From attracting to seducing, the internet has changed tourism as well

The Internet has become the means of attraction of tourists for many “inexistent” Tourist Destinations worldwide. Places like New Zealand, Slovakia, Montenegro or regions such as Murcia or Extremadura in Spain almost did not “exist” before the Internet Revolution. They took very seriously their online potential and invested time and money on their online actions and strategies. Here below I try to will give you a different approach with 3 different methods of how Destinations could or do use the power and the potential of the internet to seduce visitors.

1. T.U.I: Traditional Uncovered Influence.

In T.U.I mode the destination gives to Thomas Cook, Thomson-Tui, American Express Travel or whoever other Big Tour Operator, lets say 3,5 million Euros each in form of “marketing expenses” and seeks ROI. This money is used by the tour operators to “market” the destination and of course to market it online since 50% of the sales of the big tour operators are now made online and almost 98% of total sales are confirmed using online tools. Thomsons-Tui for example last week was promoting Tunisia on their UK site and defiantly they were not doing it for free. If Cyprus for example is an expensive destination and Turkey or Tunisia are not so expensive then obviously the tour operator will prefer to promote an easy to sell destination than a hard one, since we are in S.H.I.T, (Stupid Hospitality Industry Turbulence) caused by real estate speculation

2. D.I.Y.O: Do It Yourself Online:

D.I.Y.O is a rather new way of attracting visitors. As all other D.I.Y methods, this requires new skills, new way of thinking, new strategy, new planning and especially lots of courage and faith in what you are doing. It works the same way as D.I.Y for plumbing. If you do not have enough confidence in what you are doing or if your skills are not yet well developed then you may end up with the house flooded. In politics flooding is dangerous, voters can punish you severely, just look what happens in the UK. Ministers fall over their chairs one after the other, but anyway that is in the UK, those things do not happen in the southern areas of the ex British Empire.

3. N.E.T: Neo-technological Effective Tourism:

N.E.T has 3 legs: The Destination, The Suppliers and The Customer all working in a team.

1. The Destination: a.k.a the Tourism Board: With N.E.T the Destination belongs to all and not all to the Destination. It needs to have proven flexibility, credibility and ability, not proven incapability. It needs to give answers online and not orders from-the-line. It needs to share valuable content and in an easy, indexable, universal and accessible environment and not hide content behind bureaucratic monsters and technological myths. In N.E.T “mood” the Destination to has a regulatory role and not a regular role.

2. The Suppliers Travel Professionals : In a N.E.T environment the airlines have online services and not online barriers, the taxis are booked online together with public transport and not “hitched hiked”, the hotels have online price parity and not online price asperity, the incoming agents are destination experts and not the destination desperates, in N.E.T suppliers practice online customer care do not customer scare.

3. The Customer: a.k.a the One who Pays Our Salaries.: The Customer is not only the receiver anymore but also the transmitter. He/She determines online how he/she wants to receive the service, he/she feels the value from home on the PC screen and he/she Pay Palls it. He/She is not scared to share and shout it loud. How does he/she does all that? By Blogging and not Blocking, by Commenting and not Complaining , by Face-booking and not Face-hiding, by Twittering and not Twisting , being on Youtube and not on Our Tube, by Trip Advising and not Trip Forgetting, by being Seduced online and not Ignored even online.

The article was originally published on the Cypriot Newspaper
Financial Mirror on Wednesday 1^st July 2009.