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Is Content King in Travel and Tourism?

The topic of “content” comes up time and time again in discussions about online presence. I’m not sure who coined the phrase “content is king,” but I have customers continuing to ask the question: Is Content King in Travel and Tourism?

The answer is, without a doubt, yes - especially for smaller outfits and organisations with limited online presence. Sure, there is plenty of free content out there – and judging by the traffic numbers of sites like Wikitravel and the forums on Lonely Planet, free content is here to stay. But the content on your site is your vehicle to present your message and portray your brand. And if you offer the ability to book online or at least direct customers to contact info, the content might be the last stand between you and a booking. Consider:

• a frustrated mother can’t decipher if your tour offering is suitable for children will decide to book something else. Worse, if it is clearer on your competitor’s site, they might get the sale instead of you.
• a last minute client who doesn’t see your contact information cannot call to see if there is space for an extra booking.
• a referral customer visits your photo gallery and decides not to book because the images don’t reflect the experience his friend described.

The worst part about each of these scenarios is two-fold: 1) you’ll never know that it happened, and 2) the problems were easy to fix.

Here are some easy questions you can ask while browsing your content. Do you like the answers you get back?

• Is it easy to find all the available mediums for contacting you (phone, email, post)?
• Is it easy to see the types of services available, the details on the offering, and availability/cost?
• Are images or video professional and reflect the reality of your offering (In this case, less is more.)
• Do you display important certification information?

The European online travel market alone is expected to reach EUR 67 billion in 2009 (source: eMarketer.com) , never mind the exploding success in the US. Is your online presence sending the message it should? Content is king in travel and tourism, so I hope the answer is yes.

Andy Hayes is a professional travel writer and photographer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. He helps small businesses in travel & tourism embrace online technologies. To learn more, visit his website, Sharing Experiences where you can download a free copy of his recent eBook, Preparing for Takeoff: 7 Common Mistakes Businesses Make when Going Online.

Blog for Mahindra Homestays

We’ve launched a blog for Mahindra Homestays, offering high quality Indian Homestays.

The blog is all about celebrating and discovering India - encouraging travellers to experience something different.

Let us know what you think - we’d love the feedback.

Highlights include:

• Series of Things To Do articles. Delhi, Jaipur, Agra, Wayanad, Cochin, Kewzing and Udaipur.
• Monthly photo competition
• Video tours of the Homestays
• Special offers
• Previews of the latest homestays

Along with the design and development we’re also helping with content creation and blog promotion.

What we’ve been up to

Clearly not writing on our blog!

Apologies for that - we’ve been extremely busy and concentrating our energy on a flurry of recent client projects.  This includes a site to promote Eilat in Israel. Visit www.Explore-Eilat.com - see screenshot below.

We’ve also started the process of developing a new Dot Tourism site - it’s in the wireframe stage but will tighten up the integration of our blog with main site.

Links 07.11.08 & WTM

It’s here again! I’ll be at the World Travel Market next week - drop me a line if you’d like to meet up.

Will also be attending the Travel BlogCamp on Tuesday evening.

• SEO terms and rich content - can they ever be friends? http://tinyurl.com/5mf85c with a travel writing focus
• 50+ Must Read Web Design for ROI, Usability and SEO Articles http://tinyurl.com/64qvqx
• Kayak received 62% of the vote for best travel site for cheap tickets over at the recent Lifehacker poll http://tinyurl.com/6kfu2q
• Not really surprising given ROI tracking of PPC & SEM - From the IAB “SEO top priority for travel sector” http://tinyurl.com/6nay8j
• Apps for LinkedIn launched - TripIt seems to be the first travel one http://tinyurl.com/5aux88
• Community shout out for the best travel web sites on Lifehacker http://tinyurl.com/6kq3as
• Of interest to UK’ers - Google Testing Post Code Search Boxes http://tinyurl.com/6jgfen
• Just had a go with Google Earth for the iPhone, very impressive http://tinyurl.com/62×3ek
• Neville compares the communication approach of JetBlue and BA and their respective terminal openings. http://tinyurl.com/67llrr

News and Links 24.10.08

More commentary and links taken from our Twitter - excuse the lack of blog posts, we’re experiencing a large client workload at the moment. Knee deep in SEO audits and PPC campaigns. But it’s all good!

Check out Alex’s blog or browse the new Travolution site and blog for recent online travel insights.

• Good tips and advice on internal site searches http://tinyurl.com/44oxt8
• Neat categorisation of five Social Media spheres http://tinyurl.com/49j9cx
• ‘Adding social links to emails: what and where?’ http://tinyurl.com/6q5rz3
• I was aware of a significant difference in PPC vs SEO spend but didn’t realise the gulf was so great http://tinyurl.com/56udo7
• Joy! Big Google Analytics upgrade - get the lowdown at TechCrunch http://tinyurl.com/5v8vu4
• It’s time for travel content 2.0 http://tinyurl.com/6xhedr
• Great tips from Kevin ‘Travel SEO – How to Target Searchers at the Right Stage of the Buying Cycle’ http://tinyurl.com/6frzoj

Links 15.10.08

• Top 21 email marketing information sources http://tinyurl.com/39ngzw
• Ten Hot Tips for Successful Online Travel Marketing - Part 1 http://tinyurl.com/4f6vt4 Part 2 http://tinyurl.com/3hnlqv
• Travel PPC: 10 Ways to Improve Your Campaign. http://tinyurl.com/3jjo4x
• Google adds more ads http://tinyurl.com/49vcb2
• Hotel service by iPhone or iPod Touch http://tinyurl.com/3wkuqm
• Social media supremo Chris Brogan posts ‘Tourism Bureaus and Bloggers’ http://tinyurl.com/4tsofy

Links 06.10.08

• Whole Travel launches eco-friendly rating system for hotels http://tinyurl.com/3ln93e
• Online travel booking: What influences consumers? http://tinyurl.com/43abuv
• The wonderful world of multilingual SEO http://tinyurl.com/47svg3
• Just joined this Ning powered network - ‘A Tourism 2.0 Professional Networking Group’ http://tourism2point0.ning.com/
• Holidaymakers do not trust user generated content

Links 25.09.08

• Good Q&As with Skyscanner CEO http://tinyurl.com/3jequd
• Long overdue - www.thetrainline.com has been redesigned (UK train ticket retailer)
• Online PR’ers - Yotify, Google alerts replacement? http://tinyurl.com/4v6de5
• Handy forum for those involved in travel related affiliate marketing http://tinyurl.com/45f782
• Good idea - New Zealand hotel puts scans of guest book online http://tinyurl.com/4p2cs2
• How to put your website on Google News - http://tinyurl.com/4yl96x
• Great example of triggered email (welcome messages or signup confirmations) from moo.com http://tinyurl.com/4wz685
• Holiday industry’s blues from Marketing Week http://tinyurl.com/4j4qfd
• Google Maps Mobile Adds Street View, Walking Directions http://tinyurl.com/4dqztn

Mascots for web design - are they a good idea?

Designers use visual cues such as colour schemes and images to help draw attention to certain parts of a web page. The more emotive these are, the more chance for positive feeling and a greater connection with the visitor.

Ask someone for memorable mascots and they may mention the late Jeeves from Ask Jeeves, before his departure and resulting search engine rebrand.

Or the annoying paperclip from Microsoft Office.  Another is the kangaroo used in the Australia logo.

Emotional engagement or eye candy?

Far too many sites and web applications lack a personality in copy and image selection. I recommend this video presentation at Vitamin to highlight the importance of copy in building a likeable web application.

Evoking positive feelings can be particularly important in web applications where they are intended to be used regularly and often at length by their audience.

Mascots aren’t going to work in all scenarios. They usually work best as animal or human-like creatures - as cute, fun creations.

We created a mascot for a Visit Britain campaign to promote a new B2B online service. The character, Mrs Pink, helped reach the audience in a friendly, innovative way and she is now used on offline material and e-newsletters.

The cute dog is a mascot we intend to use on a new site helping daytrippers find the best visitor attractions. We’d like to give name him, please send on any suggestions!

Links 15.09.08 Google Advertisers Quick to bid on “XL Airways”, top 10 email clients + 5 others

I’m tending to post these types of links first on Twitter.

• Google Advertisers Quick to bid on “XL Airways” - with brand bidding in place, the competition are quick to the mark.
• Similar to http://woot.com but for travel deals: http://Fourtraveldeals.com - Nice idea, looks to be all Expedia (via 37s blog)
• Top 10 email clients used by business & consumer recipients - didn’t expect Hotmail to be so high on b2b
• Travel start up at Techcrunch50 (were there any others?) GoPlanit for generating itineraries
• Missed this, list of 75+ online travel resources from Mashable (2007)
• Delving into the problems with www.italia.it at http://tinyurl.com/5zngoo - dot post about the logo last year http://tinyurl.com/5p37g9
• SkyScanner site review http://tinyurl.com/6rykgr