[Anonymous]

[Tom Otley]

As you know, we are trying to work out ways of raising revenue for this website.

One idea we had was – Ask the Expert? – where you could email us a question, and we would guarantee to answer it, within, say, 24 hours, to your satisfaction, or your money back.

Now obviously you can do this at the moment through the forum, and others forum users will try and furnish you with an answer.

But this would be more of a service proposition. You need to know the answer, you’re willing to pay, and you have a money back guarantee.

It could be done either
(a) in a special section of the forum, or
(b) by email direct into the offices of Business Traveller.

We would then get in touch with the relevant people in the industry (if we didn’t know the answer) and email it back to you or put it up on the forum, as applicable.

What do you think ?

Would anyone pay to use it? If so, how much?

Obvious problems:

1. People could get the info from other well-known forums.

They could, but those forums take a little getting used to, and can be daunting to first time users or those who just want a simple answer.

2. People could get the answer from our forum

If they can, good. If not, we’ll try and find out, but charge.

3. What if people ask the question at the weekend?

In the short term, that would be a problem. We’d probably limit the 24-hour guarantee to Monday-Friday (what a global operation!)

4. It’s a crazy idea.

Yes, that was my worry…..

[VintageKrug]

I don’t think I’d pay for that service.

A similar service (not specifically travel related) can be seen here:

http://www.aqa.63336.com/

Uses text messaging and might be better than being forum based.

Other blogsites have completely free links direct with airline employees to answer more complex questions.

But you really should aim, in my opinion, to drive page views by attracting quality content and contributors. That will drive up page views and advertising click revenue.

Once that is at a sustainable level, consumers will recognise the value of the site and might consider parting with more cash.

Monetising content too early will drive away contributors and reduce the longevity and success of the site.

I might subscribe to the forum for about £1 a month if that guaranteed no advertising, and a better user interface; I appreciate the single logon philosphy has driven you to develop your own platform, but there will be constant future need to invest in a develop that platform, software is non-core to your business, and finding an outsource forum platform provider who could provide that might be a less expensive way of keeping up with developments in this area.

I think you need to invest a little in developing the forum before you can deliver monetisation.

I would suggest three quick fixes initially:

1. Ordering the “most popular” posts on the left hand side by number of views rather than number of posts – that would keep it much more current rather than based on number of posts, which isn’t really an indication of popularity.

2. Increasing the total number of “headline posts” on the left hand side. Now the forum has matured from 3 posts a week to more like 200, you need to show a wider number of “lead in posts”, otherwise it can be hard to keep up with what is new. I would suggest 10-15 in both the “most popular” and “latest responses” section would be best

3. In the main forum, the post titles should be ordered by those most recently responded to, rather than in the order in which they were posted. It is hard to locate re-invigorated posts not on the “top five” list.

[JonathanCohen09]

Hello Tom,

VK has got it right on this and I would endorse his comments entirely. He has also saved me from having to write a long post.

The only request that I would add is could we please have the most recent posts on each thread at the top as this would save having to scroll down to the bottom of each one to see the most recent contribution.

Cheers,

Jonathan

[Tom Otley]

All good suggestions, and thank you very much. I’ll look into it.

Unfortunately in one afternoon we’ve gone from a possible way of getting money to a certain way of spending it.

Back to the drawing board.

[VintageKrug]

Indeed, too many afternoons spent sipping champers in the F cabin will always drive a certain business perspective.

Like vintage champagne, I prefer to see those suggestions as an investment, not a spend!

I cannot believe that increasing the numbers of “threads” quoted on the forum lead page would actually incur significant cost – if it does you need a quiet word with whoever negotiated your outsourcing contract 😉

[MarkCymru]

Tom

It’s a good question: what would I pay for?

Probably something that you can’t give in print for fear of upsetting the advertisers: bad news, what to really avoid, who’s pulling out of where, that kind of stuff. Running best of polls is easy and probably attracts revenue; running worst of ones would really get my attention. The question is, if you did it online rather than in print, would it still alienate the advertisers? If not, I’d definitely pay for a protected area of the forum for that — after all, your vitriol is likely to be far more reliable and better focussed than ours

I’m not sure the idea of putting the whole forum behind a firewall is feasible: you’d probably just drag usage down below any level of critical mass. But could you charge for a moderated version of the main forums? Possibly. So, for example, were I to post a rant about how many ways I hate Terminal 5, everyone could see it. Only subscribers could see your expert commentary. Ideally, the commentary would include posts you solicited (probably anonymously) from people who work at the airport or for BA. The value would be that you were actively generating content from informed sources.

You could also ask online subscribers for input into what stories to cover and what angles to take. Subscribers could also get to take part in online exchanges with your editors and with industry figures (who wouldn’t pay for a chance to abuse any senior manager at Ryanair — for example?) Globalpost.com (covering international news) has got a few thousand subscribers this way (rumour has it) — me included.

The really obvious way to monetise the interactive part of the site is through market research. You don’t know who I am or how much I spend but you do know how often I visit the site (presumably), what I’ve posted about and whether I pay for the magazine or not. That puts you a long way ahead of most online market research companies (who rely on asking respondents to qualify themselves — a normally unreliable process made far more dubious because the respondents know they’ll get paid if they qualify to complete an online survey). Were I a travel company, I might not rely on the quantitative findings (although I don’t know what I’d find more reliable) but I’d think it was a wonderful opportunity for extended qualitative work. Most of your readers will take part for nothing in the hopes of reducing the misery that we’re put through every time some moronic brand manger thinks we want to feel cool or chic or validated (or adopts an one of the other daft ideas sold to him or her by an ad agency)

Does that make any sense?

[Tom Otley]

It does make sense, and thank you for taking the time to write such a reasoned post. Along with the other suggestions (above) and any others posted here, we’re going to have a good long hard think about them.

A few instant reactions, though.

I wasn’t suggesting (and I don’t think it would work) putting the forum behind a firewall or subscription barrier. In the short term that would only work for premium content (however you define that).

I think the idea of allowing exchanges between readers and editors or, more importantly, industry figures, and also the market research angle, though the devil is in the detail.

And finally, though it’s flattering to think that you would pay for our vitriol, even after 15 years of journalism it baffles/ frustrates / amazes me that people think that editorial is in the pocket of advertisers, and the editorial we write is some sort of advertorial for those companies. (It’s supposed to be journalists who are the cynics!)

Our advertisers advertise with us because they believe that we are a respected voice, read by independent individuals. If they could buy the editorial, why would they advertise?

With so much reader content on the web, much of it extravagantly critical and subjective, we take another path – one that is researched and as objective as we can manage. There’s room on the web for both (and before the web, there was only journalism, so it’s probably a necessary corrective), but there’s little point in paying journalists to produce what anyone who travels and can post on a forum can produce. The point is, we stand by what we write, we are answerable for it, we don’t hide behind funny names, and we’re here year after year (Business Traveller has been around 33 years). It doesn’t make us better than some anonymous reviewer of a hotel, but it doesn’t make us any worse. And as for being influenced by commercial concerns, there’s no way of knowing if a favourable review from an unknown person is from an employee, or an unfavourable one is from a competitor, which is about as commercial as it gets.

We are looking for things to recommend, rather than criticise, and if we had a subscription-only part of the website called (“Travel companies/ products to avoid”, we would simply go after soft targets (budget brands, underfunded airlines, and tell no one anything they couldn’t work out for themselves).

Still, it’s the normal rant, but at least I can copy and paste it into every thread where this issue comes up !

Thank you again for your suggestions. We’ll keep you updated on the improvements, and promise not to charge for seat selection.

[NTarrant]

I don’t think that I would want to pay for such a service, but I would be prepared to pay something if reoccurring problems can be sorted out.

For example I rent cars in Jersey frequently, I stopped using Avis as I always had a battle to get BA miles credited. So I went to Hertz to find that my Flying Blue card has never been credited with points. I changed to Nectar points instead, still waiting. Following the recent promotion of 6 BA miles per pound spent on Avis I thought I would try Avis again after a number of years absense. More hassle sending copies of invoices and the bill for the hire came to over £100, what did I get? 501 miles! And no bonus for joining the prefered club.

Perhaps another idea might be, although not web based, a BT club with events sponsored by hotels, airlines, members pay a small fee and get the chance to see a presentation from whoever and ask questions. Sorry that one just came into my mind!!

[VintageKrug]

On the point about the link with Advertisers vs. Editorial I think it would be a good move to address this in the magazine in a short article on the matter, as it is clearly not properly understood by most readers.

Your independence is alluded to in the mag from time to time, and I seem to recall some small print somewhere about BT paying for most of the trips you review.

In future editions you could them have a more prominent “box” setting out your independence policy.

I don’t really see a conflict between accepting an airline’s free or discounted tickets/hotel’s free room and writing an impartial review, as long as it is stated at the end of the article (eg BT flew to SIN as a guest of Singapore Airlines).

Personally, I rather hope you do accept some freebies which would permit reviews of a more diverse set of airlines and hotels.

As a regular reader it is clear the reviews (mostly, not *always*) focus on routes where BT has offices (HK being especially favoured).

While this covers many of the longhaul majors, I have heard very little on the domestic carriers’ services (in the US JetBlue, Virgin America, SouthWest) and it would be good to see some more regional focus as these airlines are in many cases becoming “bigger” than some of the legacy carriers.

You may come back and say “our readership doesn’t fly these carriers much” but actually, many business trips involve side trips. While most of us know what to expect – or can find on the ‘net – reviews of the majors, it is these niche carriers on which information is scarce and most appreciated.

[FrequentTraveller]

In reply to the original post from SiteAdministrator:

You are treading a fine line here. I already pay BT for a printed magazine subscription. Adding lots of on-line only functionality could reach the point where the paying for the printed magazine subscription is not seen as worth while.

I realise the original proposal here was for something new. A faster, personal and guarantee reply version of “Ask Alex?”. But if there too much on-line paid or unpaid then there will become a point when I stop subscribing, which will kill off your income.

[Author]

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