Volume I | Issue no. 1
It seems to us that there is a real opportunity for destinations to take back control of their marketing and ditch these sites that are commoditizing travel and leaving the average traveler uninspired.
Southwest Airlines did this a long time ago. Today, they’re one of the few airlines that’s making a profit. While they’re viewed as a low cost airline, Southwest consistently fills their seats and commands the highest average ticket price from my home airport in Albany, New York. More often than not, I fly Southwest and so do my friends and family.
How did they accomplish this? They know what their brand stands for, and now so do their employees and their customers. The flight attendants and pilots tell jokes. It's inspiring. Everyone on board is enjoying the trip. Southwest is in complete control of the consumer’s interaction with their brand. They control the advertising, the email marketing, their web presence. If you want to book with Southwest, you have to use their booking engine, not the one that all of their competitors use.
If more travel and destination marketers followed Southwest’s lead, everyone would benefit: travelers and owners of travel and destination brands alike.
In the next issue:
How To Build The Perfect Destination Website.
I think the challenge becomes if these aggregates/distribution sites actually pull in hte $2,000 trips. It is much easier (as I am sure you know) to pull in partners with trips/offerings less than $1,200 as you will likely book these on-line, or more likely than a $2,000+ trip. Most of the 3000+ folks I've taken on trips over the years want to speak directly with the provider prior to booking in this price range.
Thanks for the great info on your site!
warmly,
Kathy Dragon
You are right about the let down in the TravelMuse experience. It clearly exposes today's limits of technology when it comes to providing solutions that start with the research and planning phases of the travel process. Sooner or later every site taking that correct approach ends up in the same dead end of having to provide a limited selection. I'm sure the TravelMuse folks and others like Tripbase are trying very hard to improve their technology to make the steps following the inspiration based search a better one.
Your example shows how much tougher it is to realize that than to sell a simple commodity airline seat as Southwest can do it based on being known as the lowest price provider by just about anyone in America. They can do that with relatively simple technology that has been around for decades. Same is true for JetBlue.
Component sales are easy by now, complex trips starting at the point of inspiration remain a very big challenge. Someone will come up with a solution, when it happens remains to be seen. I for one, welcome the efforts of the travel 2.0 trip planning sites. At least they make an effort to do more than just push the latest lowest price deal leading the industry to a dead end.
I'd sugget going back to the NY Times for inspiration stories and ads, on and off line
It's 'ad infinitum', not 'on infinitum'...
I couldn't agree more with the basic premise -- price is the refuge of the ignorant seller and buyer, so we're seeing a lot of ignorance displayed in the marketplace. It takes courage and strategic vision to stay away from the price conversation, and to tell a compelling story that inspires destination travel.
Thanks for the catch, Rich. In these days of social media, we try to avoid using the word "ad" wherever we can. Sometimes, we avoid it too much.