Travel 2.0 - Web 2.0 for the travel industry

Travel 2.0How the educational travel industry can profit from Web 2.0Tim O’Neill, Managing Directorwww.reactive.com

Web 2.0 can help you…

Reach your audience

Convert them into customers

Providing a better

experience

Build customer loyalty

And it can do this cheaply, and easily.

1. Reaching your audience

Start your own blog

- great for SEO- free blog software:

- Blogger- Typepad- Wordpress

- you need to be committed!

Personalise your blog

-redesign your blog to match your site-commercialise your blog traffic-integrate product offers & deals

Branded utilities

- widgets and gadgets- can help to create goodwill, and promote your brand

- can have a ‘viral’ effect- but need to stand out from the crowd

Customer review sites

- TripAdvisor, TravelPost, VibeAgent

- post an accurate listing- read what your customers are saying

- respond to negative comments, when appropriate

- constantly improve your products!

2. Converting into customers

Create a Flickr group

- upload photos of your hostel, happy customers, destinations etc

- encourage staff and customers to do the same

- show a real and personal side your business

Create a YouTube group

- encourage your staff, students and travellers to create and submit videos

- provide incentives or prizes- repurpose existing video- a very cost-effective way to include video in your site

Produce new video content

- well produced video can act as a great conversion tool

- www.mgmgrand.com - video is more cost-effective than ever

Mash-ups

- mash-ups with Google Maps are popular

- cost-effective: no need to create your own map functionality

- normally use an ‘API’ from a 3rd party

- Could you offer any APIs from your site?

Start Twittering

- twitter is ‘micro-blogging’ (140 characters or less)

- tour leaders could twitter while travelling

- give site visitors a real insight into what a trip is like

3. Maintaining loyalty & keeping in touch

Offer free tools

- STA Travel blogs gives travellers free blogging, photo and video tools

- uses software from Off Exploring

- great for maintaining loyalty- can offer personalised advertising based on habits / content

Create a Facebook Group

- if you offer group travel, encourage and foster a community

- this allows your customers to keep in contact, and hopefully repeat-book

- lead by example, have trip leaders post regularly

Mobile / SMS

- collect mobile numbers, keep in contact with SMS

- consider providing a mobile version of your site

- iPhone and BlackBerry offer Web browsers, customisation can be easy

Monitor the blogosphere

- see what people are blogging about your brand

- consider engaging with conversations

- don’t pretend to be someone you’re not!

Photo by Jake Wild

Web 3.0 and the Symantec Web

- create web pages that can be read by machines, not just people

- this allows any content to be ‘mashed-up’ in different ways

- E.g. doppler.com and hakia.com

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