Internet: Friend or Foe

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Internet Friend or Foe?

• Neville Bhada
• Southeast Tourism Society
• May 15, 2008

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WEB

• Over 50 of travel is now booked on the Internet

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Internet 1 Source of travel planning and
purchasing

• Consumers are using the Internet in record
  numbers for travel planning but that doesnt mean
  they like the process
• Forrester Research predicts that travel will
  remain the number one online retail category and
  grow to 119 billion by 2010.
• Source Randall Travel Marketing

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Where do travelers turn for accurate information
for summer travel planning?

• 52 - online travel agency
• 45 - family or friend recommendation
• 25 - travel guide books
• 19 - travel community sites
• 19 - magazines and newspapers
• 17 - traditional travel agents
• 16 - convention and visitor bureaus
• Source Randall Travel Marketing

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Pros Cons of the Web

• Affordable
• Creative
• - Segmented
• - Dismal click throughs
• Overall 0.2
• Yahoo 0.27
• Facebook 0.04

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Podcasting

• What the heck is it???
• Its here.. Get used to it
• Low penetration
• Segmented
• gapodcastnetwork.com
• podstrike.com

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Blogs

• Web log Blog
• Low readership
• Segmented
• blogger.com
• wordpress.com

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Social Networking

• MySpace
• Friendster
• FaceBook
• LinkedIn
• FlickR
• Twitter
• BlackPlanet
• Xanga
• Plaxo

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RSS

• Real Simple Syndication
• Create an RSS feed of your press releases.
• RSS is the next iteration of the traditional
  blast fax or e-mail.

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Increase Your Web Ranking

• Your web ranking is determined by
• The Number of Sites that link to yours
• Text/Keywords in the body of your pages
• Title Tags
• Alt Tags

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Increase Your Web Ranking

• Be aware of text embedded in an image
• Keywords in the backend are not the factor they
  once were
• Search Engine Optimization

Southeast Tourism Society
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Your URL Does it make a difference?

• Choose Carefully
• International Events or Events.com
• Sub domains
• SoutheastTourism.org/top20/index.html
• Top20.SoutheastTourism.org
• Vanity URLs
• ILoveEvents.com
• LetItOut.com
• Kleenex.com
• Be Patient

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Sponsored Links
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Sponsored Links

• Effective
• You determine the cost
• You set the limit on how much you're willing to
  spend each day.
• You specify how much you're willing to pay per
  click or per impression.
• For example, if you set a maximum bid of 35 cents
  for the word stapler, and the next highest bid is
  23 cents, Google gives your ad priority among the
  sponsored links it serves up when somebody
  searches for stapler. If you bid less than the
  highest bid, Google still lets you play, it just
  doesnt show your ad as often as other peoples.

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Web site - Make your site ineffective

• Add too much text
• Include bad navigation
• Increase loading time
• Add too many bells whistles
• Make the page too crowded

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Web Site - Things to Remember

• Negative (white) space is a good thing
• Favorite colors dont always work on a site
• Elements that work on some sites may not work on
  yours
• Less is More

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Electronic Press Kit

• Contact information
• Image Library
• Bios of key personnel
• Product/Service information
• MP3 audio files, RSS, Podcasts
• exploreasheville.com
• visitjacksonville.com
• visitportland.com

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LOW HANGING FRUIT

• Southeast Tourism Society Top 20 Events
• Southeasttourism.org/top_20_events.html
• Southern Festivals
• Southfest.com
• Soul of the South
• Soulofthesouth.com
• State travel newsletters

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Tripadvisor.com

• User Generated Content (UGC)
• 10 million travel reviews
• 25 million visitors each month
• 70 of those booking a hotel read User Generated
  Content like that provided by Trip Advisor

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WIRE SERVICES

• WhereToGoNext.com
• TravelNewsFast.com
• SouthernTravelNews.com
• Hospitality1st.com
• TravelAdvanceNews.com
• Businesswire.com
• PRNewsWire.com
• PRLeap.com

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Tips to increase your productivity

• Dont need WWW
• Dont need a .com on the popular sites
• To minimize search time, add a Quote mark ()
  before your search term
• Hire a college kid
• Dont sweat the small stuff

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Thank you

• Neville Bhada
• Southeast Tourism Society
• 404.364.9847
• neville_at_southeasttourism.org