Stranded tourists, strikes and budgets

The news this week that 16,000 British tourists have been left stranded after the collapse of travel company Goldtrail Travel, is yet another example of the increasing unpredictability of the travel industry.  Now that the dust had settled, literally, on the chaos that the Icelandic volcano “Mount Unpronounceable” caused, and while BA and the unions continue to circle each other round the negotiating table it is a good time for online travel advertisers to plan how to protect revenue during the next crisis.

For example, travel brands in a position to offer last minute flights or hotel accommodation to those stranded need to act quickly to be found by passengers searching the Internet for their travel options. The cost of advertising against key search terms will change (during the ash cloud crisis it rose as demand swelled, yet conversion rates decreased) and advertisers must be able to change their search strategy, quickly.

     Increased demand for flights during ash cloud crisis 

Those advertisers that rely on dynamic auction marketplaces for paid search or display will need to be able to respond to the dramatic change in demand and price that travel crises cause.

Travel marketers should consider the following when planning:

• Automate bidding using the portfolio method. In a fast-changing environment, manual/rules-based processes are too slow to be effective.
• Understand the importance of using recent data to plan effective search marketing in a crisis 
• Understand search trends: for example, during the ash cloud, there was a huge increase in ‘non-related’ search terms, such as flight cancellations. Including more negative terms into a search campaign could increase conversion rates in this instance

Understand how to respond during a crisis:

• Understand consumer behaviour online during a crisis; and don’t just latch onto the crisis by paying for key words that are overpriced and irrelevant (such as ‘strikes’ or ‘ash cloud’)
• Ensure landing pages are relevant to new keywords, or the click-through cost will be extortionate, and bounce rate high  
• Pay more but not too much for key words
• Respond effectively to the longer-term new opportunities that crisis brings – such as domestic holidays – rather than just focusing on the short-term

Merinda Peppard - Global Marketing Manager