Roy Morgan Research shows online travel market growing.
An article published by the Sydney Morning Herald last month revealed that a third of purchases made on the internet in the June quarter of this year (2.7 million) were either buying travel tickets or booking accommodation.
That equates to just under one million travel-related purchases online in three months!
The article also comments that one in ten travellers are using the internet to research their trip.
These figures provide some hard evidence to what we’ve suspected for a some time – if you’re involved in the tourism industry a website is not a luxury. A website is fast becoming more important than a brochure, and when you compare it with the cost of printing full-colour brochures, can often work out cheaper as well.
Once you’ve got it, flaunt it.
Just as important as having a website, is promoting it after it’s finished. Here are four quick tips.
- Print the web address on everything you have: business cards, brochures, magazine ads… Everything!
Make sure your website has been properly optimised for search engine positioning. This includes chosing which keywords and phrases you’d like to be found under, and making sure they appear in the right places in your website. Contact us if you need assistance with this. - Get it submitted with the right search engines. Forget about the deals that offer to submit your site to thousands of sites (you’ll probably just end up with more spam email than you can cope with!) – there’s probably less than half a dozen search engines you need to worry about.
- Get listed with your industry bodies. The more travel-related websites that link to yours, the better. If you are a member of an industry body or professional association, contact them to see if your membership dues include a link to your website.
- Include it in your email signature. This way, everyone you send an email to will see your website address. Set it up once and you don’t have to worry about it again. Better still, use email stationery to reinforce your branding.