Companies do not have visibility into where and what travel products consumers are researching and booking at competitor sites. This viewpoint came from Gregory Saks, travel analyst, Compete almost a year back.
On where things stand as of today, Saks said, "Many companies in the industry have become more sophisticated in their understanding of web-wide behaviour and analytics. Almost all major websites have good insight into "local analytics" through companies like Webtrends and Omniture. Now, more and more are connecting the dots between this information and what consumers are doing web-wide, once they leave your site."
Saks, a speaker during EyeforTravel's Travel Distribution Executive Conference 2007 being held in Las Vegas, said the biggest trend is that major travel marketers are embracing user generated content, whereas not too long ago there were few companies beyond the UGC sites themselves that played in the space.
"Today, brands like Starwood, Southwest, and La Quinta are using UGC as part of innovative new campaigns," he says.
In an interview with EyeforTravel.com's Ritesh Gupta, Saks spoke about UGC roadmap. Excerpts from an interview:
Do consumers trust bloggers views more than traditional marketing? What is the key differentiator?
An example I can share is that 82 percent of TripAdvisor users prefer consumer-generated reviews and opinions over a hotel's own marketing of itself. At the same time, 49 percent of these same TripAdvisor users think that consumer-generated content is biased. The takeaway is that consumers like to receive validation from multiple sources of information, even if no single source is perfect.
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