ABTA claims record website traffic
ABTA’s website has been beefed up as part of a plan to make it a primary source of travel information for consumers.
Interactive services could be added in the future following research into how people use the site.
The number of destination searches on www.abta.com has doubled in less than six weeks with the development of a series of gateway pages which reflect the most popular searches on the site.
This resulted in a record 76,000 searches in August, with destination searches running at record levels for the third month in succession. Monthly page accesses are running at 360,000 with more than one million hits a month, according to ABTA.
The changes were designed to direct consumers to the site when searching for travel information on internet search engines.
Graham Barnes of ABTECH, who is chief architect of abta.com, said the association had recognised that the site was not punching its weight.
He said: “There is an enormous amount of useful signposting content on abta.com, helping consumers to identify which ABTA members to deal with but we were not seeing the growth in activity that we expected.
“We had to recognise that Google and other search engines are a primary route for consumers researching holiday options and make our content more accessible.
“Eventually more UK consumers will bookmark abta.com as a primary source of travel information, but right now we need to spread the word more widely.”
The next stage of development will be to understand and analyse consumer usage of the site, according to ABTA chief executive Ian Reynolds.
“We know the signposting information is useful but it may be that consumers expect more from us as a channel to interactive services,” he said.
Report by Phil Davies
Phil Davies
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