We’re always keen to ensure that we’re providing services to our travel industry clients that will keep them ahead of the game. Therefore we did some research in to the key things that users are looking for when they go to a travel website. Continue reading
Over the last six months, the travel industry has weathered some tough times, created by Government tax rises and the recent ATOL legislation. These changes are purported to be for the good of the consumer and the economy but what detrimental effects will they have and who will they affect? We intend to find out… Continue reading
Inspired by our MD’s recent comment on the emerging importance of mobile technology, we decided to take a look at some of the ways the travel industry is using mobile technology to help the customer through every stage of their journey. We identified 4 stages of the user journey where the travel industry is stepping in to help through mobile. Continue reading
Presenting our customers with their search results with both precision and speed matters to us. As does keeping our loyal blog readers (that’s you) up to date with the ongoing developments here at Multicom. As part of this today we’re proud to show you a sneak-peek of one of the technologies that we’re currently working on. Continue reading
In my last blog post I discussed some of the issues that the developers at Multicom face while developing FindAndBook – and how our web scraping systems can be maintained through a variety of methods to ensure that our data is as fresh as possible when users send in their requests. Continue reading
A recent study by Google engineers found that waiting just 400 milliseconds (literally the blink of an eye) is too long once we have clicked on a website AND this miniscule delay can in fact cause us to search less. Continue reading
The launch of Google’s new flight search system in travel has been met with all kinds of emotions from travel companies but what exactly is it and more importantly, do you really need to be concerned? Continue reading
While at the ITB I attended an interesting round table discussion on the various strengths and weakness of mobile apps vs mobile websites. There is no doubt that mobile technology has already had a huge impact on our daily lives in a very short space of time, the first iPhone only went on sale in America in June 2007 and Apple’s App store didn’t launch until over a year later in July 2008. In less than 5 years the way we consume the internet has changed dramatically, we now have the power of all of Google’s search index at our finger tips – pretty handy for the pub quiz – and apps have been developed that allow us to remote control drones, download and even film HD video, translate speech from one language to another in almost real-time and much more. Continue reading
A significant challenge facing us as developers is the integration of suppliers which are unable to (or choose not to!) provide an accessible XML-based API for availability, costing and booking of their services. Put in a backdrop of a market where data (prices, flight times, baggage prices, etc.) is updated in real-time, all the time – and this presents the kind of pressured challenge we developers love to get our heads around. Continue reading
One of the most interesting talks that I attended at World Travel Market was the above titled presentation which was run by Travel Weekly along with Propellernet (search experts who specialise in retail / travel). Stefan Hull from Propellernet presented an excellent case for the importance of understanding what your potential customers are actually looking for from their online experience. Continue reading