Let’s face it - social media is a huge topic in the online universe, with posts created every second offering opinions on trending topics or commenting on the latest news.  But can social media really make a difference to the bottom line for travel companies?   According to econsultancy.com, 70% of all bloggers are organically talking about brands on their own blog, which of course is worth its weight in gold with regards to SEO development.  With  an authoritative, relevant blogger producing great content about your brand, you gain free brand awareness and possibly additional traffic to your site.

BUT (and yes it is a big but) ladies & gentleman, can social media really increase conversion?  The recent WTM (World Travel Market) conference, was an interesting chance to take a look at the direct effect that social media has in the travel and tourism sector.  The sector was expected to benefit massively from the use of social media. The example below shows how people use social media to post travel deals across different platforms to update potential holidaymakers with their latest travel offers.  A massive 40% of the travel and tourism industry view social media as a major influence, and a further 20% anticipate that social media is the single biggest opportunity in the next five years.

The actual stats however, seem to tell a different story.  A poll of 1,000 holidaymakers at WTM found that only 36% were influenced by social media when booking a holiday.  66% of the respondents consulted TripAdvisor, whereas sites such as Twitter were visited by only 17%. This suggests that two-thirds of holidaymakers continued to book their original destination regardless of social media.  With less than a quarter (24%) expecting to use social media to plan their next holiday in 2011, it would appear that the huge focus given to this channel could be unfounded.

As with other sectors, peer influence and word of mouth is an extremely strong tool.  Really harnessing the power of your advocates will help you reach Search Nirvana whereby they effectively do your marketing for you.  However, as we know, anyone can become an online publisher therefore this can be a double-edged sword. With good reviews come bad reviews and this opens up a whole can of worms.  Should you respond to negative reviews and if so, how? Who in your company is going to take responsibility for this?  Should you then also respond to positive reviews?  How can you keep up to date with what is being said about your brand online?

Quite often your existing advocates will jump in and respond to any criticism which is far more powerful than having to do it yourself.   Holidays and travel are all about the experience.  Surely, by using video, useful content and beautiful imagery, travel companies should focus on inspiring people to visit new places?