Remember Kodak? Of course you do. The camera firm that was just too big and iconic to fail. The public thought so, as did the company itself. But fail it did, blinded by its failure to believe digital technology was a threat to its business.
Kodak crossed my mind when I saw the reaction of Tourism Accommodation Australia to Qantas’s new pact with Airbnb which enables people to book Airbnb properties and earn frequent flyer points through the airline’s website.
Now the link between the two may not be immediately apparent – TAA is not going out of business or guilty of staggering short-sightedness as Kodak was – but what it signalled to me was a similar refusal to accept what is happening in the marketplace.
Airbnb is not going anywhere. It is part and parcel of the travel landscape. You might, as a hotelier, curse the sharing economy and the growth of the online up-start. But guess what. It’s not all about you. It’s about consumers.
Qantas is partnering with Airbnb for the simple but fundamental reason that travellers are using the portal to book accommodation in their droves. That being the case, why wouldn’t Qantas seek to work with Airbnb?
TAA points out that Airbnb operates outside the regulatory framework which hoteliers have to adhere to. That may be so, but how is that Qantas’s concern?
As the airline said, in response to TAA’s criticisms, “Airbnb is something a lot of our customers like using and we think it’s important to give them the choice.”
And that is the crux of the issue. Customers have more options than they have ever had before. Qantas, to my mind, is just responding to that reality. It is looking at where consumers are active and what they are using, just as any good forwardlooking business should do.
Speaking of forward-looking, many businesses believe they have taken that approach when it comes to mobiles.
There is no question we spend copious amounts of time on our phone, but some interesting stats emerged from Abu Dhabi where the UK’s travel industry was staging its annual shindig.
The figures appeared to cast doubt over the much heralded ‘mobile first’ approach, with the number of bookings via mobiles declining from 16% to 13%.
It was a reversal which surprised many. We buy pretty much everything online. But I can’t help wondering if the ‘mobile first’ phenomenon has been somewhat overplayed.
The figures emanating from the UK would appear to bear that out.
