Online Opportunities For Travel Businesses
It is no news that the Internet has made traveling options and decisions easy for people. If in the past, you’d need a traveling agent to orient you on the possible choices you have when you want to travel, now all you have to do is just browse and book online!
With this big opportunity online, how could a traveling agency not take it?
Of course, a traveling agency would need to attract their customers online to get a fair share of the their market online. To capture your market, you have to first distinguish your target among them.
4 Hoteliers gives us the four kinds of potential guests and visitors that a traveling agency can expect when checking on their website. It also gives some clue as to how to attract these customer to your website and company.
Brand loyalists. These guests stay only at Hilton or Holiday Inn and the first place they go online is the brand.com website. A few might go to a search engine and type in Hilton Mclean for example. If you are a brand-affiliated hotel, your franchise fees are paying for your hotel to show up on those searches. What can you do to make sure you’re getting your fair share?
Make sure your brand.com website is completely up to date with current information, things to do in your local area.. Pay as much attention to the information (and photos) on your brand website as if you were writing a $20,000 check to produce it, because you probably are.
Discount seekers. There will always be searchers who are looking for a great deal and they are typically going to third party travel websites such as Priceline.com, Hotwire, etc . . . There comes a time in every hotel’s inventory where they simply need to fill up some rooms.
A group fell out at the last minute, or a basketball team lost the semi finals and there were a series of early check outs. This is time to maximize your third party sites participation. Third party travel sites can be an expensive way to get business, so be sure to find out how much you are really paying per reservation as commission, and then decide how much of your fair share of this business you want to go after and with which providers.
Email responders. Just like there are people who respond to discount coupons, there are people who respond to email offers. It’s a small percent, around 3%, but there are people right now thinking about coming to your area, and if they were to receive a well written email offer describing the benefits of your hotel, a great photo, time sensitive offer and a clear call to action, they might be inclined to make a reservation.
Generating an email campaign is also an inexpensive way to sell a new offer at your hotel to your past customers - new restaurant, new spa opening, newly renovated rooms. Remember the ABC theory - Always Be Collecting. Whenever possible, ask your current guests for their email address, and ask for their permission to add them to your emailing list. You can do this on your website during the reservations process, during check in or check out. Permission based email marketing is simple, inexpensive and can be very effective.
Destination/Activity Searchers. A large percentage of online shoppers are using search engines to find a hotel near a certain destination, activity, or event. They may be attending a family reunion in Nashville, or planning a girls’ weekend shopping spree in a nearby city. Maybe it’s a sales call they are making on the headquarters for a computer company or a romantic getaway to countryside resort. These guests will type a “keyword phrase” (like “hotels near ABC Company headquarters” or “pet friendly hotels in Portland”) into a search engine. According to ComScore statistics, 42% choose Google, 27% use Yahoo, 13.5 use MSN and 8% use AOL.
In knowing your target market, you can choose a marketing tactic to reach your customer online. Online marketing is not as direct as you would possibly like it to be without knowing who to reach out to.
