ESCP Europe Alumni Magazine - N°145 - Novembre/Décembre 2012 - 19

FoCus

Website or mobile site?
Marie de DUCLA works at Google as an Industry Head for the Travel Industry in the Gulf, based in Dubai. With her team, they are looking after travel advertisers and assist them in developing a smart digital marketing strategy to reach customers online across all relevant market and grow their business.
Can you tell us about the main digital trends? There’s no doubt that we live in a digital era: there are 2.3 billion desktop internet users worldwide versus 800 Million in 2004, 1 billion smartphone users growing at 37%. These users make 100 billion searches every month in the world on Google! 800 million watch 4 billion hours of video on YouTube per month. On social media, there are 900 million Facebook users versus 150 million in 2009 and Google + has acquired 400 million users in only 14 months. What’s the impact on purchasing behaviors? It’s clear that users not only look for information and watch video online, but they also purchase online. Globally the size of the e-commerce market is expected to reach $1.4 trillion in 2015 (according to Cisco IBSG study, 2010). For the travel industry, by the end of 2012, 1/3 of the world travel sales will be booked online ($313B-source: Phocuswright, 2011). A fully integrated online channel strategy is crucial to reach customers wherever they are with a seamless experience across all touchpoints. Can you tell us more about users online behaviour when they are looking for travel product online? Google is a data driven company and we do a lot of research and studies to understand users and what matters for them. When internet users look for travel products or information online, here are the five stages that we have identified : ● Dreaming: 68% of business travelers watch travel-related online videos. ● Planning: The average traveler visits about 22 travel related sites during 9.5 research sessions prior to booking. Booking: 37% of leisure travelers report that the internet prompted them to book, up from 28% two years ago. ● Experiencing: 70% of business travelers check into their flights/hotel with their mobile device. Almost 1 in 4 hotel queries come from a mobile phone. ● Sharing: About 1 in 3 business travelers have posted reviews online of places they’ve been. The good news for travel businesses is that Google provide solutions to reach customers at each of these stages from being visible on Google search engine result page via sponsored links or organic links to social media with Google+ or video with YouTube and everywhere on the web with the Google display network.
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By Marie de DUCLA (02)

What’s the next trend coming up for the travel industry? The big new trend in the travel industry is the rise of mobile usage. It’s not really a surprise since 73% of business travellers and 52% of leisure travellers own a smartphone. It’s now crucial for Travel businesses to be present on this device with a seamless experience for users. What are the biggest challenges for travel suppliers in this digital era? The first two questions they should ask themselves are how do we make our offers more visible and relevant in the online search phase? And do we provide internet users with the best possible user experience, once they are on our website, or mobile site. In order to answer these two questions, marketing teams need to analyze data to know how, where and when to reach their customers and understand if the user experience they’re providing them with is a good one. ●

ESCP Europe Magazine N° 145 - Novembre/Décembre 2012 -

ESCP Europe Alumni Magazine - N°145 - Novembre/Décembre 2012

Table des matières de la publication ESCP Europe Alumni Magazine - N°145 - Novembre/Décembre 2012