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It has taken over 3 months, but as of 10:30am today (Saturday 9th May 2015) our trademark has finally been registered for Bookability, after a long process of approval, and publication.

Millennials (also known as the Millennial Generation or Generation Y) are the demographic cohort following Generation X, and Baby Boomer, born in the early 1980s to the early 2000s. A recent report by Skift looks at email marketing in the travel industry and reveals some interesting facts.

Although Millennials' use of email is very high compared to other demographics, their perceived value of email is much lower than that of direct mail. This does however depend on the product or offer being promoted, with some products such as discount flights and hotels being more popular.

At the end of last year, online travel agent Booking.com admitted that it had to compensate customers whose personal details and booking information had been stolen. Although this information did not contain financial details and the type of information was not enough for direct fraud to occur, it did give scammers a foot in the door.

Armed with only the name, email address, and basic booking information such as the booking reference number, fraudsters were able to target customers with emails demanding pre-payment. This kind of phishing scam is not new, but proved disturbing and has effected around 10,000 Booking.com customers.

Shopping cart abandonment is a big issue in any online environment, and is also present in online booking. In particular, online travel has a much higher abandonment rate of 81% compared to 68% in other online retailers. 

Over a quarter of online travel shoppers add their order to the basket, but between the basket and the checkout during the booking process there is a staggering 20% drop off.

"A new user booking flow is going to look really different than a frequent user who will be much more likely to go straight through the purchase process. If they don't complete it's because they got distracted. It's not because they're necessarily shopping around", says Alli Brian, product marketing manager at Kahuna.

A tailored and optimised booking flow without distractions is very important, and at Bookability.io we're always looking at ways to improve your conversions based on leading research.

We are soon to launch our new breakthrough cloud based booking service. Unlike other traditional booking systems, Bookability.io allows you to quickly and conveniently add advanced booking functionality to any website saving you significant time and hassle, all at an affordable price.

Bookability.io is now open for limited beta access and we invite you to participate!