Wednesday 26 June 2013

The subscription economy and the travel industry

Right now some of the fastest growing companies are now membership based. Danish company Zendesk 0 to 30,000 companies in 6 years, Box 0 to 10,000,000 in 8.

In deed this trend has been recognised by analysts Gartner “By 2015, 35% of Global 2000 companies with non-media digital products will generate incremental revenue of 5% to 10% through subscription¬based services and revenue models.”

Certainly we have had some impressive travel resultsi in this space.  AirBnB, a membership accommodation provider has been around since 2008 and has arranged over 10 million nights booked.

Of course we have had membership elements in our industry for years.  Travel media companies have subscribers and loyalty schemes for hotels and airlines are a recognised business model. But reading the comments of Zuora CEO the subscription SAAS provider for Zen desk and Box you would think it’s a complete new way to drive your busisness

They say that they enable membership organisations to be flexible and to test products, pricing and marketing deals and build a long term relationship with the industry.

Right now I am looking for travel companies that are doing this utilising these new subscripotion services. Personally  I think that the annual rather than more frequent buying pattern for a lot of our products may limit the impact of the subscription economy. But it is a interesting trend.