The travel and tourism businesses are increasingly using corporate websites as they help them improve consumer leads and sales conversions. In addition, their clear, differentiated pricing information on service-tiers provide product options to online prospects. The tourism products ought to focus on the benefits they provide, by highlighting their value propositions; rather than simply illustrating their features. Despite the fact that so many transactions are carried out online, the travel websites could lack in their provision of personal interaction. This means that even the smallest thing that’s out of place on the ecommerce pages could possibly rapidly erode the customers’ trust in products and services. Therefore, tourism businesses could build consumer confidence and trust by using an SSL certificate to make transactions secure, particularly if they are processing credit cards.
The travel businesses’ corporate websites are expected to articulate their terms and conditions, including any relevant cancellation and refund policies. They should also feature their contact details (including an address, telephone and emails) to customers and prospects. Many sites could offer live chat facilities on their site, to help online customers in their queries, or to address their concerns.
If the businesses do not offer such interactions in real time, they still need acknowledge their online prospects’ message(s), and inform them that they will be responding to them in reasonable time. Moreover, the use of testimonials from consumers, including; reviews and ratings will serve as proof that the tourism business is providing an adequate level of service to customers. The positive experiences from customers themselves, will help to improve conversions and sales.
The tourism web sites should underline the true benefits of their product. Hence, they should present relevant written content which will make the product stand out from the rest. In this day and age, attractive web sites should be well-designed to entertain visitors. The travel sites have to feature a good selection of images and videos. This allows prospective visitors to become familiar with the tourism product. Destination management organisations are increasingly allowing online visitors to zoom in high-res images and video clips in their websites. The interactive images and videos should load as quickly as possible. Any delays of even a couple of seconds would turn off dissatisfied visitors. The speed with which a page loads can be a critical determining factor as to whether visitors may (or may not) commit themselves to lay down their credit card. When designing product pages, it is important to consider load speeds, particularly if there are large images, rich interactivity or other media in web pages.
Very often, different product pages may clutter up web pages with excessive calls to action. These pages may contain customer photos, complicated pricing options, unnecessary details on customer support, too many reviews, et cetera. Without good web designs, these calls to action could easily blend into a confusing mess. While it may be tempting to utilise web pages with many actionable steps, the online sites should be as clear and focused as possible. A good call to action could include high-contrast buttons, call-outs and actionable elements which leave plenty of breathing room, to make them stand out.
Online users might not be willing to commit themselves in buying products straight away. Therefore, businesses could entice visitors to fill in their subscriber list to receive exclusive offers, via email. This way, the businesses will be in a position to send newsletters and promotional material to their online prospects, at a later date.
Businesses ought to facilitate their online purchase and transaction confirmation. A complicated funnel could deter the conversion of prospects. The customers who are in the businesses’ checkout page(s) should be allowed to finalise their purchase as quickly and efficiently as possible. If their customer experience of their online purchase involves an unnecessary effort to check out from the website; they may have second thoughts on the businesses’ quality of service. Therefore, users should not be distracted with anything that will take them away from the businesses’ purchasing funnel. It is important to let customers finish their transaction before taking them anywhere else on the website.
This article was drawn from Springer’s ‘Travel Marketing, Tourism Economics and the Airline Product: An Introduction to Theory and Practice‘ by Mark Anthony Camilleri
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