Website Personalization Drives Demand, Loyalty of Travellers

At this stage, many argue, online travel companies have experienced phenomenal growth. But moving forward, growth is going to be much more difficult.

 “There aren’t going to be many more users coming on board,” said Carroll Rheem, senior director of research for PhoCusWright, during a webinar titled “Personalizing the Online Travel Experience” held last month. “Early success factors of having great inventory and pulling all the pieces together not are just enough.”

What determines the winners from the losers moving forward, Rheem said, is whether they are successful at building relationships and personalizing the online travel-buying experience.

Personalizing a user’s online experience primarily means learning the demographics of the website’s audience and tailoring content and options to connect guests with exactly what they’re looking for. One high-level example is determining when a user is accessing the site via a mobile device and delivering content and design that takes advantage of that space. Building location-based maps into apps is another example.

How do users choose websites

Hoteliers and third-party distributors can learn a lot about tailoring a guests’ experience by determining why travelers choose the sites they do.

Rheem said sites are chosen based on the following priorities: 1) ease of use; 2) good previous experience with the website; and 3) best prices or offers.

 “Understanding that ease of use can drive more traffic than best prices is essential,” she said. “Experience has become first and foremost in that website choice decision.”

Conversely, the influence of loyalty programs is waning in that decision-making, Rheem said.

Knowing these factors, she said, can help hoteliers personalize the content on their websites by tailoring the cosmetics, offering recommendations and connecting the user experience with the products available.

Demographics of travelers

Hoteliers can tailor their website experience by studying users’ demographics.

For Expedia, customer demographics play a large role in how the site operates. The online travel agency can personalize website experiences based on what type of travel is occurring and what date it’s occurring on, said John Kim, senior VP of global product development.

 “If you’re going to New York from Seattle during the week, you’re most likely going on business,” he said. “When you have that type of context, you make market choices about what type of hotels you show them. The business traveler might not be as concerned about a resort as the traveler to Orlando (Florida).”

Kim said the source traffic, or where a user is coming from, also helps in tailoring what is displayed. Expedia tries to maintain the context of a user’s previous site, he said. For example, if a user is coming to Expedia from TripAdvisor, Expedia.com will make sure TripAdvisor reviews are prominent.

Fairmont Hotels & Resorts’ loyalty members have the option of sharing details on their respective travel interests in account profiles, said Michael Innocentin, director of Internet marketing.

 “This information helps us determine more on pursuits and travel passions that are important to them and allows us to share relevant information with them throughout our marketing programs,” he said. “We also utilize Web-analytics solutions to track aggregate behaviors on the site in order to improve site performance and usability.”

Gathering information

There are many ways to gather information about users while they’re visiting a site, PhoCusWright’s Rheem said.

For example, a widget where travelers enter their hotel location and dates of arrival and departure tell a great deal about a potential visit. If the same information is entered repeatedly, successful hotel sites will save those searches and serve them back up the next time the user visits.

 “If you see behavior like that, then take that information and use it,” Rheem said. “There’s value in that history.”

Getting users to login—loyalty members, for example—helps hoteliers eliminate information that isn’t relevant, said Kurt Heinemann, chief marketing officer for Monetate, a marketing company that helps brands personalize website content and features.

Heinemann said knowing the device—desktop, mobile or tablet—is important. If a user has been to the site before, successful hoteliers will offer a “welcome back” message and invite users to see what’s new.

If the website is set up to ask how many guests will be in a room, and the response is more than two, hoteliers can assume the trip is family-oriented and promote children activities.

 “As simple as it is to shop for Paris hotels, there are 1,000 of them. That’s not an easy choice,” said Expedia’s Kim. “We need to be great at helping the consumer make the choice.”

 “Understanding the phase in the travel planning cycle is key to meeting this need,” said Fairmont’s Innocentin. “The rise of mobile devices is accelerating the need to deliver contextually relevant content to guests.”

For example, Innocentin said a guest in the planning phase is likely looking for different information than a guest that visits the site one day prior to a stay.

 “Our goal is to understand our guests’ needs and be able to offer them the relevant information for whatever stage they find themselves in, in the travel process,” he said. “If we can deliver more relevant information to our guests, we can increase engagement and foster loyalty in the long run.”