Marketing Ireland Online

Hotel Website Marketing 2009

Presented by Laughlin Rigby

eMarketing Manager, Tourism Ireland

Online travel trends……

European Online travel market is €61 billion in 2008 (+22%) (Phocuswright)

Over 50% of all U.S. travel is now purchased online (Phocuswright)

Consumers visit on average 10 sites before booking travel (Phocuswright)

34% of consumers visit the company web site when choosing their travel (Phocuswright)

For every 2 visitors that got to an OTA to research a hotel, 1 of them will end up booking directly (Reizdor)

Online travel trends……

In Ireland…….

The first and third most popular online purchases by the Irish public related to travel i.e. Flights and Hotels/Accommodation. (JNIR ‘08)

“Travel” was the most popular website genre visited in the study by 49% of people surveyed (JNIR ‘08)

62% of Irish people book their holidays on-line (CSO Nov ’07)

Our Biggest Markets

Our New and Developing Markets

19Languages

41 International

Websites

10.3mvisitors worldwide ‘08

+53% (YTD)

Performance – visits by country 2008

Online Marketing Activity 2003 - 2008

4.6%

7.1%

11.1%

13.6%

23.0%

14.4%

9,957

6,6125,927

4,623

2,852

1,701

0.0%

5.0%

10.0%

15.0%

20.0%

25.0%

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

% M

arke

tin

g S

pen

d

0

2,000

4,000

6,000

8,000

10,000

12,000

€ S

pen

d

Online Marketing as a % of Total Marketing Spend

Actual Spend in Online Marekting

Tourism Ireland: Digital Marketing Spend

Tourism Ireland’s eMarketing Strategy

3. Push (put our presence out on social media and eNetworks)

1. Pull (drive visitors to the site)

eMarketing Strategy:

2. Engage (enhance the website and increase consumer

engagement)

1. Pull (drive visitors to the site)• Online Advertising: all standard formats (banners, skys, MPUs), rich media

• Partnership Media Promotions: joint campaigns with individual sites e.g. lastminute, expedia, tripadvisor

• Email Marketing: TI database, Cold data, Media partner databases

• Search Engine Marketing: 27 markets, over €800,000 invested in 08, 2,000+ key search terms

1. Pull (drive visitors to the site)

1. Pull (drive visitors to the site)• Search Engine

Optimisation: continuous evolution of di.com to improve rankings and natural search traffic

• Offline Advertising: clear and inviting call to action to visit site across all offline media

• Campaign Site Inclusion: drive to traffic when appropriate to main site instead of once-off microsites

1. Pull (drive visitors to the site)

1. Pull (drive visitors to the site)• Website launched March 2006

• First phase of a global web development project

• Database of over 30,000 tourism products on all-island tourism database

• Post launch – usability study in 4 markets

• Ambitious evolution programme underway from 2007 through 2009

• 36 individual enhancement projects undertaken

• Deliver commercial platform, inspiration, engagement

2. Engage (enhance site/increase engagement)

Homepage Redesign: New homepage design, functionality, flexibility and Navigation

Rich Media: Launched 13 custom edited videos and 13 slide shows across key visitor interaction pages: Places to go, Things to see and do, About Ireland, Accom. Main PR video.

Things to See and Do: Golf: Entirely new section and enhanced functionality.

Key Industry Platforms

Strategy• ‘Level playing pitch’ for all our Industry partners • Provide platform to close sale• Site does not have booking engine• Listings, links, offers and partnership programmes

Trade Offers• XML Metasearch functionality for offers feeds from IHF, FI, NITB, Manor House

hotels• Incorporate Market Partnership programme

2009 Review of offers section• Site analytics on offers, path analysis• External benchmarking – what others are doing?• Consumer Trends• Quality Assurance of value for stakeholders and consumers

1. Pull (drive visitors to the site)

3. Push (put presence on social media)

What is Social Media?

The online reference website Wikipedia definition:

“Social Media refers to a collective group of web properties that are driven by users. These include blogs, discussion boards, vlogs, and video sharing sites. Social Media Optimization (SMO) is the process of trying to get your content more widely distributed across multiple Social Media networks.”

• Tripadvisor gets 25 million unique users a month

• 45 people employed to read all the content put up on the site

• 58% of users want hotels to be able to respond to reviews, and only 5% don’t

Social Media Site Stats….

• WAYN has approx 15 - 25,000 new members every day

• 5 million photos & 4 million trips added to WAYN

• Every new member brings in 13 other members

Social Media Site Stats….

• Yahoo travel, there are 130,000 trip plans (15% of which are public)

• Yahoo Answers has 100 million users worldwide

Social Media Site Stats….

40% of google maps traffic is travel related (Google)

Social Media Site Stats….

Social Media trends……

50% of the online population are involved in Social media (Forrester)

55 million Blogs – Technorati

Over 2 million articles written in over 100 languages on Wikipedia

40% of bandwidth is taken up by video (youtube)

Online households watching web video in the U.S. grew from 32% to 63% in 12 months (ABI research)

Nearly 50% of Youtube’s, Facebook’s and Twitter’s audience is over 35

Social Media trends……

And for online travellers…..

Over 80% of people consult videos or pictures of the property before booking (Google)

Video increases sales by 55% and pictures increase sales by 69% for travel suppliers (Phocuswright)

+3% of traffic from Social Network sites go to travel sites (Hitwise)

Social Media Categories

• Forums

• Blogs, Vlogs, Podcasts

• Collaborative Knowledge Sites

• Review sites

• Applications

• Social Bookmarking

• Communities/Social networking sites

• Rich media

Rich Media

“Within two years, travel web sites that lack video will look uninspired and outdated next to those that do,

meaning that the time to get rolling with online video is now.”

Forrester Research, “How Travellers Use Online” Video, June 2008

“Go Where Ireland Takes You”

- the series

eMarketing Checklist

It is economical and easy to get involved and is more measurable than most traditional marketing channels

Monitor your brand online and use right of reply Create a video of your business offering Add images, videos to your sites and on platforms such as YouTube Explore writing a blog or podcast Create a social network profile for your business Post replies on forums demonstrating your area of expertise Edit a wiki page for your service on Wikipedia Encourage visitors to leave comments on tripadvisor.com if they enjoyed

their stay Use your metrics to know how visitors find you and what they do when they

arrive

Finally: Take chance, try something new, copy the trends, explore social media

For more information

• eStudio on www.tourismireland.com under “Resources for you”

• Download the “Wonderful World Wide Buzz” from Tourism Ireland publications at http://www.tourismireland.com/Home/resources-for-you/e-Studio/Interesting-articles---information.aspx

• Email: lrigby@tourismrieland.com

Thank you!