Hi Recently started a Travel website that uses a Booking engine (from a major travel affiliate owner) for hotels, tickets, tours and all travel-related stuff. In terms of marketing/promotion, Spent a bit on Adwords to promote. Did Press releases, some articles, some promo in forums etc In 1st mth, had quite a number of bookings but now in 2nd mth, zero booking... Did some research and looked at top sites like www.expedia.com and www.travelocity.com but I see that they basically have same stuff as my site. So my guess is they spend huge $$$ on marketing/ PPC (I see them using Google Adwords a lot when I do search on travel in Google). I don't see them going the "content" method of putting unique content. Now for a small timer like me, I don't have their budget so I probably have to use unique "content" to differentiate. Questions: 1) Do travellers do for content in a sit that makes them stay and book? If so, what type of content? Travel forum & blogs are very time consuming. Would putting a Travel forum and blogs help convert visitors to bookers? IMHO, I doubt travel forums, blogs help as those users already have their own favorite booking sites to use. 2) Should I focus on shopping factors like price, network of hotels, tickets etc.? 3) Or Online travel business is too competitive, there is no $$ to be made and I should just quit? Would appreciate if any1 here with experience with travel sites can give some comments. Thanks.
You've picked a super saturated market, at least from what I've seen, and I've been into pseudo-travel sites for a while now. I can imagine it will not be an easy battle. 1. Travellers tend to book whatever is cheapest unless they're going for a niche or unique service/product. So perhaps you could focus your content on that. Also they tend to go with sites that offer reviews of the services like Venere.com or hotelclub.net or booking.com. 2. Not sure about that one, but like I said, price matters a lot, which makes the normal affiliate programs less advantageous. 3. It's extremely competitive, but with a unique idea you might still get somewhere. All IMHO. Good luck!
Personally, I will research my trips using all types of different sites. But in the end, I will either book directly through the hotel or one of the major travel sites (Expedia, Orbitz, etc). You may look at the Trip Advisor affiliate program. Their program is based on a using going from your site to theirs, then clicking on one of their ads.
Hmmm.... On G, Expedia has only 30 http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=links%3Aexpedia.com Travelocity only has 2 http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=links%3Atravelocity.com&btnG=Search Orbitz has 0 http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=links%3Aorbitz.com
thanks, price does make the affiliate programs less attractive. I see successful sites like www.asiarooms.com www.precisionreservations.com going direct to hotels instead of affiliate programs but I suppose they have the huge resources and budget
Very interesting, as I'm also a new member of the travel niche webmaster club. Your first post asks all the same questions I've had as well. I do think that in my case, I'll be looking to do something unique. Merely slapping affiliate booking boxes and Adsense units on a page obviously isn't going to cut the mustard. Folks like Trip Advisor have probably got budgets most of us can't come close to matching. That leaves "Unique" for the bottom dwellers...like me. Not sure I really want to go the Web 2.0 route and offer review submissions and the like. Seems to me there are enough already out there holding firm at the top of the heap. The forum and blog approach can work simply because it may be our only option at this point. Oh- and remember.....controversey sells. = )