In the past few months State of Digital has been cooperating with Linkdex on the production of a unique E-book on the travel industry which today is officially released. The e-book gives us a unique perspective on the state of the online travel industry in 2014. This e-book is now available for everyone, here on State of Digital and with Linkdex, for free!
By collating the viewpoints and analysis of experts, thought leaders, and key commercial players of both industries, the report acts as a marker of the level of integration between travel brands and the various online channels within digital marketing in 2014. It explores and provides learned insights into what the important issues are currently, as well as future developments, and proceeds to infer and provide guidance in best practice for brands operating in the industry going forward.
The travel industry has changed dramatically over the years since the onset of digital. With ecosystem leaders building platforms, collecting data, and often encroaching downstream into specific travel verticals, brands need more than ever to stay ahead of the curve, reform and integrate business structures, and adopt agile frameworks to future-proof their businesses. Communicating a brand message which integrates across all digital channels, espousing core offline brand values that resonate throughout the purchase cycle and facilitate ongoing relationships and interactions with travel consumers, has now become crucial to survival.
Data is quickly becoming both a driver and key currency for new innovations. Travel services and products are becoming increasingly personalised, localised, and targeted, and this will lead to a wealth of both repercussions and necessary adaptations for brands operating in the travel and digital marketing industries, Travel 360 represents a rounded, complete perspective on the challenges facing businesses today, and the holistic approaches and angles that will provide real value, strategy and insight to your brand.
The e-book is free for everyone to download. We will be publishing part of it here on State of Digital, but if you can’t wait, go grab a copy yourself:
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Some highlights
The e-book is very extensive and has views from many different experts, thought-leaders, and representatives from key commercial brands in it. We talked to people like Kevin May, Martin MacDonald, John Straw, Rob Cowen, Gian Caprini, Jade Conroy and Kristjan Hauksson and have extensive information on how brands like Expedia, Tripadvisor, MSN Travel, Thomas Cook and Google work with Digital Marketing.
Some key highlights from the report:
- Communicating a holistic brand message, consistently across all channels is now very important to a brand’s long term prospects.
- Brands need to install a startup culture and nurture a digital experience that runs throughout the business.
- Storytelling helps the digital travel industry to get the right customers in the right way
- Honest, authoritative and local content, infused with quality storytelling is the future of travel content.
- Brands need to seek out and approach content creators that inspire or resonate with thier brand in order to meet the scaling challenge of providing engaging content.
- Integrate content and social media campaigns to fully realise the potential of your content.
- Storytelling, marketing, PR and outstanding content will inspire loyalty and provide long term success to a brand.
- The key is to bring all the elements together, whether it be search, social, or PR and press coverage, online and offline, so all the different channels compliment, feed and fuel each other to create fantastic results.
- Brands need to really understand their data and understand how to use it to drill down deeper into their audiences’ consciousness.
- There is going to be an increasing trend towards personalisation and the creation of more unique experiences.
- Mobile is the biggest growth area in terms of sales.
- Mobile has led to the rise of the ‘always connected traveller’ and the possibility of in-experience interactions with brands.
- Many travel brands have been using poor link building tactics and techniques with keyword rich and exact match anchor texts.
- It is key to understand international markets and culture specific differences.
And much more!
Download the full report NOW to get a full 360 insight in the travel industry!
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About the eBook
Here is the full list of contributors and the titles of their chapters.
- Executive Summary – Bas van den Beld
- Foreword – Kevin May
- Introduction: Surviving ‘Google Travel’ – Jono Alderson
- From Teletext to multi-screen: Evolution in the travel industry from 1993-present – Lee Stuart
- ZMOT Review: Where the customer journey begins – Google Think Insights
- The Online Travel Ecosystem Diagram
- Educating the Expedia Affiliate Network – Martin MacDonald
- Creating a digital experience at Thomas Cook – John Straw
- Housetrip: Finding a place to stay in the ecosystem – Simon Dance
- The TripAdvisor business ecosystem: Completing the virtuous circle – Alison Copus
- Adriano Comegna Q&A
- Kevin Gibbons Q&A
- Honest stories: Breathing new life into online travel content – Rob Cowen
- Searching For Inspiration in Online Travel Content – Gian Caprini, Jade Conroy
- Gus Ferguson Q&A
- Digital opportunities in PR: Extraordinary travel campaigns – James Brooke
- The End of Luxury – Andrew Whiteside
- British Airways’ multichannel travel content – Case study
- Daniel Bianchini Q&A
- A persona based approach to search and integration – Stefan Hull
- A multi-signal search strategy: Integrating offline brand values with the digital offering – Claire Mason
- Blueclaw Q&A
- Stephen Pavlovich Q&A
- Inspired by Iceland: An international marketing campaign case study – Kristjan Hauksson
- Obermutten: Global interactions on a local scale – Inspired by a post from State of Digital
- Conclusion – Bas van den Beld
- Final Thoughts – Linkdex
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