Friday 21 September 2018

The 4 Week Countdown is on as Travel Industry Elite Set to Gather In Las Vegas On Oct 18-19 – American Airlines, Google, Marriott, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Accor Hotels, and More


Do you work in travel marketing, distribution, data analytics, partnerships, revenue management or travel technology? If you have answered yes to any of the above, then it’s not too late to secure your spot at EyeforTravel North America 2018 (Oct 18-19, Mandalay Bay Las Vegas)

Travel’s leading brands are returning to EyeforTravel’s 20th Annual North America show with the biggest guest list yet, including top executives from Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Google, American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Marriott International, Booking Holdings, Expedia, Accor Hotels, Choice Hotels, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Cosmopolitan Las Vegas, Caesars Corporation and many more.

EyeforTravel know it’s not always easy to get in front of the right people, but they’ve gathered over 300+ senior travel execs for you to meet over two days! Click here to view the line-up of the year you cannot afford to miss!

Aside from making valuable contacts, attendees can expect to leave with a firm grasp of the latest opportunities and threats facing the industry, with leaders across all areas of travel presenting their answers to the most pressing questions including:
  •         Delivering a superior CX to delight customers at every turn
  •         Personalization in marketing and driving ancillary revenue
  •          Navigating the crowded field of distribution
  •          The intersection of the world of loyalty and your digital strategy
  •          The future of CX when it comes to travel tech
  •       Artificial intelligence in travel – going beyond the hype; and much more!

Hear case studies and practical insights from the game-changers in travel, and ditch the myths about buzzwords such as personalization, AI, Blockchain, and more – finally come to grips with the truth to enhance your strategy in 2019 and beyond.

There's plenty to be nervous about when it comes to enabling a frictionless CX, but don’t let the future scare you – The last chance discount expires at the end of this week (Friday 21st Sep!) so click here to secure your spot now.

It’s not too late yet, so don’t risk on missing out on insights that will propel your business forward.
Contact the team directly at – renu@eyefortravel.com 

EyeforTravel is a community where the world's top online travel brands – from hotels to airlines, online travel agents, cruise, car hire firms and more – come to meet to drive forward growth and innovation in the industry. We aim to provide you with industry focused news, events, reports, updates and information. EyeforTravel Limited is a registered company. The Company Registration number is 06286442. It is also registered in England & Wales. Registered office is 7-9 Fashion Street, London E1 6PX, United Kingdom.

Renu Kannu
EyeForTravel | Project and Research Director (+ 44 747 118 7217 |renu@eyefortravel.com)


Tuesday 4 September 2018

Online travel and the customer experience: Is your organization's strategy equipped for 2018 and beyond?


2018 really seems to be flying by, and that’s not the only scary thing.

Delivering a frictionless customer experience is, and it continues to keep travel executives up at night. The online landscape is constantly evolving, disruption is abundant, and the customers of today are more demanding than ever before. Is your organization’s CX strategy equipped for 2018 and beyond?

Benchmark your CX strategy once and for all, at EyeforTravel North America 2018:
  • What do you need to be looking out for in 2019 and beyond? Hear from Barry Goldstein, Executive VP & Chief Commercial Officer at Wyndham Hotels & Resorts as he takes attendees through the threats and opportunities in travel, and more importantly the collision of distribution, marketing and digital
  • Want to hear from leading travel brands who have excelled in their CX strategies: Get insider tips from Caesars Corporation, Jet Blue Tech Ventures, and Hopper; who have delighted customers at every touchpoint. Hear case studies from brands who’ve not just done it but nailed it!
Click here to get the most up-to-date info on our world-class attendee list
  • You’ve heard the saying ‘personalization is king’, but what does this mean? Hear from Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Marriott, Spirit Airlines and MyFlightSearch as they take you through their multi-channel engagement strategy, using data to personalize and successfully driving loyalty to their businesses
  • Ever thought of taking your CX strategy to the next level but not quite sure how to? Learn from Marriott, Choice Hotels, and Tesla as they discuss Reimagining the Customer Journey and Taking your Brand to the Next Level through UX, design-led innovation and tech innovation to give your business an edge
  • Ditch the myths about AI, VR, and Mobile Messaging: Listen to what Google, Cathay Pacific, and CruiseBe have to say in these emerging tech sessions and come to grips with the truth
There's plenty to be nervous about when it comes to enabling a frictionless CX, but don’t let the future scare you.

Attend the EyeforTravel North America Summit (Oct 18 – 19, Las Vegas) and leave with a firm grip on the latest opportunities and threats you need to be aware of. Take back top-class insights from travel’s leading influencers and implement them as soon as you’re back in the office.

Contact the team directly at – renu@eyefortravel.com  


EyeforTravel is a community where the world's top online travel brands – from hotels to airlines, online travel agents, cruise, car hire firms and more – come to meet to drive forward growth and innovation in the industry. We aim to provide you with industry focused news, events, reports, updates and information. EyeforTravel Limited is a registered company. The Company Registration number is 06286442. It is also registered in England & Wales. Registered office is 7-9 Fashion Street, London E1 6PX, United Kingdom.
Renu Kannu
EyeForTravel | Project and Research Director (+ 44 20 7375 7197 |renu@eyefortravel.com)





Content and Social Critical to Converting Travelers


Content and social media distribution are vital to reaching and converting travellers finds a new report from EyeforTravel, which can bedownloaded for free now.

Quality content marketing and a strong social media presence is helping brands build loyal customer bases and underpinning more effective sales and marketing funnels according to EyeforTravel’s new Converting the Customer report, which can be downloaded here.

Strong content can not only be used to make travellers aware of a destination or brand but it also gives brands critical clues about consumer intent that can then be used to build out their marketing. Combining this effectively with social media strategy and sharing tools turbocharges it and is giving brands a critical edge. 

“What helped us boost conversion is that we managed to build up a sustainable brand loyalty over social media so people are in contact with our brand every day or when they see things in their news feed,” says David Armstrong, CEO of HolidayPirates. “That’s why we have managed to have a lot of brand traffic and organic traffic on our website and on our mobile app, which helps conversion.”

HolidayPirates, however, has taken social to another level building its brand almost entirely through the medium. “We invest in content and viral content on social media [and] after six years we have over 30 million monthly visits, almost 10 million Facebook fans, over 10 million app downloads and last year an estimated TTV [total transaction value] of €362m,”  Armstrong told the EyeforTravel Europe summit 2018. This growth has come despite not spending anything on search engine marketing and last year, his business reckons it only paid for 7% of its traffic.

It helped, he said, that the business started as a travel blog recommending fantastic deals. Now, algorithms and technology do much of this leg work, and the results are posted on social media to hook in customers and stimulate viral sharing.

“Our recipe for virality has four components – an entertaining tone of voice, transparency, to be relevant with content deals and a call to action, and being controversial to foster engagement,” he added. “You have to inspire people.”

This shows that social media advertising and viral content can draw eyes to you, even if you are a smaller operator, such as Eurail, which sells all-in-one train tickets for Europe.

“Our struggle is our brand awareness,” said Roel Verhagen, head of e-commerce. “We are not top of mind when you think about travel…but we do have 2,500,000 in traffic a month. Our return on -investment on ad spend is hugely important.”

They came up with the marketing idea of creating two videos telling the story of a pair who met by chance in Amsterdam and travelled Europe together – with longer-play and short versions for paid adverts and social media pages. At the same time, the team started using Facebook Pixel to track customer response to this advertising and finding out where people fell out of the funnel through seven stages, from being made aware of Eurail, to having purchased a ticket.

“At a certain moment, the return on advertising spend was better on our own channels like Facebook, and we had success with the engagement rate,” says Verhagen. The videos of Chloe’s story and Justin’s story rose to 11 million views, and now the next video is in production with the firm Boomerang, and a permanent part of marketing policy.

Adding social and review functionality onto your digital experience doesn’t have to be intimidating either. A growing number of new digital media companies in this space allow smart partnerships to help host, monitor and improve social interactions.

Dan Christian, chief digital officer of The Travel Corporation, believes in harnessing the potential of advertising via social media recommendation. “Mary Meeker’s latest trend report says selling on social platforms is very real – people see social content and make purchases,” he told the EyeforTravel Europe Summit 2018 in London. “We were looking to get all of our travel directors active on social media.”

For his group – comprising 30 international brands – the solution was a partnership with a Toronto-based start-up, PostBeyond, which connects enthusiastic employee advocates with potential customers on social media, and Feefo, an independent online review site.


“PostBeyond was a tool that our team could use and with one click could share – their SaaS [software as a service] model worked perfectly. We also needed user generated reviews – independent reviews from people who had been on our trip [with Feefo]. We see consumer behavior changing and we won’t be relevant if we aren’t where they are spending their time, and we need the tools to do that.”

These case studies from the report demonstrate that content and social are intertwined with success in the marketing funnel for brands of all shapes and sizes. To learn more about how to drive up your conversion rates and revenues download the new Converting the Customer report for free now by clicking here. This report includes findings on:
  • How to measure and understand intent to purchase.
  • What content and marketing will drive up conversions.
  • How to retarget and remarket in a way that brings customers back.
  • How to use different channels effectively.
  • Why social proof is critical and how it can dramatically raise revenues.

This report is part of our Behavioral Analytics Report Series, where we seek to uncover how brands can understand the modern traveler to drive higher conversion rates, lower acquisition costs, and ultimately give them the best possible product at the right price. You can find the first report, Understanding the Travel Consumer by clicking here. You can also sign up to EyeforTravel’s newsletter to be notified when our third report in the series, which covers dynamic and personalized pricing, is released.