Building loyalty with Web 2.0
Web 2.0 is changing the way audiences interact with travel brands. User generated content [UGC] and social network sites such as Flickr, Youtube, and Yahoo Trip Planner are reshaping audience expectations and experiences. The authority figure is no longer the travel agent or the media - it is now the audience. Welcome to Travel 2.0.
In the Travel 2.0 era, the power is shifting.
In a Travel 2.0 environment, travel brands now need to meet and match their online audiences expectations and requirements with appropriate, engaging, entertaining, and targeted experiences.
As the online travel market matures and transforms, audiences are no longer content just to shop for price or read destination information written by marketers. Now more sophisticated online users are looking to connect and share with other travelers and with the content itself.
The Sheraton’s customer travel blog example can be seen as a forerunner in the travel 2.0 online landscape. User generated content in the shape of travel stories is displayed on their website. (Link: Sheraton, http://www.starwoodhotels.com/sheraton/index.html)
An Experience, not a room search.
To meet audience expectations you need to build an experience based upon what they want. Guests are no longer happy to just search for rooms, they want to connect and be connected. Technology is the enabling platform which helps to create this connection and create a rich, dynamic brand experience for your audience.
Loyalty is moving beyond simply branding a card and throwing some enticements or entitlements together. Web 2.0 is not only changing the way consumers communicate but also the way brands communicate.
This article will present a web 2.0 toolkit for building better, deeper loyalty with your customers, based upon 5 new business tools:
1. Blogs
2. Rich Media
3. Social Networks
4. Email Marketing
5. Loyalty Monitoring
Tool 01: Blogs
Some of the very best practices for building loyalty with consumers are through richer communication. Blogs are a front-line tool for instant reach for brand-to-consumer communications. Tools like Blogs present a shift in the service paradigm from purely tactical technologies (call deflection, improving agent productivity) to accommodate more strategic engagements (targeted customer experiences coupled with increased wallet share).
This shift in focus repositions the lens squarely back onto the consumer as a strategy to build more valuable, deeper brand relationships. With this paradigm shift, comes the necessity of a sharper focus upon loyalty: What it consists of and how it can be shaped.
In order to drive tourism, Virginia Beach uses a marketing strategy that depends on directing tourists to their website in the hopes that once they reached this site, they can easily navigate it and be informed. As mentioned in the case study, these website are tailored to specific market segments, like sports enthusiasts, singles, or family units, so that only information that would appeal to them is displayed on the site. (Spiller, 2012,
A loyalty program is best seen by the consumer when benefits are clear, bringing more value than the costs of participation. A membership card could be a relationshi...
We pursue strategic relationships to increase our access to online consumers, to build brand name recognition and to expand the products and services we can provide to o...
One in ten (10%) plans to increase their budget for vacations next year. In addition, adventure travel, such as hiking, kayaking, zip-lining or skiing, is one of the fastest growing forms of travel worldwide and particularly important with emerging outbound markets. “Customers want to do something different and have more unique experiences when they travel. They want up-close and personal experiences, whether that is through food, culture, activities, or all of the above,” said Lesley Egbert, owner of Live Longitude, LLC, an independent agency in the Avoya Travel Network, in Helena,
From being able to book online to social media being free advertisement, the Internet has taken traveling to a whole level. Travelweb.com emerged in 1994 as the first comprehensive catalogue of hotel properties around the world. Booking capabilities were added a short time later. In 1996, still popular Expedia.com was launched and its website offered online bookings for hotels, air and car rentals all in one. Later in 1996, a site known as Travelocity was launched. The Internet allows consumers to search, buy and share destinations in the touch of a button. New opportunities emerged to provide travelers with more information about hotels they were booking as the development of the Internet accelerated. The Internet has had many affects on the travel agent. Closure of many small agencies, tour operators merging, the web being easier to search for holidays and quicker to book are just a few ways the travel agent has been affected by the introduction of the internet. Though the Internet did, at first, somewhat replace the travel agent, agencies have found ways to grow with the
The Singapore tourism board is adopting increased use of technology to entice tourists. The stakeholders involved in the action include the Singapore government, the Singapore tourism board, the investors included and the event planners and managers who will gain from the increased traffic. The action is planned to take place starting from the marina sands bay which is one of the country’s best event venue. The adoption of technology will involve setting up teleconferencing facilities, increasing their online presence to attract customers and the use of social media would also allow them to respond faster to customer queries thus improving customer service.
Travel Today will express through brochures, pictures and promotional material through the media the quality of the vacation packages offered. The clientele being targeted are individuals looking for an exceptional and exciting one-of-a-kind vacation experience one filled with luxuries and top notch service. Travel Today listens to the traveler in order to custom tailor your travel requirements to fit your needs.
Customer loyalty is a behavioural state, which reflects value, confidence and commitment between the supplier-customer relationships (Buttler, 2002). Hence, developing a strategy that would retain and boost loyalty from customer has become the objective of most companies nowadays (Duffy, 2003). Many see it as primarily an attitude-based phenomenon; therefore, offering customer relationship management initiatives such as customer loyalty programs can be significantly influenced by it (Uncles, 2003).
The survey shows that those customers who had been given the opportunity to customize a product online engaged more actively with the company. They visited the company’s website more often, stayed longer on the page and exhibited more loyalty to the brand (see Figure 1). In footwear, the research indicates that customers who designed their own shoes gave companies a 50% higher Net Promoter Score, which is a standard way of measuring customer loyalty, than customers who purchased regular products. Higher NPS refers to higher sales, referrals and lifetime customer
Traditionally, tour operators tend to pre-reserve or pre-purchase combinations of transport and accommodation services to integrate them into standardized “inclusive tours” or “holiday packages”, distribute them through brochures displayed in travel agencies and sell them at inclusive prices. (Buhalis, D, 1998). But as tourists become sophisticated and more demanding, they seek high quality products and value for their money. Thus, in order to satisfy tourism demand the Twenty First Century has produced an explosion in visual and electronic communication which is more interactively user-friendly, accurate and reliable. The tour operators’ web sites offer correct products, priced effectively and promoted efficiently thus leading to alleviated customer satisfaction.
The leisure travel business is also changing evidenced by the following comment, "hotel products competing in the same segment are becoming indistinguishable in the customers' eyes" (Wyndham International: Fostering High Touch with High Tech, p. 7). There has been a tendency towards increasing competitiveness in the industry focu...
It’s essential that companies or businesses today listen to their customers. No company or business today can afford to disregard the importance of customer satisfaction and loyalty. Aren’t they the same thing? No, they are absolutely not and they are enormously different. “Customer satisfaction is a self-reported measure of how much customers ‘likes' a company and how happy they are with goods purchased or services obtained from the company. Customer loyalty, on the other hand, is a company-calculated metric of likelihood to purchase again or not defect to a competitor” (Klein, 2013).
McCarthy, L., Stock, D., & Verma, R. (2010). How travelers use online and social media channels to make hotel-choice decisions [Electronic article]. Cornell Hospitality Report, 10(18), 6-18.
In the business word it is very critical that companies are using all of the resources available so that they can be as profitable as possible. When it comes to making travel plans for the company, using online resources instead of a travel agencies is now the more profitable option. Business travel is growing more and more every year as stated by McLaughlin (1995), “American Express Travel Services estimates that in 1994 U.S. companies spent $136 billion in travel, or an average of more than $3000 per employee -- three times what they did a decade ago” (p.1). Utilizing these resources will be way more effective and time saving.
Lawfer, M., R. (2004). Why customer come back: how to create lasting customer loyalty. United State of America: Career Press.