Marketing to the Potential
International Tourist Online
James Keeler
International Head of CRM & Online Marketing
Sales & Marketing in Travel Europe Conference
September 2005

VisitBritain
• Mission - ‘to increase the value of inbound tourism
to Britain’
• Specific targets:
• Generate at least £887.5m in additional spend
• Generate a ROI of at least 30:1
• Seasonal spread – tourism from October - March
• Regional spread – tourism outside of London
• Don’t sell anything yet – interesting for CRM!

Topics to Cover
• Customer migration online
• Attracting customers online
• Understanding customer behaviour
• Acquiring customer data
• Customer communications
• Declining customer loyalty?

Customer Migration Online
• Market trends & size of online travel market
• Organisational experience
• In May 2003 almost 50% of VisitBritain’s enquires were
via the web, by May 2005 this figure was over 96%
• Total online enquires have grown from 160,000 to
515,000/month in same period (total enquiries up from
320,000 to 535,000)
• What can you learn from traditional channels? Especially
ongoing contact centre enquires
• Cost
• Less staff required to service online enquires
• Buying power online vs. offline
Understand external & organisational trends

Attracting Customers Online
• Search, paid, partnered, brand/offline-online & community
• An organisation’s online offering must meet it’s customers
expectations
• Vital to understand customer expectations of your site
and unique selling points:
• What does the customer come to your site for?
• What can’t they get elsewhere?
• How well does your online offering match your
customers’ expectations? How can you improve this
match?
• Ensure online branding & promotions sets the correct
expectations
• What can your online offering be & what is it now?
Conduct primary research & benchmarking

Understanding Customer
Behaviour
• Traffic statistics
• Traffic paths – make it easy for customers to find what
they are looking for & the key parts of your site
• Search terms (on-site & search engines) – new content
requirements, navigation changes
• Driving traffic to certain areas of your site – what works
(on-site), deep linking, drop-off points
• Upstream and downstream – where else are your
customers going?
• Customer data
• Analyse data captured from customers to determine
needs/interests for on-site content requirements
• Customer segmentation
Use all available data to understand customer behaviour and
use this knowledge to optimise your site

Acquiring Customer Data Online
• Meet the customer’s expectations, so they want to interact
with you again
• Provide a ‘call to action’ to submit customer details and
make the process simple
• Doesn’t have to be a sale
• Track traffic to registration areas & drop offs
• Ensure data captured is relevant to both the customer and
what we can offer that customer:
• Ask customers’ what they are interested in
• Use the data to drive your outbound communications
• Respect local & cultural differences
Make it as easy as possible to ‘register’, only capture data that
will be beneficial to both parties

Customer Communications
• Outbound communications should be based on customer
needs/interests
• Customer data should determine communications plan
• Segmented communications - different messages for
different customers
• Local & cultural needs
• Content mix of messages important
• Inspiration/information, highlight new products or website
features
• Linked sales message, ideally with offer(s)
• Communication drives customers to the website
Regularly remind the customer of your value to them &
encourage them to come back to your site

Understanding Online Customers
Diverse Needs and Expectations
1. Understand external & organisational trends
2. Conduct primary research & benchmarking
3. Use all available data to understand customer
behaviour and use this knowledge to optimise your site
4. Make it as easy as possible to ‘register’ & capture data
that will be beneficial to both parties
5. Regularly remind the customer of your value to them &
encourage them to come back to your site

Declining Customer Loyalty?
• Increase in customer choice & easy access means customers
are now loyal to more than one provider
• VisitBritain.com is not the only site a potential tourist
visits when planning a holiday but where they do
contact us we have an opportunity to influence
• Loyalty gained online by having the best offering to meet
the customers’ needs - not necessarily the best product
• Online offering covers both website offering and
customer communications & service
• Online offering should develop and change over time
• VisitBritain hasn’t experienced declining customer loyalty,
however loyalty no longer means a successful transaction

www.visitbritain.com