Articles tagged “lola”

Travel industry experts and analysts are hailing the rise of a “conversational commerce” based on the increasing appeal of messaging technology. The applications range from customer relations and marketing to travel operations — and they loom large for travel brands, agencies, and startups seeking to capture travelers’ bookings in the mobile space.

Still-unproven Lola, the travel startup, has some online travel heavy hitters as co-founders, investors and board members. If the premise to involve human travel agents in trip-planning doesn't work out then the team can always pivot toward something else.

In airports and hotel lobbies, how many times have you heard throngs of travelers lamenting: "This app on my phone is wonderful, but if only it had access to real, human travel agents within it?" A new wave of travel startups is conjuring this image. Is it reality-based or wishful thinking? We'll see.

Paul English of Lola Travel wants to address some of the shortcomings, including the lack of human intervention in trip-planning, that were never addressed during his tenure at digital-only Kayak. Perhaps Kayak's new text-based travel service will fill some gaps -- if they really exist, that is -- as well.

The idea of integrating service-fee loving travel agents into traveler apps is at least 15 years old, if not older. Still, assuming it solves a real problem for do-it-yourself travel bookers or a hefty segment of them, there is lots of room for improvement and innovation.

Every smart travel agency and consortium has plans to better integrate one-on-one service with mobile technology. But maybe English, with his established tech savvy, can finally crack the perfect formula for bringing agents into the digital age. The hard part will be acquiring customers, especially when using a mobile app as the sole method of client interaction.

It's a bold idea and the software might turn out to be beautiful (bold and beautiful) but do leisure and business travelers at scale REALLY want to abandon self-booking tools in favor of human travel agent interaction on a mobile app? We are going to find out.

The biggest things that Lola have going for it are co-founders Paul English and Bill O'Donnell and their track record in travel tech and mobile. Apart from that, Lola faces headwinds in really going against the grain of instant bookings and digital-only travel. It's a very ambitious project with huge challenges.