With new technology advancements in travel, traditional travel agents are fading fast, except for highly trained niche experts. Many travel Softwares are now leading using some advanced technology like AI and machine learning to search across thousands of travel booking sites, serving up curated, personalized options based on the preferences shared, all within a single notification on for user’s desktop and mobile.
For several years now, Internet-based distribution systems have radically changed how travel products are sold. There are a growing number of Internet users and they now have the possibility to 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 information. With feedback and review systems in place, the community of travelers ensures 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 travel market 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 behavior rather that predicting the behavior and nurture 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)
Factors that are contributing towards the radical growth of travel industry in 2017 –
- Rise in internet penetration
- Increasing mobile presence
- Increasing internet penetration
- Rise in use of smartphones
Must do’s
Need to strike a balance between advance and last minute offers.
- 30% of millennials worry that costs will rise if they wait too long to book their trips. Yet 19% of consumers wait to book their travel a week or less before departure – and millennials are even more likely to procrastinate (Adobe, 2016)
- Consumers plan most in advance for Christmas and Thanksgiving when only 7-10% of flight bookings happen on the week before departure (Adobe, 2016)
Mobile optimized businesses are ahead.
- 45% of connected travelers use their smartphone to book travel activities pre-trip (TripBarometer, 2015)
- 85% of international travelers have some kind of mobile device with them while traveling (Frederic Gonzalo, 2016)
- 8% of travelers book their trip on a mobile device (TripBarometer, 2015)
However, the presence of certain factors is also posing some hindrance to the growth of the industry. One of which is the requirement of high marketing spending to engage and retarget users.
Digital Trends for 2017
How web push can help your travel business grow
ReTargeting
It’s a known fact that for any business retaining an existing user is far better than getting a new one. It is likely to cost you lesser time and lesser money. Hence retargeting comes into the picture. There’s usually a high percentage of users who tends to bounce back without completing the payment procedure. For this, most of the travel marketers have heavily relied on channels like Display Network Retargeting, Email (only if users has provided email id) to bring these users back. However, all these channels happen to have their own limitations and challenges which made it even easier for web push notifications to stand out as the ultimate retargeting tool to bring back those bounced users.
Content Marketing driven Lead Campaigns :
Now, no user would even visit your even visit your site before doing a basic research about you. 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 drive traffic to blog.
For content marketing, most of the marketers are increasingly inclining towards web push as a communication channel over email. With response rates upto 25%, user communication is for more impactful.
Announcement: Flight alerts, check-ins
Web push notifications are becoming a preferred tool especially when marketers quickly want to trigger a notification to inform the travelers about the latest updates about their flight and check-in details. The efficacy of the communication and the response rates obviously improve with targeting and segmentation.
Price alerts and reminders
How to update the subscribers about the price drop in flight 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. Send them timely reminders to ensure maximum engagement.
Everything they need
Businesses in the travel 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 hotel eateries in that city. For this purpose Web Push Notifications can be used effectively to target specific users and highlight specific products.
Order Alerts And Feedbacks
Web Push can also be used for user feedback, sending reminders and alerts and pushing out transactional communication. Payment reminders, upgrade alerts can also be pushed to users using web push notifications.
Check out some ready to use templates for web push notifications
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