Need business ideas for travel domain

I have a very good (I think) travel domain - it contains the words cheap and airfare. I need some good business ideas for it and how to monetize the site.

 

Are you looking to build an app or provide information? I can suggest ideas from here

 

I was thinking about providing information but if I can find a good app idea, I would certainly be flexible.

Definitely not looking to spend much money but I can invest a lot of time in an idea if it has a good chance.

 

The travel market is as unpredictable and crazy as it has been for the 30 years or so that I have been using and/or observing and/or working within it (I sold technology to travel companies many moons ago.) When I started as a road warrior many years ago, my travel agent was like an additional admin person to get me through the day. Would not even think of doing anything but calling my agent about anything travel related. Then, the Internet came along and travel agents were disintermediated by online agencies who could offer less and charge less. More recently, the airlines and hotels have figured out that they can sell their own stuff and often offer better deals than the so-called discount websites and so they are disintermediating them in a stroke of poetic justice. Some of the very successful discount carriers, like Southwest, do not even bother to cooperate with the big travel sites and only sell their tickets online via their own site. I think that this trend will only continue as airlines try to minimize any commissions that they have to pay to these sites.

When you combine this likely evolution with the fact that airline travel costs are again going up while flights are miserably packed with too many passengers and too little legroom, it seems like the industry is in dire need of some new solutions. But I don't think that it is yet another travel agency website, unless you carve out a unique niche that is still large enough to support revenue needs and won't be cannibalized by the airlines themselves.

 

I flew on a 777 to London recently and it was really nice. I had a cheapo coach seat but was able to sleep (it was a red-eye) and had my own TV with a wide variety of channels, etc. It was reasonably spacious, too. United was the carrier, I believe.

Of course, the main keywords for the OP are "cheap" and "airfare" so some business options may not be optimal. I think that in any industry undergoing change, there are always business opportunities and convenience is a value prized by many. However, it doesn't always work out. For example, I was talking to a few other road warriors recently and they are doing what I do now: visit a travel site like Orbitz or Travelocity to see what options there are for the flights to be booked and then I go to the airline website to place the ticket order and it is usually cheaper. Just as important is that if you have to change your ticket just before or during your flight, it is very expensive and difficult these days, but less so if you bought the ticket directly from the airline. The lesson there is that you cannot just be convenient or cheap at the time of checkout if you are dealing with experienced buyers. And it seems like I am in a demographic that is attractive to the travel industry.

 

Great insight. What kind of service would appeal to? What service do you always wish you could have that the travel services do not have?

 

I personally dont want to see another flight booking system, or another hotel accommodation booking system. I want something where I can say where I am (or an app that knows where I am) and find things I am interested in that are going on within a 20k radius.
When you are in an area you have never been before, kids are driving you nuts, a win for me would be a nice restaurant with a childrens play room, but you know, we look for this stuff online, and sometimes its when we get back, people say why you not visit this place....

Or another thing is when we stayed somewhere, we choose the what we thought was a good place, but actually, not a great deal of things to do in that vicinity. All booking sites, just focus on just booking, rather they should promote that suburb, and what the hotel is close to. Like if someone is into fine dining, should show up hotels that are within 20minutes walking of top rated restaurants. Someone that has kids, might want to find hotels that are within 30 mins walk of parks, or something for the kids to do. etc.etc.

 

Interesting. I can relate. Solid idea. I was on a vacation road trip last summer - with the kids and all, visiting several southern cities. For the life of me, I had a nightmare of a time deciding which hotels to book because I didn't have enough information about what else was close to the hotel... Hmmmmm...

 

One thing that comes to mind would be to bring back a feature of airline tickets from 20 years ago: being able to easily/inexpensively switch tickets between carriers. Back in the 1990's, it was possible to take your ticket for US Air to the gate at United and they would accept it for the same flight destination if they had a seat available. You would not believe how fast and easy that used to be and just about all carriers did it. No fees to do it, either.

If you were able to create a "universal airline ticket" like that, travelers like me would line up for it. It is so convenient to catch an earlier flight with another carrier if you have gotten to the airport early. Keep in mind, of course, that it would need to be competitively priced with standard tickets (or just slightly higher) or the benefit would be lost because you can always spend more with an airline to get this type of option.

 

He asked what I would wish for...

But imagine if you could get two airlines to agree to use a "universal ticket" as a differentiator. If it is as successful as I think that it would be, you could then add a third airline, etc. The change could be incremental, but getting the first two airlines would be key, of course.

 

Part of me wants to say: "No, we definitely do not need another flight booking site." Yet a couple times I ended up buying tickets from cheapoair. Had never heard of them before and then was looking for a cheap ticket and vu a la.

 

You're looking in a very competitive industry. Your only chance would be to really niche down and find something really unique you focus on.

But my advice, just sell the domain to someone else and let them waste their time/money

 

If you want to do this business, I think it would be nice to start from selling tickets and organizing trips for your friends and family. After you gain some experience in this industry you may try to open a web page and control your prices with well-known and experienced path you have walked through.

 

Travel domain would be a nice experiment to have. You can have adsense ads on your domain which would help in getting you revenue as well as increase your business.