A travel website with up to 12,500 unique visitors a month with good business turnover in a niche market. Should they consider adsense or will it devalue the niche that they maintain? In the title I say 'Proper'. This site is a successful business with a vast client base and is NOT an information or 'site for adsense' travel website. Does Adsense make a website look 'cheap' to visitors? Interested in your thoughts!
Yes, Adsense will make the site look cheap - no getting away from it. It will make your customers look at your site and think that your company can't make a profit from it's core business and so has to resort to selling advertising. I have advised a number of my clients 'not' to place adsense on their sites because of this.
the adsense will certainly drive some customers away. i'd suggest starting another site that will address same niche and will generate profit with the help of different programs.
I guess it would depend on how many of those 12,500 uniques are converting to sales. If the current conversion rate is fairly low then Adsense may actually increase income for the site. I'd say that doing some split testing would be the way to go. You could easily see within a week if it works for the site or not.
Depends what your focus is. If your focus is on being dominant in your niche then don't add it. If your only interest is making money then perhaps test and see if it does provide additional income.