If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Our clients in the hospitality industry ask us for advice regarding solicitations they’ve received from various online travel directories. Often, they’ve never even heard of the directory - sometimes, neither have we. With the large number of travel and toursim directories being launched every week, it’s hardly surprising to run into one you’re not familiar with. When confronted with a website that has little history and a lot of question marks, the average business owner gives a shrug of the shoulders, a click of the mouse, and the “evil” solicitation is banned forever to the giant trashcan in cyberspace.

That could be a mistake. Usually when we think of travel directories, we picture large, mature websites with listings for several hundred or even thousands of properties - like our friends, BedandBreakfast.com and ResortsandLodges.com. But not so long ago, these big travel directories were infants in the industry, too, with nothing but plans and potential. They had to work their way up the ladder just like everyone else. With the increasing popularity of online shopping and travel planning, more competitors are entering the mix, and new directories don’t quite create the same splash as they did in the past. However, there are still opportunities within those markets; there are also smaller niches that haven’t even been tapped into yet. General Managers and Innkeepers who keep their eye on youthful travel and lodging sites that have promise often benefit from utilizing them before some of their competitors even know they exist… in some cases, well before.

Recently, a couple of travel directories caught my attention while idly surfing around on the internet. The first, FreshStay.com, was just launched in January 2006, and features lodging properties that do not allow smoking anywhere within the building, including private guest rooms. The second, LastMinute.com (U.S.), provides procrastinating planners with an easy venue to search and book their vacations just hours before they’re due to leave. Both are newer directories that are not yet firmly established. At this moment, all they have is potential - and potential, we all know, does not always come to fruition. So how can you evaluate some of these newer directories on a continual basis without a large investment of time and effort? What strategy can you use?
A good way to organize your “potentials” is to create folders in your e-mail account or on your desktop in which to store solicitations from lodging directories. You can throw notes from other sources (newspapers, magazines, online articles) in there as well. Create a folder for “Unknowns”, one for those to “Keep an Eye On”, and one for those to “Submit To”. Let them pile up in the “Unknowns” folder for awhile, then set an appointment with yourself to review them. Dedicate a recurring day every month or two to spend the evening doing research on these new travel online directories. It won’t take as long as you may think - many you will reject immediately. Others may already have failed by the time you get to them, and some may have broken links, unorganized and inept navigation, and/or optimization techniques that are spammy or outdated. These can be dismissed quickly and shouldn’t take up much of your time.

When you’ve culled the list to the point where you’re satisfied that the remaining travel websites may have current or future value, begin your research by using the search engines to find information that is already out there about them. This is a simple stratgy to implement: It wouldn’t take you long to discover that FreshStay.com, for example, attracted 200 advertisers in the first two months of its existence, and that submissions are continuing to come in at the rate of five per day. Obviously, a lot of people in the lodging industry believe smoke-free facilities are in demand and that theis particular travel niche is a valid way to reach potential customers. Also, as the owner of a lodging property, it would be hard to ignore a growth rate that impressive in the directory’s infancy. After a few more minutes of research, you could discover that LastMinute.com has been one of the most popular travel and lifestyle websites in Europe for years, and that it was purchased by Travelocity.com in June of 2005, for the United States market. That should immediately tell you that Lastminute.com has a greater likelihood of success than a directory started by an unknown with very little money.

Finding those facts didn’t take much time at all. Here at Blizzard, we do extensive research to evaluate the quality of a website - looking at code, search engine optimization techniques, link reputation, and much more. While it’s probably not feasible for you to do such exhaustive research, even simple research can often help you separate the obvious dogs from those that may rise to the top. Diamonds in the rough may be few and far between, but if you keep at it and evaluate a large percentage of the sales pitches that come your way, you will find directories that you’re interested in. Some you won’t be able to submit to fast enough, some may be put on a back burner to see what happens, and some may be long shots that intrigue you enough to keep an eye on. Regardless, spending just a couple of hours per month can help keep you in the online travel directory game and give you a head-start on your competitors in the hospitality industry.

Matt Creer - Blizzard Internet Marketing, Inc.

 Email This Post |  Print This Post

Categories: Featured Articles, SEM.
Comments RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a comment, or trackback.