(By Tim Gunstone)
Search has dominated travel marketing for years now. In a recent EyeforTravel survey (Eyefortravel’s Travel Distribution & Marketing Barometer), 62% of respondents had seen an increase in organic search listings in the last 3 months (Q2, 2011). However the study went on to find that 50% of airlines, 33% of hotels and 39% of tour operators surveyed plan to decrease their spend on paid search engine listings in the next quarter.
Where will their spend being going instead? 65% of the travel marketers surveyed are planning to increase their spend social media.
Groupon has had a hard time in the travel press but as one very educated travel marketer whispered to me whilst Groupon was taking at our Distribution Summit it’s the traffic not the amount you sell that makes social commerce campaigns work. Apparently, a recent campaign drove so much traffic to his site that was far more targeted and profitable than through PPC ever did. Long ago lost faith in Google’s claim to be honest information broker and are fed up with being driven to spending more and more on PPC.
The Google attitude that only a monopoly can enjoy may soon change!
