Hi! It's been a while, hasn't it?

Hi!  It's been a while, hasn't it?  You can see my new posts on Medium.  Of course, all my older posts are still on Blogger for your enjoyment.  Thanks for stopping by!

Venturing deeper into the "dark side" of hospitality, they said.

The hotel industry has been dazed, confused, and overall fragmented about the impact of Airbnb on their business.  On one hand, you have hotels citing they are disadvantaged and their unions accusing Airbnb of creating a reduction in hotel jobs.  On the other, you have a few top tier hotel chains that claim Airbnb is not a threat, including a VP that hasn't even heard of Airbnb's existence.
Seriously?  I'm sure that VP has been educated in recent weeks.

These days it seems the hotel resistance is beginning to take on a new cohesive shape.  Tnooz reports of the American Hotel & Lodging Association mobilizing its 52,000 members to battle against the evil doings of short term rental companies and websites like Airbnb.  A brief snippet of their objective:

Together with our partner states, identifying target cities and localities where we can engage in select tax, safety, and health fights at the council level to pre-empt other deals being sought by short-term online rental companies.

Maybe Brian Chesky's "fuck hotels" frontback pic may have been the straw that broke the camel's back.

As tensions continue to mount between Airbnb and the hotel industry, I've experienced an increase in light-hearted trash talking from my fellow Cornell hotel school grads who are always so quick to point out my first crossover to the dark side with Expedia, and now ever darker having recently joined Airbnb.

I still love the majesty and cultural richness of many hotels, and I believe that the basic principles of hospitality remain a strong common denominator between hotels and Airbnb.  But perhaps that's a bit too philosophical for most executives when it comes down to market share and financial statements.

From my point of view, it's not at all dark on this side.  In fact, the future is really bright thanks to visionary leaders like Brian who want to create Shared Cities all over the world, "rogue" hoteliers like the legendary Chip Conley who inspired me a decade ago to pursue hospitality as a career, and a deeply passionate and energetic Airbnb team working together with so much love for what they are doing.

I may have to kiss my Cornell Hotel Society hopes goodbye, but helping build Airbnb's vision to create shared cities and provide travelers uniquely local experiences is going to be oh so much sweeter.  :-)

Did Google just take a monster step towards becoming an OTA?

There's been a lot of press the past couple days on Google's licensing deal with Room 77.  Some articles have been a bit bold in claiming that Google is entering the hotel booking business as an OTA. This would actually mean Google itself is transacting hotel bookings, which doesn't seem to be the case (just yet?).

There's also been a lot of hype over the big increase in Google's hotel content (photos, reviews, etc.) to make its search results resemble those of Priceline and Expedia, for example.  If I'm not mistaken though, this is part of a larger initiative to increase local business content across the board and isn't focused exclusively on hotels just for the sake of making them more bookable on Google search results.

But one thing is for sure . . . the more enhanced content Google adds, the more likely customers may begin their hotel search on Google versus the OTA sites.  And with the addition of Room 77's extensive database of hotel level information such as room views and floor plans, as well as its advanced hotel search algorithms, Google just may have made its biggest step yet in possibly becoming a full end-to-end hotel search and booking engine (and in the process eventually trumping TripAdvisor and OTAs).

I remain doubtful Google would get that low in the purchase funnel though.  My guess is they are amassing the best possible content at the hotel level in a drive to become the undisputed starting point for consumers doing a hotel search.  Over time, Google's hotel search volumes will increase, and if they can simultaneously ramp up ad spending from the non usual suspects (i.e. more hotels spending on adwords and not just the OTAs), it's plain simple math Google can squeeze billions more out of the travel vertical than it already makes today.

For now though, I can't help but wonder how Priceline and Expedia, some of Google's biggest adwords customers, feel about Google's licensing deal with Room 77 and what that might foreshadow.

Airbrb helps you monetize your empty work desk when you're away

Breaking news in the sharing economy!!!

Despite record revenue growth in their core business of short term property rentals, Airbnb is adding a new service that lets office workers rent out their office desks, amenities included.

If you're planning to take a vacation from work, hang out in the pantry, or do some extended reading on the can, Airbnb will help you rent out your office desk for a handsome sum until you get back.  It's magnificently called AirBRB.

 
Airbnb Presents: Airbrb from Airbnb on Vimeo.

Expedia gets sexier with a home page makeover, and smarter with full responsive design

I am totally digging Expedia's new homepage, although it's been overdue for a makeover.  The new design finally plays to the user's imagination instead of serving a plethora of often half ass travel deals all over the screen.

The sleekness and simplicity of the new Expedia homepage makes way for a more responsive design on a slew of mobile devices, but unfortunately many of Expedia's international sites haven't been touched up quite yet.  The Singapore site is below . . . see how busy the old design used to be?

While Expedia's new design comes a few steps closer to the visual dreaminess and slickness of Airbnb, its multi-product offerings of hotels, flights, packages, cars, cruises, and activities will make it tough to get much more uncluttered.

Update - Check out this tnooz post to see the evolution of Expedia's homepage design since 1996.

Now if only Orbitz will do the world a favor and tidy things up a bit on their homepage.  I mean seriously, how do I even make a search with all the merchandizing attacking me?  Although once you turn on your browser's ad blocker, Orbitz will undoubtedly have more white space than all the rest.

UberX makes a sneak preview in Singapore, with prices slashed in half

UberX was pretty much the only way I got around during my recent visit home to San Francisco.  And starting yesterday, it just might be the only way I get around Singapore from now on.

Uber has kicked off a beta of its lower cost UberX service in Singapore, where it previously offered only UberBlack cars.  If I'm not mistaken, this marks Asia's first taste of the lower cost service from Uber.

I'm not exactly sure how I got selected, but yours truly was among the fortunate ones with an opportunity to test drive the new UberX service.  I rejoiced after seeing the base fare slashed in half compared to UberBlack, and the per kilometer fare was more than half off.  At those prices, I'd be more than satisfied with a Camry or Corolla, which are the UberX cars currently being used, instead of the Mercedes or BMW sedans of UberBlack service.

But my smile was short lived.  The three times I fired up my Uber app, my estimated wait for an UberX to arrive at my pickup location was about 15 minutes on each attempt.   I'm hoping this will be improvd and maybe in a few weeks if/when more UberX drivers hit the road, this will become a non issue.

Uber has been a disruptor of local taxi companies since they first appeared on the streets with UberBlack.  They basically got licensed black car drivers with idle time to start picking up riders who might have otherwise booked or flagged down a normal cab.  Uber also changed the ball game with the most simple and easy to use mobile app for ride booking services.  Seriously, you just can't even compare the user experience on Uber's app with the clunky and ugly Comfort DelGro app.

Now UberX takes that disruption several degrees further by letting any Tom, Dick, or Harry become a driver without a special license.  Not only does this increase supply for consumers and increases competition with local cabs, but it also encourages drivers to drive for Uber instead of the local taxi companies (which could mean less revenue for those companies and also the government).  

I'm not sure if Singapore's UberX drivers are average people like you and me, or if they still hold valid operating licenses like their UberBlack limo driver counterparts.  Not that I really care though, as long as the fares continue to be half that of UberBlack here in Singapore.

Airbnb scores a gold medal at Sochi for real time marketing

If real time marketing were a sport, Airbnb would easily win the gold at Sochi this year for their responses to the trending #SochiProblems hashtag on Twitter.  Much like the epic fail of Olympic rings during the opening ceremony, the hashtag depicted hotels with epic fails including missing door handles, double toilets, questionable electrical wiring, and Johnny Quinn using his luge skills to break out of his locked bathroom door.

Once #SochiProblems started trending with examples of Sochi's dismal hospitality standards, Airbnb seized the opportunity to tweet about the stylish (and functional) lodging alternatives available on their site.  Some of these options greatly outshined the Sochi hotels, where the average score of the hotels on Tripadvisor is in the less than desirable range of 3 to 3.5 (out of 5).  To take it one step further, Airbnb even started sending tweets directly to journalists that had whined about their Sochi hotel problems, tempting them with descriptions and house porn photography of Airbnb listings where they could have been resting their heads at night. 

Although it's not really clear whether or not any of the journalists with #SochiProblems ended up swapping in their hotels from hell for an Airbnb listing, the vacation rental company will go home with the gold for offering a creative real time solution for those in need of a place to stay where the door to the room actually closes.  And unlike some of the hotels in Sochi, there won't be any spying going on in the bathrooms.

And if Airbnb gets a gold medal, then Sochi tourism places dead last.  With all the #SochiProblems broadcast all over the media, it's doubtful Sochi will get much of a prolonged tourism boost it's banking on after the Olympics are over.

Online travel and the underlying web of B2C and (many) B2B companies

Happy new year of the horse!  I'm celebrating Chinese New Year with my family in San Francisco bay area, followed by my first Startup Grind 2014 conference in Mountain View.

I won't have time to do much blogging in between my new year family feasts, but here's an interesting graphic I thought I could quickly share.  I came across this 'map' which helps categorize the various players and sub sectors within the travel vertical.  Full credit to Mozio for putting this together.  Despite some missing companies and those that could straddle across several buckets, this really is a comprehensive one-stop shop of a graphic.

Although I've worked many years in the travel industry in hotels, activities, and OTAs, I'm still amazed by the expansive underlying plumbing in online travel, especially on the B2B side.

I can't wait for more Google photo spheres when shopping for hotels and vacation rentals

I'm loving the high resolution 360 degree photo spheres that Best Western and Radisson are deploying on Google search, hotel finder, and maps.  Although this media still carries a hotelier's slant, the interactive richness gives viewers a much more spatial sense of hotel interiors over static photos.

Since I started working in hotels in 2006, I've always had this dream of taking photos of the interior space and external views of every hotel room in the world, and then organizing them so anyone could search through them to find the perfect room.  Clearly this was just a little itty-bitty dream . . .

A few sites like TripAdvisor or FlyerTalk let users search for and post individual room photos and views.  But finding high resolution photos of individual rooms on these sites is like rummaging through a junkyard for discarded computers with Bitcoins.

Then along came Room 77, a travel meta search site that aimed to create a search and review site aimed solely on individual hotel rooms.  They claimed to showcase the view of each guestroom from hundreds of hotels around the world.  My initial excitement for this site quickly wore off when I saw photo after photo of grainy low resolution approximations calculated using Google Earth.

Room 77's grainy room views, but super helpful floorplans

Just for kicks and giggles, I started my own Blogger site where I would share panoramic room views from the hotel rooms I would stay in.  Definitely not scalable, but just a pet hobby of mine to satisfy a guilty pleasure.

But if there's any company that can pull off my itty-bitty dream of organizing photo spheres of all the world's hotel rooms and panoramics of their views, it's most definitely Google.  And that's why I'm looking forward to more independent and chain hotels following the lead of Best Western's 2,200 North American properties and adding interior photo spheres to Google search.  This would be great for hotels that have unique spaces including wedding venues, fitness centers, and spas.  It would be a first of its kind for hotel shoppers who want the perfect room in that perfect hotel.  But this super rich content could potentially be the defining advantage Google hotel finder has over other travel meta search sites and OTAs to win hotel search volume and CPC spend.

Google and Room77 shouldn't have all the fun though.  HotelTonight is already leading the way in crowd sourcing mobile photos from individual rooms.  And I have no doubt that photo spheres and corresponding floor plans would improve the shopping experience on Airbnb listings above and beyond the positive impact their professional photography program has already made on average nightly rates and conversion . . . especially for larger, upscale, or uniquely designed one-of-a-kind spaces.

Seriously, could you imagine 360 degree tours (and floor plans) of all these ridiculously quirky Top 40 Airbnb picks?!?

Giving credit to the world's first travel blog post, 20 years ago

Travel blogs have been around for a long time now . . . two full decades.  At first it seems like a no brainer that the content in these blogs are a gold mine for travel dreaming or planning.  But in practice, that's not often the case.  I'm on the fence whether I like them or not when it comes to planning travel.

With the exception of asking a few trusted friends, I do pretty much all my destination planning, travel research, and bookings online.  In fact, most of my destination planning is done through online resources, whether they be official destination sites, review sites, or random travel blogs.

When visiting travel blogs though, there's something about them that makes me have a love-hate relationships with them.  When they're good, they're often times phenomenal . . . packed with vivid imagery and seducing descriptions that captivate me enough to open a new tab and start booking flights.  In these cases, the blogger usually possesses a genuine curiosity in the local surroundings and seeks out the unconventional to broadcast back to viewers.

When travel blogs are bad though, they can really be a waste of time.  Regurgitated information and non-descriptive words like "amazing" or "awesome" can render a sensory travel experience incredibly bland.  What's amazing or awesome to one person may not be the case to me.  So I move on to the next blog, and the next, and the next, until finally I stumble upon some more unique, descriptive, and inspiring content.

But for better or worse, I have to pay mad respect to the birth of travel blogging.  Jeff Greenwald holds the title for posting the world's first travel blog back in January 1994.  It took over three hours over dial up Internet to post.  It's called "One Hundred Nanoseconds of Solitude" and you can read it here.

Fast forward to today, twenty years later, and there's no shortage of travel content written by bloggers roaming the planet and sharing every aspect of travel imaginable.  Now if only there was a way to search through all the world's haphazard travel blogs as quickly and accurately as one searches on Google for relevant content!!

One of my fav travel blog posts comes from wanderingearl.com, about how not to get ripped off by taxis.

Singapore Changi Airport's upcoming Terminal 4 looks amazing!

If you live in Singapore and have ever ventured abroad, then you must know the welcoming and soothing feeling of returning to Changi airport.  Maybe it's the lush green foliage throughout the terminals or perhaps the speedy immigration arrivals process that puts me at ease.  It's no wonder Changi airport has won a slew of international awards, including the prestigious Skytrax World's Best Airport 2013.

As if things couldn't get better, Changi will be getting a 4th terminal in 2017.  According to the official webpage for the new T4 terminal . . .

Scheduled for completion in 2017, Terminal 4 will come with design and process innovations to redefine passengers' travel experience, raise operational efficiency and manpower productivity for airlines and airport agencies. It will also be vibrant and positively surprising, with touches of Singapore culture.

This is typical Singapore corporate speak.  When translated, it basically there's going to be a lot of automated processes that will zip travelers through the airport so they can spend more time (and money) at all the fancy new designer shops that will overtake the terminal.

These automated processes include the FAST intiatives (Fast And Seamless Travel).  For the very first time, Changi will launch self-service automation for check-in, bag drop, immigration, and boarding gates.

Although it's just turning 2014, I'm already looking forward to 2017 when I can arrive at Changi's T4 departure hall just 30 minutes before my scheduled departure time.  And to think some people feel my current practice of arriving 45 minutes before departure is cutting it too close.  :-)

Because migrating birds also deserve a unique Airbnb home after a long journey

Airbnb has done some pretty rad marketing in recent past.  Remember the short film Hollywood & Vines that was made entirely from six-second Vine clips?  What about the home made Obama O's that two of the founders created to raise money for their fledgling venture?

Well now Airbnb is all grown up with its first integrated advertising campaign called Birdbnb, which uses a metaphor of migrating birds and birdhouses for travelers and our desire to feel at home whenever we're on the road.

Watch this awesome video here.

But these aren't just ordinary birdhouses.  They're 50 unique bird-sized spaces inspired by real life Airbnb listings from all over the world.  Although they're beautifully constructed by professional artists, the real beauty shines when each of the migrating birds finds a home and starts exploring the cozy living quarters . . . even treating themselves to popcorn while perched on the TV couch!

I couldn't imagine a traditional lodging e-commerce site like Expedia creating an advertisement such as this one.  It really highlights the strong value Airbnb places on creating unique travel experiences through its hundreds of thousands of unique spaces around the world.

I think I can safely speak for the birds when I say, "How could you not love this company!?"

Will Pinterest's new "Place Pins" maps feature get hotel brands more serious about using the site?

In a not-so-surprising announcement last week, Pinterest launched a new feature called "Place Pins" that is devoted to travel inspiration and planning.  It's designed to combine the beautiful imagery one would find while browsing travel magazines/blogs with the functionality of a map and location details.  Best of all, users can share their Place Pins and collaborate on trip planning together.  On the down side, the map locations are powered by Foursquare, which anyone living outside the US will know results in major gaps in location info.

Given the popularity of pinning travel destinations on Pinterest, it wasn't a real shocker that the company finally launched a formal product built around travel.  The company disclosed that last year it had identified a significant trend of users creating boards just for destinations.

But what is really surprising to me is how few hotel companies, travel agents, and tour operators have embraced Pinterest as a way to inspire travelers through the use of imagery.  It's only fitting that a visual site like Pinterest would be a super valuable tool for travel companies to build up strong brand associations and awareness . . . especially the upmarket brands that seek to promote an aspirational travel lifestyle.  Pinterest has a massive user base that's just begging to be inspired, as evidenced by over 750 million destination pins to date all over the world.  Although Pinterest falls short of helping inspired customers book their travels (for now), there's still enormous value in hotel or travel brands engaging with would-be travelers on the site and possibly moving them closer to their respective purchase funnel.

In fact of all the global hotel chains, the only one with a strong presence on Pinterest is Four Seasons.  If the number of pins and followers is used as the comparative metric for engagement, then Four Seasons just absolutely blows away its hotel peers on Pinterest.  The company has a strong suite of pinboards but also was the first of its peers to create a Place Pins board.  Surely there are other upscale/luxury brands in the market that could learn a thing or two from Four Seasons' approach to inspiring travelers through imagery.

Below is a quick and dirty list of global hotel chains and their number of pins and followers.  Just for kicks and giggles I added Airbnb's stats.  They have just about the same number of pins as Intercontinental Hotels IHG Rewards Club, but with 33x the number of fanatic followers!!!

Four Seasons - 3251 pins and 24117 followers
Hilton HHonors - 1646 pins and 1357 followers
Hyatt Hotels - 1318 pins and 722 follower
Marriott Resorts - 902 pins and 1184 followers
IHG Rewards Club - 670 pins and 483 followers
Starwood Preferred Guest - 296 pins and 1330 followers
Hilton Worldwide - 224 pins and 1566 followers
Airbnb - 552 pins and 15876 followers
Intercontinental Hotels - no centralized pinners

I'd like to give a shout out to Airbnb's Place Pins board called "Loved by San Franciscans."  SF is easily my favorite city I've ever lived in, and this board is a nice walk down memory lane (complete with map and all)!

Airbnb's redesigned app empowers micro-hoteliers to deliver personality driven hospitality

"We are a hospitality company." - Brian Chesky, CEO Airbnb

On November 12, Airbnb hosted their first ever Airbnb Open event and made some exciting new announcements targeted primarily at their host community.  Although birthday wishes for yours truly weren't among them, the big news was the launch of a revamped mobile app.  Also making headlines was a suite of new programs aimed at improving the host experience and consequently the hospitality that Airbnb relies on its 350,000 hosts to deliver.

In the atrium of Airbnb's beautifully designed new headquarters, Brian Chesky illustrated his company's roots and then introduced the revamped mobile app with an electrifying passion and contagious enthusiasm that I have now come to expect during his talks.  While the improved app now seduces accommodation seekers ever more with inviting imagery and a cleaned up user interface, the real magic is in the mobile app's new host-facing user experience called Host Home.  For once, it's the suppliers who get the cool tools!

The company blog says it best . . .

"Hosting should be easy and enjoyable. That’s the premise behind our new Host Home. Think of Host Home as your hosting mentor—always there when you need it. Host Home provides you the right information at the right moment, from coaching you through listing a space to allowing you to effortlessly manage multiple bookings. Hosting on Airbnb has never been such a snap."

This is a unique approach compared to other travel and hospitality companies whose mobile apps focus almost exclusively on the consumer. But unlike companies such as Marriott, who have standard operating policies for their hotel staff, Airbnb is at the mercy of its hosts to deliver hospitality.  Many are first time hosts and could possibly look to Host Home as a "hosting for dummies" of sorts. 

If you think about the Airbnb customer experience from search to post-stay, the company's biggest challenge is the guest's arrival and the hospitality they experience during their stay.  These are the ultimate moments of truth, and unfortunately these critical moments that can make or break a customer experience are out of the direct control of Airbnb.  So to the extent that the company can creatively educate and empower hosts on hospitality standards, the better the chances for improved guest experiences.

So it comes with little surprise that the new Airbnb app seeks to influence host behavior and ultimately create a more consistent hospitality experience -- from basic comfort needs all the way to anticipatory service that creates a truly memorable trip.  Host Home provides hosts with best practices on delivering hospitality at the critical moments of a guest's travel experience.  The mentorship comes straight from the legendary Chip Conley, the company's new Head of Hospitality, and is aligned with improving the guest experience at each of the nine moments of truth he and his hospitality team have identified.  

But don't be fooled into thinking that the nine hospitality standards will make for cookie cutter experiences.  There is probably no better guru than Chip Conley to coach Airbnb hosts (or anyone for that matter) on providing authentic hospitality by embracing their unique personalities.  

In addition to announcing the revamped mobile app, Airbnb also announced the follow new features and releases:

Airbnb Stories: A new content marketing platform, Airbnb Stories is a collection of just that . . . inspiring stories that have emerged as a result of hosts opening up their homes to guests and letting their paths cross. 

SuperHost Alliance: Airbnb said it will relaunch its SuperHost program in 2014. The company describes the SuperHost Alliance as "a league of extraordinary Airbnb hosts" whose listings reflect their special status with a badge.

Host Rewards: Also beginning in 2014, Airbnb will run a rewards program for hosts, giving them travel credits, perks, and other privileges.

Host Groups: Debuting in beta in June and formally launching Tuesday, Host Groups now have more than 10,000 participants in more than 300 groups.  Groups allow hosts to leverage their collective knowledge to help each other improve their hosting capabilities.

Hospitality Lab: Chip Conley gave a peek at the inner workings of Airbnb's Hospitality Lab in Dublin, outlining standards hosts should follow in booking (to build trust), preparation (to make a good first impression), and arrival (interactions with guests).

At last, Priceline edges out Expedia in gross bookings and becomes the new king of online travel

Although Expedia's global websites don't yet admit defeat, Priceline has in fact surpassed Expedia in gross bookings to become "the world's largest online travel company" -- a claim Expedia has long marketed to customers and suppliers on its global websites.

In the past several days, Priceline has simply dominated the news headlines.  First came their Q3 earnings release, highlighting yet another consistently strong quarter underscored by increased market share.  Second was the public announcement that the venerable Priceline CEO, Jeffery Boyd, would step down as CEO but remain as Chairman of the Priceline board.  

(Here are seven of the biggest impacts Jeffery Boyd made on the online travel industry.)

Some news writers reacted with shock to the news surrounding Jeffery Boyd, yet the industry insider PhoCusWright suggested the leadership change had been in the works for some time.  But what actually shocked me most was the headline on Priceline overtaking Expedia in gross bookings for the first time in history.  Wow!

And when reflecting on the evolution of Priceline over the past decade, PhoCusWright was equally as surprised.  In a well written article by Douglas Quinby of PCW that portrays Priceline's come from behind surprise win . . .

The year was 2002. Once an Internet princeling, the online brand synonymous with "name your own price" had fallen out of favor. Moves into mortgages, groceries and gas proved misguided. Its share price had plummeted. In online travel, the company was effectively the fourth horse in what was quickly becoming a three-horse race among the leading online travel agencies. It was considered likely to get acquired or – worse – fizzle out.

When Jeff Boyd assumed the role of CEO in November of that year, the odds were against a resurgent Priceline. Iconic commercials starring the famed former captain of Star Trek notwithstanding, few would have expected over the next decade that the company would, on pretty much every metric that matters, become the global leader in online travel. Looking back, that was certainly one surprise.

I had a hunch that one day Priceline would surpass Expedia in gross bookings, yet upon reading this headline my jaw still managed to drop to the floor.  It was as though a consecutive Olympic gold medalist had been knocked off the top platform by an arch nemesis.  Congratulations, Priceline.

Now that Priceline has done the previously unthinkable, Jeffery Boyd will pass on the reins of CEO to his successor, Darren Huston.  And as Mr. Boyd dusts off his shoulders, he'll be watching Expedia admit defeat (at least temporarily) and remove its tagline, "The World's Largest Online Travel Company" from its global websites.

Virgin America has the coolest in-flight safety video that you just gotta watch

Back in 2007, I was one of the first passengers on Virgin America's inaugural LAX/SFO flight.  This new airline was hip and cool, and did for the airline industry what W Hotels did for the bland hotel industry.  I mean seriously . . . the airplane cabin had purple and blue lighting!  More than five years later, there's still not one airline that creates such a uniquely cool customer experience (especially in economy class).

Now Virgin America has further underscored its title as the coolest airline in the world with its newest in-flight safety video.  It's quite possibly the most entertaining video of it's kind, but one has to wonder if the actual safety messages get muted from all the belching high notes.  I suppose if it at least gets travelers' attention, it's already more effective than the boring in-flight safety videos that most people tune out.

Recently TheDesignAir website ranked Virgin America second in the world's best economy class airline cabin.  The airline's soothing blue and purple cabin mood lights weren't as impressive as Air New Zealand's "SkyCouch" seating configuration, which shot the Kiwi carrier to first place.

One thing's for sure though, Virgin America's new in-flight safety video is as much about safety as it is about generating some viral marketing buzz for the coolest airline brand in the world.

While Airbnb inks petition signatures, HomeAway inks landmark business deals

I find it interesting that the two biggest names in online vacation rentals, Airbnb and HomeAway, exhibit such stark contrast when it comes to their respective press headlines.  Although Airbnb focuses more on peer to peer shared accommodations, both companies are in no short supply of whole unit rentals which people like you and I can book on their sites.  Yet Airbnb seems to be under intense legal scrutiny while HomeAway flies more or less under the radar.

Airbnb has taken big hits in New York recently, having been subpoenaed by New York's Attorney General to provide personal data for up to 225,000 of its New York hosts.  Airbnb has publicly expressed that the request is unreasonably broad and that the company will fight it with everything they've got.

And so the fight continues in New York, and Airbnb has armed itself with artillery.  On the lighter side, a Save Airbnb in New York petition has drummed up over 70,000 signatures and far exceeded the original goal of 20,000 signatures.  Did you know this petition was started by one of the company's users?  It's impressive to see such die hard fanatics the Airbnb brand/experience has cultivated.  In full disclosure I'm also one of them!

For the heavier artillery, Airbnb has released an economic study that shows it generated $632 million in economic activity in New York City in just one year, and that 82% of all listings were in neighborhoods outside the traditional tourist zones in Midtown.  Surprisingly 87% of Airbnb hosts rent out the home they live in and earn on average $7,530 per year.  Critics argue that Airbnb's contributions are just a drop in the ocean when put into the context of overall New York City tourism receipts, but for such a young travel company to impact outlier neighborhoods the way it has in New York and other major international cities is down right unprecedented.

So while Airbnb was caught up in a defensive web of legal issues, petitions, and lobbying, what was HomeAway up to in the last week?  There was no sign of HomeAway draining valuable resources on legal battles.  Instead they were gettin down to business with launching a new commission-based business model and inking a landmark distribution deal with Expedia which should significantly boost the demand profile for their vacation rental product starting in 2014.

But interestingly this vacation rental product isn't so different from the type of product that Airbnb is coming under fire for in New York.  The legislation that should apply equally to both companies is the ban on short term stays of less than 30 days when the owner or leaseholder is not present.   But a quick search on HomeAway properties in Manhattan shows over 1,000 whole unit listings available.  Many of these only require a three night minimum stay if any.

This is certainly just speculation, but it's possible that HomeAway and other vacation rental sites may be cooperating with government requests for submitting user data.  If that's the case, and again this is just speculation, then I believe all the more reason to admire Airbnb for putting up a public fight in New York to protect user privacy and not taking the easy way out like some of these other tech companies.

What TripAdvisor can teach independent hotels about shifting share from OTAs

A big score for independent hotels (and of course TripAdvisor)

There's certainly no shortage of activity coming from TripAdvisor.  The company recently shifted some focus to metasearch, redesigned its site, acquired content-rich Oyster.com, and launched the independent hotels' newest best friend . . . TripConnect.

TripConnect is a new service that empowers indie hotels like never before when it comes to online marketing and driving direct sales and bypassing OTAs.  These smaller properties can now integrate their web booking engine to TripAdvisor's metasearch, and thus display live rates and availabilities for shoppers who perform a dated search.  By combining the hotel's presence on TripAdvisor metasearch with the right room pricing and bidding strategies, the savvy indie hotel operator can take the first series of steps in winning back channel share from OTAs.  And as OTA click through and conversion rates decline for a particular hotel, they just might scale back their own bidding and thus reduce marketing costs for the indie operator in the long term.

But what about Google?  For those indie hotel operators that have AdWords campaigns running already, should they be plugging into TripConnect and shifting marketing spend to TripAdvisor?  In general it's a wise approach to diversify and spend on both Google and TripAdvisor.  After all, TripAdvisor is one hell of a strong brand, but there are areas in the world where their name is virtually unknown.  So answering this question in detail really depends on the hotel product, destination, and its primary source markets.

But one thing is for sure.  Because TripAdvisor's metasearch allows for dated searches and the new TripConnect service plugs directly into indie hotels' booking engines, there is no wasted ad spend on dates that are unavailable because it wouldn't be possible for the shopper to click through in the first place.

Furthermore, TripAdvisor creates a smoother shopping experience (from research to price shopping) which should ultimately lead to a more highly qualified customer.  In the e-commerce world of performance marketing, that usually translates into much better conversions.

TripConnect offers a number of other added benefits, but at the end of the day it all boils down to one thing.  Independent hotels now have the most powerful tool to help them claw back bookings from high cost OTA distribution channels.  The fact that it's more effective than Google AdWords or Hotel Finder is just icing on the cake.

Google.  It's your move now.

Example of TripConnect in action.  Although in this case HotelClub's lower price is undermining the hotel's efforts.

Airbnb versus New York City. The saga continues over a subpoena for data on NYC hosts.

NYC still has 1000+ listings for entire apartments

There's been no shortage of drama between Airbnb and New York City regarding the legality of short term rentals.

It all started with a man named Nigel Warren, a New York resident who was fined $2,400 for renting out a room in his apartment on Airbnb.  Late last month, a New York judge reversed the fines in a victory for Nigel and Airbnb who had appealed the earlier decision.  It turns out that it's actually not illegal to rent out a room as long as someone is physically present in the apartment at the same time the guest is staying over.  Airbnb dodged a bullet on a technicality, although many more are likely to be shot over the plethora of vacant apartments that are rented out by landlords or property managers.

And then there's the hotel industry blowing the whistle on Airbnb hosts because they don't pay the city occupancy taxes that hotels are required to pay.  Airbnb's CEO, Brian Chesky, has for the first time acknowledged that most hosts should have to pay some sort of occupancy tax.  Could this be a peace offering move to prevent any possibility of widespread removal of all host listings?  It's important to note that what happens in New York City will likely create a new paradigm for other cities, with reports that San Francisco has also reached an agreement with Airbnb that would require hosts to pay occupancy taxes.

And with that, it didn't take long for New York Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, to demand user data for 225,000 New Yorkers who have previously listed a room on Airbnb.  The data is being subpoenaed as part of an investigation into people who had possibly violated the law by renting out their room without being physically present.  If Airbnb does provide New York's AG with this info, we can reasonably assume that hundreds of Airbnb hosts would be served up fines or have to pay taxes retroactively.  A quick search on Airbnb's listings in New York City show that there are more than 1,000 listings even after filtering for "entire place" units only.  In theory, the vast majority of these "entire place" units are rented out illegally.

It should almost go without saying that Airbnb will not comply in an effort to protect the privacy of its community and user data.  As written on the company blog, "this demand is unreasonably broad and we will fight it with everything we've got."

The blog goes on to say, "As these conversations continue, we will always be committed to protecting our hosts' privacy and we will always stand by the hosts who are the heart and soul of this community."

Now that is an awesome company sticking up for the privacy rights of its users!  I just hope that Airbnb holds true to their battle cry, even if legal pressures begin to mount against the company to hand over its user data.

Booking.com takes over hotel bookings on New York tourism website

Powered by Booking.com

The arch nemesis of Expedia is making new friends in the USA, and one of them happens to be none other than New York City.  Booking.com has kicked off an affiliate partnership deal with nycgo.com, the city's official tourism website, to power hotel bookings in New York.

American OTAs must be feeling the sting as the Amsterdam based Booking.com increasingly stomps deeper into American home turf.  Priceline group is already on top of the leader boards in Asia and Europe, according to PhoCusWright.

It appears the NYC site was previously powered by Travelocity, and I suspect that part of the decision to switch to Booking.com was the number of localized sites it has around the world.  Currently Booking.com supports over 40 languages.  This potentially allows NYC to tap into large international markets that are more likely to visit the tourism site compared to domestic travelers already familiar with NYC.

New York is one of the most popular tourism destinations in the United States, and this new partnership may be the tipping point for additional American tourism organizations to partner with Booking.com and appeal to a more international audience.  A quick search also shows San Francisco's tourism site being powered by Booking.com.

From a supply perspective, Booking.com offers 573 properties while Expedia and Orbitz have 508 and 447 properties respectively.