White Paper
“Tour & Group Operators - Play with the Big Boys and Win”
Enhancing Online Presence and Competing in the World of Online Travel Sales
John T. Peters, CTC
President & Managing Partner
February 12, 2006
Abstract: Specifically written for tour and group operators, this white paper answers the questions; What are the most important online capabilities that you offer your customers? What are the biggest challenges you face in developing or enhancing your online presence? How confident are you about your ability to compete in the world of online travel sales and marketing?
In an on-demand, service-oriented world, determining the correct content for your website, developing an easy-to-use and easy-to-navigate website, automating website content load (including text, images and more), reducing time and cost and effectively managing resources are essential to success.
Think you know all there is to know about effective websites for tour and group operations? Take another look and learn how the next generation of website content management is evolving as well as some ideas on strategic partnerships, email marketing, SEO & SEM and other interesting topics. If your company looking to move towards becoming a real-time organization with websites that customers will use, enjoy and buy from, you will benefit from the valuable advice contained in this paper which details the best ways to adapt your online capabilities to meet today's online travel buyer.
Executive Summary
Tour and Group operator marketing has changed dramatically over the past two decades. The travel industry was one of the first to computerize by connecting directly to the airlines via the GDS, yet after that, travel industry technology fell far behind the advancements made by other industries.
Think you know all there is to know about effective websites for tour and group operators? Read on. |
The introduction of the internet in the mid to late 1990’s brought forth the first real, effective method for tour and group operators to ‘speak’ with the direct consumer. Originally this was considered taboo by the industry, especially the retail travel agents who were threatened by this ‘bypass’. In general, the majority of tour and group operators were slow to move to move to developing websites and even slower to offer online booking.
Times however, have changed. Online booking is available on most tour and group operator websites and this is acceptable by most in the retail travel agency arena.
Unfortunately, many tour and group operators have missed the mark with their websites. Information is often outdated or even missing. Formats are confusing with most just offering online versions of their brochures. Processes for updating and maintaining websites are inefficient at best. Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing, some of the best tools available to online travel marketers and sellers are either not being used or being used ineffectively.
Most tour and group operators simply don’t know what to do about creating and more important, maintaining a proper website. Very often, they’ve either spent too much money or not enough and the results from poorly planned online projects are often just that; poor (either poor ROI, poor sales; poor service, poor conversion or a combination of all of these.) Specifically, a ‘proper’ website and effective online activities will do the following for today’s tour and group operators:
- Attract the attention of their target audience.
- Build credibility.
- Generate leads and inquiries.
- Sell their tours.
- Enhance the relationship with their existing and potential customers and vendors.
- Do all of this with a positive ROI (return on investment).
This white paper will address all of the aforementioned and point out some very basic, yet often overlooked, information and key steps to enhancing online capabilities and effectively competing in online travel sales.
Problems and Challenges
The Problems and Challenges facing tour and group operators today with respect to online capabilities include:
1) Developing a website that:
a. Potential customers will find of interest.
b. Existing customers will find useful.
c. Existing and potential partners will want to participate in.
d. Builds credibility – in the eye of the visitor
e. Is found on the search engines.
f. Entices visitors to register to receive more information.
g. Is constantly updated with the latest tour programs, rates and availability.
h. Results in positive ROI.
2) Knowing the customer, i.e. communicating with right customer at the right time in the right format with the right message.
3) Complying with the CAN-SPAM email act.
4) Competing against the goliaths of the online market, including Travelocity, Orbitz and others.
Solutions
Since not every company has ALL of the above-mentioned problems, following are detailed, point-by-point solutions to these problems.
The Website
Attract the attention of your target audience as well as your existing customer. |
Developing a website that potential and existing customers will find of interest is the most basic rule, but one that is very often overlooked. Websites need to address the target audience’s needs and wants. Too often, companies spend too much time displaying content about the company and don’t realize this is often very boring for the average shopper. Instead, tour and group operators should immediately address what every customer and potential customer is looking for; tours and group tours. They want destination information, easy-to-read and searchable itineraries and clearly explained pricing. They are also looking for other content they find useful. Simple things like destination information, links to online currency conversion programs, links to weather forecasts, packing tips, an easy-to-use FAQ section and of course, an easy way to communicate with the operator. Other ‘community’ items should also be included. These are areas that allow customers to interact with one another or at least, post customer reviews, plus areas where customers can list their profiles to make communicating with them more tailored to their desires. This will take additional monitoring by staff, but new technology makes this easy and simple.
Through research at SmarterCMS.com, it was found that for tour and group operators, the basic Navigation Bar should include the following tabs:
The TABS on the navigation (NAV) bar on tour and group operator’s websites should clearly show those capabilities that are offered to their customers. |
1) Home – It should always be quick and easy to get back to the homepage.
2) Reservations – Ask for the business and be clear about it.
3) FAQ – The tour and group business is sold via a consultative selling process – you have to give people an easy way to find answers to their questions.
4) About Us – Give just enough information to build trust with the visitor.
5) Groups – Every tour and group tour operator should have a section on how to make a group successful.
6) Press – Every group and tour company should be doing whatever it takes to get in the press and make sure that press releases are issued regularly and posted to the website. This is one trick to help with SEO.
7) Contact Us - Finding your company should be easy. A visitor should be able to contact you in whatever method they feel most comfortable. For many, this will be by telephone. For others, email. Others still might prefer instant messaging. However the customer wants to reach out, successful tour and group operators are always easily accessible.
8) Travel Agents – If applicable, a dedicated, content rich, password protected area for the travel trade would go a long way in relationship building with this very important distribution channel.
9) Specials – Sell, Sell, Sell. List travel bargains that people simply cannot refuse.
When deciding what online capabilities to offer customers, tour and group operators should consider the following six topics.
1. Attract the attention of their target audience. While it is important to talk about the company, this should be secondary. Potential customers want to find content they’re interested in; clearly explained itinerary options and prices, accommodation and destination information, weather, news and other customer reviews or comments about their trips.
2. Generate traveler leads. The most important thing a website MUST do is generate leads of potential travelers. When someone ‘raises their hand’ and reaches out to the tour and group operator for more information, the website has to be able to generate and more important, capture this lead. To compete in the online travel world, look to the giants of the industry to see how they capture leads. The first goal is to get someone’s email address in a way that causes them to sign up to receive more information from you. Then, once you have that email, you need to carefully design a contact plan so that you ‘touch’ that person enough at the right time with the right messages. Too much contact or contact with irrelevant information will cause this person to opt-out of your communication plan and you will have lost a good lead. The key is to be able to tell the difference between someone who is ready to buy and someone who isn’t.
3. Build credibility. Just because a company has been in business for decades doesn’t mean much these days to the average vacation shopper. Tour and group operators have to demonstrate they actually offer great products. This can be done by writing articles and putting them on the website for mass distribution. It can also be accomplished by having customer reviews and testimonials on the website.
4. Sell tours. Buying a tour or group tour should be easy for the customer. If it isn’t blatantly clear and simple, you may lose clients. All the tour options should be there with a clear call to action. These days, with the availability of such programs as InfoTree’s ProTour and others such as SofTrip, every operator should have online booking capability. Such capabilities are simply no longer luxuries in the tourism world, yet some operators still do not offer the option. (See ProTour and SofTrip note at end of paper.)
5. Enhance the relationship with their existing and potential customers and vendors. By providing your vendors with proper exposure to your clients, tour and group operators become more than traditional ‘middle-men’ – they become important service providers valued by both customers and suppliers.
6. Do all of this with a positive ROI (return on investment). A website needs to generate profits. Spending too much is just as dangerous as spending too little. It is possible to compete in the online travel arena, but it requires dedication and resources consistent with other marketing activities, if not more.
Keeping it Fresh
An online Content Management System (CMS) is the easiest, most cost-effective way to keep your website contact fresh. |
The most common mistake tour and group operators make with their website is not keeping the content fresh. New photos, new articles, new press releases and especially new special offers should be loaded at least once a week.
Most companies outsource their webmaster work, so making changes takes considerable time and money. The process includes putting together emails, emailing to the webmaster / web designer and waiting for the changes to take place. Other companies have web designers on staff and while they can make changes quickly, the process is basically still the same, but worse, the cost even more significant.
In business, speed is critical. Tour and group operators need to ask themselves the following questions:
- How fast can we make a change to your website?
- How many hands need to be mobilized for us to load a special offer on our site and email it to our customers?
- How easily can we share information with your customers, inquiries and employees?
The easiest way to achieve keeping web content fresh is with an online content management system (CMS). These simple, subscription based systems allow any office personnel to make changes to the website instantly, in real time. Further, within the CMS are other tools to manage the data relationship between a website and in-house reservation system, thus keeping website data accurate and up-to-date. A CMS blends the online content management tools with a tour or group operators software and their website (or with a website or pages that the CMS company builds for them) thus providing an integrated solution that delivers measurable business benefits-quickly and cost-effectively.
By using a Content Management System (CMS) any staff member can make changes to the website in real-time. This includes adding a tour, updating pricing, adding a Press Release, managing FAQ’s and much more. |
There are many CMS in the market, but only one that specializes in the tour and travel marketplace. (See SmarterCMS.com link at the end of this paper.)
Strategic Partnerships
Strategic partnerships with suppliers and tourist offices will help ease the burden of marketing costs while, at the same time, enhancing the relationship. |
When building a website, tour and group operators very often neglect their supplier partners. Hotels, cruise lines, airlines, sightseeing companies will all pay co-op marketing fees (either in cash or in complimentary product) for premium placement on a website or email blast, provided it can be proven that doing so would help drive more sales for both the operator and the supplier. This is especially true in times of crisis.
Every tour and group operator business struggles, at some point, with having to reenergize or even reinvent itself. The reasons varied tremendously, from 9/11 and the SARs epidemic to a persistent “middle class” recession, to the demographic reality of an aging population. In the end, though, the results were the same: flat or declining revenues, market share, and profits.
It is important to remember that suppliers face the same issues and that such moments offer a unique opportunity to look a business in a completely different way…and that’s where the right partners can make a huge difference.
Tour and group operators have to remember that they’re not in it alone. Suppliers and tourist offices, given the right proposal, will join in marketing and sales efforts; from premium placement within websites and email blasts to partnering in online lead generation programs. The online marketing efforts need to include activities that involve partners.
Partnering with the right non-travel industry company can also enhance your brand credibility while, at the same time, improving the customer relationship. See the following case studies:
Teaming up with well-known non-travel industry brands is a great way to enhance your brand and build credibility in the eye of existing and potential customers as well as existing and potential partners. |
CASE STUDY #1: When Zeus Tours’ customers came back from otherwise great trips to the Mediterranean complaining of high phone bills at international hotels, Zeus partnered with MCI to promote MCI’s Call America programs. Every Zeus customer received an instruction card on calling home using MCI, bypassing the hotels’ expensive long distance service. At the same time, discounts on Zeus’ international tours were marketed to millions of MCI clients. THE RESULT: Zeus solved a customer service problem that was otherwise out of our control and gained access to MCI’s customer base. MCI gained access to a very targeted group of potential customers. Zeus’ customers were now able to call home at affordable rates. This partnership was promoted on the Zeus website as well as in the Zeus and MCI customer emails and newsletters. That’s a win-win-win!
CASE STUDY #2: When IST Cultural Tours wanted to gain access to new customers with international travel interests, they partnered with LLBean. By joining forces on a mutual discount program, IST tour and cruise programs were included in millions of LLBean catalogs, and LLBean products were included in thousands of IST document kits. THE RESULT: IST enhanced its travel offerings with quality ancillary products and at the same time, enhanced its brand recognition by associating with one of the oldest brands in the US. Most important, it also got access to millions of travel-minded individuals. Custom LLBean got access to a very targeted group of potential customers.
Search Engine Optimization & Search Engine Marketing
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) should be outsourced to the professionals. For most, they shouldn’t be ignored and they shouldn’t be attempted in-house. |
Search Engine Marketing: The act of marketing a web site via search engines, whether this be improving rank in organic listings, purchasing paid listings or a combination of these and other search engine-related activities.
(Note that often these days, SEM is also used as synonymous with pay-per-click (PPC) or cost-per-click (CPC). The definitions for PPC/CPC follow.)
Cost Per Click: System where an advertiser pays an agreed amount for each click someone makes on a link leading to their web site. Also known as CPC or PPC.
Search Engine Optimization: The act of altering a web site so that it does well in the organic, crawler-based listings of search engines (the ‘free’ section in the listings). In the past, has also been used as a term for any type of search engine marketing activity, though now the term search engine marketing itself has taken over for this. Search Engine Optimization is normally referred to as its abbreviation; SEO.
The terms ‘travel’ and ‘vacation’ are some of the most searched words on the internet. Tying to manage SEO and SEM activities in-house often proves too costly and too time consuming. Since the search engine algorithms change frequently, obtaining first and second page listings is extremely difficult, as is keeping those placements. And, since PPC costs change by the day, this too is best outsourced. A tour and group operator would be better off spending time on product development, sales, marketing and operations, not trying to figure out the world of SEO and SEM.
Getting the RIGHT message to the RIGHT person at the RIGHT time is key in successful lead and database management. |
Knowing Your Customer and Potential Customers -
Generating Leads and Converting Them to Sales
Enticing customers and potential customers to register to receive more information is key. This can be accomplished by offering discounts, special offers available only to subscribers, news, destination information and tips and more. At the same time, by asking a few profile questions, tour and group operators will be able to customize messages to potential customers. The key is getting the right message to the right person at the right time. The difference between an email list and a database is like the difference between a stick figure and a painting by Dali. (See graphics on following page). Customer and potential customer profile data needs to be collected at every turn. Since most people will not want to fill out a survey, the key is to ask just a couple of questions with every customer contact. Over time, tour and group operators can greatly enhance their database. The use of targeted and personalized messages, be they in email or print, will make the world of difference in sales conversion rates.
The difference between an e-mail list (or any mailing list) and a database is monumental. Profile information on customers and potential customers |
Following the Law – The CAN-SPAM Act
Being labeled a ‘spammer’ could result in some serious fines and some serious problems. Following the rules is key and it’s not that easy.
From the FTC.gov website, (http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/canspam.htm) we find the following.
“The law, which became effective January 1, 2004, covers email whose primary purpose is advertising or promoting a commercial product or service, including content on a Web site. A "transactional or relationship message" – email that facilitates an agreed-upon transaction or updates a customer in an existing business relationship – may not contain false or misleading routing information, but otherwise is exempt from most provisions of the CAN-SPAM Act.
What the Law Requires
Here's a rundown of the law's main provisions:
Being labeled a ‘spammer’ is no joke. It could get you fined, sued and shut-down. |
· It bans false or misleading header information. Your email's "From," "To," and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person who initiated the email.
· It prohibits deceptive subject lines. The subject line cannot mislead the recipient about the contents or subject matter of the message.
· It requires that your email give recipients an opt-out method. You must provide a return email address or another Internet-based response mechanism that allows a recipient to ask you not to send future email messages to that email address, and you must honor the requests. You may create a "menu" of choices to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to end any commercial messages from the sender.
· Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your commercial email. When you receive an opt-out request, the law gives you 10 business days to stop sending email to the requestor's email address. You cannot help another entity send email to that address, or have another entity send email on your behalf to that address. Finally, it's illegal for you to sell or transfer the email addresses of people who choose not to receive your email, even in the form of a mailing list, unless you transfer the addresses so another entity can comply with the law.
· It requires that commercial email be identified as an advertisement and include the sender's valid physical postal address. Your message must contain clear and conspicuous notice that the message is an advertisement or solicitation and that the recipient can opt out of receiving more commercial email from you. It also must include your valid physical postal address.”
One way to help comply with the CAN-SPAM is to use a CMS that has an emailer program which includes an opt-out process. SmarterCMS.com’s emailer includes such a feature.
Conclusion:
Competing in the online travel world takes time, planning and implementation. Successful tour and group organizations of all sizes compete in the market every day.
In an attempt to decide what the most important online capabilities to offer to potential and existing customers, tour and group operators must put the effort into designing a proper plan of attack, consult with professionals and make sure implementation takes place systematically.
Tour and group operators must improve their websites, enhance their online capabilities and handle every customer in the way they wish to be handled. This may mean taking a direct booking from a customer over the phone on a Saturday evening or taking a booking from a travel agent over the internet in the middle of the night. Tour and group operators must understand they have to be available to the customer when the CUSTOMER wants and in the FORMAT the customer wants.
Tour and group operator websites should attract the attention of their target audience, build credibility, generate leads and inquiries and overall, enhance the relationship with their existing and potential customers and vendors. Further, content on tour and group operator’s websites needs to be kept current and fresh. Using a Content Management System (CMS) is an easy way to accomplish this.
SEO and SEM are key and should, in most cases, be outsourced to professionals. This will ensure that the tour and group operator is ‘findable’ in the search engines by all those who are looking for their services and allow valuable man-hours to be spent on the core tour and group business.
Properly planned and implemented online projects with complementary offline marketing plans will result in increased sales; positive customer service experiences, positive conversion and ROI.
Notes:
SmarterCMS.com – Headquartered in New Jersey, SmarterCMS, Inc. ( www.smartercms.com ), offers online content management solutions for speedy implementation of scalable business web sites. The company's Content Management System, which can be installed and working in days or weeks, automates the process of publishing, editing and managing content on business Web sites.
Further, the "Email Blaster" allows for efficient collection of customer inquiries and timely and efficient, targeted communication to both existing customers and inquiries.
By allowing customers to manage content on their own websites, our Content Management System generates expeditious ROI, such as reduced administrative/IT costs and increased revenue. Our CMS eliminates project delays and Webmaster "bottleneck" by providing easy-to-use, on-the-fly publishing of customer's content to their own website.
Further, with security driven navigation for users and administrators, SMARTER CMS ensures users see information they're entitled to see and use tools they're allowed to use. Our modular CMS architecture enables flexible and scalable implementations allowing customers to 'grow as they go.
Peters and Mohr have been developing technology together since 1997. Click here to see a feature article published in Internet Week magazine.
SmarterCMS navigation bar research from a 2005 study of top travel brand websites.
AmeriMarket.com – Headquartered in New Jersey and w ith many years of experience in destination and travel product marketing, AmeriMarket (www.AmeriMarket.com) provides strategic planning services for tour operators, cruise lines, hotels, travel agencies, international government tourism offices and other travel related companies. Specifically, AmeriMarket assists international tourism products and service companies to reach the North American Marketplace in the most proactive, efficient and cost effective manner possible.
In addition, AmeriMarket’s new Maximum Exposure program helps organizations find new customers through unique, cost effective solutions, including targeted consumer lead generation programs, discounts on consumer and trade newspapers and magazines, search engine marketing, email campaigns, online media advertising and a host of other consulting services. CLICK HERE to find out more.
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