Bringing Long Tail Content to the Fore
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...There has been a lot of discussion over the last year about the long tail of travel and the move to market and sell specialized travel products. PhocusWright’s Senior Strategist John Bray, in a presentation at the 2007 IFITT Enter Conference, elaborated on the primary differences between Travel 1.0 and Travel 2.0. Mr. Bray pointed out that travel 1.0 was about “Searching for the Lowest Fare” whereas Travel 2.0 is about “Finding the Perfect Trip”. What does this mean exactly? 
Well, it means that consumers are researching, asking questions, and looking for alternatives to traditional travel products, they are in essence taking control. User generated content, review sites, and social networking are all playing an increasingly important role in how consumers are choosing destinations. 
Sites like WikiTravel.org and World66.com for example, which are edited by travelers from around the World, are becoming the defacto travel guides of choice for many travelers. So why aren’t DMOs jumping onto sites like these and taking ownership of the content for the destinations for which they are responsible? Because for the most part, DMOs are so wrapped up in their own initiatives that they have little or no resources to search out and manage the content on these other sites. It is undeniable however that taking ownership of content on these sites would add credibility to the content and potentially increase link density as well as traffic to destination sites. Not to mention that more consumers would be searching out and using the information added by the DMOs if it were available on these sites. Wikitravel for example, has an alexa ranking of 6,656. Compare that to Visit London, which I suspect is one of the most popular DMO sites, at 30,710 and you can begin to see the impact that these traveler generated guides can have.
In addition to taking ownership of content on other popular UGC sites, destination marketers also need to engage their stakeholders by providing them with opportunities to market and sell their products through destination sites. Companies like Viator have been very effective at aggregating and distributing destination products. This product, however, still only represents a very small percentage of the actual destination product offered by a huge variety of providers. Why? Because Viator’s primary goal is to sell product, where as the primary goal of the DMO is to sell a destination so that its stakeholders can sell their product. One of the key tenets of Travel 2.0 is to “Gather and assimilate information not previously possible”. I believe that this means aggregating product data in an unbiased manner and making it available through a standardized web service. Viator and other aggregators are biased in their consolidation and distribution of content because they control both who can participate and they control the data. In order for the marketplace to be truly open, tour operators and suppliers need to control their own product data and how they wish to distribute that data.
In the end, I strongly believe the DMOs and other tourism organizations are going to have to work to engage their stakeholders. My experience has been that tour operators, especially small operators, tend to silo themselves and work in bubbles. This is not necessarily deliberate, but more a result of the fact that these small operators are extremely overworked and under resourced, both financially and from a labour perspective. Before we see the full effect of travel 2.0 we need to see tour operators in every region engage with new technology and start making their businesses e-commerce ready.
Sphere: Related ContentComments
2 Responses to “Bringing Long Tail Content to the Fore”
Got something to say?
Hi! As the founder of Wikitravel, let me go ahead and say that we’re very excited about having more tourism offices participate on a very real level with the site. We think there’s a great opportunity for offices to connect with travellers in a very direct way through wiki content.
We’ve had a number of offices already participate in the site, with good results. We’ve also had some bad experiences: offices more interested in writing a travel brochure (”COME enjoy the SPLENDID LUXURY of a FANTASY VACATION COME TRUE in Blah Blah Village…”) than a practical travel guide.
But I think that offices that are willing to work together with travelers can benefit not only visitors but also their destinations.
We have a sub-project for tourism offices to work on the site; see our Tourist Bureau Expedition.
Thanks Evan. That’s a great comment and a strong confirmation for DMOs to get more engaged. I hope we see more participation from DMOs in the future and I’ll be sure to mention your comments at the upcoming Canada-e-connect conference.