Social Media and Marketing

Specialist tour operator Voyages Jules Verne, part of the Kuoni Travel Group, has just launched a pioneering review and community area on their website www.vjv.com

Published: 08 Sep 2010

Specialist tour operator Voyages Jules Verne, part of the Kuoni Travel Group, has just launched a pioneering review and community area on their website www.vjv.com

The Visitor Review application, provided by social media and social networking innovators Digital Visitor, is branded as ‘VJVLounge’ and will encourage Voyages Jules Verne customers to become part of an online member community to exchange ideas and information, helping to increase bookings.

Voyages Jules Verne pride themselves on providing a quality service for their customers, which is reflected by the high number of loyal repeat travellers. In an effort to further enhance this, Voyages Jules Verne has integrated the Visitor Review technology to utilise the benefits of social media and social networking and encourage greater interaction and foster increased customer loyalty.

VJVLounge will allow members to rate and review tours on which they have travelled, read genuine customer reviews with ratings, upload photos and videos of their Voyages Jules Verne travel experiences, reconnect with and make new travelling friends, and join and create groups on areas or discussions of interest.

To encourage activity, members will be rewarded points for various activity undertaken on VJVLounge, including entering competitions and uploading reviews, and they will be able to work through different member levels, all named after a great explorer (Columbus, Shackleton, Livingstone and Marco Polo), to receive exclusive VJV pins.

David Pattison, Head of Product & Marketing of Voyages Jules Verne says: “VJVLounge is an exciting and innovative community which will allow customers to provide genuine reviews on their experiences of our arrangements and to interact with each other. We have always been keen to listen to our customers and VJVLounge now offers a much larger and more influential platform. Consequently we will be able to maintain quality, improve certain aspects of our service and better satisfy our clients’ needs.”

Anthony Rawlins, Managing Director of Digital Visitor, adds: “We are delighted to be working with one of the leading brands in the travel industry on this innovative project”.

“Through our partnership with Voyages Jules Verne, we have further developed our Visitor Review platform from a UGC focused solution to now include an additional multifaceted white-labelled social networking platform. “

Voyages Jules Verne and Digital Visitor will be presenting insights in to the ‘VJVLounge’ at EyeforTravel’s upcoming Online Marketing & Social Media in Travel Summit, Prague, 5-6 October.

For more information about VJVLounge and/or to become a member, please visit www.vjvlounge.com