Almost nine out of ten travel companies plan to increase or maintain online spend, according to a new global survey released at World Travel Market.
The findings are issued today (Tuesday) by digital travel online content specialist Frommer’s Unlimited.
The survey of 225 travel companies was undertaken with global travel news service TravelMole and included airlines, agents, tour operators and consolidators, hoteliers, tourist boards, car rental, rail, travel insurance, publishing and cruise companies.
More than half of those surveyed (54%) said they planned to increase budgets and just over a third plan to maintain online budgets.
Frommer’s Unlimited general manager Joel Brandon Bravo said: “This is the second year we’ve undertaken this survey and we were impressed to see a similar overall trend as the same point last year with half of marketers planning to increase online spend.
“But we were particularly interested to see the changes in where people were planning to increase their spend and the increased focus on content such as multilingual, destination and unique content as well as social media marketing.”
Key trends identified in the research include acontinued shift away from traditional online advertising. 22% say these budgets will decrease next year
Search engine optimisation continues to be the top priority for web content budgets - it was selected as most important by over 84% of respondents compared to 67% last year. Fifty seven per cent say they will increase spend on search engine optimisation compared to 67% in 2008.
Unique content and destination content are second and third in importance for marketers with around half saying they will increase content in this area, but many more marketers taking note of its importance. Unique content has is now being included in 81% of people’s plans, nearly double last year’s of just 41%
Adding destination content was ranked third in importance and is in the plans of 80% of respondents, up from 57% last year.
More than a third of marketers said they wanted content to drive search traffic.
Increasing conversions was the main reason identified for adding content last year but that has slipped into second place for just 29% of the sample in 2009.
Frommer’s Unlimited speculated that that those surveyed could have found that more qualified traffic driven to their site will increase conversions.
A big change this year is the emphasis on social media – 60% of the global survey sample said they would be increasing their spend in this area next year. This is the top area singled out for budget increases.
There is also evidence that companies are looking to more international markets this year with the number planning to invest in multi-lingual content up from 13% to 79%. English is the most common language used to reach customers (98%) and 65% of the survey say they will be targeting European and 53% Asian language markets.
Mobile phone delivery, audio and video are still ranked as lowest priorities for the year ahead but identified as top future initiatives
The overwhelming issue facing respondents is still keeping content up to date.
Almost three quarters (74%) of those surveyed identified this as a problem – up from 66% last year.
Creating content which is consistent with brand values, dealing with multiple sources of content and being able to integrate content effectively with products was highlighted by a third of respondents.
Further issues volunteered by the survey sample included problems with unique content for SEO and translation issues.
by Phil Davies
Travel Technology
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