With new technological advancements in travel industry and hospitality, traditional travel agents are fading fast, except for highly trained niche experts. Many travel industry softwares are now using advanced technology like AI and machine learning to search thousands of travel booking sites, serving curated, personalized options based on the preferences shared.
For several years now, Internet-based distribution systems have radically changed how hospitality and travel industry products are sold. Growing number of Internet users can now easily access a wide array of destinations and travel products from their desktop and mobile screens. Above all, they can make their selections using a broad range of criteria and can locate specific pieces of information. With feedback and review systems in place, the community of travelers help users in making informed decisions.
By fostering the emergence of new players such as online travel agencies and price aggregators, the internet has radically altered the hospitality and travel industry and allowed travel producers to introduce their own direct distribution, thereby diversifying their distribution channels.
Earlier, the industry relied only on behavioral and purchase indicators to engage their target audience. Marketers were more focused on reacting towards the audience behaviour rather than predicting the behaviour and nurturing the audience accordingly. But recently enough, the industry started focusing more on predictive analysis to seek high user engagement rates.
Now it is more about what the users want and how to serve them better than what the company wants.
*Source - (WIT, 2016), (Phocuswright, 2016), (WIT, 2016), (TripBarometer, 2015)
Need to strike a balance between advance and last minute offers-
Mobile optimized businesses are ahead -
However, presence of certain factors is also posing hindrance to growth of the industry. One of which is the requirement of high marketing spending to engage and re-target users.
Web Push notifications have emerged as an alternative channel of communication, enabling brands to communicate swiftly. They are instant and drive repeat visits, encouraging people to make a purchase. With web push it become easy to segment users based on their behavior, activities and location. This makes it possible to send them relevant notifications in a much more cost effective and timely manner.
Longing for high user re-targeting and conversion rates via mobile and desktop web, many leading brands in the travel industry are now using web push notifications for all their web users.
It’s a known fact that for any business that retaining an existing user is far better than getting a new one. It is likely to cost you lesser time and money. Hence re-targeting comes into the picture. There’s usually a high percentage of users who tend to bounce back without completing the payment procedure. For this most of the travel industry marketers have heavily relied on channels like Display Network Retargeting, Email (only if user has provided email id) to bring these users back. However, all these channels happen to have their own limitations and challenges which has made it easier for web push notifications to stand out as the ultimate re-targeting tool to bring back those bounced users.
Businesses in the travel industry and tourism sector thrive on validating customer intent and basis the customer persona, further cross sell them other products. For instance, users booking flight tickets also gets notified about the available hotels eateries in that city. For this purpose Web Push Notifications can be used effectively to target specific users.
By using User Events, you can intelligently segment users based on the activities they perform on your website and send them relevant notifications. This feature is outstanding when it comes to retargeting specific users.
How to update the subscribers about the price drop in fare? For such important and time sensitive updates web push notifications are now being seen as one of the easiest and fastest way to let your users know about those important updates. Thus, the message is least likely to be missed by anyone.
Usually, no user would visit your site before doing some basic research. And the best way to ace that research is to invest move towards content marketing as a lead generation strategy. Many brands are now seen to be following this approach, as content marketing involves educating the user about the problem statement and then gradually pulling them through the education funnel. It involves frequent user communication, and drives traffic to your blog.
For content marketing, most of the marketers are increasingly inclining towards web push as a communication channel over email. With response rates up to 25%, user communication is for more impactful.
Web push notifications is becoming a preferred tool specially when marketers quickly want to trigger a notification to inform the travellers. The efficacy of the communication and the response rates obviously improve with targeting and segmentation.
Curiosity builds suspense and encourages users to click on your notifications. Provide a sneak peek of the offer they can avail. Don't give out all the information in the notification in one go. Tit bits of exciting information can leads to clicks. The thirst to know more about the offer and an approaching deadline, works like a charm here.
PackagesGive them exciting offers on transport and accommodation. This always excites users. You can create different packages like, pick and drop from airport, free breakfast, arrange sightseeing etc. This is apt for the ones who want to be pampered on their vacation. There are no last minute surprises, and everything is taken care of. All they have to do is show up.
Customize your package
Send them timely reminders to ensure maximum engagement. Users in their busy schedule might forget they have a flight or the hotel that they have made a booking in. You can even send them details of the hotel, like the hotel’s name and address.
Members and loyal users can be given offers and rewards to make them feel special. This triggers a positive response and increases the chances of users transacting. You could give them discounts on flights, on hotels, free coupons for spa in the hotel etc. This could also encourage others to become a member.
Conformation And Feedback
Web Push can also be used for user feedback and pushing out transactional communication. Feedback with web push notifications become super easy. The users can share their feedback in a jiffy!
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