Inter Studio

Delta Air Lines and Minneapolis, Minnesota-based Alvenda have “officially launched the travel industry’s first ecommerce capability on Facebook”.

Facebook users will now be able to book flights with their friends directly on Facebook.

Delta’s social commerce channel now allows any of the site’s users to complete a full travel booking and also on the Facebook home page of fans via Alvenda’s In-Stream Shopping features.

“This initial release of Delta’s Ticket Window is ground­breaking because its the first time you can book travel on Facebook. Future releases will further leverage the social graph so you can do things like coordinate group travel more easily. If you’ve ever tried planning a trip with more than a handful of friends or family you know how hard it is,” stated Alvenda on its blog. The company’s StoreCast platform enables the convergence of social networking, ecommerce, and advertising.

Delta’s Ticket Window will also be attached to Delta’s online banner ads allowing customers to book travel with their Facebook friends on thousands of other Alvenda-certified publisher websites and on Delta’s partner websites including the New York Yankees.

“We’re now bringing Delta to our customers rather than the other way around — on our own website, on Facebook, on travel websites, on Internet news sites, and beyond,” said Bob Kupbens, Delta’s VP – eCommerce.

(To its credit, Alvenda launched a Facebook store for 1-800-Flowers in July last year. The company has also introduced several top merchants such as Avon’s Mark division, Best Buy, Brooks Brothers, Delta, and Hallmark to create social selling opportunities. As far as the activiation of e-commerce option on Facebook is concerned, SortPrice.com launched its merchant storefront application in the early fall of 2008 and the company currently has more than 1,200 retailers utilising the same on their Facebook fan pages.

Trend

The travel industry believes that social media has a lot of untapped potential in planning and travel booking.

Social media has radically changed the landscape to the benefit of consumers and the indstry has at times found it difficult to keep pace and understand how best to use it.

At this juncture, it is being felt that the power of social media and the capabilities of the traditional online travel booking and planning channels will co-exist. As consumers move through the travel cycle to be inspired, shop, book, travel and share, they use a variety of sites to meet their travel needs. Social media is one of the many tools consumers use to make their travel decisions, so it is not expected it to take the place of traditional online travel channels. However, when used correctly, it is a good compliment to the success of existing channels.

In a recent interview with EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta, Doug Miller, Global VP, Media Solutions, Expedia, said, “I don’t believe that social media will “nudge ahead” of travel booking and planning channels. Rather, search, social and commerce channels will become more and more complementary, and new partnerships will form, as intention signals accelerate to fuel online media and commerce. The signals of “here’s the travel I want” and “here are the people I know” will find new ways of working together to improve travel planning and booking. Travellers get more relevant offers and travel marketers will discover new opportunities. These models are coming around the corner.”