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A long and fascinating day at the Travolution Awards 2008 in the Royal Garden Hotel in London, hosted by the irrepressible Kevin May. Plenty of pointers and opinions as to the future of online travel from a procession of movers and shakers - highlights of which were:

- Philip Wolf from PhoCusWright and his parable of the rusty nails and the red apples.

- Two new buzz phrases bandied about: the ‘perfect storm’ of travel website and consumer convergence; and the ‘mass premium’ market.

- A wonderfully arrogant Steve Hafner from Kayak who said he was going to blow all those poxy European competitors (competition? Hardly) out of the water. Travelsupermarket? Not bothered. The big news was that he is planning to launch a travel search vertical advertising network to rival Google adwords - and that he didn’t believe in buying companies. “The morsels that we would find tasty,” he purred “would be technologies, teams or audiences.”

- A sleepy BA presentation which came to life once the visuals broke down with a glimpse of a breathtaking new beta interface for inspiring users where to go next on holiday, based on Microsoft’s new Silverlight technology. Marianne Sammann from Lufthansa appeared bemused as what that had to do with being an airline website.

- Brent Hoberman flapping his arms and ‘winging it’ and lauding the virtues of risk, chaos, and not knowing anything.

And then the awards, after hefty helpings of Malteser Parfait with chocolate beignets - awards for a number of the usual suspects like Trip Advisor and Kayak, but also one for Dorling Kindersley’s DK Travel, Small Luxury Hotels, BA.com (running jokes about T5 all evening), Voyages Jules Verne and many others - including the delightful and blinking Darren Cronian who looked like he’d just emerged from some bloggers lair deep underground, to our own World Reviewer in the best newcomer category. Mind you, it was right at the end of the evening and I had to wait until 11pm for it. But what a worthwhile wait! A kiss on the cheek of Claire Balding…

I walked home from the awards clutching the heavy glass phallus thing that was my trophy, willing for the first time in my life that a prospective mugger - if they exist in my part of Kensington - would just try their luck.

It’s 2.52am. And now I’ve got indigestion.

Al and I and the third James are off to the Travolution summit tomorrow. I am betting that one of the main themes will be what I call ‘decision assistance’ - helping the user navigate through the reams of online guff to make an informed choice. Profiling, user recommendation, segmenting of email campaigns - all are geared towards pushing people choices that are relevant, by knowing something about what they will like.

It occurs to me that the people who own the best and most useful profile of you are your friends. If you can harness them as part of your distribution platform - then that will become very powerful. Trip Advisor have made a start linking friends recommendations together - and that is absolutely the right direction to go in. Dopplr too. Much as the rest of Trip Advisor’s UGC reviews provide useful background, we know little or nothing about the people who have posted them, their likes and dislikes (air conditioning in scotland anyone?).

What is the most powerful stimulus to making a holiday decision, one that will have you scribbling on random bits of paper after late night parties, scaps that will reappear a year or two later, stained and dog-eared, to be acted on? The little finca recommended by a friend - or even just someone you sat next to at dinner…

This is an exciting time to be involved in online travel - especially at the cutting edge, where many of the new web 2.0 start-ups are. The costs of entry have never been lower, and the opportunities greater - not just because of the technology and new low cost marketing platforms - mash-ups, widgets, blogs, social communities etc - but also because the established players by nature are slow to innovate, built as they are on legacy systems that are expensive to manage and adapt. There is also core of internet entrepreneurs out there who have been blooded by experience.

This blog is a place for two of us - and others if they will join us - to share our experiences, to keep track of new developments and opportunities, and to try and predict the the possible futures of online travel.

Meanwhile, we rely on old school thinking to let us stay ahead of the game. I just received an email from Abercrombie & Kent promoting new ‘Women Only’ journeys. Here’s their pitch:

“An afternoon in Jaipur is filled with Henna painting, astrology readings, and shopping at Johari Bazaar. And the art of perfume comes alive with an invitation to participate in a workshop at the Fragonard Perfumery in Grasse.”