Travel firms take focus off 'cheap'
06.05.2006, 19:42
People shopping for the best travel deals online in the future likely will find a lot more to consider than just price.
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Richard Harris, senior vice president of strategy and distribution for Travelocity, said Thursday that detailed information about travel — and the ability to make travel more than just about price — is a direction travel Web sites will go.
While such sites face a short-term risk to veer away from the emphasis on price, the long-term Travelocity goal is to "move beyond that," he said.
One example is to become a traveler's "champion." A Travelocity program launched six months ago — committing to fixing a trip gone wrong — has resulted in an increase in customer satisfaction and Travelocity brand perception, he said.
"It sort of says, if people now are making decisions about a dollar here or there, give them more reasons to make better decisions," Harris said during the Utah Tourism Conference. "Give them information to understand the thread count in the sheets, or what the seat is like on the airplane, or how many channels of DirecTV you get, or actually what the responsibility of the agency is."
The strict focus is on price today, "and we really want to give people another reason to care about where they buy their travel."
The Internet "hasn't always been as positive as it could have been" regarding travel, he said. A better approach will be promoting travel as an experience rather than a conduit to a low price.
"In the end, it's not about just finding the cheapest airfare online. It's about seeing your grandchild being born. It's about learning to rock climb, about seeing the sun set at night in the desert. And what people take from their travel experiences really do last a lifetime. They're the stories they tell their grandchildren, in the pictures on our walls," he said.
Many people's top memories stem from travel, he noted.
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"We've all been very focused on commodity pricing, about where can you get the cheapest hotel, where can you get the cheapest flight. And unfortunately we've trained travelers to behave that way. When we do studies, a $1 change in price for an airline ticket will move massive share, . . . and it's kind of odd that juxtaposed against this peak life experience about seeing your grandchild born, people are making a decision based on a buck. And I think we need to get out of that cycle, and the way we get out of that cycle is by being responsible for experiences, by selling experiences," he said.
Examples of how that can work abound. Starbucks, he said, sells more than coffee. It sells an experience. And Harris once worked for a company that was able to sell travel packages to frigid Montreal in February by selling the idea of romanticism.
Making the transition to selling experiences rather than just cheap trips is difficult, he said, but he noted that Utah's approach to tourism promotion is right on target.
"Everything I've seen about Utah in my preparation to be here today really focuses on that, and I think that's exactly what the right message is," he said. "It's about the outdoor experiences. It's about natural beauty. It's about what you can experience when you get closer to nature. And I think that's exactly the right way that we should be selling travel, frankly."
Harris said online travel sites also can make better use of technology by employing non-generic e-mails, home page personalization, VIP programs and unique offers for certain types of shoppers.
The tourism conference, sponsored by the Utah Tourism Industry Coalition and the Utah Office of Tourism, continues today with a discussion on tourism as economic development by author Maury Forman and a presentation by Judy Walden on creating "A Sense of Place." Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. will speak about Utah's tourism industry, and the Tourism Hall of Fame awards and the first-ever Utah Tourism Marketing and Advertising awards will be presented during the closing luncheon.