that this is occurring in a period of sustained prosperity unparalleled in my lifetime. Put simply, western people have the time and money to be choosy about where they go and what they do. But people always need information in order to spend wisely and Travel 2.0 has effectively been about the vastly improved information flow to people making important investment decisions.
I have this notion though that it might be useful to speak of ‘Tourism 2.0‘ in describing the (consumer) demand-side experience and ‘Travel 2.0′ when speaking of the supply-side reaction to this, although I appreciate that they must meet in the middle!
Is it just jargon or does it represent a change in consumer behaviour?
Vicky: Yes and yes. It is jargon and that can be a barrier to understanding, but it does represent a real technology-enabled shift in consumer behaviour.
It is simply now easier, more satisfying and a richer experience for travellers to interact with other and share online – be that through video, images, reviews or other forms of exchange. Online social interaction lends itself so well to travel (the anticipation, the actual experience, the reminiscences). And the technology has evolved to allow interconnectivity and aggregation of services/content from many sites meaning that the research, anticipation and purchase have become far more fluid and closely aligned.
What it isn’t about is simply a bunch of tools, those of course these play an important part. (And for Travel 2.0 tools galore visit the Web 2.0 Travel Tools blog).
Stephen: Undoubtedly jargon. Some aspects do represent a change in customer behaviour (checking out peer reviews of destinations being a case in point) but other aspects are old impulses in new clothes (Flickr is the modern equivalent of showing off your holiday snaps…but only to people who are interested!). Ultimately, though, I think it is about increasing ease of access, whether that be to information, booking or new experiences.
Why should travel and tourism businesses care?
Vicky: Because its not just teenagers, geeks and weirdos or the “more advanced” North American market in this space – it is your customers, young and old, in Europe, the Americas and Asia. This is where they’re dreaming, planning, buying and reviewing. Sometimes a little edge by participation early on delivers a big advantage, where as getting left behind can leave you dead in the water.
Stephen: Well, if you don’t understand the role of review communities or metasearch for example (price comparison sites like Kayak.com who aggregate price data) then you don’t understand where customers are going to research their travel plans and what is motivating them to do that. That makes it harder to deliver the right message at the right time.
Do businesses need to do anything different?
Vicky: For me Travel 2.0 is also about recognising a shift in the marketing process and “control” of the marketing messaging.
From TV watching to travel brochures, media channels have become fragmented to the extent that the 1% response rate you could once hope to achieve with certain types of marketing/advertising, simply doesn’t deliver the volume of respondents it once did. The one to many model of mass marketing is being replaced by the one to few or even one to one model embodied by The Long Tail.
The old cliche used to be “people who have a bad experience with a service tend to tell 6 to 10 people, but those having good experiences only tell 1 or 2 people”. Word of mouth was generally limited to how many people one person actually came into physical contact with. I don’t think that stands up any more. People have any kind of travel experience, great or terrible, they tell Tripadvisor, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, the blogosphere – they tell their online community.
As people are no longer limited to only telling or consulting the opinions of people they know in the real world, word of mouth has become super-charged and powerful. Your marketing, PR and advertising efforts are not the only thing shaping your reputation. As this post explains, You Don’t Own Your Brand - Your Customer Does. So, personally, I don’t think doing things the same old way is an option any longer, because technology has led customers to dictate a shift in the terms of the conversation.
Stephen: Businesses do need to behave differently but how they behave depends on a number of factors.
A small business (a bed and breakfast for example) needs to be smarter about how they are perceived in the world. Previously, they just needed to concentrate on product and manage their reputation that way but now they have a potentially global audience watching them…and they need to know how to react to that constructively if things go wrong.
Being of a more conservative disposition, I am not sure how much ‘own brand’ social networking in its current form is merely a fad or how much it will be integral to business in the future. I can imagine that things like Facebook will have their place but I’m not sure, for example, that a Hotel Chain own-brand social network really adds any value. Same goes for most attempts (not all) at corporate presences in Second Life.
But the bottom line is that these companies need to make travel easier for their customers - whether that’s at the research, booking, or experience stages.
Who are you Travel 2.0 heroes? Which companies are getting it right?
Vicky: I’m a self-confessed Tripadvisor addict, I also use Flickr for travel research and love sites that pull in Flickr images or permit users to upload their own. Community of Sweden from Visit Sweden are VirtualMalaysia are good for that. In terms of flights, I’m increasingly using metasearch site Kayak. If it was a destination I don’t know, I might consult a site like TripWiser or TravBuddy.
Stephen: I also like Kayak. At a local level I like Bob’s Blog because it is a great example of how a business should be working a blog.
Mmmm, I’m not sure how much harmony there was in that duet, but isn’t that Web 2.0 and Travel 2.0 all over?
What do you think? Should there be a distinction between Travel 2.0 and Tourism 2.0? Who are your Travel 2.0 heroes? Am I deluded in thinking this represents a shift in consumer behaviour?
Update - you may also be interested in these Travel 2.0 posts from Tracking Tourism:
Travel 2.0 - the data, impacts and business implications
Striking a Travel 2.0 balance - how much time should a business commit?
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on Thursday, April 3rd, 2008 at 6:18 pm and is filed under Online customer behaviour, Opinion, Travel 2.0.
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3rd April, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Vicky,
Kevin made a good post about Web 2.0 and good comments about travel 2.0
http://travolution.blogspot.com/2007/06/what-is-your-definition-of-web-20.html
Here a my simple definition :
“let them speak” : encourage your readers and customers to built content & Data and spread the message for you.
My Travel 2.0 heroes:
VibeAgent
TrivaGo
Travellerspoint
Twitter (many spanish travel business use this tools for marketing purpose)
TripHub
71Miles
BeNoot
and ……
best regards from France
Claude
3rd April, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Hi Claude, that is an excellent definition - “let them speak to you and for you” essentially. Thanks for your excellent insight as always.
I’m not familiar with all the heroes you mention, so look forward to checking them out!
Its interesting to learn Twitter is being used for tourism marketing in Spain, I’d love to know more about that if you have any examples.
Thanks,
Vicky
4th April, 2008 at 5:22 am
Vicky,
Suggest you read the excellent spanish blog from Nando Llorella and this post
http://megustaelturismo.es/2008/02/24/que-empresas-de-turismo-tienen-presencia-en-twitter/
Also have a look at the turismo 2.0 spanish network, they are more than 1 600 folks !!!
http://turismo20.ning.com/
Great stuff
Cheers
Claude
4th April, 2008 at 9:15 am
Thanks Claude.
Having had a good look at these sites I would suggest to readers that you check these out, even if you don’t speak Spanish.
There’s always babel fish if you need to work out the odd phrase: http://babelfish.altavista.com/
4th April, 2008 at 9:15 am
Great post. I think sometimes small businesses tend to think that Web and Travel 2.0 is just jargon which isn’t relevant to them. However they ignore it at their peril.
I’ve started using Twitter as a marketing tool to give site visitors an insight into the “Everyday agony and ecstasy of a non techie Scot running a travel business and blog”.
4th April, 2008 at 9:27 am
Claude/Karen
Do you think that the terms ‘Travel 2.0′ and ‘Tourism 2.0′ are interchangeable or is there a difference between them? I sense there is a difference (as I noted above) but I’m not sure what exactly it is!
6th April, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Very good discussion about Travel 2.0 or is it Tourism 2.0? I get the impression that the terms are interchangeable. But it would be nice if we all agreed to use one term for the consumer side and another for the industry/supply side. There is already quite a bit of confusion when it comes to Travel or Tourism bloggers, since we all know there are bloggers who write for the industry and bloggers who write for the travelling public. But I digress…
When it comes to tourism businesses and destinations I do believe there is a great opportunity for them to get closer to customers and potential customers by participating in Tourism 2.0 I am always looking for examples, but have not found many. I think Bill Marriott’s blog is one good example of a hotel brand reaching out in this space (http://www.blogs.marriott.com/)
As for Turismo 2.0, the Spanish social network (to which I belong as well), it is the best example of an industry using Web 2.0 to expand, share and create knowledge and network. In many ways it’s also a Wiki where mass collaboration takes place to achieve a goal (e.g. a contest open to all members to design the site’s logo). Thanks to this contest, I found a great graphic designer from Argentina who will be doing a project for me. But this site is for and about the tourism industry (mostly the Spanish tourism industry) not for the travelling public.
am very interested in finding examples of businesses or destinations participating in social media, because I have been immersing myself in the space through a social network I launched three and half months ago. Canadamigos Network (www.canadamigos.com) is a niche social network with the ultimate objective of generating more travel from Hispanic travellers to Canada. Canadamigos is approaching 1,000 members. Most of what you write about on your post I am seeing on the site: “Community, interactivity, reciprocity, two-way marketing conversation, the long tail, create, modify, self-publish, user generated content, rich media, collaboration.” I am seeing “The one to many model of mass marketing being replaced by the one to few or even one to one model embodied by The Long Tail,” where one member of the site will ask another member about specific travel advice.
What remains to be seen is whether the supply side of the equation will support the site. I have not yet announced it to the industry in Canada nor have I approached dmo’s directly. Once we pass the 1,000 member mark I will begin to do this. The site needs the supply side to participate in order to be complete and in order to be a viable business venture as well. So far, I am very pleased with what I see from the consumer side. I hope the industry side responds in kind.
I look forward to reading your future posts.
Regards,
Jaime
6th April, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Hi, great discussion 
I think that the travel 2.0 is the first stage of a tourism network. It is the beginning because start of the demand, which is where live the digital natives and they gradually push the rest of the industry, managed mostly by “elites offline”, also developed under a model 2.0. In my view, that would be tourism 2.0. The whole ecosystem tourism based on a network model, using the Web as a platform and being the agents themselves who develop thanks to its self collective intelligence.
You can see more about my opinions in my posts in English.
Best regards,
edu
7th April, 2008 at 7:15 am
Thanks Jaime and good luck with the Canadamigos Network - I hope you get the supply side participation you need to make a rounded community.
I would be inclined (despite my poor Spanish) to agree that “Turismo 2.0, the Spanish social network (to which I belong as well), it is the best example of an industry using Web 2.0 to expand, share and create knowledge and network.” It seems to have a level of energy and participation that we seem to be struggling to achieve in some of the English speaking travel/tourism communities.
Travel? Tourism? - I gave up and put both terms in our blog title, which has improved its searchability.
7th April, 2008 at 7:21 am
Thanks for your thoughts Edu - it makes sense how you use Tourism 2.0 to explain the whole eco system. As I understand you, travel 2.0 is the demand and what people do, tourism 2.0 the eco-system/industry supply side?
Edu has a couple of great posts/resources here where he expands this:
Tourism 2.0 and the social platform: http://eduwilliam.com/mipdf/Tourism%202.0%20_UK_.pdf
What is Tourism 2.0? definition and key concepts
http://www.eduwilliam.com/?p=111
7th April, 2008 at 8:42 am
Thanks Vicky. If, as I understand it, I think all theoretical developments since PhoCusWright coined the term, have been linked to the use of the tools 2.0 in customers. All your and Claude heroes are to create networks among customers (regardless of who drive them).
But tourism is not only demand. tourism destinations are also networks. Tourist product is linked to many companies (mostly SMEs). The companies, the local population, tourists, … should be on distributed networks (territorial networks, clusters, networks product … always in a flexible and distributed manner and in accordance with the purpose of the networks) so that there is no Gap between supply and demand. For me, it is Tourism 2.0.
Best regards
Edu
7th April, 2008 at 9:00 am
Thanks Edu - its interesting then with what you say, because it seems to me to imply that for the industry to mature and to truly evolve to Tourism 2.0, the innovation and development of supply is also critical.
Just as Jaime points out that his network can’t be sustained by travellers alone, and needs supply input, then for Tourism 2.0 supply needs to participate and mirror the developments in demand in its own way?
7th April, 2008 at 9:14 am
Thanks Edu
From your and Jamie’s posts, I beginning to think that Travel/Tourism 2.0 can be characterized as a profound enhancement to supply-chain information but it does not necessarily have an impact on transactional technology.
That last sentence can probably be better explained by taking it apart though! By ‘supply-chain information’ I mean the whole information flow connecting all parts of the industry. By this I mean not only consumers to consumers/business to consumers/consumers to business/ but also the businesses to businesses relationship mentioned in Jaime’s post above and seen on sites like WIHI.
And by transactional technology, I mean the technology at point of sale – although there might be more points of sale, I assume that within the industry there has been no 2.0 IT revolution as such when it comes to handling bookings for example – merely better ways of doing what has been done before, whether that’s networking multinational reservation systems or running advanced dynamic pricing algorithms.
In other words, 2.0 can connect that which was previously unconnected but it has a more limited impact on the ‘back office’ functions such as reservation systems, pricing, logistics etc.
7th April, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Hello,
Vicky, of course, the critical point is innovation.
Stephen, in my view, the Internet not only improves communication, and distribution. The Internet is also a way of relationships. And they may be able to relate the companies that are part of the industry value chain.
Of course, even has not developed anything in the back office that is innovative and based networks. But I am sure it is soon. Tourism is not just hotels. The tourism are many SMEs service, but related, can revolutionize the tourist model as we know it. You can connect reservation systems in a network (is a goal of my project called destinum.)
I think you fully accurate to say that only 2.0 has been customer-facing now, but the fact that we look at the predictions a toruism network, both the front and the back.
A model that the fate that develops secure improve their competitiveness and productivity.
Best regards
7th April, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Its interesting you mention connected reservations systems in a network. Like visitor demographic data, this is an area where the information becomes increasingly powerful when it is moved out of single databases and can be cross analysed on a scale a single sme could never afford.
I was very interested in what Tina Fitch, CEO at EzRez had to say at the PhoCusWright conference about her vision for global reservations analytics across many micro-tourism businesses worldwide and I plan to post on that in the future.
Just as the customer-facing communities and applications have been so successful because they allow travellers to easily share, customise and configure with tools that have made their lives easier and their travel experience more pleasurable, I think we have to see the technologies emerging on the supply side that make participation a no brainer.
For me, where I see massive opportunity on the supply side is:
1) joined up visitor data (who is visiting, where do they go, what do they do, how does the whole consumption process look across a destination)
and 2) cross establishment reservation analytics (ie supercharged benchmarking, predictive analytics and responsive pricing based on what is happening in the whole market, not just at the door of one attraction, hotel or destination).
Now once I can see some compelling reasons to participate in supply communities/network technologies that can achieve that!
7th April, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Undoubtedly Vicky: micro enterprises and destinations. Are the two key words to realize that tourism needs, by its very nature, a network development to improve their competitiveness. specially in mature destinations and already consolidates, where the supply of services not accommodation is contributing the real added value and differentiation.
If that takes place, we can achieve a new model for analysis of tourism, based on the flows and relationships, rather than in stocks variables. It is important to see that business is attractor on a network, which improves the productivity of the remainder (if they are linked, it is easy to analyse)
We opened a new world based on tourism networks
Best regards.
7th April, 2008 at 7:58 pm
You know, when you write a blog post and nobody turns up…well, that’s life.
But I have to say it is bl**dy brilliant when it does work and we can have a conversation like this one where my understanding of the subject has moved on enormously from my initial thoughts.
Put simply: many thanks to everyone who has contributed so far - I think we’ve got further that thinking on our own and I am really grateful for that!
8th April, 2008 at 11:26 am
Stephen,
We can call that a Great Piece of Collective Intelligence in Travel 
Thanks for your blog, always interesting
Claude
9th April, 2008 at 2:42 pm
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16th April, 2008 at 4:36 am
A brilliant article on web/travel/tourism 2.0 - it’s the full discussion so many of us have been seeking! So timely for me, a successful blogger of Bay of Fundy, as we look to a major web upgrade and complete online re-orientation early this summer. Thanks everyone for your insights!
16th April, 2008 at 9:38 am
Many thanks Terri and let us know how your upgrade goes - you certainly have some good raw material to play with at the Bay of Fundy! It looks stunning (especially for a geology fan like me!)
17th April, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Harma
Thanks for giving me exellent information and discussion material for my research into consumer behaviour and the -online- travel industry for my bachelor degree!
Great discussion!
17th April, 2008 at 4:01 pm
You’re welcome Harma and good luck with the degree!
21st April, 2008 at 7:02 am
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22nd April, 2008 at 5:13 pm
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3rd June, 2008 at 5:03 am
I doubt that transactional/ecommerce sites classify as Web 2.0 - simply offering a shopping basket or tickets online doth not make for a social media site. Also, Web 2.0 is not an about a “time” or an “era” but functionality: so you can have Web 2.0 sites that are 10 years or older (Amazon, eBay). Otherwise, an excellent summary of the industry.
3rd June, 2008 at 8:12 am
Hi Laurel, I think you are right that Web 2.0 is more customer facing and not really transactional/ecommerce. I liked your point about the Web 2.0 not being tied to a specific era - I think some people get hung up on the technology that enables 2.0 at a smaller level (which is more recent) as opposed to recognizing that 2.0 behaviour has been around a lot longer (albeit more commonly in some of the giants that you identify).
7th June, 2008 at 11:17 pm
My travel 2.0 heroes?
WikiTravel
Panoramio
Kayak
YouTube
And I’m the creator of a travel 2.0 site, iGuide, the Interactive Travel Guide.
http://iguide.travel
I really love the user-generated content on the sites I’ve mentioned, but I’ve yet to see a super-site for traveler reviews which is both easy to use, and free of the usual search-engine spam.
How to mitigate the spam problem? Wikis are a great idea, as do sites which by nature don’t allow hotel reviews. Yet … somebody needs to make a good destination review site!!
8th June, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Thanks for your input Alex - I would agree that there is a gap at a destination level. For example, I still buy printed guide books to help me get my head round an unfamiliar destination in the depth I require, along with things like Flickr and YouTube. I think one of the challenges with user destination reviews is that they are more complex, broad and perhaps less instant than say a hotel or product review. A destination may not be clearly demarked in the visitors mind, or a whole mix of experiences may be harder to consolidate than an accommodation review. I look forward to finding some sites that really crack it!
Good luck with iGuide!
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