Online Marketing in Travel SpecialTravel companies have been focusing on creating rich online experiences and they continue to use "new" technologies to enhance users interaction with their websites.

Published: 26 Jun 2008

Online Marketing in Travel Special

Travel companies have been focusing on creating rich online experiences and they continue to use "new" technologies to enhance users interaction with their websites.

The companies have been testing ideas and gathering feedback at the same time as they try to refine their offerings.

While doing all this, it is quite significant to quantify how can companies optimise their website to increase conversion rates.

Providing an insight into the same, Robert A. Dawson, Chief Technology Officer, E-site Marketing refers to three factors: Understand how users are using your website; Have clearly defined calls to action based on your overall conversion goals; and provide multiple conversion points that go beyond the branded site (RSS, Email, etc).

Dawson, a speaker during EyeforTravel's Online Marketing in Travel 2008 conference, being held in Chicago, said when it comes to featuring rich online experiences, travel suppliers or intermediaries should adopt the KISS (keep it simple silly) approach.

"Depending on the focus of the site, the site owner needs to focus on the core calls to action that makes sense for their business model. The major issue we have seen in the travel space when using these media types is the ability to monitor, and update their content on a timely basis. For example, unmonitored user generated content could lead to a disgruntled customer "flaming" your site for all the world to see. A simple but balanced approach to using these technologies is recommended. Supplementing your sites content with that of the social media and rich media formats is best, but avoid the temptation of overdoing it and distracting the user from the desired call to action you want them to take," Dawson told EyeforTravel.com's Ritesh Gupta.

On a website's content strategy and also the role of technology in achieving optimum results, Dawson said many studies indicate that a website should not exceed 54 kilobytes in total page weight.

"This will ensure that your site will load within 1.5 seconds or less. To that end, it is very easy for a good web development shop to design and develop an efficient website understanding this guideline. There are plenty of tools on the market that help developers optimise their graphics, Flash files, and code to meet these requirements. Where developers tend to get into trouble is when they use a lot of JavaScript, include unnecessarily, non-optimised graphic and Flash files, and make an improper use of AJAX technology. This only represents the client side of things. The server side can dramatically impact a sites overall performance as well. In the early days of Content Management Systems (CMS), many systems were database driven. As a result, the sites were required to make a query call to a database in order to render its baseline content...(overall) the flatter and more optimised your site, better it will perform," he said.

Also it is being felt that the very success of web 2.0 travel sites and content types is making the planning process harder for travelers. This web 2.0 content is fragmented and is difficult to search through to determine what is useful.

On this, Dawson said, "Overall I tend to agree. I am always surprised when you ask someone from the travel industry, or any industry for that matter, what is "Web 2.0". You will typically get several different responses. As a result, everyone's interpretation of "web 2.0" has lead to a fragmentation of design and functional applications especially in the travel space. The key fact to consider is - will my "web 2.0" application enhance the users experience and ultimately take them to the call to action I want them to take on my site? In most cases we have seen many travel sites use "web 2.0" technology not fully evaluating its implications on their online business model. To make matters worse, sites tend to slap commercially popular 3rd party applications on their sites which only add another layer of complexity and usability issues."