Tony Champion, from Positively Travel. Tony’s had over 20 years of experience in the tourism industry.
The Authentic Seacoast has six times as many Twitter followers as people who live in their tiny seacoast village!
Listen Now
To listen to the call, you can listen right from your web browser by pressing play on the widget below.
If you have problems with the widget or would rather download the MP3 file to listen on your iPod or other music player, right click here and choose “Save As” to download the file. Warning, it’s a fairly large file!
Call Highlights
Some highlights and quotes from the call – be sure to listen in to the whole call for the details.
Price
Focusing on price isn’t a great way to build a customer base – you’ll “only be as good as your latest price.” No loyalty.
People are willing to pay for experiences. This is what small travel businesses thrive at!
What’s the big problem with price online, anyway?
Price isn’t a new issue. Businesses have always been distracted/worried/distraught about price. The world of online hasn’t made that any better, or worse.
What are you good at? That is where you should have your focus. If you’re reading this, more than likely the thing that you’re good at isn’t that you’re cheap.
It’s easy to get distracted by price when online. All of the major travel portals scream PRICE, PRICE PRICE. When you do advertising keywords or SEO, you see price, price, price. Leave that where it is and focus on more important.
When marketing online, it is easy to forget what it is that makes you special. For example, the Authentic Seacoast it’s about the people and the exceptional hospitality.
Customers who are listening to your story and understand what you are are about most likely aren’t buying on price.
If you aren’t worried about things like the experience, your reviews and ratings will suffer – that is more important than price.
“It’s better to get the right people on board the bus and the worry about the direction, rather than over plan and then drive around in circles looking for the people.”
Being the best used to be the trend, but now just being different works too.
People are more interested in “life behind the scenes” thank you think – and this is a great way to focus on something other than price.
Lose the brand and step into the relationship.
Transportation Versus Hospitality
Don’t follow suit with the airlines with their fees and their “faux” pricing. They’re in transportation. Travel agents, tour guides, and hoteliers are in hospitality.
Real hospitality isn’t something you do – it’s just the things built into the experience that make it so good you can’t help but tell other people about it.
This is a difficult area because you’re competing with attention for the same travelers, not that you are offering the same experience.
Remind yourself about YOUR value, YOUR story, and YOUR importance. There are people out there who want what you’re offering and are willing to pay for it.
It isn’t about price – it’s about value. And it keeps coming back to trust.
This month’s TOP Radio tourism marketing podcast is with Trisha from Travel Writer’s Exchange. Trisha is very well known in this industry and has a wealth of knowledge and experience in running several tourism businesses, including a travel agency as well as her current online ventures. Welcome Trisha!
Listen Now
To listen to the call, you can listen right from your web browser by pressing play on the widget below.
If you have problems with the widget or would rather download the MP3 file to listen on your iPod or other music player, right click here and choose “Save As” to download the file. Warning, it’s a fairly large file!
Call Highlights
Some highlights and quotes from the call – be sure to listen in to the whole call for the details.
Why DIY and Free?
These two terms really sum up some of the big issues that some tourism business have with being online.
Free: Travellers not as willing to pay for quality information and products/services. Always wanting a deal.
DIY: Don’t feel they want the services of a travel agent or a tour guide, and don’t take any ancillary products from hoteliers or other tour attractions.
Thoughts on Free
The “free” movement isn’t a concept limited to the travel and tourism industry. It’s a train that can’t be stopped, so we have to understand how it works and how to get around it to prove our value.
The biggest way to get around free is to work together as a team. That means travel agents teaming up with travel writers, tour guides partnering up with agents, hoteliers with tour guides, etc. One big happy family!
Another big mistake businesses make is to try and do it all. Don’t try to do it all – partner with someone who can help and you can both help each other.
Don’t be afraid to put out a lot of detail about your tour offerings, about your destination, and other pertinent information – because this highlights that you are the expert. For most of you, it is your expertise that makes you a viable business, so don’t hide it.
If you hold back all of your information, the online consumer will decide either a) you don’t know what you’re talking about, or b) you just aren’t that interested in making the sale. Unfortunately, in the world of the back button, that means you’re dead in the water.
Focus on the people who are your Ideal Customers who are interested in making a booking. NOT the people who are just searching for free content. Ignore the free people.
What’s your niche? If you want to be the expert and attract the Ideal Customer, find your niche.
DIY
Ways to pull in a DIY traveller? It all goes back to niche and expertise.
The bigger sites also don’t offer much in the way of service or experience – can you cater to the people who want that style?
Understand what the typical objections of your Ideal Customer will be and address those.
Again, it’s all about focus: focus on the right people, and ignore everyone else.
Other Online Marketing Tips from Trisha
Facebook Fan page is a must. Facebook is a great place to satisfy a web users primary needs: information and deals. Don’t miss out on our Facebook for Tourism resources.
Monitor your approach on Twitter cautiously (time-management wise)
Video is HUGE and really important for a couple of reasons – one is that consumers are demanding it (so they are better informed before making a purchasing decision), and second is that Google is rewarding sites with content (SEO benefit). Cailin O’Neil’s Travel Yourself is a great example of how to do simple, short yet effective travel videos.
The More that you Share, the More Likely you will get the Sale.
Worry more about getting stuff done that’s real, authentic and worry less about things being slick and professional.
I’m really excited to share with you this month’s TOP radio podcast, for two reasons. The first is that this month we’re addressing new media myths and misconceptions – tackling a lot of the issues that I hear about every day. The second is that joining me is two very good friends: Sheila Scarborough and Becky McCray. These two ladies are behind the helm of Tourism Currents, a fabulous “new media education” program. In plain English: they teach you everything you need to know about digital media, in a format that is easily digestible and hands-on. I’d suggest after the call, you pop over to their website to learn more – you can do that by clicking on the logo below!
It’s time for this month’s episode of TOP Radio, our monthly travel and technology podcast. Featuring guest Lucy Whittington of Inspired Business Marketing, a published author and hotel marketing expert.
Today, we talk about quite a few topics: how to inspire your business, how to build a better website, and how to inspire your marketing. It’s a fun call and definitely some great food for thought for any small business owner.
We also mention Lucy’s book, the Hotel Success Handbook. It’s a must for any small B&B or hoteliers out there! Here’s handy links to grab a copy from Amazon (.com or .co.uk), though be sure to listen to her tips on the call first.
It’s time for this month’s episode of TOP Radio, our monthly travel and technology podcast. This month we’re talking with Alex Bainbridge from TourCMS about a question that seems to come up over and over again: does your travel website need online reservations?
Listen Now
You can listen to call now by using the widget available below; the call is just under an hour.
If you’d like to download the call as an MP3 to listen on your iPhone or iPod later, you can get the MP3 here (be sure to right click and choose Save As in your browser as it’s a fairly large file).
Notes from the Call
Here are a few key takeaways from today’s session. Note that this is not a transcript and has been heavily edited for brevity, so be sure to listen to the call so you don’t miss anything.
Introductory Comment
The concepts and suggestions in today’s call are generics. That means they are suggestions, ideas, and examples of how things have or haven’t worked for other people. But your business is special, so you can’t take any of this advice for face value. You should consider the content and align it to your own business goals.
Things to know before even considering this topic for your business:
Online Reservations are not a panacea for poor conversions. In fact they might make them worse.
Online Reservations are not a “set it and forget it” technology.
You cannot put in online reservations and then remove all other ways for the customer to access you. You must have a way for people get in touch with you. What if the booking tool is broken?
What ‘Online Reservations’ Is and What It Isn’t
A booking system is not a replace for removing other ways to take bookings.
A booking system is not a way to remove all contact with the customer. You need to make sure that the booking engine you use still has a human in the booking process.
The booking engine is there to make your business more efficient, not to make your business more automated.
Depending on the tool and how you’re using analytics, you can glean useful information about where a customer has come from and how they found you.
Don’t worry too much about booking engines. If you have a terrible booking engine, but still have a high quality product, then customers will just book with you via phone or email. (Note how this is very different than major hotel websites, for example, where there are other websites where a customer can book.).
You don’t have to have a “booking engine” — a transaction or contact for a specific product on a specific day or specific time. You can just have a “quote request system” or “inquiry system” where the customer is just making contact to express an interest in your product or service.
Payment processing: there are multiple options, from taking payment up front to holding the credit card details and then charging the customer only when agreeing to a contract.
Remove complexity but remember: consider the customer.
Suggestion is to start with an off the shelf system, as you aren’t having to rebuild the wheel.
Reasons Why Online Availability is Bad (or, Things To Keep In Mind)
We’re not saying online reservations are bad, just remember a few key things.
Online booking tools add a cost of doing business; it’s normally not expensive but it is something to remember, depending on what tool a choose.
A tool changes the adds steps or changes steps or removes steps – remember the customer and make sure you know what you need to be doing.
If you have a very small booking pool (e.g. very small hotel, or a solo walking tour leader), a booking “wall” might prevent customers from getting to you who others you might be able to satisfy with alternative options that you can’t easily display in your booking tool. So be mindful of this if you’re very small but nimble.
If you offer a seasonal offering, make sure that customers know when you’re available. Don’t let them get all the way into your booking tool to realise you are only open in the summer!
You need to make sure that the reservation tool is the ‘master’ source of availability information.
Remember the information required to market a product (what is it, why do you want it) is not the same as what is needed to sell (exact details, timings, rates, etc). Ask yourself: what is your website for, marketing or sales or both?
With a booking tool there is a tendency to act like a “factory” – don’t remove all human interaction! Keep it positive, simple and understandable.
Consider your customers arriving to your tool in three states:
the busy, harried buyer who just needs to know right now who you are and what you offer
the information lover, who wants to know all the details and will linger over everythign
and of course, the person who already knows they’re buying with you and are just coming to make the final arrangements
If you’re sort of a “commodity tour” provider where you just process high volume products with a similar setup every day, then you probably want a very robust tool.
What is the Value of Having a Suitable Booking Tool or Online Reservations
For people who have a high volume of bookings, especially when you get lots of bookings that you can’t even service, a tool does provide a way to filter these out.
A tool can provide a way to remove friction from the process; when they’ve made a decision they’re ready to book, they can!
You want to aim for 50%+ of bookings taken online; keeps your staff focussed on more value-added activities. Software can help you double or triple bookings without massive increases in staff.
How To Choose?
Always start off small, near the simple end of functionality (e.g. ‘enquiry form’). Get in and get trading.
Phases of implementation:
Just using the tool to manage bookings once you’ve received them
Integrate a tool into your contact form or enquiry form so a customer record is created when they get in touch
Taking online bookings but only “quote requests”
Lastly, fully functional system with transaction requests taken online
If you sell a lot of different types of tours, you probably need a more complex support tool. If you just have one or two options, you don’t need all the bells and whistles.
It’s not usually about turnover, nor about staff – it’s mostly about the number of bookings where you fall in the complexity scale.
Buy a system that permits you to continue to work with your agents and partners and suppliers, and make sure your system allows you to just make quotes.
Again, it all comes back to your customer: who are they and what are their needs? Be sure your online presence meets that.
Parting thought: If you build it, they won’t come. Regardless of whether you do or don’t take online reservations, if you don’t have enough sales, it isn’t because of our website, it’s because of your marketing.
We’re very excited to present the first edition of TOP Radio, our new podcast series. Every month we’ll feature guests and discussions on relevant industry topics and technology news. We thought it would be fitting to start off the first radio podcast of the year talking about The State of Tourism: an hour of frank discussion about the big picture on travel and technology.
Why is it called TOP Radio?
Well, the reason we call it a radio show is to illustrate the fact that while the delivery means and mechanisms have changed entirely, the principles are the same, just like in many forms of social networking. Sure, it isn’t available to listen in live – yet! – but at the end of the day, it kind of is just like a radio programme. So, listen in and enjoy!
Today’s TOP Radio Guests
Joining your host Andy Hayes from Travel Online Partners we have two guest who are well versed in the latest and greatest of tourism technology:
Andy is definitely an SEO expert. He helped me identify some stubborn search engine optimization problems and offered specific solutions. He understood exactly what I was looking for and provided detailed results with a very quick turn-around. He's friendly and easy to work with. I give him my highest recommendation and look forward to working with him again.
I'm Shannon, a do it yourself search engine optimization ninja! I'm also a full time traveller, so one of my many skills is managing to both travel and keep a full time workload.
Where the Team is Headed
Want to meet one of us in person? We're out and about - join us at any of the following events:
- October 14-15: Blog World Expo, Las Vegas: Andy will speaking on "How to Create a Great Experience for Your Readers."
- November 17-19: Symposium on the Use of Social Media in the Tourism Industry - Andy will be speaking about "Why Your Website Sucks"
