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The Digital Big Bang in Travel: Does Your Strategy Stack Up?

When it comes to travel marketing, nothing compares with Facebook, according to a new industry-wide survey from EyeforTravel. The State of Data and Analytics in Travel Report 2017 found that 61.6% of travel marketers think Facebook is the best performing social media network. Instagram, also a Facebook company, trails behind with just 15.8% of respondents, followed by Twitter (10.3%) and YouTube (6.2%). No other social media network had a significant response rate.

Voyages-sncf.com, the ecommerce arm of France’s state-owned rail company, has understood the power of Facebook. Speaking at the recent EyeforTravel Europe Summit, Chief Operating Officer Arnaud Masson said: “You need to be there if you want to deliver a good customer experience.” With over 1.2billion using messenger today, he has a point.

In fact, Masson believes that Facebook needs to be the extension of any website or app. Initially, Voyages-sncf.com used it for customer service, which proved more popular than email. It went on to become one of the first companies to create a chat bot for Messenger, and it’s been so successful that the development team has continued to innovate with new features and extensions.

78% of travel marketers are using social media data in their marketing campaigns EyeforTravel

“Facebook has numerous advantages above its rivals, but the most significant is the depth of information it has on its users,” says Alex Hadwick, Head of Research at EyeforTravel. As people have become increasingly familiar and comfortable with social media, so have they become more relaxed about sharing everything from their interests and preferences to travel plans. People regularly ask for travel recommendations from their ‘friends’, providing a unique opportunity for travel marketers.

“This gives Facebook huge power, which has been multiplied by the strategic acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp,” says Hadwick, who argues that, “these acquisitions also help to future-proof Facebook from potential downturns in usage of the original platform.”

For the moment though, that shows now sign of abating, and Facebook is working hard to provide marketers with the right tools. For example, its ‘dynamic adverts for travel’ allows marketer to push adverts to people who have previously visited a website or app.   

EyeforTravel’s data backs this up with the survey also finding that 78% of travel marketers are using social media data in their marketing campaigns. This level of integration illustrates the importance social now plays in marketing efforts, a position that is only expected to increase in the medium-term. 

Click here to download the full report. Or why not join us at one of our second half events?

How do you assess the value of marketing spend? The ‘multi-touch attribution model’, a sophisticated attribution technique, was presented by Olga Nielsen, director of marketing and distribution analytics for Choice Hotels, at the EyeforTravel Smart Analytics conference in Atlanta earlier this year. 

Rather than ‘last click attribution’ this model can assess both internet-based and more traditional marketing approaches and statistically separate the incremental revenue value of each. Every touchpoint can be incorporated in the analysis, which is increasingly necessary as customer purchase decisions flow across multiple sites and touchpoints (see Accurate attribution remains travel’s biggest headache, EyeforTravel June 5). The model can identify the value of the initial web ad versus the special offer versus the frequent flyer link.

Potentially, marketing initiatives have different impacts at different airlines. Southwest Airlines is known to use fare promotions more strategically and jetBlue relies more heavily on emails. Some airlines, on the other hand, are said to spend more on pay-per-click advertising. This raises important questions:

• How sophisticated is each of these carriers, however, in assessing the value of their different approaches? 

• Does each fully exploit analytical techniques like the multi-touch attribution model (MTM) to optimise the level and allocation of their spend - as they seem to reach such different conclusions?

Of course, marketing initiatives themselves are often not the biggest driver of bookings. Factors that explain most of any growth or change in bookings include elements like: i) economic cyclicality or seasonality, ii) competitive factors like relative capacity growth and iii) market segmentation factors like growth in target demographic groups. 

As Nielsen noted, the MTM model could attribute as little as 5% to marketing initiatives. She notes that most companies, without the benefit of a sophisticated attribution model, attribute much more than they should to targeted promotions. In many cases, the other factors – macro-economic, competitive environment, long-term brand awareness – represent the largest factors in booking volume – all without any current spend!

Despite the multitude of factors that impact bookings, the MTM model is nevertheless able to focus on the ‘controllable’ factors – the separate impact of each of the short-term marketing initiatives across the various touchpoints. In fact, the end result of the model is to recommend an ‘optimal’ mix – in other words, what allocation of spend across channels, across touchpoints, across segments is likely to produce the best overall booking result.

The model will recommend increased spend on certain initiatives and decreased spend on others to drive the highest forecast revenue, and associated return on investment. Frequently, however, it will identify significant reductions in spend for certain touchpoints, or even overall, given relatively little short-term incremental value attributed to those initiatives. 

• Nielsen has some recommendation including:

• Use the sophisticated attribution model to assess the relative incremental value of different initiatives

• Don’t blindly accept the analytical results as the optimal long-term answer.

• Recognise the way the model is prone to under-estimate the longer-term impact of reducing spend in any individual medium

• Test recommendations against experience with customer behaviour and purchase processes. The ‘optimised’ mix derived by the model needs to be adjusted for short-term versus longer-term goals, potentially increasing spend for those initiatives that may have a longer term impact on demand, but which would be unlikely to be captured directly by the model.

Tom Bacon has been in the business for 25 years, as an airline veteran and industry consultant in revenue optimisation. He leads audit teams for airline commercial activities including revenue management, scheduling and fleet planning. Questions? Email Tom or visit his website

It may not be as cheap as bus travel or car sharing or as quick as flying, but there is something about travelling by train that is hard to beat.

As Brenda van Leeuwen, CEO of Eurail, puts it, rail travel is as much about the journey as it is the destination. In a recent interview with EyeforTravel she described crisscrossing Europe by train as a ‘Zen-like experience’.

Indeed, you only have to Google the phrase ‘Great rail journeys’ to understand the marketing power that the rail industry holds. Great rail journeys are well documented and there are countless films and television programmes, not to mention advertisements, to prove it. Substitute the word plane and, by contrast, the results tell all, throwing up blue links like: ‘What’s the best way to sleep on a plane?’ and ’10 Ways to survive a long-haul flight’.

Little wonder then, that clever rail marketers are capitalising on this to promote their product. Earlier this year, Eurostar teamed up with production company Somesuch to create an advertisement that encouraged viewers to embrace a ‘Travel State of Mind’. The ad, which is shot in the style of ‘New Wave’ cinema, follows a young traveller and the people he meets through various experiences. Focusing on the 'experience' of rail travel, the protagonist’s advice ranges from ‘pack small, live big’, to ‘ask a local, not your phone’ and to ‘look up’. The advert ran on national TV, VOD, YouTube and Facebook, and on the Eurostar website.

Even more recently, Trainline, the largest train ticket retailer in Europe thanks to its acquisition last year of French firm Captain Train, embarked on its biggest ever PR and social media campaign. Further proof that Trainline means marketing business, was the recent appointment of Lisa Bowcott, the company’s first European brand marketing director. Bowker, who has said that the goal is for Trainline to become the Uber of rail travel, has had both agency and client side business at firms like Proctor & Gamble, BT, Havas and Saatchi & Saatchi.

Spun out of Virgin Rail in 2002 to create a standalone company, Trainline is a tech company that is “focused on using data, AI and machine learning to continually innovate and make train travel easier”, Trainline has taken a mobile first approach. However, despite a 120% rise in app transactions, it also recognised that consumers tend to associate mobile with air travel. It is this that the firm seeks to address in its recent tongue-in-cheek campaign.

Seamless and stress free

Working with Red Consultancy, Trainline engaged Poldark actress Eleanor Tomlinson to promote a new travel brand – Lintenair. In the first video, Lintenair is billed as the future of travel, its’ offering including city centre terminals, queue-free boarding, no baggage weight restrictions and mobile ticketing. In other words, a “seamless and stress-free” journey, in other words train travel!

At a closer look, revealed in the second video, we see that Lintenair is, in fact, an anagram of Trainline. In this video, released 48 hours after the initial buzz was created on social media, Tomlinson makes much of the mobile experience, which Trainline has worked hard to perfect.

A Trainline spokesperson told EyeforTravel that by using the language and behaviours associated with air travel, the Lintenair campaign “allowed us to drive reconsideration of train travel and highlight all the reasons why technology, and the Trainline app, makes train travel easy, simple and smart”.

The “cheeky campaign” also “exceeded all set KPIs in terms of coverage volume, message penetration and sentiment and saw significant social media engagement throughout each phase of campaign”.

The cheeky campaign exceeded all set KPIs in terms of coverage volume, message penetration and sentiment and saw significant social media engagement throughout each phase of campaign

In three days, Red Consultancy says that there were over 360 pieces of coverage. Facebook, the main platform for the release of the videos, reached 3.3 million people.

According to Trainline data, 38% of people in the UK describe ease of booking, and the convenience of arriving in the centre of a city (32%), as key to the travel experience. With an app that allows users to access live departure boards, real-time travel updates, mobile tickets and more, and today sells tickets across 24 European countries, this is what Trainline is aiming to deliver. Technology is at the heart of this business and last year Trainline also launched BusyBot, an AI assistant which crowd sources information to tell travellers how busy their train is.  

The head of mobile marketing for Trainline will be joining an EyeforTravel webinar on app engagement. Find out more and sign up here.

A senior executive from Trainline is expected to be speaking in Amsterdam later this year. Watch this space

Last week Google was slapped with a €2.42 billion fine, its biggest ever from the European Commission. The crime in question: abusing ‘its market dominance as a search engine by giving an illegal advantage to another Google product, its comparison-shopping service’.

So, the big question now is this: Is Google liable for a similar fine for its dominance in the travel sector?

The short answer, I believe, is yes, and here is why.

1.  Google is using its search dominance to preference its own product ahead of its competitors

Try searching for ‘Flights to Barcelona’ or some other destination, and you'll find that Google Flight Search is placed ahead of Kayak, Skyscanner, and any other flight search product. It is given more prominence and is, therefore, experiencing disproportionate and unnatural growth at the expense of others. Both Kayak and Skyscanner derive their revenue by providing an air search function that presents the user with an ordered display of flights and prices. They charge airlines to then forward those customers to the direct websites. Now Google is providing essentially the same service [as these metasearches] and is capturing revenue otherwise due to Kayak and Skyscanner in the form of higher cost-per-click costs to airlines. Worse still, the customer hasn’t asked for this!

2.  Google is not selling airfares, it’s selling a shopping experience

You could argue that Google is not giving preference to its own product if you consider that the ‘product’ in question is the airfare. But Google is not an airline, so the product is, in fact, the ‘shopping experience’. And that’s what they are illegally surfacing over Kayak, Skyscanner et al. To my mind, this is exactly what the EU decision is referring to. No question!

As the European Commission official press release states: “Google has systematically given prominent placement to its own comparison shopping service: when a consumer enters a query into the Google search engine in relation to which Google's comparison shopping service wants to show results, these are displayed at or near the top of the search results."

This is exactly what Google is doing with Flight Search despite the fact that Kayak and Skyscanner are currently providing a better service. And yet, because of the way Google is showing results the display, the consumer inevitably uses it first.

Time for an industry travel council with teeth

So what is needed now? I believe the time is right for a fragmented industry to pull together and form a lobbying force to be reckoned with.

After all, Google already has its own ‘Travel Council’ – a ‘chosen few’ that it chooses to allow into Willy Wonka’s factory every year to consult behind closed doors, and to organise the industry. 

The industry needs a commercial approach with teeth that continues to call Google out on its strategy

My suggestion is that airlines and other travel intermediaries create a similar structure/event with an elected board, with a view to providing a collective, structured response that can be used more effectively than organisations like Fairsearch, which are too political.

The industry needs a commercial approach with teeth that continues to call Google out on its strategy. Within the framework of this council, industry strategists could provide examples of how to thwart dodgy practices ahead of any potential EU involvement.

Already, I can think of some issues that require consideration:

• Why do some airlines get a free ride, and some don’t?

• How do you keep Google from selling my trademark to the highest bidder?

• What is the best way to retain control of the relationship with Google by harnessing practical insight from across the industry?

A word of advice for airlines

Importantly, I would suggest that airlines refrain from allowing Google free access to their flight prices and inventory. Instead they should require Google to buy this data through an intermediary that does not damage their long-term profitability and control of distribution.  

Airlines [should] refreain from allowing Google free access to their flight prices and inventory

Airlines have done this before, and I believe they could do it again. The global distributions systems (GDSs), like Amadeus, Sabre, Galileo et al, were created many years ago to protect the airlines’ interests. Something similar could be done now to protect their interests from Google. This could be a cooperative effort with multiple technology providers that are in a position to power the response.

If Google want to profit from airlines’ precious data – let them share that profit with the industry providing it. But, and this is a big but, on mutually beneficial terms.

This is an opinion by Bobby Healy, Chief Technology Officer, CarTrawler, a tech firm that works with over hundred airlines. His views are his own

Just minutes before publishing a story about how Ceetiz, a French online travel agent for tours and activities, was working to reduce its dependence on Google, the news broke that the US search giant had been slapped with a €2.4bn fine by the European Commission.

In the EyeforTravel office near Spitalfields, not far from where next year’s European Summit will be held, there was a collective gasp. “This is big news,” said Tim Gunstone, EyeforTravel’s managing director. “We need to find out what the industry thinks and if anybody from the travel industry is lobbying the EU specifically.”

EyeforTravel approached the European Commission which confirmed that, yes, there are on–going complaints concerning flights and hotels, and pointed to Commissioner Margrethe Vestager’s press statement last week that said:

"We have been looking into these [other Google products]. And today's decision is a precedent, which can be used as a framework to analyse the legality of such conduct. At the same time, we would have to take account of the characteristics of each market and the facts in a specific case."

…we would have to take account of the characteristics of each market

European Commissioner Margrethe Vesta

Lobbying to rein in Google's moves in travel have been taking place in various ways for some time. Back in 2010, for example, Kayak and Expedia launched its coalition website Fairsearch.org to oppose the Google–ITA software deal. Meanwhile, organisations like the European Technology and Travel Services Association (ETTSA), which represents leading online travel agencies (OTAs) and global distribution systems (GDSs), have been working to highlight how Google’s conduct is significantly impacting competition in travel, the single largest vertical search market. This competition, says Christoph Klenner, Secretary General of ETTSA, has been “at the expense of consumers and of Google’s competitors”.

Though travel industry executives are less inclined to speak out, perhaps for fear of being disadvantaged in search, there are exceptions. One activist for airline interests is CarTrawler CTO Bobby Healy, whose opinions can be read in more detail in a story yesterday titled Google Flight Search: a dead man walking?

His efforts have been welcomed by Peter Bellow, group chief executive of Malaysia Airlines who, at a recent CAPA Airline Summit in Dublin, reportedly said: “We should give Bobby Healy a knighthood. Most people are afraid to say Google is peddling a kind of snake oil.”

While Healy is supportive of traditional lobbying he is “raising awareness directly with the airlines via direct conversations at the CXO level and also via talks at trade shows. ” This approach to “’out’ Google strategy in public and make it very clear what they are doing” is, he says, “way more fun”.  

It’s also, arguably, more effective. As Rod Cuthbert, who spoke to EyeforTravel in his personal capacity as a travel industry veteran, puts it: "This is a long anticipated result and not a surprise. But based on how long the ruling took to arrive, you have to wonder how long it might take the Commission to deliberate on travel.”

While it remains to be seen if travel is next on the European Commission’s list of priorities, the signs are positive. After all, Google has been fined for “promoting its own comparison shopping service in its search results, and demoting those of competitors”. And you only have to enter ‘Flights to Barcelona’ or ‘Hotels in Berlin’ to know that Google is doing exactly the same thing with Google Flight Search and Google Hotel Finder.

Although Healy categorically disagrees, and this is certainly debatable, some argue that with Flight Search, Google is delivering a superior user experience. As a commentator on yesterday’s story puts it: “I happen to greatly prefer Google's flight search. I find other airfare sites too slow and clunky to use.”

Not so – yet – with hotel search, says one hotelier, who preferred to share his views anonymously. So far this has worked in the online travel agents (OTAs) favour, as the success of their business, he argues, has been based on the fact that Google, until now, has not delivered the right [hotel] results for consumers.

However, while the Google carousel may not be delivering the best hotel results, consumers seem to prefer this user experience. In the view of this hotelier: “Nobody is wanting to go back to those text-based ad clicks [as shown in the image below] to get the desired experience. It’s much easier to click results in the carousel.”

  

The fact that users like the Google carousel is good news for hotels which have signed up for Google Hotel Price Ads. After all, these were introduced to supposedly drive more direct bookings to a hotel’s own website, and reduce OTA commissions of anything between 15% and 30%. With Google’s ad commission set at around 12%, and a user experience that seems to be winning, that’s clearly good news.

But is it fair? For the OTAs, which have invested heavily in, and continue to invest in the user experience, the answer is no. Because not only is Google now fleecing them for advertising revenues, it’s also stealing customers. Users are drawn first to the carousel, even if these aren’t the best results, and are less inclined to return to Google Ads.

        

Good news, but for who?

Undoubtedly, Google has the data and the technological know–how to become the Amazon of travel, and actively promote Google Hotel Finder. But with the European Commission’s recent ruling that now looks unlikely, as it seems likely that Google is in the losing seat.

Good news for the OTAs but maybe not such great news for consumers, says the anonymous hotelier. He believes that "if as a consequence of the ruling, Google slims down the carousel usage, then the consumer loses out”. 

So what is the solution?

Nobody is disputing that Google is and will continue to be a major innovator in travel but maybe the carousel could be used more fairly. Back in April in an EyeforTravel story titled Dear Google, lend us the travel industry your ears, please we suggested this giant of search “may well be thinking through ways to work with intermediaries that allows them to participate in new models, as they have with hotels”. 

One option, the story continued, would be for the ‘Google Results’ that currently appear at the top of the page to be a blended result of direct supply from hotels, airlines and so on, as well as from OTAs and metasearch engines. With travel intermediaries strong brand clout, along with the push to become more consumer focused, EyeforTravel argued that this model could continue to be a win–win for all.

At the time, one senior executive said he was sceptical but maybe he was wrong. With people like Healy calling for a dedicated travel industry council with teeth, and regulators on high alert, the pressure on Google is rising. Maybe now Google will acknowledge that it’s time to let all riders in travel enjoy the carousel.

Join us at one of our upcoming events to hear more from senior executives like Healy and learn how to succeed in the turbulent and competitive travel industry 

Hotel metasearch trivago receives 1.4 billion visits each year. “That’s an incredible amount of traffic,” says Daniel Holl, Head of Global Hotel Sales at trivago, who believes more travellers than ever are turning to metasearch when searching for hotels.

Last week Expedia, which owns a 63% stake in trivago, released its second-quarter results and it seems the trajectory for this hotel meta, which went public in 2016, is an upward one. Revenues have risen across all regions, and growth this quarter is up 64%. The company, which Expedia acquired a stake in in 2013, has expanded its product portfolio to compare over 1.4 million hotels in over 190 countries.   

In a press statement, the company’s CFO Axel Hefer said he is expecting “annual revenue growth to be around 50% in 2017, with our adjusted EBITDA* margin likely to be up slightly from 2016."

Holl will be speaking at EyeforTravel North America later this year about how to drive direct bookings in a hyper-competitive environment. Ahead of the event, he outlined five things that he has come to know. 

1.  In this environment, you need to act on data, not intuition

According to Holl, trivago “lives a ‘test and learn’ philosophy driven by entrepreneurial passion. We act on data, not intuition, which has allowed us to have a big and immediate impact.”

“In this industry,” he continues, “you need to be agile in reacting to the ever-changing behaviour of consumers. And what consumers want, is diverse choice and full market transparency, and they want to see all their options in one place.”

trivago’s approach to being agile and data driven when reacting to changes in consumer behaviour is one that embraces trial and error.

“If we aren’t making mistakes then we aren’t trying anything new and, what’s worse, we’re not learning. We apply this philosophy to everything we do across all departments, whether we’re testing a new feature or TV ads.  And with our chain partners, we do the same. We’re always keen to try things on a small scale, and this makes us agile in our decision-making and with our partnerships,” he says.

2.  The lines between meta and OTA may be blurring, but not for trivago

“If the traveller believes they’ve booked on trivago, instead of on an OTA or directly with the hotel, then we’ve done something wrong,” says Holl.

Speaking about advertising, trivago spends more than any other online travel company on TV marketing — more than three times more than TripAdvisor on US TV advertisements. But by throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at campaigns like the ‘trivago guy’ and ‘trivago girl’ ads, Holl says the company has gone out of its way to explain hotel metasearch and its advantages — transparency of the hotel market, more hotels to choose from, more availability, better prices, and so on.

Although trivago provides the technology that enables hoteliers to compete for bookings, Holl is clear that “our core responsibility in the traveller’s booking journey is the search stage.” For this reason trivago does not foresee a ‘book on trivago’ option being integrated into the search experience, as “this would only foster confusion for our users”.

While the marketing line is to put the traveller first, trivago must also look after its advertising partners. “For the same reason, our booking funnel provides a strong branding to our advertisers. This sets clear traveller expectations: ‘trivago-hosted but partner-branded,’” says Holl.

Holl is referring to trivago Express Booking — which, when launched, was likened to TripAdvisor Instant Booking or Book on Google, but is in fact positioned close to the hotel’s direct channel. “This is a platform that improves booking conversions for advertisers, so they become more competitive in our CPC auction marketplace,” stresses Holl. “Small and medium-sized OTAs and hotel chains are at a natural disadvantage compared to big OTAs because they have neither the resources nor the data required to build an optimised booking funnel across all devices. To level the playing field on these parameters, we make use of our product engineering competence and big data to build a booking funnel optimised for trivago traffic that helps advertisers turn more ‘lookers into bookers.’”

3.  Having a clear product focus and value proposition means Google and other competitors are less of a direct threat

Across the industry, there is growing concern that the search giant’s move up the trip-planning funnel is a threat, because if a consumer decides to book on Google or TripAdvisor (where you can now book for that matter), then presumably this is diverting traffic away from others like trivago. For Holl, trivago’s unique selling point is aclear product focus: hotel search. “No flights, no car rentals, no confusion for the users. It’s all about hotel price comparison. We’re the only global tech company focusing solely on the vertical of hotel search.”

This is a big advantage for trivago on two levels, explains Holl, because it makes them:

i. Fast internally, because there are no conflicts of interest                                                                                                                                         

ii. Fully dedicated when it comes to developing products that are empowering hoteliers to compete online and travellers to find their ideal hotel

4.  Hotels that invest more time in securing direct bookings have a competitive edge

trivago aims to be the first entry point for travellers searching for their ideal hotel by making all online bookable rates visible. Holl argues that the direct website rates from hotels are particularly valuable, because the traveller can decide whether to book direct or indirect. “There are a big segment of travellers who prefer to book direct if the rate is attractive and the booking journey seamless. So we welcome those hotels and chains that are investing more time and effort into getting direct bookings. The need is already there, so we have fewer discussions about why direct bookings are important and more about how to actually get them,” he says.

We welcome those hotels and chains that are investing more time and effort into getting direct bookings

5.  First and foremost, technology should enhance the guest experience; it should also simplify the hotelier’s life

Independent hotels in particular often face challenges in adopting technology and succeeding on direct marketing channels.

So, the essential question, says Holl, is this: “How can technology simplify the hotelier’s life while enhancing the guest experience they offer and increasing their revenue?”

“After all, the goal of hotel technology is not to monopolise the hotelier’s time and focus, but to empower them to be competitive in the market while keeping their focus on their guests. Marketing a hotel is already extremely complicated, and it’s only becoming more so, with activities such as setting CPCs for different markets, monitoring and allocating budgets, initiating and suspending campaigns, and so on,” he says.

Other questions trivago is attempting to answer with technology are:

i.  How do you make it possible for the hotelier to successfully market their hotel without having studied marketing for years and with very little time and money at their disposal?

ii.  How can you help them simplify and streamline their day-to-day activities?

“That’s what we want to achieve with the technology we provide: marketing made easy,” says Holl. “We’re working on developing the most accessible and effective tools. And by ‘accessible,’ I don’t just mean that it’s affordable, though that is of course important: I also mean that it is tailored and intuitive and requires minimal time and effort to operate.”

Like many online travel firms, trivago offers data services to hotels. Booking.com, for example, has BookingSuite, and trivago has developed a solution called trivago Hotel Manager: a product that makes it easy for a hotel to perform better online. According to Holl, the platform allows hotels to take control of their online hotel profile. “Over 300,000 hoteliers around the world are using it to build unique hotel profiles that stand out in trivago search results. And we see that those hotels receive five times more clicks on their profiles than others. So there’s a direct business impact,” he says.  

Highlighting again the importance of data in the industry, trivago recently announced its new Rates Insights tool, which, as stated on the the trivago Hotel Manager Blog, “grants hoteliers access to an unbiased and comprehensive set of data on market demand and competitor prices […] with a new version of this feature, trivago has made over 5 billion room rates visible to hoteliers around the world.”

Travel brands pour gazillions into tools and technology, but are they getting their message across in the right way? Remember a few years ago when digital experts from Facebook et al were predicting email was on its last legs? We haven’t heard that lately. Email is thriving primarily because companies are endorsing the channel. 

Still, there is a good chance it will come as a shock to find that consumers are most likely to respond to emails! For choice, emails come consistently ahead of direct mail, mobile apps, social media, push notifications or mobile wallets. 

A survey carried out by email marketing group Campaign Monitor found that well over half its respondents checked their emails more than ten times a day. (Campaign Monitor commissioned Market Cube, a research panel company, to conduct an online survey of over a thousand US consumers.)

“It is by far their preferred way to receive updates from brands,” the survey says. No surprise, however, is the finding that millennials are far more likely to take action on an email than any other age group.

Amazon agrees. A survey it carried for smartphones found that when it came to mobile wallets “most (73%) users would prefer to receive items by email sent directly to them…”

Though, as US marketing technology group Acxiom found, “if a message doesn’t look good on their small screens, 70% say they’ll just delete it, while 23% will look at it again on a computer and 16% will unsubscribe.” Only 9% will make the effort to try to read the message on their smartphone.

70% of travellers will delete a message if it doesn’t work for a small screen

For travel and hospitality brands, the preference for emails is particularly marked - at 66% the number is more than twice that for Direct Mail (26%) and Mobile Apps (25%), according to Campaign Monitor. Social Media comes in slightly lower again, at 23%, and mobile wallets bring up the rear at 14%. The preference no doubt reflects the amount of data being conveyed.

Across verticals, the top reasons consumers will open an email from a brand are personalisation and discounts. Consumers are just slightly more inclined to open an email offering a discount (72%) than one with a personalised subject line (62%).

62% of consumers will open an email with a personalised subject (72% for a discount)

Satisfaction with delivery of travel and hospitality brands on the promise of personalised mail was pretty high, at 59%. Yet this lagged retail brands, which scored 76%. When it came to preferences on personalisation, there was not a lot of difference between age groups.

It was another matter with content. Millennials are far more likely to take action on the content of an email. For example, 58% of millennials ‘always’ or ‘most of the time’ donated to a non-profit organisation, while just 18% of those aged over 55 did the same.

On travel, the likelihood of action was highest by far with under 35s (50%), compared to 35-54-year olds (27 percent) or those 55-plus (15 percent).

Response to the offer of a discount was again much higher for retail brands (72%) than travel and hospitality (58%).

Yet, says Acxiom, don’t forget ‘relevance’ - it goes hand in hand with discounts for influencing purchase decisions. This is a message well understood - hence the omni-present quest by brands to collect data!

Join us at one of our upcoming events in North America or Europe to hear more about how to apply marketing techniques for a competitive online travel industry

Jim Brody is passionate about destination marketing. “I love working with destinations - I get their passion, their authenticity and even their need to be involved with politics,” he says.

That passion has led to a career in digital travel spanning over 20 years. In the mid 1990s he created one of the first travel content sites - VisitNewEngland.com - in the US for Mystic Media in Connecticut. “This was back in the day when the internet was in HTML 1.0, and marketing people for the region's attractions and big lodgings all thought the entire medium was too grey," he recalls.

Then at Kaboose.com (now part of Disney) he headed up family travel, before joining TripAdvisor where he spent almost eight years setting up an running its destination marketing efforts, first domestically and then internationally. Brief stints followed at Oyster.com and Travelzoo before he launched Sense of Place to work with destination marketing organisations (DMOs) on content strategy.

His latest venture, which is still in beta, is Destination Recommended and comes in response to “speaking to dozens of DMO friends” who told him there was nothing like this. “While there are certainly other sites, like TripTuner, that focus on the top of the funnel, they do it differently, and without any focus on user generated content (UGC) ratings and reviews, and certainly not with a partnership for any destination that wants to participate,” Brody says.

We put some questions to Brody to find out more.

EFT: So what’s the big idea?
JB: I have always wanted to give destinations something to work with that would help all of them - no matter what their size or budget or where they are. The idea is that users will come in and rate and/or review a particular destination overall, as well as specific experiences such as snorkelling, hiking, shopping and so on, in those destinations. Destinations, which are core to this mission, can partner for free - providing content that helps better define that destination, and nudges the interested user further along in the planning cycle. As content volume grows, DMOs will also be able to get some marketing intelligence and data from that content such as:

• Word clouds of review content

• Rankings of different experiences compared to the competitive destination set

• Points of origin for those viewing the content and so on). 

EFT: Who are these destination reviewers?
JB: People who love those destinations for one, people who love travel for another, and people who just like rating stuff. Just like TripAdvisor or Yelp, users who provide the content will be a subset of those looking at it. There is a great intersection of those folks who follow their favourite destinations on social media, so the one thing we are asking DMOs to do is to tell their social networks whenever we feature them. And the content creates an endless number of Top 10 Lists to do just that!

EFT: How does this differ from sites like TripTuner or ArrivalGuides which look pretty slick visually?
JB: TripTuner has a pretty cool widget, and the design is more contemporary, but it completely lacks UGC, so it's utterly different. I think there is certainly room for both, as they look for different users. One user prefers an algorithmic path at the top of the funnel, another user-generated content. Same for ArrivalGuides. In the broadest sense they are competition. Just like Lonely Planet or your favorite travel magazine, they are dependent purely on editorial content, which they offer in the form of pdf downloads. There is no user-generated content, or ratings of any kind, and that's a very big difference.

EFT: You haven't officially launched yet, but can you outline what have you achieved to date, and your next steps?
JB: We went into open beta to begin the process of building audience, user generated content and DMO content partners in mid August. Closed beta (invite only to make sure everything works and the site doesn't break) was the three-week period prior to that. I am in discussions with some larger DMOs to partner for an official launch at one of their events over the next six months. The plan over the next year is to get the ad placements up to kick in revenue, while reaching out to DMOs to grow more partnerships (and therefore more DMO content and more eyeballs for UGC). In addition, we are already growing our own social channels to pull in more consumers, and registered users (over 250 and growing) on DestinationRecommended.com will begin receiving our weekly ‘Destination Inspiration’ email once a week.

EFT: What’s the business model? How are you funded?
JB: Right now I am self-funded. This is a lean and mean effort, but I will be looking for a first round shortly, and will use that to get to as many DMO's as possible to grow traffic. Going forward, I'll let the rest of the industry fund this effort through text link ads on the destination pages that direct people to relevant topics: Where to Stay, How to Get There, What to Do, Where to Eat and Getting Around. The plan is to follow the tried and true method and build traffic, with initial revenue coming through ad network text link placements.

EFT: Do you foresee any difficulty in raising money? 
JB: Raising funding is relatively new, but the media plan is rather tried and true (build solid content, build the audience, then build the revenue) so there should be interest. Needless to say, it will be easier to get funding once the ads are up and whole concept shows solidity. 

EFT: More broadly, what trends are you seeing in destination marketing right now?
JB: Trends for DMOs have a cycle to them (certainly the digital ones). So this year seems to be all about leveraging influencers and live streaming video on social networks. Overall though, in destination marketing there is a trend away from paid media (especially the template-based placements) like banner ads and text links. If you combine their non-profit/government cultures of stretching their funding as far as possible with the naval-gazing, political pressures, and redefinition of goals going on worldwide, this totally makes sense. So if you have redefined yourself as a DMO, you want to spend less on marketing. And if some candidate is running for office pushing the idea that your organisation is irrelevant, you want to be effective as possible for as little expenditure as possible. This was always the drive behind more PR, media placement push and FAM tours (which are all infinitely less expensive than the consumer ads they buy).

Who said the traditional media model is dead?

Certainly, not Holiday Pirates, a sort-of social media driven metasearch for travel deals, which seems to be riding a wave in the travel space that nobody else has yet caught.

“Our model is a bit like traditional media, where journalists write copy that is totally independent of any commercial ads or promotions in the magazine or newspaper,” says David Armstrong, CEO of Holiday Pirates, which launched its first website in Germany in 2011. “It’s more or less the same with our travel hunters and editors – they are really focused on deals and value for money and pay no attention to the commercial deals behind them.”

It seems to be working. Since launching in Germany, Holiday Pirates has accumulated 8.8 million Facebook fans, its app has been downloaded 8 million times, and – wait for it – it has achieved all this without shelling out a penny to Google. Although Armstrong won't share turnover, he says in 2016 they processed transactions to the tune of €258 million.

Today the firm employs 192 people across Europe in the UK, Spain, Italy, France, Austria and Switzerland, to name a few countries; most recently, in 2016, it set sail across the pond to open an office in Boston. “Yes, we’re trying to conquer the US but it’s a slightly bigger task than going into Luxembourg,” says Armstrong.

Standing out

What distinguishes Holiday Pirates from others in the travel ecosystem, be they operators, OTAs or metasearches, is that it does not spend a single pound or Euro on Google ads.

"We only receive Google organic traffic,” says Armstrong, which "is quite different to other travel companies, which have to pour substantial funds into Google but also other types of paid media like TV, to acquire traffic."

Where the company does spend money, however, is on social media advertising, predominantly on Facebook. However, you could hardly call this splashing the cash. “The portion of our paid traffic has been only 7% up until now and that is only through social media,” Armstrong says.

Aside from organic traffic via Google or social media, about 30% recurs through its app, or as a result of CRM initiatives following an email or WhatsApp campaign.

Armstrong admits: “One could argue that okay we are not there yet, and as we get larger and more well-known, we might also have to go and acquire through traditional channels. But we don’t see that happening now nor do we see it in the near future – not at all."

Competition and Captain Content

What about competition; is there any? These questions are followed by a lengthy pause, as if Armstrong can hardly believe that the answer is, in fact, “No”.

There is no competition, he says, because this traditional media mindset makes it difficult for others in the online travel sphere to copy, and be successful. “You really have to a different set up in your organisation, a different mindset to take this non-sales led approach,” he says.

What is fundamental to being successful on social media is that the customer must come first, the business second. “If you don’t keep that in mind, in the first place then the customer will notice very fast that the brand is not authentic, and that you are only trying to sell them something,” he says.

So, what’s the secret? It seems that for Holiday Pirates content really, and truly, is the captain. 

According to Armstrong, their success stems from the uniqueness of the content, and the way it is addressed towards their target group, of which 60-65% fall between the ages of 16 and 40.

“It’s quite a wide target group, but it’s really important that we understand how to approach them, and what wording we use in order to be authentic. This is something we manage to do well,” he says.

'Authenticity', admits Armstrong, is just another one of those industry buzzwords that marketers like to bandy about but if done properly, really does make a difference.

People seem to believe and trust the brand, because of the complete lack of a hard sell

People seem to believe and trust the brand, because of the complete lack of a hard sell.  Instead, the approach is to make recommendations – ‘guys, we found this or that’, ‘take it or leave it’, ‘go check it out but, if not, don’t worry’ are the sort of phrases fans might hear. “We just don’t push things. When we push these messages, people don’t perceive it as a push thing. They see it as a great deal that they want to share,” he says.

The sharing piece is also important so recommendations also need to be 'relevant', another marketing buzzword. But relevance is something the team continues to work on, because people are not only interested in the deals themselves, but like to share them with friends and family – and, it’s this dynamic that drives organic traffic from social media. “People share things and if they see a recommendation from a good friend on Facebook or in a WhatsApp group, then if the person trusts the brand, they will say ‘have a look’,” Armstrong says.

This is backed up by consumer research from Nielsen which finds that 92% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know, and people are four times more likely to buy when referred by a friend. 

With a brand like Expedia or booking.com it’s different, because people know they want to sell you something.

Business model

So what is the business model?

Quite simply Holiday Pirates promotes good deals, found by the ‘editorial’ team, regardless of whether there is a commercial partnership or not. They also publish partner deals – from airlines, OTAs, hotels, metas and so on – but only if they fit the editorial line. 

“Not every deal is ‘awesome’ value for money. So either it’s a good deal or it isn’t. And that’s what we want to promote,” Armstrong stresses.

Not every deal is ‘awesome’ value for money

Holiday Pirates seems to have nailed social media content, which it sees as central to its business model. “We are investing a lot into our own media content but also actively encouraging fans to generate UGC”.

In terms of channels, Facebook is obviously crucial, but sometimes users are overwhelmed with information in the newsfeed and might miss a deal. For this reason, the firm is increasingly focusing its energy on WhatsApp, which it’s pushing strongly, as well as Instagram and SnapChat.

WhatsApp works for a number of reasons including:

• The mechanism of sharing and ‘virality’ is quite similar to Facebook

• Subscribers tend to be heavy users; they don’t want to miss out on anything

• It’s a direct and personal form of communication

Holiday Pirates is also looking at opportunities for Facebook Messenger because with its number of fans pushing 9 million globally, and an ability to reach 500 million users every month its media reach is, as Armstrong puts it “quite something”. 

No understatement there then.

Join us in Amsterdam for Digital Strategies for Europe 2017 (Nov 29-30) where David Armstrong will be speaking on a panel titled David & Goliath: Challenge Monopolies with Digital Partnerships

Luxury consumers spend over six times as much on travel than the average consumer annually, and the trend is for this disparity to widen finds EyeforTravel’s The Global Luxury Travel Consumer report.

The average traveller spends $1,690 a trip, and take around three each year. By contrast, luxury consumers and fork out $5,365 on each journey, and take just over 5.6 trips.

EyeforTravel’s research finds that this gap is more likely to widen than diminish. According to the Knight Frank Wealth Report 2017 the number of high het worth individuals (HNWIs) globally is expected to grow by double digits each year and well into the 2020's, adding millions of luxury consumers into the market. For the travel industry, more good news is that luxury consumers are expected to prioritise experiential spending and put less emphasis on personal goods.

What is more, a survey showed that on average luxury consumers are also planning to take twice as many vacations holiday.

• 16% of luxury travellers report planning 10 or more trips a year

• 75% are planning between five and nine trips in the 12 months

It is clear that consumers are switching more of their discretionary spend into leisure travel. While developed economies are leading this trend, as wealth becomes more widespread emerging markets are playing catch up. The report notes that Chinese luxury consumers are shifting their spending away from shopping and towards activities and accommodation, with a particular focus on adventure and exploration.

High end up

While high-end tours and activities should be one of the primary sectors to benefit, the changing priorities of the luxury traveller means hotels will need to rethink their strategy. Today luxury travellers are now more focused on finding unique accommodation, and so hotels will need to think about character and local activities that can really add something to these consumers’ trips while still continuing to provide high-level service.

“Our research suggests that despite the challenges, it pays to focus on the luxury traveller and not just because they are big spenders,” says Alex Hadwick, Head of Research at EyeforTravel. Indeed, luxury travellers are trendsetters and are an indication of where the market might head in the future. 

“The luxury traveller is at the forefront of a number of trends, including rising disposable income, a focus on the experience, growing smartphone usage in the travel research and booking process.”

With spend on travel rising in this segment there is clearly everything to play for.

Become a member of EyeforTravel On Demand now and access the full report, which includes:

• Country analysis of the major luxury travel markets in Europe, North America, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East, covering both developed and emerging economies.

• Unique proprietary data based on more than 2,000 luxury travel consumers.

• Behavioral analysis of luxury travellers, including lead times, device usage, booking patterns, and spending habits. 

• Major trends and developments in the luxury travel market.

• Data taken and analysed from nearly 100 different sources.

New dynamics are entering the cruise market, both in terms of players and marketing. They could dislodge the supremacy of the Caribbean and US Gulf coast trade. ‘Cruise’ is already no longer synonymous with these coasts or major Mediterranean ports

It is too early to take the full measure of long-term damage from the terrible 2017 hurricane season, (though much of the Caribbean escaped and much is already up-and-running). Yet, one certainty is that brutal storms with torrential rain are likely to become more frequent along the coasts of the southern US and the Caribbean. That is the forecast of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, among many others.

Key question now is: Will this enhance the competing appeal of Asia’s burgeoning cruise businesses and the new super-luxury ships plying the coasts of Europe and North America? For sure, there will be many future commercial opportunities that are cruise and Asia linked.

There is so much potential – Asia is nowhere near the 11 million-plus of Americans who cruise every year, around 3.1 million doing so in 2016.  Plus there are so many beautiful destinations. There is a long way to go to dislodge the traditional markets’ dominance, but by 2030 is China expected to top the cruise tables.

The Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) has been “astonished by Asia’s rate of growth”. China’s largest travel agent, Ctrip.com, forecasts country cruise market expansion of 30% this year. 

This is down not just to Asia’s riches. As Helge Hermunsgard of Global Cruise Centre at DNV GL Maritime told shipping news website ship-technology.com, the ships are there: “The thing that really accelerated it all is the cruise liners coming in and launching new brands.”

This looks like an Armada! Carnival is already there, with Princess Cruises. It has debuted a ship especially for the China market and is building a multi-ship domestic cruise brand. Costa first went there in 2006. Royal Caribbean has announced that Ovation of the Seas, one of the world’s largest cruise ships, will homeport in China. Mediterranean Shipping is deploying a second ship from next year. Norwegian Cruise is also launching.

The first made-in-China cruise ship is being built in Shanghai for delivery in 2023, followed by a delivery rate of one vessel per year between 2024 and 2028. These figures come from the JV built them, China State Shipbuilding and Italy’s Fincantieri (the world’s largest cruise ship builder.)

China is now the world’s second largest cruise market, with 927 cruise ships last year calling into 11 of the country’s cruise ports

China is now the world’s second largest cruise market, with 927 cruise ships last year calling into 11 of the country’s cruise ports. This year has been forecast by China Cruise & Yacht Industry Association executive vice-chairman Zheng Weihang to be start of a “golden decade” for China’s cruise industry. The gain last year in trips to home ports of 93% to 4.29 million makes it look as the boom times have already begun! The region has plenty of appeal! Taking Asia as a whole, there are 204 destinations in 17 countries.

Turning heads

First-time cruisers are a major target of another new industry development, this time mainly in Europe, North America and the Southern Pacific. In an industry-first brand extension, Ritz-Carlton is bringing disruption with a sea-faring expansion and marketing has begun. As part of the newly minted Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection, the five-star hotel brand is launching short cruises on small, ultra-luxury ships, starting in late 2019.

The vessels could cost around $200 million each and carry around 298 passengers in 149 suites. “We are designing these ships to turn heads,” says Fredrik Johansson, owner and executive project director of designers Tillberg Design of Sweden. Hence references to Maserati – the look will be long, slender and elegant, sized to be able to slip into small, pretty ports– and stunning inside.

The pitch is: enormous state rooms, luxury apartments with verandas in every room, longer stays, with local chefs and rare local wines, local artists, dignitaries, etc! According to MD of the Yacht Collection, Douglas Prothero, in an interview with news agency Bloomberg, key target markets are young high-net-worth cruise sceptics and other burgeoning groups such as Chinese and Japanese travellers.

Key target markets are young high-net-worth cruise sceptics and other burgeoning groups such as Chinese and Japanese travellers

And Ritz-Carlton is bringing with it all its well-honed marketing ploys – the yacht collection will probably have its own unique loyalty programme, but with guests points linked to their Marriott Rewards or Starwood Preferred Guest status. Though, the word is, Marriott Rewards is likely to be a perk of sailing with the Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection.

With occupancy in cruise ships averaging 86-90% compared to 78% across Ritz-Carlton hotels last year, according to Bloomberg, this diversification makes good sense. Ritz-Carlton has already moved into branded residences and six-star resorts.

Cruise, meanwhile, grows steadily, around 26 million passengers expected to travel this year, up from 19 million in 2010. Scope for more growth is huge – the fleet will grow by 50% in the next ten years, according to Maritime News. Its travel agent member numbers, says the CLIA, have doubled in ten years to involve 25,000.

Marketing is becoming slicker. Wall Street leisure market analysts at Zacks Investment Research note Carnival’s efforts in particular, with the launch of the “industry’s first interactive guest experience platform – Ocean Medallion.” Carnival is also lauded for putting in place a yield management system which has begun to drive incremental revenue growth.

What with hurricanes and earthquakes, it has been a terrible summer for the cruise industry. Yet, what has been impressive is that, helped by local communities to whom tourism is vital, is, as said at a Carnival’s press conference, the industry’s “ability to bounce back”.

Getting the look and feel, tone of voice and aesthetic for the Chinese market has been a top priority for Eurail.com since it launched there five years ago, and earlier this week it was rewarded for its efforts.

The Utrecht-based company, that sells rail passes for Europe online, was one of five international companies chosen to make a presentation in the closing ten minutes of Double 11. Also known as Singles Day, Double 11, which takes place on November 11 – hence the name – is the annual online shopping bonanza hosted by Chinese e-conglomerate Alibaba.

In 2015, Eurail.com became the first European company to launch a flagship store on Fliggy, Alibaba’s online travel platform, and its presence in China continues to grow. Today Eurail.com also uses popular Chinese social media channels, such as Aliwangwang (an Alibaba messenger service), Weibo (the Chinese version of Twitter), and Youku (the Chinese version of Youtube) for customer contact and marketing activities.

In 2015, Eurail.com became the first European company to launch a flagship store on Fliggy

CEO Brenda van Leeuwen, says participating in the Double 11 spectacle was an important milestone in the company’s cooperation with Fliggy. “Tens of thousands of Chinese tourists have already discovered Europe thanks to our web shop. This number keeps on growing, especially since more and more Chinese tourists decide to travel independently instead of with a group.”

Her point is backed up by EyeforTravel’s China Travel Consumer Report 2017-18 which finds that 58% of outbound tourists booking via Ctrip were independent travellers in the first half of 2017, versus 42% booking a package tour.

Global coverage

It was Chinese speaker Thom Valks, who is Eurail.com’s customer service coordinator in Utrecht, who took to the stage for what he says was “one of the most amazing experiences of my life”.

From a brand awareness point of view, this was certainly an amazing opportunity. According to Valks, Eurail.com’s closing presentation, made shortly before Alibaba announced the day’s takings, was viewed on YouKu by approximately 50 million people worldwide!

Although the accuracy of the numbers has been queried, sales this year are said to have reached £14bn, a rise of 32% on last year. Also worth noting is that 82% of sales were made via smartphone.

Earlier in the day, the televised gala was kicked off with performances by One Republic and appearances by basketball legend Kobe Bryant, English footballer David Beckham and his wife, the singer-designer Victoria Beckham.

Join us at EyeforTravel Europe 2018 where we will be hearing more about how European rail companies can make headway both at home and beyond