Tourism Ireland Final

Marketing Ireland Online Hotel Website Marketing 2009 Presented by Laughlin Rigby eMarketing Manager, Tourism Ireland

Online travel trends……
European Online travel market is €61 billion in 2008 (+22%) (Phocuswright)
Over 50% of all U.S. travel is now purchased online (Phocuswright)
Consumers visit on average 10 sites before booking travel (Phocuswright)
34% of consumers visit the company web site when choosing their travel (Phocuswright)
For every 2 visitors that got to an OTA to research a hotel, 1 of them will end up booking directly ( Reizdor)

Online travel trends……
In Ireland…….
The first and third most popular online purchases by the Irish public related to travel i.e. Flights and Hotels/Accommodation. (JNIR ‘08)
“ Travel” was the most popular website genre visited in the study by 49% of people surveyed (JNIR ‘08)
62% of Irish people book their holidays on-line (CSO Nov ’07)

Our Biggest Markets

Our New and Developing Markets

19 Languages 41 International Websites

10.3 m visitors worldwide ‘08 +53% (YTD)

Performance – visits by country 2008

Tourism Ireland: Digital Marketing Spend

Tourism Ireland’s eMarketing Strategy 3. Push (put our presence out on social media and eNetworks)
Pull (drive visitors to the site)
eMarketing Strategy: 2. Engage (enhance the website and increase consumer engagement)

1. Pull (drive visitors to the site)
Online Advertising: all standard formats (banners, skys, MPUs), rich media
Partnership Media Promotions : joint campaigns with individual sites e.g. lastminute, expedia, tripadvisor
Email Marketing : TI database, Cold data, Media partner databases
Search Engine Marketing: 27 markets, over €800,000 invested in 08, 2,000+ key search terms

Search Engine Optimisation: continuous evolution of di.com to improve rankings and natural search traffic
Offline Advertising: clear and inviting call to action to visit site across all offline media
Campaign Site Inclusion: drive to traffic when appropriate to main site instead of once-off microsites

Website launched March 2006
First phase of a global web development project
Database of over 30,000 tourism products on all-island tourism database
Post launch – usability study in 4 markets
Ambitious evolution programme underway from 2007 through 2009
36 individual enhancement projects undertaken
Deliver commercial platform, inspiration, engagement
2. Engage (enhance site/increase engagement)

Homepage Redesign: New homepage design, functionality, flexibility and Navigation

Rich Media: Launched 13 custom edited videos and 13 slide shows across key visitor interaction pages: Places to go, Things to see and do, About Ireland, Accom. Main PR video.

Things to See and Do: Golf: Entirely new section and enhanced functionality.

Key Industry Platforms
Strategy
‘ L evel playing pitch ’ for all our Industry partners
Provide platform to close sale
Site does not have booking engine
Listings, links, offers and partnership programmes
Trade Offers
XML Metasearch functionality for offers feeds from IHF, FI, NITB, Manor House hotels
Incorporate Market Partnership programme
2009 Review of offers section
Site analytics on offers, path analysis
External benchmarking – what others are doing?
Consumer Trends
Quality Assurance of value for stakeholders and consumers

1. Pull (drive visitors to the site) 3. Push (put presence on social media)

What is Social Media?
The online reference website Wikipedia definition:
“ Social Media refers to a collective group of web properties that are driven by users. These include blogs, discussion boards, vlogs, and video sharing sites. Social Media Optimization (SMO) is the process of trying to get your content more widely distributed across multiple Social Media networks.”

Social Media Site Stats….
Tripadvisor gets 25 million unique users a month
45 people employed to read all the content put up on the site
58% of users want hotels to be able to respond to reviews, and only 5% don’t

WAYN has approx 15 - 25,000 new members every day
5 million photos & 4 million trips added to WAYN
Every new member brings in 13 other members

Yahoo travel, there are 130,000 trip plans (15% of which are public)
Yahoo Answers has 100 million users worldwide

Social Media Site Stats…. 40% of google maps traffic is travel related (Google)

Social Media Site Stats…. Over 150 million members on Myspace

Social Media Site Stats…. 200,000 new accounts are opening a day (10 times the size of flickr)

Social Media trends……
50% of the online population are involved in Social media (Forrester)
55 million Blogs – Technorati
Over 2 million articles written in over 100 languages on Wikipedia
40% of bandwidth is taken up by video (youtube)
Online households watching web video in the U.S. grew from 32% to 63% in 12 months (ABI research)
Nearly 50% of Youtube’s, Facebook’s and Twitter’s audience is over 35

Social Media trends……
And for online travellers…..
Over 80% of people consult videos or pictures of the property before booking (Google)
Video increases sales by 55% and pictures increase sales by 69% for travel suppliers (Phocuswright)
+3% of traffic from Social Network sites go to travel sites (Hitwise)

Social Media Categories
Forums
Blogs, Vlogs, Podcasts
Collaborative Knowledge Sites
Review sites
Applications
Social Bookmarking
Communities/Social networking sites
Rich media

10 rules for building brands using social media

10 rules for building brands using social media
Gain the trust of your audience, always be transparent
Don’t misuse social media sites to gain internal linking
Mutual communication
Educate, entertain, enlighten
Communication that meets their needs
Engage with your audience
Make your website interesting/relevant
Listen to your audience first
Keep it real and don’t push the sales message
Maintain your efforts and keep it people/place focused

Rich Media “ Within two years, travel web sites that lack video will look uninspired and outdated next to those that do, meaning that the time to get rolling with online video is now.” Forrester Research, “How Travellers Use Online” Video, June 2008

“ Go Where Ireland Takes You” - the series

eMarketing Checklist
It is economical and easy to get involved and is more measurable than most traditional marketing channels
Monitor your brand online and use right of reply
Create a video of your business offering
Add images, videos to your sites and on platforms such as YouTube
Explore writing a blog or podcast
Create a social network profile for your business
Post replies on forums demonstrating your area of expertise
Edit a wiki page for your service on Wikipedia
Encourage visitors to leave comments on tripadvisor.com if they enjoyed their stay
Use your metrics to know how visitors find you and what they do when they arrive
Finally:
Take chance, try something new, copy the trends, explore social media

For more information
eStudio on www.tourismireland.com under “Resources for you”
Download the “Wonderful World Wide Buzz” from Tourism Ireland publications at http://www.tourismireland.com/Home/resources-for-you/e-Studio/Interesting-articles---information.aspx
Email: [email_address]
Thank you!

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Tourism Ireland Final

by CiaranDelaney on Apr 02, 2009

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Tourism Ireland Final — Presentation Transcript