Poor Internet Strategies Costing Travel Companies Millions in Lost Revenue

Australia’s travel companies are forgoing millions of dollars per year in lost revenue, and are losing direct customer relationships, through poor on-line marketing strategies, according to Amplify, an internet strategist specialising in the hotel and travel industry.

The Chief Executive of Amplify, Mr Richard Noon, said many travel companies had a presence on the internet, but few had the expertise to know whether their on-line activities were effective, or how to improve the access to their websites.

In many cases, said Mr Noon, travel companies were shocked to learn how ineffective their internet presence was, with the name of their company not featuring prominently, or at all, in web search engine listings.

“Consumers search websites according to keywords and phrases,” said Mr Noon. “But our research shows that most travel companies do not plan their website marketing to capitalise on this requirement.

“In many cases, we have discovered that the internet presence of travel companies can be half or even less that of their competitors, purely due to a lack of understanding of internet marketing strategies.”

Mr Noon said one common issue to emerge in Amplify’s research was the lack of a destinational marketing strategy by tour operators.

“A traveller visiting Rome, for example, typically will search on ‘Rome hotels’ or ‘Italian holiday’, and not the name of a specific tour operator,” said Mr Noon. “Get this keyword selection wrong and almost everything else you do on-line will fail.

“To attract more on-line traffic, tour operators in this region need to establish a destination strategy, and develop content pages around specific terms,” he said. 

“A particular tour operator, for example, should be thinking less about promoting its name first, and more about educating consumers about the attractions of its destinational content.”

Mr Noon said Amplify specialised in auditing the internet presence of travel companies, and providing specific reports on a website’s performance versus that of competitors.

Amplify also provided details of a travel company’s ranking on internet search engines, and, where required, developed a strategy to increase a company’s presence in internet web searches, including listing with multiple search engines.

Mr Noon said Amplify’s aim was to increase on-line sales of travel companies by increasing visitor traffic to their websites, then increasing booking conversions. 

“The internet has become a critical distribution channel for the travel industry, especially the hotel sector, and is becoming even more so,” said Mr Noon.

“In 2002, approximately 8 per cent of all hotel room bookings were made on the internet, and there is a general industry expectation that this will rise to 20 per cent in 2005.

“We believe the switch to on-line bookings is occurring much faster than this, and for this reason see the need for effective strategies to combat the problem of e-invisibility.”

Mr Noon said the American monitoring group Travelclick USA reported that in the first six months of 2003, 26 per cent of all accommodation bookings came via the internet, at the expense of both voice and GDS bookings, both of which are steadily declining.

“As consumers become more sophisticated, and as more and more people shop on-line, an effective e-marketing strategy will become increasingly important,” he said.