When researching online for travel destinations, transport, accommodation and tourism activities travellers have to sift through a huge amount of information. Chances are before they book with you they have looked at several other competitor websites in your area plus many more in other destinations.

Making your website stand out and avoid a negative first impression therefore comes down to some key areas:

• Ensure it is an easy website to use. Clear easy to use and consistent navigation is vital with easy to read, brief content for each page and subsection. Solid professional website design will go a long way to achieve this.

• Provide comprehensive but succinct information about what you offer AND your destination without making your site cluttered. Include transport options and maps. Long-winded flowery marketing content doesn’t work so well online.

• For travel, quality photos and a good selection are vital – make them easy to view using slideshows and options to view enlarged versions.

• Offer online bookings – preferably with the ability to check real-time availability, secure payment and instant confirmation. See Online Booking Strategy for Tourism.

• If using email booking enquiries then make sure you respond quickly.

• Promote previous customer endorsements of your business, see how to Make Traveller Reviews part of your Marketing Strategy.

• Keep your website updated with fresh content – there’s nothing worse than out of date information. Having your own content management system will go a long way to do this. Also having a blog page can give you a quick and easy way to adding new information and news.

Checkout this summary of Content and User Experience in Online Travel 2009 – a global online traveller research study conducted by Frommers Unlimited which gives a lot of detail about the process travellers go through with online research, what they are looking for and what annoys them – very information reading.

The recent Aug/Sep 2009 issue of Tourism Business Magazine has an excellent article by Steve Davies from Accommodate Me that effectively outlines the key online booking systems available for New Zealand tourism operators (mainly accommodation) with their different strengths and weaknesses.

In lieu of an online version of the article I have briefly summarised some of it’s key content and suggest any tourism business interested in more detail to grab the latest copy of the magazine. For those needing more advice you can contact me directly to help you develop your own online booking strategy to suit your business.

Key Popular Systems

What you choose to enable online bookings in your website and receive bookings from other online sales channels will depend on your business products, size and strategy – for the use of a system do you prefer paying set regular amounts or nothing upfront with a commission on success model?

Research the differences, the costs and what works best for your business. In addition to the below considerations and others mentioned in the full article, I suggest you also look at how easy the booking system is to use for your guests – can they easily view your availability and then book and pay for it without too many clicks or forms to fill in? It’s ease of use will be a large factor determining it’s success in your website.

Here are some options:

AA Travel – Only available for those who advertise online with AA Travel. Free to set up as an advertiser – 1.75 to 3.75% for bookings. Sales channel also include AA Centre retail network. AA advertising costs range between $299 and $9000+ per year.

Availability – Uses ResBook online inventory management system popular with B&B’s and Lodges. Can integrate with resellers sites but leaves it up to the tourism operator to negotiate terms and commissions. Starts at $480 per year and no commissions.

Bookit – One of the few to offer a solution for accommodation, activities, tours and car rentals. Growing number of sales channels including key sites such as NZ Tourism Guide, Yellow Maps and some Regional Tourism Organisations. Free to use system, 6% fees for bookings in own website plus commission from sales channel bookings.

Jasons/Holiday Guide – Using the Holiday Guide System it is commission free with monthly charges starting at $10 per month. Can be used in your own website, and if a paid advertiser on the Jasons website.

Seekom – Their IBEX system is for accommodation, activities/tours and car rentals with comprehensive options for selling via wholesalers and retailers. Also offers effective sales channel management for online availability and pricing updates. Connects to popular property management system (PMS) Callista with more to come. Pricing from $39 per month.

SiteMinder – Australian based but offering effective channel management for a wide range of NZ, Australian and international online sales channels, plus have more recently added “The Booking Button” for online bookings in your own website. Channel management starts from $44 per month with additional per month for the Booking Button. No commissions. (Sales Channels will still charge their commissions however).

Tourism Exchange – Air NZ owned, the newest system on the market offering integration with your property management system or use of their Eviivo Frontdesk to manage all your bookings. Provides online bookings on your own website and from their sales channels including Air NZ (online, retail and wholesale channels) with many more promised to come. Monthly charges from $0 to $79 depending on room numbers, 6% fee plus cc charges for your website bookings, plus commissions for sales channels bookings that you opt in to.

Vianet – Now Trade Me owned offers a booking tool for your own website and comprehensive network of sales channels including Travelbug, tourism websites and several Regional Tourism Organisations. Free to use the system, 3% fee for bookings from your own website plus commissions from sales channels you opt in to.