If you are thinking of moving your travel business online, or you are just starting out, then today you are going to discover what is the biggest value you can bring to the market in order to have a profitable business. In this short article, we will show you one of the most important assets of a profitable online travel agency.
Since travel agencies first emerged, they have had one main role: to act as a bridge between tourists and travel suppliers. As the suppliers’ offers grew in number, tourists started to become confused when trying to find the best option for their preferences. So agencies’ second role, and one of the most important today, is to act as an advisor for tourists.
Today, a tourist is bombarded with thousands of options and decisions every day. When they want to travel somewhere, there are so many destinations to choose from that it's hard to decide which is best. This is where travel agents can help.
Even when someone has a fixed destination in mind, there are so many accommodation options that it is usually hard to find the one that best suits the traveller's preferences. This is where travel agents can help.
And if someone has decided on a hotel, it can be hard to choose the perfect room or how to spend time there. This is where travel agents can help.
This is the biggest value that a traditional travel agent can bring to the market and this is what drives transactions.
If we look at the online travel business through this lens, then you have to provide an answer for each of these consultancy needs. This is why there is a saying that, online, "content is king". But not any kind of content - good, well selected and informative content is king.
To meet this need, you have to select for your tourists the best destinations, the best hotels, the best rooms, the best ways to get there, and the best activities to do while you’re there.
When we say best, we don’t just mean from the financial point of view. For one person, the best hotel could be a three-star property close to the beach. For somebody else, it might be a five-star hotel right in the heart of the action. This is where your knowledge comes in. These kinds of segments have to be very well defined on your website.
If you don't do this, you will be like one of the many booking engines out there that get some customers randomly. In order to have consistency, you have to find your niche, depending on your financial power. If you choose a lot of destinations or types of services, you have to have the financial power to support the complexity of creating content for each of them.
But if you start small with just a few options, but done well, in no time you can grow your content database and in a few years you can have a highly profitable travel business.
This is where an online platform dedicated to selling travel can help you. Besides having real-time pricing and availability, a good platform has to help you build your content database. If you are consistent about it, you will derive multiple benefits. Search engines will start indexing you and customers will buy from you over and over again.
To wrap up this article, think about how you can move the knowledge that you have to your website. If you have it there, you don't have to keep repeating it to your customers. They can search for the information on their time and, if you add a good re-marketing strategy, they will book and pay.
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