Time to get in the face(book) of independent travellers

News that a survey of UK Facebook users has found most prefer to book travel online is the least surprising thing I’ve heard since I was told I had passed my Australian citizenship test with a score of 100 per cent.  

For a start, you would have to assume most Facebook users are pretty web savvy, so it’s a fair bet they’re as comfortable booking their next trip online as they are updating their status or uploading their holiday snaps. It’s a bit like asking 1,000 weet-bix consumers which breakfast cereal they prefer.

And even though Facebook users are getting older, it’s also a reasonable assumption that most of those polled will be the right side of 40, and therefore part of that generation that sees a visit to a travel agent a bit like I used to think of the rag and bone man – belonging to a bygone age.

But that’s not to say the survey, by price comparison website hotels-fairy.com, doesn’t have its uses. It shows that businesses targeting British travellers on Facebook – and that’s most of us I imagine – are at least talking to an audience ready and willing to listen.

The downside is that big travel e-tailers like Lastminute and Expedia seem to be winning the marketing war when it comes to cheap deals. The key to success for inbound Australian travel businesses is to make sure they reach these potential customers while they’re still making purchasing decisions, or at least persuade them to keep their options open rather than booking everything before they get here.

Otherwise, the independent travellers of today could become the dynamically packaged holidaymakers of tomorrow.

By Martin Lane  ·  February 15th, 2010 at 4:25 pm

  • Email This Post
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • MySpace
  • Digg
  • Sphinn
  • Technorati Favorites
  • Delicious
  • StumbleUpon

Comments


  1. Julian Peterson - Time Out
    16 Feb 10
    4:33 pm

    2. I just surveyed some bears and they like going in the wood.

    Youngsters will of course book online but I have just been organising a wedding in Thailand and found older family members would try and call Expedia when we sent them a link.

    All very funny except some of them got cheaper prices when they called a travel agent.

  2. greg cole
    16 Feb 10
    9:18 pm

    3. That stuff that bears do in the woods. There’s a lot flying around here.

Have your say