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6 Online Travel Myths Revealed

The good people at PhoCusWright have just release some interesting trends and findings about Online Travel Bookings. These findings are contrary to common perceptions in the Industry, I was surprised thatthe “Next Gen’ traveller spends less then half of their travel spend online. Are people still going to travel agents?

Here is the article for further reading:

PhoCusWright Debunks Six Online Travel Myths

Myth #1: The number of online travel buyers in the U.S. is declining. In fact, that number is on the rise, as documented in the recently published The PhoCusWright Consumer Travel Trends Tenth Edition. In 2007, approximately 70% of online travelers (that is, adults who have taken a commercial air trip and stayed at a hotel for leisure in the past year, and used the Internet in the past 30 days) bought travel online, compared to 63% in 2006.

PhoCusWright dispelled this piece of misinformation—and debunked five additional online travel myths—at its first-ever Analyst Forum, held September 10 in New York City.

In addition to the misconception that online travel buyers are declining, The PhoCusWright Analyst Forum corrected these five other online travel myths:

1. More and more online travel shoppers use supplier sites than online travel agencies. While this belief is widespread in the travel industry, it is simply untrue, according to PhoCusWright, the travel industry research firm. In terms of popularity, online travel agencies are making a comeback (source: The PhoCusWright Consumer Travel Trends Survey Tenth Edition or “CTTS10“).
2. Travel agencies are experiencing a resurgence as travelers return to traditional purchasing channels. Not so. In reality, even many formerly exclusive offline buyers are migrating online for travel shopping and buying, according to CTTS10.
3. The next generation of travelers prefers to do everything online. The truth is, less than half of what 18-28 year olds spend on travel is spent online, according to The NEXTgen Traveler™ report, jointly published by PhoCusWright and Ypartnership.
4. Social networks and travel reviews have the greatest influence on travel decision-making. The NEXTgen Traveler™ report reveals that while social media is widespread, destination Web sites and online travel agencies are favored by nearly half of next generation travelers during the travel shopping process.
5. Online travel markets need high credit card and Internet penetration to succeed. The structure and ambitions of the travel marketplace are even more important drivers than infrastructure. Case in point is India, one of the most dynamic online travel marketplaces today, where roughly 98% of the population does not use credit cards or have access to the Internet.

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What to do when selling to VCs?

I have been out of the blogosphere lately, and for good reason (read excuse ;). I have been working to promote the latest edition of Rezgo.com, the online tour and activity booking solution, and I have had some success! We were recently notified that we were selected for PhoCusWright’s Travel Innovation Summit and in B.C. we are one of 30 companies to make it to the third round of the  New Ventures B.C. innovation competition. So great news all around!
Being thrown to the mercy of of lawyers,  VCs and CEOs can be a tad intimidating, so a bit of research into VCs, Angel Investors and the like was needed, and here are some of my favorite resources:

• http://www.vcfodder.com/ 
  • A straightforward look at the world of entrepreneurship and venture capital.
• http://www.sfentrepreneur.com/how-to-guides/
  • Great how-to guides on legal, marketing, presenting etc
    
• http://www.thefunded.com/
  • An online community of entrepreneurs to research, rate, and review funding sources worldwide.
• http://fundfindr.com/
  • The elevator speech meets YouTube, also a NVBC competitor.

If you know of any others, let me kow, but I hope this list can help all of you out there that are in a similar situation.

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10 Tips For Tour and Activity Suppliers

With my background in travel and technology I can’t really help you with the business management or HR for your tour company. So to be fair, these are 10 tips that a SME Tour and Activity Suppliers can use to help market their business online.

1) Set your online foundation before getting online - Planning your web strategy before you dive right into the Internet will save you time and money. You have to know who you are accessing and what message you want to tell them, and what you want them to do with that message. A little consultation here can go a long way.

2) Make small steps - You don’t need to have the fanciest new flash driven high graphic website with its own community network interlinked with video etc. Start small, see how you can engage your target audience on a more personal level using established community sites like FaceBook, or TravBuddy.

3) Get your feet wet - If you are new to website creation or representing yourself online, you can still try it out. These days you don’t need to be a programmer and designer in order to have a decent looking site, but if it is in your budget, I would recommend bringing in some experts to help you out. If you are on a shoe string, consider using WordPress as a site management tool. You can download free templates and customize the look and feel quite easily.

4) Track your steps - How do you know how well your site is doing if you don’t see who is coming to your site. Some common measures are counting page views, but this really lacks any useful information. With tools like Google analytics being offered for free, it only makes sense to see who is coming to your site, which pages are the most popular, how long they are staying on your site and a whole world of other useful information. This data can help you evolve your site to maximize your goals.
5) Frequency = Success - Blogging is a great way to keep your site relevant, recent and allow your customers to gain a better sense of who they are doing business with. Another great advantage is that if you are blogging, the search engines will index your site more frequently. Being indexed frequently and having great keywords can result in a higher search engine ranking!

6) Structure your products - Let your customers know what you sell. Easy to follow clear product offerings are a great way to answer those secondary questions that customers have. Be sure to include pricing, dates times and places. Remember that transparency leads to trust.

7) Let technology do the work - Online Booking can let your website do the work for you. (Self Plug Start) You can utilize inexpensive powerful software like Rezgo to sell your products through your existing website. (Self Plug End) It is getting easier to sell online and what a great way to increase revenues by selling directly to your customers with no additional labour!

Grow your presence - Once you have established your website and have worked out the usability issues, structured your products and have online sales abilities you should consider spending some online marketing dollars. Working with the big three search engines (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo) you can structure a very targeted and cost effective advertising campaign that will help to drive traffic to your website.

9) Stay engaged - Let your customers know what you are up to and give them an opportunity to respond. Have a newsletter that links to your blog articles and encourage your readers to post comments. (One great program that I use is iContact.) This will help to create a sense of community and gain more face time with your customers, thus helping you understand the people that pay you!

10) Have fun! - Be creative, think of unique ways that you can engage your customers and keep them coming back to your website. Maybe consider a photo safari where the best photo of your tour gets posted each week. The sky is the limit and the technology is more accessible then ever! HAVE FUN!

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The 5 Essentials for Online Video Tutorials

I have been creating tutorial videos for Rezgo recently and have viewed several others on the internet, here are some essentials for making effective and interesting tutorial videos:

1. Smile when you talk - You can really tell the difference in your voice if you are smiling or if you have a straight face. No one wants to listen to 10 minutes of droning.
2. Zoom in - Don’t have a full screen perspective for your entire video, show some movement and move the video frame to where the action is.
3. Highlight your pointer - It is difficult to follow a small pointer in a small video screen, add some highlight to help the viewer follow your mouse.
4. Add music - A little background music helps to fill in those pauses in the voice, it shouldn’t be too distracting, but should still be upbeat.
5. Keep it short - Break up you tutorials into small digestible chunks. Don’t assume that people have an hour to setup a system or account, break it up. There is a sense of accomplishment in completing small steps along the way, your viewers will appreciate it.

Here is what I have done thus far, you can see the progression of my own work as the first tutorials don’t use all of my suggestions, but they get better with experience. What do you think?

http://feeds.feedburner.com/TourismTrends

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Tips From Travelocity

Michelle Peluso (MP) is an entrepreneurial CEO, she knows when to hold ‘em and whe to fold ‘em. Here are some tips she offered at PhoCusWright last November.

What can OTA do to increase revenues? 

MP: Expanding into the Asian and European markets. Shift from a price focused comodititzation into an experience based format. Using Kayak style interface, yet still recreate the the Travelocity experience.

How can you switch from a transactional interface into experiencial purchase?

MP: We need to separate and segregate the customers base. Different people want different travel needs. Experience finder helps people scroll through a series of media and reviews, and thus helps offer suitable experiences.

What can be done about longtail product?

MP: So far most SME tour companies are terrible at it, but they are getting better. There is an audience for a smaller product, but it is necessary not to crowd the site with all of the content. We need to ensure relevance, and great parters.

When growth strategies are concerned, build vs. buy?

MP: We will not be specialist content providers, we can do it through partnerships.

Will you charge booking fees?

MP: If you provide value, consumers will pay for the service.

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