With the huge amount of data available and the proliferation of smartphones, creating a different experience for your customer is not rocket science. So why aren’t more travel brands doing it? Is it because it’s quite challenging to marry the digital experience with what happens in the real world, asks Pamela Whitby

It is one thing creating a fantastic, engaging digital experience but what happens if the real-world experience doesn’t deliver on what is promised? Then you risk disappointing your customer, says Jeroen van Velzen, chief executive of Sound of Data, who was speaking at the Travel Distribution Summit in London this morning. He points to KLM’s digital strategy to give customers ‘little acts of kindness’ as one that digital strategy that may have lead to unrealistic expectations of the actual travel product itself.  

Given that this year, a third of the world’s travel sales will be made online, and smartphone penetration will reach 75% it is time for brands to wake up. For Richard Lewis, chief executive Best Western GB, this presents a huge opportunity. Before the digital age, the travel industry did not have the ‘shelf’ that marketers in other industries could rely on.  Before consumers relied on travel agents to book, for example, a hotel in the Maldives and the agent got a commission for doing so. You turned and hopefully got what you were expecting. “Today the hotel industry is able to build expectations in a way they never could before,” says Lewis. “For the first time ever we have a shelf.” 

But what are you going to put on it? A standardised photograph, which guarantees that a room in a hotel chain will be exactly the same in Beijing as it is in London? That is one way of doing it – and may be what some people want - but in van Velzen’s book it is the wrong way in a world that is increasingly commoditised. Instead travel brands should be using the huge amount of data available to them to create a uniquely different experience for their customer. “The beauty of digital age is the data you get from it,” admits Stuart Jackson Group Distribution and Business Development Director, Monarch Airlines. “If the phone rang in the old days that was the conversion. Now you know exactly where to put your marketing money.” 

So there really is no excuse. All that is needed is a bit creativity and real consideration and understanding of your customer.  As Lewis points out there are countless ways to do this in the six stages of the travel experience: dreaming, planning, booking, experiencing, sharing and remembering. There are opportunities to engage on social media, post beautiful content on Facebook, images in Pinterest unique video footage for YouTube, and then encourage people to share and review in the remembering stage.  This list goes on.

This ‘the shelf’, and if what is on it is compelling enough, it will drive customers to that all-important booking. This is something Google has coined the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) – in other words the point at which the consumer actually decides to buy the product. If you can create something compelling online, then you have a much greater chance of converting the customer. 

Give them something to talk about 

Once the conversion happens it is working out how to travel with your customer something that really isn’t difficult to do and with smartphones make it easier than ever. In fact it could be as simple as recommending the best route for getting to a hotel when you land at an airport. This sort of personal ‘service’ is what Airbnb has understood and may explain why it booked 12 million rooms this year, says van Velzen. So why aren’t more brands doing that? While van Velzen believes the OTAs are in the best place to deliver this experience (EyeforTravel.com Brands beware: fast food style travel has a limited shelf life), Lewis doesn’t necessarily agree. “You can’t stay on the internet. We also have a huge amount of data that the OTAs don’t have. So it is time for the hotel industry to fight back and we are on the March.” 

“If you think about your last hotel trip, there will be one element that will make you favourable or negative thing you will remember about that experience. This will determine whether you go back to that, or share the good [or bad] news with friends,” says Richard Lewis.  Given that it is increasingly recognised that people are more willing to share positive experiences online than negative ones, this is really important to remember. It is also widely recognised that people today are much more willing to share something online. So if you can give the guest a experience to take away - something as simple as door sign reading ‘go away’ rather than the standard ‘do not disturb’ - you may just amuse a customer that will leave with a memory worth sharing on social media. 

Contrary views 

Not everybody agrees that social media is the holygrail, especially if you are a start up.  BMI Regional, the oldest start up in town (EyeforTravel.com Ground Zero: How BMI is making a comeback May 13), believes that if you want to grow your business fast stick to traditional methods first such as good old email, ad words and SEO. Taking a somewhat contrarian view Colin Lewis, BMI Regional’s director of marketing, says: “If you want to go for social stuff it is a hard slog. You have to be very patient.” What BMI Regional has found, however, is that mobile and tablets are a much bigger part of the business than they expected. “Focusing on responsive design for our websites is much more important that social,” says Lewis.  Of course, it all depends on the business. 

For a luxury hotel chain like Boscolo, the call centre still counts. When you are paying $3000 for a package or $300 for a room you need more information than can be displayed on a mobile device.  In fact Boscolo is still fully espouses the intermediary. “It is difficult to describe what we do in a Tweet,” says Adriano Meloni, Digital Managing Director, Boscolo. “And the best people to do that are the travel agencies as they have brought us where we are today.” Of course, Boscolo realises that the future is digital and it is currently focusing on social media like Pinterest, YouTube, Facebook “to share the beauty of the product”. 

While BMI may not be investing heavily in social, longer standing, established brands see it as playing a crucial role in creating brand advocacy. Interestingly in a poll that took place in the first session today 38% of brands present said their priority for 2014 is to be able to transact directly through social media. 

Monarch’s Jackson says they are constantly analysing the impact of owned, shared and paid media on its marketing efforts. While shared media, in other words social, maybe a frontier area and different to quantify, from a brand point of view it builds advocacy and loyalty and is, therefore, hugely important.  

For more insights from the Travel Distribution Summit, London follow us on Twitter ‪#TDSEurope‬ and keep an eye on EyeforTravel.com in the coming weeks.