Social Media in Travel SpecialConsumers currently have to swim through an ocean of unorganised information from friends, guidebooks, review sites, blogs, photo and video sites, newspapers and communities.

Published: 31 Jul 2008

Social Media in Travel Special

Consumers currently have to swim through an ocean of unorganised information from friends, guidebooks, review sites, blogs, photo and video sites, newspapers and communities.

Even if a consumer is on a particular portal, it is quite critical to ensure users know the source of the information.

For its part, TripAdvisor enhanced the community aspects of its site with the introduction of a Traveler Network, where members can share travel experiences and tips with friends and family that accept invitations to their network.

Consumers are more likely to have confidence if they know the source.

Providing an insight into how has TripAdvisor enhanced the applications, which enable users to form their communities or be part of a community comprising their personal network with known members sharing of itineraries, advice and recommendations, Martin Verdon-Roe, Sales Director – Europe, TripAdvisor explains that the TripAdvisor Traveller Network, launched at the end of 2007, revolves around four components.

"Our users, their friends, our Cities I've Visited map and then finally our content," shared Verdon-Roe, who is scheduled to speak during Social Media Strategies in Travel Europe conference, to be held in Munich on 14 and 15 October.

"The first step involves our users pinning into the map where they have been around the world. Their are different pins for favourite places, I have been there and I can recommend my friends on this place," he said. "The second step is when our users invite their friends to do the same. Once their friends have completed their maps the users are all connected throughout TripAdvisor. e.g. If you are going on holiday to Thailand the site will show you our content on Thailand, which of your friends have been there and any content they have submitted to TripAdvisor. This means that people for the first time have a method of finding out which of their friends have been to the locations that they are going on holiday to as well as accessing their content in the key planning stage."

Verdon-Roe also spoke about approach of travel supplier, monitoring solutions and much more. Excerpts from an interview with EyeforTravel.com's Ritesh Gupta.

Ritesh Gupta: As social networking sites aggregate and rank trusted reviews from other travelers, and as the semantic web becomes a reality, how do you think travel suppliers should approach this medium and address issues head on and serve the needs of customers?

Martin Verdon-Roe: The suppliers have to approach the medium and their customers in the right way. We recommend them to be as open and honest as possible when interacting with their consumers.

A good example of a hotel brand working in this way is Affinia Hotels. The hotel managers are on TripAdvisor every single day looking at what is being said about their particular hotels. If their is a problem stated about the hotel in a review then they use our Management Response function to reply to the reviewer to try and better understand the issue and if necessary offer a solution to the problem. This is a fantastic way of displaying great customer service to the reviewer as well as other consumers thinking about staying at the hotel.

Ritesh Gupta: How do you assess utility of social media monitoring solutions from suppliers perspective especially when it comes to independent web 2.0 sites specifically social media?

Martin Verdon-Roe: This really comes down to the way that the data is analysed.

Net Promoter Score tracking has been highlighted before and has been linked to brand health as well as companies long-term ROI. If this can be tracked in the right way and methods developed to help a supplier influence their Net Promoter Score then it could be a future methodology for developing long term ROI improvements. If this can then be combined with our current historic ROI tracking methods then you have a great way of further understanding our online marketing levers.

Ritesh Gupta: Do you think travel suppliers are yet to figure out how to use independent web 2.0 sites to not only brand themselves but also use them for fare sales and special promotions?

Martin Verdon-Roe: There are some suppliers that are more advanced than others at this stage. The suppliers that TripAdvisor has been working with have found great success on brand campaigns, promotions and sales.

Ritesh Gupta: Which according to you is the best way to measure the ROI of advertising campaigns in a social media environment?

Martin Verdon-Roe: The first requirement is to understand fully what the clients objectives are and therefore what ROI they would like to measure.

- Revenue - traditional ROI tracking from CPM or integrations on a historic booking level is very easy through post click and post view tracking of the user to purchase.

- Talkabilty can also be tracked. e.g. if an advertisers starts a sale or promotion you will often find our travellers talking about it in our forums so driving further awareness.

- Audience dwell time on the advertisers site can also be a key indicator of the quality of the audience e.g. this is especially important for Tourist Board advertisers.

Ritesh Gupta: What's your opinion about various content sources? Doesn't it create a lot of uncertainty and confusion among travel suppliers and travel consumers alike?

artin Verdon-Roe: I think that UGC content and Editorial/Marketing content actually complement each other very well. The key to system working is two-fold:

· There must be enough UGC content on the particular topic to give the traveller a balanced opinion and user rating. e.g. it is far more reliable to have 100+ reviews and opinions on a hotel than only one or two.

· The editorial/marketing content needs to be positioned to the consumer in the correct way. Expert opinion is still very valued but it must be produced on the understanding that due to the web consumers now have access to huge amounts of information and so cannot be mislead by the supplier or traditional media owner.

If done correctly the consumer can harness the power of both expert opinions and also what is more often very up-to-date consumer reviews. e.g. TripAdvisor is now getting over four new reviews every minute.

Social Media Strategies in Travel Europe Conference

EyeforTravel is scheduled to conduct its inaugural Social Media Strategies in Travel Europe conference, as part of Sales & Marketing in Travel Europe 2008. The two-day conference will be held in Munich on 14 and 15 October.

For more information, click here http://events.eyefortravel.com/smeurope/socialmedia/agenda.asp or contact Gina Baillie at +44 (0) 207 375 7197 or gina@eyefortravel.com).