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How-To Grab Prospects Fast & Sell More Travel
Good news. I am going to share with you how to grab prospects
attention and sell more trips. If your site achieves all these
goals, then the prospects that have visited your site will be
more excited, motivated, qualified, informed and much closer
to giving you a booking or visiting your country.
This
article is not about web design and layout theory, but why the
written word and consumer psychology is a prime factor in influencing
arrivals and sales.
Create a Desire To Visit Your Destination or Travel With Your Company
 Prospective
travelers may or may not choose to visit your destination
based on what they read on your web site – usually just your
home page.
If
you read the article Tourist
Safety and Security then you know how crucial it is to
first communicate to prospective travelers that your destination
and/or tour is a safe, secure and fun place to visit. With so
many global destination choices online and so much international
turmoil, you MUST communicate clearly and quickly it is a safe
and fun destination quickly.
The best place to first communicate your safety, security, and experience, is on your home page, not buried deep in your site.
When someone first comes to your tourism web site, you literally
have five to fifteen seconds to grab their interest
and compel them to want to know more about your destination,
tours, etc. If you don’t grab them on your home page,
they are gone. Those prospective tourists are back to surfing
the web, seeking out a more interesting, compelling travel web site and vacation destination.
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What Would 40,
80, 500 or More
New Bookings Be
Worth To
You?
Find Out How You
Can Increase
Your Sales and
Arrivals Without
Spending More
Money
Learn How Here
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Here’s The Proof On Travel Web Site Visitors - Length of Visit
If
you look at your log report, (the statistical report that your
internet service provider should make accessible to you) that
monitors your web visitors activity, i.e. pages visited, length
of time on your site, key words used to find your site, etc.,
you may notice that the majority of visitors stay less then
a minute. On a poorly written and designed web site, often less
then fifteen seconds. So grabbing their attention and motivating
them to want to know more is your first obstacle and opportunity.
Testimonials and photos of happy tourist are perfect for communicating
safety and experience quickly. Use them liberally. |
Tourism
Web Site Must Clearly inform
One of the prime reasons people travel is to experience “something
different” from their ordinary life and location.
Especially active
and ecotourists want to learn about new cultures, see different
houses, hear and speak a different language, reflect on ancient
religions and buildings, marvel at unbroken vistas, or try a
new activity. This is exactly what most adventure travel and ecotourism operator
and destinations are selling and what you must communicate to
your web visitors.
Too
many web sites give web visitors unknown destinations instead
of activities or types of regions. Most people surfing your
web site are not going to know, for example, what they’ll
find in Hosgol, Khenti, or the Gobi. These are major
regions of Mongolia I discovered during two consulting projects
I did there for USAID and their tourism Association and ministry. You
be better off to define what type of regions they are and what
they have to offer.
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FREE
Mini-Course
5
Days to Tourism Marketing
Success with Google AdWords
Click
Here |
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Use Descriptive Words That Everyone Will Understand. For Example:
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Hosgol –Mountains • Lakes •
Fishing • Horseback •
Riding • Hiking
Khenti –
Steppes • Rivers • Fishing • Horseback & Mt. Biking
• Religious Sites
Gobi – Desert
• Camel Riding • Trekking • Archeology
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Effective Tourism Marketing Web
Sites Answer Questions and Concerns
When a prospective tourist is considering a destination, in
addition to types of regions and activities, they have additional
questions and concerns that must be addressed to earn their
visit or booking. The same holds true with Out Bound Booking
Agents, but even more so. (Read - How-to
Find and Create New Relationships With Outbound Tour Operators
– to be published in 2006)
Some
of these questions and concerns include:
• Safety precautions
and procedures
• How you are going
to protect
their safety?
• Costs
• Difficulty of trip resources
• Qualifications of
staff
•
Experience level of company
• Exchange rates & procedures
• Times of year to
visit
• Group discounts
• Children –
minimum
age/experience
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• Travel options to
Ulaan Bataar
• Lodging –
hotel, camping or Ger
• Food– vegetarian
or special restrictions
• Water – Is
it safe?
• Medical emergency/1st
aide resources
• Insurance needs/options
• Cancellation policy
/minimums for departure
• In-country transportation
& equipment
• Visa requirements
• Inoculations/disease precautions
• Language |
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Add
Audio & Video
To Your Website
Simple & Easy
Sell More Travel
30 Day
FREE TRIAL
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One
of the best ways to deal with all the typical questions you’ll
get from prospective clients is a Frequently Asked Questions
and Answers page – FAQ’s. You should also create
a pre-written response E-mail that responds to these questions
and more.
Written
and Audio Testimonials and Pictures Sell More Travel -
Guaranteed!
One of the latest easy and cheap new developments
to help convert your web
site visitors into travel buyers is streaming audio with guest testimonials. Here
are a couple examples from an Alaskan Vacation Provide and others along
the right-hand side endorsing my marketing communication guide, Tourism
Marketing Success.
Hear
Comments From
Happy Guest
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Hear Comments From
Happy Guest
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Successful Tourism Marketing and Travel Websites - Convert Prospects Into Buyers
Remember that:
• Marketing
is the actions and steps to getting prospective and qualified visitors/clients
• Selling is the transference
of enthusiasm from you to the prospect.
• Sales is getting
those prospective visitors/clients to feel comfortable and excited
enough about your destination/or trip, to
convert into buyers, give your money
and
Your Tourism Web Site Quickly Communicates That Your Region and Tours:
-
Is fun, safe and secure on the home and subsequent pages.
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Effectively answer questions and concerns
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Uses a blend of testimonials and images of happy visitors
(especially celebrities and/or
recognized media)
When
prospects call or e-mail, they will be far more motivated and excited.
If you are excited in your spoken and written words too, then
making a sale is ten times easier. If you or your staff can effectively speak the foreign language of your prospect, and are excited about what you are selling, it is easy to ask for the booking – and get it. To help convert serious prospects into buyers, schedule a phone call with them at your expense whenever possible. Phone sale conversions is where all your travel marketing efforts really pay off!
Look for some announcements for travel phone sales training Tele-seminars in our newsletter and Podcast – Tourism Business Success
(TBS). This will radically
increase your odds of converting that web site visitor into
a paying client.
Web
site Samples and Resources
See the following web sites for good use of testimonials, compelling
headlines, layout, photos and descriptive text that clearly
informs prospects of travel options, sites, nature, activities,
etc.
How
a site looks is important, but it is the words and how they
are expressed, that is most important.
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Rick
Cowley
New
Wave Trip
Comments
on
Tourism
Marketing
Success
Guide
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Travel Web Site Earns Rafting Company Best 4 Years Since 1978
The rafting web site
above, combines with using other successful tourism marketing
and E-marketing strategies earned Whitewater
Excitement the most sales and profitable years in their 28 year history. It was especially rewarding since
the majority of their competitors businesses were down 15-30%
in the same post 9/11 years. The same holds true for the Baja
and Alaska Sites in the list above. All these travel companies used the
same technique listed in this article and in my new “Tourism
Marketing Success” 2nd
Ed. guide mentioned below combined with their high search engine ranking . To earn top search
engine ranking, see below.
 |
"His
tips, while simple, are extremely powerful and
make this book a must-read for anyone in the
tourism industry." For more of Carol’s
comments and others, click
here. |
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Carol Patterson’s Review
Author: The Business of Ecotourism |
Click Now To Listen
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Here's The Secret to Creating
Travel Web Sites
that Sell
Here is one of the best resources
to help you define and communicate your most important information
to prospective visitors and guests fast and effectively. This will motivate them
to call, e-mail and give you a booking. Tourism
Marketing Success ©2005. This special step by step guide
will take you easily through the process and help you
create effective and profitable tourism marketing communications
for web sites, brochures tradeshow booths, advertising, videos
and much more. |
 |
Here's
Your Travel Web Site Check List for Success
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Web
sites are a major part of the marketing success strategy
used by international tourism promoters. |
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Prospective
travelers may or may not choose to visit your region or
use your tour, based on what they read on your web site
– usually just your home page. |
|
Your
web site quickly communicates that your destinations and
tours are fun, safe and secure. |
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Your
web site effectively answers questions and concerns. |
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The
best place to first communicate safety, security and fun
is on your home page, not buried deep in your site. |
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Use written, audio and video guest testimonials everywhere. |
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You
must use descriptive text and compelling words that paint
a desirable mental picture. |
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Summarize your trips in bullets and short headlines and
sub-headlines |
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Use
descriptive verbs and compelling words in the body of the
text to give substance and details to the headlines and
sub-heads. |
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One
of the best ways to deal with all the typical questions
you’ll get from prospective clients is a Frequently
Asked Questions and Answers page – FAQ’s. |
*****ATTENTION****
Travel Web Sites That Sell Won’t Make MONEY Without Web Site Traffic
To get lots of qualified prospects to your website,
you must show up in the top 1 –30
positions of most popular directories and search engines (like
Google and Yahoo) from a relevant
key word search and/or Pay Per Click advertising. Without this, no matter how well written and
laid out your web site is, you will loose out on the majority
of prospective clients.
Tim
Warren © 2006 • Adventure
Business Consultants
Since 1994, Tim Warren and his team, has
helped dozen’s of tour operators, travel agents, destinations,
resorts, tourism
associations and ministries with training, consulting
and creating exceptional
marketing communications that sells more travel. Click
Here For Free E-zine – Tourism Business Success - news, tips, tools and specials that you can use to increase
your travel business success.
Travel Industry Survey – Get Answers to Your
Top Travel Business and Tourism
Marketing Questions
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Travel trade show marketing tips, tourism marketing, group travel business, ecotourism marketing, adventure travel business, business consulting and marketing consulting for tourism industry professionals from Tim Warren
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