The recent announcement that Aldi Travel UK is reorganising its online site, got me thinking about how many other players we can handle in Australia, selling travel and travel related products ?
We already have approximately 4000 registered travel agents, a number that has not been greatly affected by the economic turmoil and who protect their turf vehemently. Add to that, the number of online players such as Expedia, Webjet, Wotif, and Travel.com along with airlines such as Qantas and Virgin Blue, and we are looking at a very crowded selling space. 47% of all online bookings already go to airlines direct so there doesn’t seem to be much more room to move, or does there ?
So what to make of the Aldi announcement and who else is a likely player on this crowded field ? Woolworths have certainly made no secret of their intent to keep their customers loyalty by accessing the Qantas frequent flyer program via their Woolworths card. So why not add travel in there somewhere ?
The aborted attempt by the Post Office to sell Jetstar fares a few years ago surely got some of the big retailers thinking about what they offer their customers. So could Woolies and Coles and Aldi for that matter break into the travel agent space ?
Within weeks of the Aldi UK site launch, it was in the top ten budget travel searches and taking away valuable business from the other players in that field. It sounds easy and the consolidation and alliances within the Australian travel industry certainly points to more competition for the current players.
Who is to say that someone like Woolworths won’t tie up with one of the established online players to continue to cross sell and control the loyalty of their customer by offering them another benefit to walking into their supermarket.
A crowded space looking to become even more crowded ?
1 comment:
Hey Oliver. You're ok, ElBulli is closing between 2012-2013. So you still have 2 years to contemplete lining up!! Regards Greg.
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