According to this article from Direct Marketing News, the travel industry is poised for a breakout period.
According to a 2011 survey published by ITB Berlin, U.S. online travel sales are predicted to reach more than $137 billion by 2014 and more than $144 billion by 2015.
I guess that means with the possible increased writing opportunities for me and my business, I should be jumping for joy and doing cartwheels, even though I haven’t made a clean one since high school…and I’m not going to tell you how long ago that was.
One other interesting detail here: how to make the travel content “richer” to entice potential customers to make those all-important clicks to the the sale. In this case, Travelocity has implemented a program that allows generation of personalized travel content, based on a visitor’s preferences and input, and the targeted delivery of internal and third-party information.
Now, I rarely use Travelocity, simply because when I look for travel deals, I usually go to Kayak. This site lists themselves, Travelocity and other online agencies with the necessary travel planning information I need. And usually, I’m able to book without going to the Travelocity site at all.
But I’m going to take a look at this model, simply because this is where I’d like to go in my travel marketing efforts, especially when it comes to website content. It seems to me that Travelocity “gets” it, where so many other travel companies don’t. They seem to understand that it takes integration of both marketing, copywriting and product development departments to make a smoother fact-finding experience, which leads to a likely purchase.
That’s a good thing, because I sometime get frustrated on certain sites as the customer. Trying to find more information on Tuscany, for instance, can be made so much easier if the website brings up links or content leading to information about that place. I don’t want to work too hard to find more.
I’ll check out Travelocity’s site, and report back in the next post.
