How to Use Travel Search Engines To Attract New Business
Posted on | April 28, 2005 | No Comments
If you’re in the business of selling travel or hospitality services of any kind, there is probably a travel search engine out there that could be sending traffic to your website right now… if you were listed in it.
Online travel search engines exist to make it easier for travel customers to find products and services at the best prices. They also make it easier for you, as a vendor of those services, to reach your target audience. Being listed in Google and Yahoo! is great but industry-specific (so-called vertical) search engines are better at sending you highly targeted, pre-qualified traffic.
Online Search Engine or Travel Agent?
It’s important to differentiate between online search engines and OTAs. Online travel agents such as Expedia, Priceline, and Travelocity are web travel agents that can actually make a booking for users. Travel search engines such as Yahoo! FareChase or SideStep provide search results and direct users to a supplier or an OTA to book.
SideStep, Kayak, Mobissimo, FareChase, Farecast and FareCompare
If you offer any of the following services, there is a wide range of travel search engines where you can add a travel site for free or, more commonly, for a fee:
• Transportation: flights, rail travel, rental cars and RVs, cruises, etc.
• Accommodations: hotels, bed and breakfasts, hostels, resorts, campgrounds, cabins, and vacation homes.
• Package tours: eco-tours, all-inclusive holidays, specialty tours, etc.
With so many travel search engine websites to choose from, how do you know where to start your online travel marketing campaign?
Finding The Right Travel Search Engine
First select the category (or categories) that your service would fit into best. If you have already assigned keyword phrases to your site, that makes things even easier. For example, if you have a vacation home for families to rent while on holiday, one of your site’s keyword phrases might be “vacation home rentals”.
Now, Google the phrase “vacation home rentals search engines”. The top result is VacationRentals.com, one of the biggest search sites specializing in vacation home rentals. Zero in on your geographic area, check out the existing listings, and evaluate how effective they are. Investigate the site’s advertising policies, rates, and traffic statistics.
Repeat this process at several of the other sites you’ve searched until you find the most suitable advertising vehicle at a rate you can afford.
There are also regional travel listings that can be located by narrowing your search term with a geographic reference: “Czech Republic travel search engines”, for example.
Advertise with the most relevant and highly-ranked sites that you can afford so more search engine users will find you – with enough visibility, the cost of the ad will be offset by increased business.
Types of Online Travel Marketing Programs
There are several types of travel search engines. Most of the vertical search sites like VacationRentals.com use an internal search engine that provides listings from its own database, for which you have to pay to get your travel site listed.
But there are also travel search engines that scour other sites’ databases to return results based upon what’s already out there. With these engines, no submission is necessary or possible.
For example, Google offers travel search when you input a city-to-city term in the regular search box (such as “London to New York”). Its first result on the page will give you a choice of five OTAs where you can make your booking: Expedia, Hotwire, Orbitz, Priceline, or Travelocity. So in order for your service to appear in Google’s travel search, you would need to be listed with one of those agencies.
As of February 2006, Yahoo! still has its new FareChase service in beta test mode. It searches multiple airlines and online travel agencies that Yahoo! has partnered with for flight and hotel results, then directs you to those sites to make the actual reservation. Just as with Google travel, the partnering agencies must have you in their database in order for your travel offering to show up in a FareChase search.
To get your property or service into one of the major OTAs, prepare to open your wallet wide. At Orbitz for example, fixed placement rates start at $5,000, and impressions run from $20 to $65.
By way of comparison, it costs as little as $85 a year to list your property on a smaller, vertical search engine such as BandBsearch.com, which lists US bed and breakfasts.
So if you have a travel-related business and are frustrated with expensive pay-per-click campaigns and unproductive online travel marketing schemes, look into the travel search engines that speak directly to your target audience. It could be the best $85 you spend this year!
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