User:Csorjan/Sandbox

etravel promotion

Some recent studies show: in Europe, online bookings (for at least one part of a trip) has risen from 19% of total trips abroad in 2003 to 41% in 2008. It means the Internet became nr .1 travel distribution and promotion channel in the EU. Internet companies also realized the increasing importance of travel industry.

These numbers point out the global trend: growing numbers of travellers use Internet to look at a holiday destination and book transportation and accommodation. Etravel promotion is the internet based technique for promoting and distributing travel services e.g accomodation and transportation.

Website traffic building
Etravel promotion can be separated in two logical phases:

(a) website traffic building, (how to attract website visitors) and

(b) website (re)design, (how to increase conversion rate and how achieve more convincing power and more bookings.)

Regarding the website traffic building, there are more internet marketing solutions for this goal. However, travel industry customs show the importance of search engine optimization (SEO), which is the most common technique for etravel web promotion. It is not a surprise: if a London hotel website is in the top10 page in the Google result pages for searching phrase "london low-cost hotel", the website will gain a huge number of motivated backpackers, who are actively looking for a hotel room in London.

The social media marketing in the travel industry mostly means travel review site (e.g.: Tripadvisor ) marketing: get a listing on the travel/hotel review site and keeping touch directly with potential travellers.

The Pay Per Click advertising means payed advertisements in the Google/Yahoo search result pages and their advertising networks.

Travel website (re)design
Every website have a conversion goal - travel websites have to convert 'lookers' into 'bookers', website visitors into guests.

(a) "Recent research suggests that users decide to stay or leave your site in 8 seconds or less" Google suggests to use short headlines to tell quickly the user benefit of travel service, in personal tone, avoiding advertising style.

(b) Google Analytics, the free web analytics application of Google, provides benchmarking for several industrial websites. Global industrial averages (the benchmarks) show: travel website visitors spend 90 seconds on accommodation sites and visits 3 pages, on the average. The conclusions (i) also the best travel websites can be read in 120-180 seconds, and websites can contain 5-6 pages maximum, (ii) travel websites have to focus on experiences and use images to represent it quickly and effectively, (iii) instead using guestbook, travel websites have to use guest's short testimonials.