Travel Trends of Internet Marketing
“This year, 40% of all leisure and 35% of business travel bookings will be done online,” claims Max Starkov and Jason Price when discussing hospitality industry trends for 2007-2010. And “by 2010 over 50% of leisure bookings are expected to be online. An estimated 89% of planners are researching event locations on the web, and by 2008, 41% of all groups and meetings travel revenues will come from the Internet.”
Quite frankly, these statistics and trends are too strong for companies in the hospitality industry to ignore. So why not make the most of your resources? Companies like Brandwidth can provide a portal for revenue growth and provide a solution to reservation stress not only for your company, but also for your customers. It can make sales increase; which will lead to happy owners and customers - because now their employees aren’t as stressed in dealing with reservations, and ratings of hotel and travel with your business will grow exponentially. Let’s not forget the incredibly reduced cost of distribution.
Since the rise of consumer generated media, there are many blogs and sites online where you can read what others think about your business and can create marketing strategies to promote the things most liked by your customers and resolve any points of disapproval at the same time. The assumption that your customers believe everything that is put on your website is simply not true at this point in recovering results of their stays or usage of your product.
The age of technology and mass communication has quickly made that thought superfluous. Customers now research and make many decisions about your business before they ever reach for the phone or place a reservation through your site. “Contrary to some opinions, reward programs do matter. 80% of online bookers belong to a travel reward program and more than 60% belong to a supplier-sponsored program(Forrester Research).” With this in mind, why not step your business up and embrace the marketing strategies that you have available to you?