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Are Facebook and travel a good match?

October 24, 2011 | Online Travel

Travel brands have a long way to go to realise Facebook’s full potential and so far there’s no clear winner, according to Compete. Today, travel brands use Facebook to drive brand awareness and audience engagement and ultimately increase visits and bookings on their sites.

Travel brands have a long way to go to realise Facebook’s full potential and so far there’s no clear winner. Unfortunately, this also means there’s no palpable success story to emulate. But the upside exists: Other Compete studies have shown a positive correlation between visits to Facebook brand pages and conversion. However, those studies also show minimal overlap between brands’ Facebook pages and the same brand’s website – less than 10 percent on occasion. Unless Travel brands are successfully using Facebook as a retail channel (resulting in less of a need to drive Facebook visitors to the actual website), it’s obvious they must improve their interaction with Facebook users. How might a Travel brand approach this issue?

- Understand and emulate the success of non-travel brands using Facebook, including the leading sites within each successful category

- Identify key variations in social media strategy among Travel supplier sites and OTAs that drive differences in referral results and subsequent behavior

- Prepare for changes on social media properties based on determining the extent to which consumers are shifting from Facebook to other social media channels

- Isolate consumers’ expectations of branding and advertising within Facebook, such as through behaviorally targeted surveys

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