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If your online travel marketing efforts don’t include web 2.0 strategies, you’re going to be left standing at the station. Why?In the first place, online travel sales are anticipated to grow by 17% annualy reaching $146 billion in 2010. That’s a huge share of the travel market and one that companies employing interactive or Web 2.0 strategies are best placed to take advantage of.
In its “Travelers’ Use of the Internet 2005″ survey the Travel Industry Association of America reported that non-paid media are the most effective online marketing techniques today. The most effective methods of internet marketing today are those methods that facilitate a relationship between the traveler and travel company even before the traveler books their trip.
This is what Web 2.0 is all about. First generation websites (and there are still millions of them) are all about one way communication from the website owner to the reader.
Web 2.0 sites, on the other hand, provide interactive communication channels and social networking opportunities. Â
RapidAdventures is an example of a social networking community that allows users to build their own blogs and house them on the site, communicate with one another through a forum, have their own photo album of rafting trips and notify friends about the site. Now this site is not connected to any one rafting company, but it is easy to imagine how a rafting company or any travel company could incorporate all of these features on a site. Doing so provides a great vehicle for clients to share about their trips with friends, family and the online world.  Now you may be thinking that undertaking such a venture would be a huge additional expense, but here’s a little secret about RapidAdventures.com - it was built for under $900.00.
- Â Establish a relationship with current and future clients
- Build brand loyalty
- Provide a value added service that competitors aren’t providing
- Give users a reason to bookmark and return to the site
- Give users a reason to send others to your site
- Grow your site’s content which search engines love (and you get it free)
Another important aspect of Web 2.0 is the trust that it establishes. According to Leah Woolford, who spoke at the international conference of destination marketing associations in late July, 52% of travelers booking online say they find blogs and traveler generated reviews to be influential and trustworthy sources when planning or booking travel.
Obviously the more ways you provide users to interact and use your site the more likely they are to take advantage of one or more of these opportunities. So what are the possible ways to create this interaction?
- Blogs (both user blogs and a company blog)
- Forums
- Trip Reviews
- Host user trip photos
- Host user videos
- Podcasts
- Opt-in e-mails and/or e-newsletters
In addition to a company website, Web 2.0 offers more ways than have ever existed to get the word out about your company. Today you can bookmark your site on dozens of social bookmarking sites like StubleUpon, del.ico.us, and Ma.gnolia.com. You can submit special feature stories to sites like Netscape and Digg you can host a group at facebook.com
and have profile on MySpace.
In order to take advantage of todays online travel marketing opportunities you need to know how to make the best use of social media, how to attract search engines to your site and how to attract users.
Contact Dew Point Productions for more information on how our online travel marketing strategy can assist your company.
