The availability of travel options for the middle class has exponentially multiplied competition in the hospitality industry. Airlines are offering promotional fares. Travel agencies come up with a variety of tours, each tailored to different budgets and personalities. Governments are competing in order to get their share of foreign visitors.
Travel Websites
The competition has spread online, too. Many trip planners and airlines are bringing their sales and marketing efforts to the world via the Internet. Services like online booking of tickets and online reservation at hotels or hostels have made it more efficient and easy to travel. With the abundance of travel websites out there, one would feel overwhelmed about entering this niche market and trying to compete against all other known sites. If you find yourself in this situation, then know that your website stands a good chance of getting favoured by Web users. Here are some things that you can pour your attention and focus on:
• Navigability. It is an all too common scenario when a Web surfer enters a site that is ranked high on the search engines only to find out that the website is a hodgepodge of words and graphics, a maze that takes too much time and patience to get through. The user then decides to just leave and find a user-friendly site that is worth his time. To avoid this situation, do research about layout schemes. The layout of your website – especially its homepage – must be pleasing to the eyes and understandable at first glance. Define the space of each feature, graphic, column and text box. Place a navigation bar prominently on top or at the left side of the page. Provide a site map. If an inside page is too long, provide occasional tabs that the user can click to quickly get back to the top of the page.
• Aesthetics. Take a crash course on colour theory or read about it on the Web. This does not only mean giving users eye candy; it also means being eye-friendly. Graphic design is also very, very important. This is why you must have fantastic, professional, unique pictures of the destination that you are promoting. You can employ Flash to present a different pictures and texts with smooth transitions. Using Flash is much lighter and more user-friendly than using a video that viewers have to stream.
• Text. There are two aspects here. One, employ search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques to make your site appear as one of the top results in search engines. This means using key phrases (do research about SEO phrases). Two, create an impact with short but truly catchy and convincing text. This can be complicated when you try to combine the two. It can be tempting to stuff your site with key phrases, but this might diminish the readability of your page. You do not want a user to visit your site only to go away because your text is boring or hard to understand.