Technology is rapidly evolving as the use of the internet increases. As the internet has simplified numerous processes, it creates a considerable marketplace for Online Travel Agencies.
Despite such a vast marketplace, there are many challenges that you will face if you are associated with this industry.
Do people come to your booking site, look for flights and hotels, and then leave without making a booking almost on the spur of the moment?
If you answered yes, you should evaluate your site and make improvements based on the suggestions given in this article to increase travel bookings.
According to a study, a travel website with a conversion rate of 10% is ideal for a travel website. If your site’s conversion rate is significantly lower than this, this article can assist you in increasing your conversion rate.
A travel booking site’s conversion rate is always poor because of the complex booking procedure, asking for too much information, and a complicated checkout process.
However, the conversion rate of some websites is significantly lower than the industry average. For instance, 97% of visitors leave your website without placing a reservation. Then it is a serious concern. Your website has a flaw that stops users from making a reservation.
Here are some tips that will help you to increase travel bookings.
Make your travel website attractive and easy to search.
The majority of the customers leave the website in no time because they find it complex and non-attractive.
The most common mode of operation for visitors to this site is ‘browsing and finding.’
People generally type the traveling destination and date to search for travel bookings. Your website should be easy to explore in this case.
Display in trending/recommended sections
The famous or preferred area is another way to put your low-traffic bookings.
Because of their positioning, these booking categories are guaranteed increased visibility, and just placing a hotel or destination in a select group rises its attractiveness.
You may also increase the number of people who see your low-performing booking by promoting it on the goods page when people are looking for comparable items.
When booking directly, offer attractive packages and discounts.
Offering attractive packages to direct booking users helps to increase travel bookings.
Customers like to go on vacation with tour packages since everything is well organized in advance by the travel agency, allowing them to relax and enjoy their vacation.
You may combine the various value-added services you offer to develop a custom package and submit it to direct users.
You can advertise specific seasonal combos, reveal hot airline bargains, and sell hotel rooms and activities packages together for a better price.
This might be exciting for both you and your customers.
Add credibility notifications across the website.
Consumers are increasingly looking for authentic social proof before planning their vacation bookings, according to a new survey from Stackla.
According to Stackla’s research, 86 percent of consumers have become interested in visiting a particular destination because of social photographs posted by friends, relatives, or peers.
Related: 50+ real examples of social proof
Thus, using an appropriate social proof strategy is vital to increase travel bookings rapidly. WiserNotify is one of the Social Proof App that can help you automate social proof on your website, and increase bookings. The average conversion rate of WiserNotify users is 17% which is far better than the travel industry average.
✓ Build trust & credibility with live visitor notifications
✓ Show real-time bookings
✓ Show booking count on the destination page
✓ Show Facebook, Google & other platform reviews
✓ Show travel destination previews with Video Pop-ups
✓ Make announcements of upcoming tour packages or discount offers
✓ Create urgency with timer widget and limited-time discounts
✓ Show off your social media following
✓ Collect e-mail leads with collector widgets
✓ Add WhatsApp chat widgets to answer customer questions
Also read: How to Increase Your Hotel Bookings?
Review! Review! Review!
Reviews can be used as a gauge to determine whether or not the services you’re delivering are meeting expectations and to identify areas where you need to improve to increase travel bookings.
It is not necessary to receive only good feedback. On the other hand, negative feedback constantly challenges you to better in areas where you fall short.
Millions of individuals read reviews on Online Travel Agencies’ websites every day before deciding to plan the trip.
It’s not a good idea to only post favorable evaluations of your travel agency. As a result, you should always manage your customers’ reviews, both positive and negative feedback.
Grab attention on Exit intents
Despite having a solid website presence, your guest misses the bookings while exploring your website.
They have seen the suitable package but are exploring better they forgot about the earlier one.
A message on exit can be a perfect method to target your visitor at moments like these.
Many times, it provides you a golden chance to get successful travel bookings. You don’t wish to give an exit-intent overlay to every visitor.
You’ll see increased awareness and sales if you focus on the correct visitors with responsive offers. So, focused exit intents are necessary to increase travel bookings.
Increase awareness by segmenting and personalizing your marketing
It’s not enough to have an attractive website. You must have a highly active presence on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram to increase travel bookings.
This is because Google gives content distributed through these platforms a higher ranking than other content.
Social media usage is one of your travel firms’ most effective sales techniques to increase travel bookings.
Your information will come close to the top of the page in search results if you have a strong presence on social media.
People are influenced by their colleagues’ pictures and plan their vacations accordingly.
- Create a page on such social media sites to share their most recent experiences through stories, images, and videos.
- To generate revenue for your travel agency, you may also publish special offers or top discounts on this page.
- Consumers today, particularly younger ones, are more inclined to buy anything based on a recommendation by an influencer on various social platforms
like Instagram, Twitter, youtube personality than from a real celebrity. You should try influencer marketing to increase travel bookings. You can offer a particular discount or additional benefit when bookings are made through the referral link of an influencer.
Email marketing
If a substantial percentage of your bookings are abandoned, email remarketing is an excellent technique to re-engage customers.
This Email marketing gives you a double-edged sword, and you can enhance your conversions by using both traditional email marketing and email remarketing.
You can advertise exclusive holiday packages that offer hot bargains from airlines and other travel partners by sending emails to your clients.
You might just be able to provoke that purchase in a follow-up email by using a combination of reminders, incentives, urgency, social proof, and relevant information.
Also read: Best Email Marketing Tools For Startups
Conclusion
The difficulty for every online travel company is to attract customers at every stage of the conversion funnel. Visit records and form analytics are some of the tools that may help you successfully evaluate user activity on websites, which can help you increase trip bookings. As a result, there is never a single straightforward answer. Knowing the consumers’ pain points and giving the most satisfactory solution can improve your customer experience.
