The # 1 Online Travel Myth: The number of online travel buyers in the U.S. is declining.

In fact, that number is on the rise, as documented in The PhoCusWright Consumer Travel Trends Tenth Edition recently published by the travel industry research firm PhoCusWright Inc. PhoCusWright debunked five online travel myths at its first-ever Analyst Forum, held September 10 in New York City.

In 2007, approximately 70% of online travelers (that is, adults who have taken a commercial air trip and stayed at a hotel for leisure in the past year, and used the Internet in the past 30 days) bought travel online, compared to 63% in 2006.

In addition to the misconception that online travel buyers are declining, The PhoCusWright Analyst Forum corrected these five other online travel myths:

Online Travel Industry Myth #2. More and more online travel shoppers use supplier sites than online travel agencies. While this belief is widespread in the travel industry, it is simply untrue. In terms of popularity, online travel agencies are making a comeback.

Online Travel Industry Myth #3. Travel agencies are experiencing a resurgence as travelers return to traditional purchasing channels. Not so. In reality, even many formerly exclusive offline buyers are migrating online for travel shopping and buying, according to CTTS10.

Online Travel Industry Myth #4. The next generation of travelers prefers to do everything online. The truth is, less than half of what 18-28 year olds spend on travel is spent online, according to The NEXTgen Traveler™ report, jointly published by PhoCusWright and Y partnership.

Online Travel Industry Myth #5. Social networks and travel reviews have the greatest influence on travel decision-making. The NEXTgen Traveler™ report reveals that while social media is widespread, destination Web sites and online travel agencies are favored by nearly half of next generation travelers during the travel shopping process.

Online Travel Industry Myth #6. Online travel markets need high credit card and Internet penetration to succeed. The structure and ambitions of the travel marketplace are even more important drivers than infrastructure. Case in point is India, one of the most dynamic online travel marketplaces today, where roughly 98% of the India population do not use credit cards or have access to the Internet.

“Nobody wants to make strategic errors based on bad information,” said Lorraine Sileo, vice president, research for PhoCusWright. “Through this Analyst Forum, we were able to educate attendees about online travel myths and the realities in consumer behavior and to paint a picture of the new distribution landscape so that they can better assess their channel.

With the economy in the dumps and everyone tightening up the grip on their wallet, everyone is looking for cheaper alternatives of everything from gas, to food, to day-to-day luxuries.  But what impact will the slumping economy have on the online marketing arena?  Your initial thought may be to cut your marketing costs and spend less online..  Ah…but what you may not realize is that with everyone scrambling to search for alternatives, consumers have been and will continue to dig deeper into search engines to find the best option.  So my first point, do not pull away from search (both organic and paid).  I firmly believe that you will see the number of searches continue to rise over the coming months as the economic situation becomes more of an issue. 

That being said you must also consider the fact that Google now employ an algorithm that will index blogs, videos, images, maps, books, and websites known as Universal Search.  Simply put this means that while natural search listing from SEO will continue to have high visibility within search engines (when executed properly of course) listing from social media have been and will continue to have short-lived bursts into the page 1 results.

Now then, I know not everyone has either the skill set or the budget to optimize their website…so what’s the alternative??  Well since you asked so nicely…why not consider the possibilities of social media?  I have only written a few posts so far and you may be catching on to the notion that I love social media!  There are several reasons for this, it’s an economically viable marketing tool, it allows businesses to connect to their end user in a meaningful way, it offers immediate and unfiltered feedback, and above all….it’s interesting!  You can learn more about your consumers from one successfully executed social media campaign, than from a full year of analytics and metrics based on just your site activity.  Let’s look more closely at some of the reasons to invest in social media in some more detail shall we.

1)    Economically Viable ( Less Cash! )

To answer the obvious question, NO, running a social media campaign will not be free.  Social media campaigns can cost less when compared to more traditional online marketing methods, but keep in mind social media takes an increased level of participation and maintenance (someone has to continue the conversation!).  The vast majority of social media sites (whether they are video syndication, communities, news, etc.) are free of charge to sign up and participate, but it is very important not to spread yourself too thin.  Fewer targeted social media avenues will show more benefit as opposed to trying to create a presence on every social media site on the web (unless of course you have a team that is large and dedicated enough…but again….this will increase cost).

2)    Connecting to Your End User

With most online marketing strategies, the idea is to create an effective message that will grab someone’s attention and hope that it keeps them coming back.  For example, when creating a PPC campaign, you rely on the effectiveness of selected keywords and the wording of your ads to draw in visitors and then your website must finish the job by delivering on what the user was looking for.  Now I am not saying that this system does not work because when done correctly, PPC is extremely effective….however it can become very costly.  With social media you have much more control of how your message is perceived because you are given a direct line of contact to your target market.  Whether you are using Twitter, participating in communities like Facebook or MySpace, or posting the latest updates to your company blog…YOU have complete control over the message and are able to participate in a conversation of sorts with those members who are active.  Again, from a cost perspective, it will take more hours of labor to participate properly with social media but if you have suitable system in place it will become extremely efficient.

3)    Immediate and Unfiltered Feedback

Because of the conversational aspect of social media you are able to receive immediate and unfiltered feedback.  This may be one of the most beneficial reasons to use social media.  With other forms of marketing and advertising you may spend weeks or months (or sometimes even longer!) gathering data to analyze so that you can figure out just what your users think about your company and your services/offerings.  Interpreting and responding to feedback can sometimes be one of the more difficult tasks for firms as it is not always positive.  Naturally a positive comment or post in one of your social media platforms will always be the most beneficial, but do not just ignore negative feedback as this is a perfect opportunity to dispel misconceptions and show them that you care about their opinion.  From a financial aspect, think about how much you would save if you were able to make strategic decisions based on actual conversations and feedback you received from your target market over the course of a month as opposed to gathering site metrics over the same time frame where you will then have to organize, analyze, and discuss the results before any decisions can be made.  As an internet marketer I will NEVER tell you to discard site metrics however they may be able to play more of a supplemental role with an effective social media campaign.

To summarize, do not abandon SEO as it should still be looked at as the building blocks of a fundamentally sound website.  Social media, while it can more time and effort to be done correctly can offer benefits above and beyond those of typical online marketing methods.  Financially, social media is an attractive option if you are able to strategize properly.  If you were to just jump in the social media ocean with no direction you could easily over spend without seeing results.  For more information on social media feel free to contact us here at info@propelmedia.com (shameless plug).  More to come!

I figured today it would be good to pick up where we left off with my last post…social media.  If you have not heard the term over a million times by now you may want to check your surroundings…because you may be living under a rock (and I’ll refer you here).  So social media, for many of us it has become second nature as we participate in our social communities, send out a new twitter every other minute, post our latest vacation pictures to Flickr, or read our favorite blogs.   But what about the business world, how are they using social media? 

In the recent past I had the pleasure to work on a social media venture that explored many different facets of the social media marketing spectrum.  Our client, a major tourist attraction site, was interested in boosting attendance and engaging tourists who visited in a unique way. 

In order to give this project wings we needed to leverage a few different tools.  Our team was able to take a map of the Earth and manipulate the API of Flickr to create an interactive map that allows participants from around the world to post pictures and stories of their visit to the Tourist Attraction.  We created a group for members to join and interact with each other (using the provided message board) on Flickr.  To bring in members we used both online and offline marketing to promote the project.

One of the primary methods of promotion was the use of social news sites (digg, reddit, newsvine, mixx, etc.).  Typical advertising and marketing methods should definitely not be sidelined (yet), but if you are not using social media as a marketing tool, feel free to jump on the bandwagon anytime now.  A successful social media marketing effort can return very nice results (see chart below)

After only one month of launching the project, we had over 300 members who had posted over 800 photos.  The project was also very successful in bringing new visitors to the Tourist Attraction to take their own pictures and participate in the project.

In order to track the buzz we used Google Alerts to assist us in catching blog posts written about the project so that we could participate in the conversation and dispel any misconceptions that people may have about it.  This proved to be extremely effective and offered us a level of visibility that we may not have received had we not monitored the blogoshere.  This is just a taste of what is possible with social media and I would love to hear some ideas about what you think and what you might have done differently!  Feel free to chime in and there is most definitely more to come…

The wildly popular new internet browser released by Google, Chrome, was able to gain 1% of browser market share in its first day alone (as noted by data from Market Share).  It is common knowledge that Google essentially dominates the search market with their wide array of tools and programs, oh right…and their nearly 70% market share of web searches.  But with Chromes release to the masses, a few questions arose, mainly, how will this new browsers functionality affect search? 

One of the main features of Chrome is its omnibox, which makes recommendations for the user based on favorites, popular web pages, and most recently visited pages.  While this feature is extremely helpful and speeds up the search process, how will it affect natural search and PPC?  I do not believe that the omnibox will have much of an impact on natural search as users will more than likely still  be directed to Google search results the majority of the time (unless of course they are going directly to a URL).  Pay-per-click on the other hand, I believe will take more of a hit.  As it stands now, paid listings in Google only receive roughly 25% of the clicks (where the other 75% are for the natural listings).  With users having their results targeted and displayed for them before they even reach the search listings, paid/sponsored listings will receive less impressions, which will result in less clicks, and ultimately less conversions for those who are not ranking well naturally.

There are a few things to consider…first of course; this is all speculation on my part.  Second, Google Chrome only has a small portion of the market share, and we have seen how long it takes even for the best browsers to gain market share (Firefox…you deserve more).  Lastly, just because one form of advertising/marketing takes a hit does not mean there are not plenty of other EXTREMELY viable avenues to consider *wink**wink* SOCIAL MEDIA *wink* wink*.  I say this because yes…Chrome obviously uses Google’s algorithm for universal search (indexes blogs, forums, videos, etc.)…just sayin….but that will be for another conversation!

As the browser wars rage on and valiant warriors begin to fall (ahem IE6), who will rise up?  Will it be Firefox, IE7 (or even soon to be IE8), Safari, Opera, Flock, or one of the many other options.  Or will it be Google’s newest addition to its laundry list of popular tools; Google Chrome was released to the public in its first beta form yesterday afternoon.  The new powerful browser comes packed with so many new and exciting features they use a 38 page comic book to describe them all.  The goal with this new browser was to release a faster, more stable, more secure browser that will improve the online user experience.  One of the new features you will notice is what they are referring to as the “omnibox”.  This tool, which looks similar to the standard URL box, offers suggestions for searches, top pages you have visited, and top pages you may want to visit (similar to the feature added to the latest release of Mozilla Firefox).  You should also check out the new “Tab Page” feature, which occurs when you open a new tab…and instead of seeing just a blank page, you are brought to a page that lists your nine most visited pages.  Oh…and for the developers, Chrome is an open source browser, and Google welcomes other browser developers to “take what they want out of it”.

I have been using Chrome for the past several hours and so far, the efficient and clean look and feel has stolen my attention away from my usual favorite, Firefox 3.  Time will tell how this browser will hold up against the rest of the pack, and this is only the beta.