Response Magazine - November 2007

Today’s traveler is Web savvy and looking for the best deals online. Now it’s the companies’ turn to make it as easy as possible for travelers to cash in on the best deals.

Changing the E-Travel Market

In the fiercely competitive E-commerce travel market, companies specializing in selling airfare, hotels and other packaged travel deals have to work overtime to distinguish themselves from the competition. Whether it’s through celebrity spokespersons ( Priceline.com’s William Shatner) or with memorable site names (such as Travelocity.com), major airline companies and ticket brokers are all vying for a piece of the travel industry’s profit pie.

From the traveler’s perspective, however, checking all those discount ticket broker and official airline Web sites for the best deals can often be more exhausting and troublesome than it’s worth.

Ralph Bartel found himself in a similar situation when he was disappointed with the “great deals” featured on Internet discount sites. Bartel, who came from Germany, was a travel enthusiast and his excitement for traveling lessened as he tried to take advantage of these deals.

For various reasons Bartel wasn’t able to actually get or book these great deals. The deals were often sold out, the traveling dates were incompatible to what he desired, or the prospective hotel rooms weren’t in acceptable condition. Bartel knew there had to be a better way for both the supplier and traveler and opted to start Travelzoo Inc., in 1998 with a $5,000 investment from his own pocket.

Bartel, who went on to become the CEO of the company, decided the company would focus on putting together a free weekly E-newsletter of the top 20 travel deals available on the Internet. Nearly 10 years later, Travelzoo has relationships with 600 travel suppliers and the newsletter has 12 million subscribers — which is bigger than the combined readership of USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

“Travelzoo has dabbled in the past

with some traditional media, such as radio and newspaper, but we weren’t seeing the returns traditional media used to consistently deliver,” explains Erik Qualman, head of North American marketing operations for Travelzoo. “As we are constantly changing out the best-selected travel deals across the Internet, it’s important that the majority of our marketing remains real time as well. To be able to update the travel deals we select within our marketing initiatives is powerful for our clients and also our target audience.”

Media was able to integrate visual technology with sound to captivate travelers in high-traffic areas of the airport. Now busy travelers could interact with the large projected ads using a range of body movements to alter the ad content.

In Concourses A and B of the airport, gigantic projection screens displayed real-time travel deals featured on Travelzoo’s Web site. Concourse C had travelers star in their own advertisements, as they were projected into two large interactive plasma screens using immersion technology. In Concourse D, real-time

SOPHIA WALLACE

Travelzoo’s interactive displays attracted much attention at Las Vegas’ McCarran International Airport. The displays, developed by Monster Media, gave travelers in Concourse D the opportunity to try their luck with Travelzoo slot machines. Travelers of all ages were entertained while being exposed to Travelzoo.

To test marketing in real time, Travelzoo debuted its interactive, billboard-sized ad campaign for discount travel at Las Vegas’ McCarran International Airport in July. The two-month long “What’s the Deal with Travelzoo?” campaign was the first of its kind in an airport, and ran 24 hours each day for the duration of the campaign to reach nearly 3. 5 million people per month.

Travelzoo turned to Monster Media to provide its patented MonsterVision GroundFX interactive system. Monster

travel deals “spun” on Travelzoo slot machines when consumers interacted with the 8’ x 20’ advertisement. All five advertisements featured the Travelzoo Top 20 ticker to list the company’s current travel deals.