In a fascinating article published online in August 2006, recent online trends were revealed regarding how hospitality and travel firms are using web marketing effectively. The organization that conducted this study, A Couple of Chicks Marketing, surveyed over 250 hospitality industry professionals to gain a benchmark on tourism marketing and search web trends in 2007.
With respect to search engine efforts, it appears that the hospitality professionals surveyed indicated that Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing are where they are right now. However, it appears that most professionals aren’t happy with their efforts or with the results. Forty-four percent of the respondents indicated that their websites were at least five years old. Thirty percent indicated their sites were less than one year old. Based on trends observed in the survey conducted by A Couple of Chicks Marketing, most people believed that they would redesign their websites within six months, which leads them to think that websites are becoming expendable and generating a short lifespan.
Search Engine Advertising/Pay-per-click seems to yield better results, with 73 percent of respondents indicating that they’ve found 5 to 10 keywords for organic or paid search results and that 89 percent knew that their three closest competitors were also using those keywords.
Interesting news was regarding online marketing budgets, and 14 percent indicated that they didn’t even have an online marketing budget. 49.1 percent responded that 1 to 10 percent of their marketing budget was reserved for online efforts. According to the article:
“The challenge in this is we hear clients saying they are frustrated that they have no money or very little to invest in their online efforts. They need guidance on where to spend those coveted dollars in order to see the most bang for their buck. It’s discouraging to see clients spend an enormous amount of money on a print ad in a local paper that is a perishable investment and immediately disappears. The investments you make in marketing your tourism product online can stay on the web forever.”
The article advises that banner ads, paid listings, and pay-per-click advertising should be included in online marketing budgets. Check back to this website to read the next part, where they mention their findings in benchmarketing web trends.
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