Diane Clarkson
Diane Clarkson is a travel analyst at JupiterResearch, a company that supplies companies with unbiased research, analysis and insight backed by solid evidence and data. At Jupiter, Ms. Clarkson’s focuses include travel consumer behavior and industry trends, especially online leisure and business travel. She is particularly interested in travelers’ booking behavior. In the past, Clarkson has given authoritative quotes in Forbes, The New York Times, The Financial Times, and other publications. She has also appeared on CNN and NPR where she has provided invaluable comments on travel trends and the travel industry.
When Ms. Clarkson joined JupiterResearch, she came with ten years of travel industry marketing experience under her belt. She has a B.A. in history and labor management relations from the University of Toronto, as well as an M.A. in Marketing and Public Affairs with a focus on the travel industry from the University of Sydney. She maintains a blog at the JupiterResearch website.
Social networking sites will prove to be an important tool for travel companies, predicts travel analyst Diane Clarkson, especially as user-generated content continues to prove itself invaluable to prospective travelers. A healthy dialogue between consumers and marketers will be especially important in the future of the travel world. It will also be important to solicit input from online travelers, by asking them for feedback via email or other online means. In light of this, Sabre, a global distribution system provider, recently announced the launch of its social networking platform, Cubeless. Cubeless will enable employees to share their knowledge of travel best practices—this chance to connect with other users will undoubtedly be a popular and useful service.
Diane Clarkson was the lead author of a report put out by Jupiter Travel research suggesting that the U.S. travel industry has a bright future, especially in internet travel. By the year 2011, the internet-based travel industry should—according to this study—be worth approximately $128 billion in the United States, with 38% of the revenue generated by online portals. At the moment, the internet travel industry is showing profits of around $85 billion.
Airlines are seeing the importance of improving relationships with their corporate clients, as part of various initiatives to reduce their distribution costs and compete against low-cost airlines. American Airlines and United Airlines are two examples of airlines that have announced initiatives that will hopefully accomplish both of these. A growing demand from corporate customers has prompted American Airlines to join with Cendant to re-launch CorporateAAccess.com, which is an online booking tool especially catered to meet the needs of their corporate clients. American hopes that this will reduce the number of bookings that will go through travel agencies and companies, and increase the number of direct bookings. Lowering the booking fees should also help to increase the percentage of bookings that go directly through the airline. Diane Clarkson expressed that American’s move would likely put pressure on others to offer more cost effective products.
Planning trips online is basically standard practice these days, and it’s probably a safe bet to assume that every internet user has watched or at least glimpsed at an online video on YouTube, or some other video sharing site such as MySpace. It’s no wonder, then, that travel video sites seem to be popping up all over the web, as ways to get sneak peeks at far-off lands without so much as setting foot outside your door. At these sites, visitors can take peeks at other people’s vacations. Travelistic.com features a mix of user-generated and tourist board and licensed videos (about 1,000 clips are available). As with YouTube, the videos can be rated and searched by tags or by location. TurnHere.com is another travel video site featuring about 1,000 videos that span twenty countries, and have an insider feel to them. These clips come from professional filmmakers in neighborhoods like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York, but check out a local artist’s video of Paris’ Montmartre neighborhood for a truly interesting treat. Yahoo! Current Traveler has a travel channel that showcases user-generated “postcards,” as well as the “Travel Buzz,” a daily video that shows what’s hot. At Yahoo! Current Traveler, user videos are ranked by popularity, so you won’t have to waste your time with any boring road trip movies. At ZoomAndGo.com, you can upload your own travel videos for a profit (a small one at $5, but a profit nonetheless). It’s a comprehensive site with over 12,000 short videos, as well as invaluable resources including photos and hotel reviews. Another upside is that the videos can be downloaded to iPods for easy access. Finally, TravelChannel.com offers trailers and short clips of TV shows, user-generated videos and blogs. “5 Takes” is their online series featuring five hosts in their twenties who travel the USA, and also interact with online viewers. Ms. Clarkson believes these videos are more intended for entertainment purposes, and pose no real threat to travel websites meant to provide information to prospective travelers.