Internet Marketing for Tourism

Listing your tourism business with a variety of portals or cluster Web sites can be a boon to your Web traffic on your Web site. Consider paying for membership in portals that represents not only your region but also the type of accommodation, activities, travel themes that you offer.
400Eleven.com is an Ontario travel portal north of Toronto that provides Web traffic in a variety of these areas for fees ranging from $100-$400/yr.

The Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership also provides opportunities for Tourism businesses seeking exposure of their travel experiences by providing similar themed content niches at little or no cost to Ontario Tourism businesses.

The reason to join these types of clusters includes generating Web traffic and sales, but well-designed portals will also give a boost to the position of your Web site in the search engines. Check the html code of the portals and ensure they are using effective Search Engine Optimization strategies for keywords you want your site to appear for and watch your site rise in search results, particularly with Google.

When choosing a travel portal be prepared to track the number of click throughs you are paying for. Remember, traditional pay per click Web traffic from search engines can generate significant amount of Web visits at pennies per click and up.

The benchmark I currently use is $0.12-$0.20/click. So for a $400 investment, I would hope to generate at least three thousand relevent click throughs to my Web site, and a number of tracked purchases (at least $3000 worth or the equivalent of 10% of sales). I'll also hope to build my email list with at least 300 new Email list members. The latter requires a meaningful "Small Yes" offer on the landing page coming from the portal site.

Be sure to inquire about what pages provide the bulk of Web site visits for any and all travel portals you are a member of and consider the number of products listed on those theme pages. Sometimes, a lot of traffic is not as beneficial as a few really relevent Web visits. Place your tourism packages where they produce the most return.

When considering rebooking next year, ask the portal to report how many times your packages were viewed and clicked on. At your end, do a good job of tracking the number of inquiries and sales that are generated by the portal. Then when the time comes to renew, you'll have some real statistical information on which to make a good decision.

Portals may also offer opportunities for e-newsletter advertising. It is a good idea to place content in these newsletters - even for an additional fee. Be sure to direct traffic to Web pages which have your own opt-in request to get recipients to sign up for your newsletter. Make any offers exclusive to the newsletter recipients and be sure to track inquiries and sales that these offers generate.

Remember, the Internet is not free. Services which produce meaningful sales will have costs associated with them.

Preliminary data released at TravelCom 2006 by the Travel Industry
Association of America (TIA) and D.K. Shifflet & Associates Ltd.
(DKS&A) show that last year, for the first time, more trips were
booked online than by any other method.

According to the report 1/4 of travelers who booked accommodation
reservations did so online in 2005 (24%), up 9 percent from the year
before. Hotel chain websites were used most often to make internet
reservations, followed by other online booking services (such as
online travel agencies). Nearly as many travelers booking lodging
reservations used chain 800 telephone numbers, but this was down 5
percent from 2004. The largest share of travelers making reservations
made them directly with the property, but this also declined in
frequency compared to the prior year. Four percent of travelers used a
travel agent to book accommodations in 2005, similar to 2004 (5%).

Interestiingly, trips booked online involve significantly higher
spending on average ($754, excluding the cost of transportation) than
trips booked offline ($406) or with no advance booking ($219).
Internet-booked trips also entail more activities (2.3 on average)
than do trips booked offline (1.7 activities) or with no advance
bookings (1.5).

The average age of travelers who book trips online is 44 – similar to
the age of travelers who booked offline (45) or did not book at all
(43), but younger than those who booked through a travel agent (49).

A full report on travelers' booking behavior will be available in the
Fall of 2006.

Consider visiting the following Web sites to position your tourism business with paid search advertising on the second tier of paid search:
Ask.com (formerly ask Jeeves), Kanoodle.com and LookSmart.com

According to a recent study, 36% of search users believe that appearing at the top of natural search results identifies organizations as the top firm in their field, either in size or success. Do you think it is important for your Tourism business to appear near the top of search results?
For which keyword searches?

In 2008 all US citizens will require passports to enter Canada and enjoy our tourism experiences. Beginning January 2007, passengers arriving by air or water will require passports.

Currently only 22% of US Citizens have border crossing documents that will permit them to travel to Canada and return to the US.

While the definative identification card has not been established to replace passports it is clear that many Americans will not bother to get the i.d. card or passport to come to Canada in the coming year.

In Windsor Ontario yesterday tourism businesses debated the implications of new US policy on their Web sites. Some good ideas came forth to help your business be better prepared to help US travellers find their way to your tourism business.

• put links on your Web site to US application for passports
• link to OTMPC information for visitors to Ontario
• try to put a positive spin on the fear around travel document requirements. Ensure US citizens that passports are currently not required to visit Canada
• consider the type of traveller that will go to the trouble of getting a passport. Are they more likely to be higher income, higher education? Develop new experiences that target the more affluent US traveller or worldly traveller who already has a passport.
• border cities might be quicker to adopt to the new rules, consider focusing more attention on near border Web marketing
• encourage early planning for US visitors... offer incentives to book early so that travel documents can be arranged in a timely fashion.
• although travel documents are not required at present. The future travel restrictions may create a backlog in the application departments. Encourage your returning guests to apply for travel documents now to beat the rush.

To be sure, no one is excited about the prospect of anything else (SARS, War in Iraq, West Nile, 9/11) that could dampen tourism business from the US. But remember, even though the the US passport legislation might not be what the tourism industry in Canada wants, preparation is the best medicine.

Looking to choose a Web design solution for the future. Adobe's Dreamweaver appears to solidify its position as the de facto standard for do-it-yourself or professional Web site design. Microsoft announced today the end of the line for FrontPage. Microsoft's new Web editing software will debut in late 2006.

I found it rather humerous that the Microsoft announcement touting the new 'web standards-based' application uses the non-universal Windows Media Player to demonstrate its capabilities.

For the do-it-yourselfer, the free online Web development tools offered by Microsoft Office Live are viable alternatives.

If you've spent some time looking at your Web stats you might be surprised at the number of short visits, zero-second visits or mass exits from your web site.

Hello Todd!
Enjoyed your workshop in Midland last Thurs. It was an awful lot to remember, but I'm trying. I am, however, having a hard time figuring how to get on google maps. I was wondering if this was the right place?

Any assistance in this matter would be helpful.
thanks in advance,
Judith.

Judith & Brent Coyle,
The Cutter's Rudder,
Guest House B. & B.,
Midland, Ontario.
www.thecuttersrudder.com

Answer: Indeed. This is the link for adding your business to Google Local maps. Choose the appropriate categories and get listed. Google will send you a postcard in a few weeks to verify your address. After that your listing will appear and your phone will start ringing due to searches on Google Maps.

I'm in Ottawa area today for another workshop and en route, I accessed Google Maps to book a hotel, find an outdoor store, and get a map to the workshop location. Google Maps led to over $700 in purchases. If they had been doing any tracking, they know that Google Maps is was a vital tool in my utilizing their services.

Are you mapped? Follow the link above and get linked today!