MapMyHotel : interview du créateur, Riaan van Schoor

Dossier archivé l'Interview du Pro le May 28, 2006

Je vous propose l'interview de Riaan, créateur de MapMyHotel et grand professionnel du eTourism avec un passage dans le grand GDS Galileo.

>Riaan, can you tell some information about you?

I'm a South African who's been in London for about 5 years now, having been relocated here by Galileo International when they offered me the position of eCommerce Manager for EMEA. Before that I've always worked in travel (it's been 11 years now), mostly in technology, new developments etc. The first 3 years in travel I actually worked as a travel consultant to understand the business better. I've also done check-in for KLM in my spare time at Cape Town airport, mostly because I love that environment. During my time at Galileo International I was responsible for their development of Galileo Web Services, and the development of a travel agent desktop product that integrated low-cost carrier data with traditional airline data.

>Can you tell us some fact about your professional experience in the big electronic system, like GDS Galileo ? People didn't imagine what it could be to work with this kind of organisation.

[Riaan van Schoor] I spent some time working for Galileo Southern Africa, which is part of South African Airways, and I thought, "wow, Galileo International is big". It was in its heyday certainly a very big and impressive company. So when they offered me the job at Galileo International, I could not resist. The sheer volume of data that flows through that organisation is very overwhelming. They certainly do things at a big scale, but it remains a very close-knit industry. Everybody knows everybody in travel!

>You are involve in tourism project some news about this ?

I left Galileo International about two years ago and started Inside C. It's a mix of consultancy about system integration for online companies like eBookers.com, Viajar.com etc but I also developed a product that works on MSN Messenger. It's an interactive robot on MSN and can also help you find flights. (see insidemessenger.com).

>What are your taste for:

Travel: I like a bit of luxury. I've spent enough time at the back of the plane! Typically I fly BA in World Traveller Plus, with an upgrade on one leg to Club class. Both are great products. I book cars through carbookers.com ... great deals.

Travel destination : Holiday? The USA. I love going there .. it's so easy, friendly and it offers so much. I do have a soft spot for South Africa though.

Hotel: Hotelwise I prefer smaller, niche hotels with Wi-Fi access!

Business: Sensible flight times are more important than price...including location of departure and arrival airport.

>Internet is going faster and we talk now about Web 2.0, what do you think about this evolution in the tourism market place ?

I love web 2.0 stuff and therefore I developed mapmyhotel.com, which you wrote so kindly about. I think there's plenty that can still happen in travel technology and ultimately benefitting the end consumer. In travel specifically there is such a huge amount of variable data that technologies such as Ajax, which - with a simple application - allows a webpage to be update without a refresh, really makes the site an interactive, useful application. Kayak.com is a great example.




>We see important impact of news technologies (RSS, AJAX, podcast, etc), what is your point of view ?[
Riaan van Schoor]

I mentioned Ajax in the previous question but I'm possibly even more excited about RSS. It's simply brilliant and again, with data in travel changing all the time, a technology like RSS is great for keeping track of those changes without expecting the consumer to "push" any requests.

>Blogs are also a new media and new part of Internet, we talk about "blogosphère". With 7 bloggers (all from e-tourism) we lunch "les Trophées du e-tourism 2006" only with our passion.

What about you and the blogs trend ?
[Riaan van Schoor]

Blogs are fantastic, but at the same time a lot of work if you try and do one on your own. Your approach, where several bloggers contribute, solves that problem. In general I'm excited about blogs and its impact on travel; think about photo and video blogging from people coming back from a trip and how that might influence someone's decision about where they want to go. I also think that blogs have a positive influence on the service levels of companies; if a popular blog talks about how poor the service as on a flight, the impact is potentially huge.

> People also talk about more and more convergence between mobile and Internet. Do you agree for our tourism industry ? Isn't a big theorical market ?

The convergence, and theories about mobile internet uptake continues to be talked about a lot but not all of it ends up happening. In theory, a mobile device is the ultimate travel companion and would be used for "during trip" interaction, not? But again, we don't see a lot of that happening. Personally I think mobile devices are good for short, push type technologies like SMS (from a supplier about your trip) but people will stick to larger devices for pulling information - at this stage. Another inhibiting factor is the cost of data on a roaming agreement. I'm therefore pleased to read about British mobile operators lowering their roaming charges recently.

>Ecotourism seem a trend in tourism industry and we see some great initiative like EcoMilles or other Tour Operator who have specialized their products.

What do you think about this trend ? Do you think this trend will change the way of how we buy tourism product from big travel agencies?

Consumer conciousness is, and will continue, to play a big influencing factor in their buying decisions. We see it happening in supermarkets where people are willing to pay a little bit more for eco-friendly products, and I agree that they will do so in travel as well.

>DMO's are in process to re-invented themselves, what is your vision about it and the trend we see about more and more booking engine in their web site ?

N/A

>Dynamic Packaging are the last reservation system in our industry. You can now build your on package in a single and easy process. For FUN, can you imagine the "ultimate booking engine" that will be on the market in 10 year ;-))

Interesting that you mention DP. It's been the buzz word in the industry for the last 5 years, and only recently are we seeing some it emerge. Only this week I saw a new result on Opodo.com which made use of DP. My personal view about DP is that there's too much hype about something which essentially is actually quite simple to implement. Sure, it's a bit complicated but not as much as the industry has been making out of it.

The ultimate travel website is one which shapes it content around the consumer...and with this I don't just mean the presentation layer, but the content, the language, the pricing etc. It will focus less on content deals which are exlusive, and make more use of tecnologies such as travelfusion.com to offer them really deep and wide content, in an intelligent fashion (think location based, or content which is sensitive to things like overall distance travelled).

Also, it will be consumer driven, such as Flickr.com, which is a site where all of it's content is created by the consumer. Lastly, the ultimate booking engine will do more than just book, it will also focus a lot around seamless interoperability between the web, the call centre and the supplier, allowing you to do half your booking on the phone (yes, that will continue) and the rest on the site. It will also focus a lot on post-booking service elements, incorportating multiple platforms, including instant messaging. Long gone are the days where the website is standing on it's own, not part of the overall offering.

>I am an entrepreneur mind and men, you are also an entrepreneur, what can be the bridge between us to build together the next e-tourism?

a e-tourism Web 2.0 compliant ;-))

I think it's quite simple. Social network, blogging, sharing of experiences, travel communities is what's going to drive the next wave of consumer expectation. With things like your site, blogging, coverage of interesting ideas and users being able to comment, we are halfway there.

>You have the micro !!!
[Riaan van Schoor]
Thanks. I am always amazed at how slow the travel industry in general is to accept and adopt change and technology. What amazes me even more is the attitude of some of the big players around how the internet is "just another channel". Wake up guys, the internet is driving your business and is the voice of the consumer.

Merci Riaan