Following Gillespie’s Guide to Travel+Procurement?

What a broad set of travel topics we’ve been discussing here: Gamification, verbal translation, direct connections, data reporting, self-booking breakthroughs, innovation barriers, supplier pricing….I love it.

If you’re a follower of this blog, thank you!  And if you’ve contributed to the conversations here, an even bigger thank you!

Here’s the ask:  If you like this blog, please recommend it your colleagues. A bigger base means even better conversations, so we’ll all benefit.

Folks can follow for free here.  It’s good for about 2-4 articles a month, depending on what catches my eye.  Thank you for helping me grow this audience.

Here’s a handy recap of the most popular articles from the last year or so:

Top Posts from 2010 Travel+Procurement

The hottest topics on this blog last year dealt with data metrics, innovation, distribution and hotel sourcing. In case you missed these most-read articles:

• Travel Benchmarking Done Well – Describes the best travel benchmarking tool I’ve seen. From the fine folks at Travel GPA. (661 views)
• Savings Metrics, Rat Farms and KPIs Gone Bad – Makes you think a bit more carefully about

Google – the Ultimate Direct Connect Platform?

Let’s connect some dots.

Dot 1: Google is in a quandary. It needs to enter big markets with high growth opportunities.
Dot 2: Google likes the travel industry. I’ve heard estimates that about 10% of its revenues are attributable to travel.
Dot 3: There’s a big travel-related search market that Google hasn’t cracked. It sits behind the walls of the GDSs.
Dot 4: ITA Software has deep expertise in airline pricing, shopping and availability searches. ITA powers

Top Reads from 1st Quarter 2010

Last quarter’s most popular topics covered travel ROI, savings, metrics and reverse auctions:

ROI on Travel and Meetings – Why Bother? – challenges the feasibility of placing ROI metrics on trips; says there is a “good enough” alternative.  It’s called management.

The Real Question Behind Travel ROI – searching for post-trip ROI is a long walk in the hot sun.  Far better to focus on this essential question: “What’s the most effective way to achieve my goal?” Sabre and Cisco showed an interesting approach.

Travel Benchmarking Done Well – the Travel GPA tool focuses on actionable benchmarks – stuff that travel managers really need to pay attention to.

Savings Metrics, Rat Farms and KPIs Gone Bad – takes a critical look at three common definitions of savings, and the unintended consequences of each.

Reverse Auctions for Hotels and Car Rates? – wonders if travel suppliers may offer more reverse auctions for their inventory, and the implications for buyers, TMCs and GDSs.

Want articles like these delivered to you by e-mail?  Sign up here.  It’s free, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Most Popular Reads of 2009

This blog’s most popular posts involved innovation, fighting words, myths and data sources.  Not quite sure what this topical variety tells me about the direction I should take with this travel management blog in 2010, but stay tuned! (Sign up here for immediate delivery of new articles via e-mail)

The most-read posts in 2009:

Most Popular Reads for Nov. ’09

Here are last month’s most popular posts.  Three of them deal with innovation in the travel industry.  Two deal with travel data, and two have that magic word “free” in the title.  Just when I thought my content was getting good!  This month I’ll focus more on airline sourcing topics.

(Click here to sign up for e-mail delivery of fresh articles from this blog)

Travel 101 – provides a short video introduction to the travel category, and four good articles covering travel data sources, scrubbing, reporting and analytics.

What’s Next In Travel Innovation – covers the trends I saw from the PhoCusWright conference on Travel Innovation last month, and the implications for travel procurement.

Future Innovations in Airline Distribution – gives my views on three major innovations that will impact how airlines distribute their product.

Unexpected Airline Innovations – highlights two interesting tools that show how airlines are thinking more broadly about their mission.

Free Webcast on Travel Data – presents a blue-chip panel’s views on how to use travel data.   You can see and hear the archived presentation until Feb. 15th, 2009.

Free Tools – a collection of tools and educational presentations all related to travel procurement or travel management.

Editor’s Choice: Pre-Trip Approval Done Right – my post summarizes the successful approach taken by Deloitte, but the real value is in Brian Nichol‘s rich comments.  He gives you the key success factors and friendly advice you need if you’re considering this type of travel tool.

Please let me know what topics you’d like to see covered in the future.  Thanks for reading!

Top 5 Posts – Last 40 Days

Here are the five most popular posts on this blog from the last 40 days:

1. Trippy – Tomorrow’s Biz Trip Planning Tool? (Trippy is a mash-up of Google Wave, Google Maps and Lonely Planet content)
2. Travel 101 (a 4-minute video introduction to the travel category, and four posts covering Travel Data 101)
3. Travel Procurement’s Fighting Words (started by a slam against using procurement principles in the travel category)
4. Future Innovations in Airline Distribution – Condensed (a summary of problems and  innovations needed in the airline distribution channel)
5. Why Travel Disses Procurement (explains the friction found between travel and procurement staffs and what to do about it)

I’m surprised that two of these posts don’t relate directly to travel procurement (“Trippy…” and “Future Innovations…”).  You’re saying it’s OK to cast a wider net in terms of topics.  Cool.  I’ll continue to bring in this type of content from time to time.  What else would you like to see here?