A technology guru, Brett Henry, vice president from Abacus is able to share his up to date views on travel technology. He conveys his ideas about technology in a persuasive manner that grabs the attention of the reader. He knows his topcis well and delves into how readers too can benefit from his idea.
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Whether your investment is small or sizeable, once you have your website up and running, the next thing to ask yourself is, “How is the world going to know that my website exists?”
Google and Yahoo are about the most common search engines in the world of “WWWs”. I frequently power up Google when I need to search for information, or to locate a website that has the information that I need.
In other words, you need to be listed on search engines. Technically, we term this as “Search Engine Optimsation (SEO)”. It is not a “luck thing” to get listed on Google. SEO follows certain principles and guidelines. SEO consists of a set of techniques, like using the right keywords, creating internals links within your site, having external links with other related sites or e-journal or e-article write-ups to indirectly promote your site through some means of educating your visitors on the expertise areas related to your site.
You can easily spend 10’s or 100’s of thousands of dollars building your online website. If you are a risk taker and crystal clear on how you will win online then throwing money at the problem might be the right approach….but otherwise I’d recommend getting started slowly, and gradually. The objective is to build your knowledge about what works and how to get the most out of the online medium for you business. After you have some experience you can better assess where to invest your precious dollars. As I discussed in my first column – beware - deciding what to do solely based on what you see others are doing is definitely not a business-savvy approach. Get some experience determining what works before you invest the big $$$$.
There are several low cost tools that enable agencies to get up and running (and learning) online without having to put out big dollars. Solutions such as Abacus WebCreate and Abacus WebStart are examples of low-cost eBusiness tools that offer fast implementation, hassle-free maintenance, customized branding, and configurable services.
One of the most important tenets to remember in moving your agency online is that your online website needs to be a representation of your offline business. As you plan your online presence it's essential that you have a clear understanding of your existing agency's business strategy and unique brand proposition. Simply putting up a generic website or copying what you see from competitors won't accomplish that. Too often I have witnessed agencies trying to emulate the online leader in their respective market: "They must know how what works," goes the rationale, "so let's do something similar." Don't ever buy this! You need to make your online presence a two-dimensional representation of what your business is offline.
For example, if you win customers through developing deep personal relationships, design a web site that communicates this unique position. You might design a site that recognizes your repeat customers when they visit and displays a customized home page.
You know the old saying about advertising - “50% of the spend is wasted - the trick is to know which 50%”. If only it were any different for online travel distribution, but the reality is I don’t think we’re there yet, despite what some ‘out of the box’ IT solutions providers might try to tell you.
Every year, Asian businesses invest hundreds of millions to create new online channels and applications. Whether its airlines investing in consumer direct, new entrants in the pure OTA space or traditional agencies wanting to connect with customers; many come from the Field of Dreams school of thought - “if we build it, they will come.”
With Asia’s online travel sector growing at a compounding annual average of 50% over the past six years you can see the attraction, but sadly many are investing, and many are being stung.
Fortunately there are things your business can do to improve its chances of online success. Really knowing your reasons for going online and knowing what’s coming next are two of biggest success indicators from our experience of working with many of Asia’s leading online agencies.
I hope you will join me over coming weeks as I drill into these factors that have helped some of Asia’s existing online winners become the ‘click magnets’ they are today.
Brett Henry | 
