Whether you are a business owner working with other partners in the travel industry, or are the collaborator uniting different businesses, how your website should look and feel is important!
Now that we have discussed the importance and benefits of collaboration in the travel industry, the question of how you will collaborate and display the benefits of your collaboration to your customer arises. For example, your collaboration team can be made up of hotels, renter vehicles, cruises, tour operators, translators, restaurants, and even local businesses and people. Each partner will have a list of their products and services, and they need to be synced on one website.
The website is the most important thing for a customer. How easy it is to navigate and select, or create, their vacation packages, how transparent are the costs and services, reviews, security of payment and confirmation of reservation etc. all impact whether the customer chooses your business. With e-commerce, the service hospitality must extend into the digital world.
Customers should be able to search through listed products from your website, or select through available packages. The first option allows customers to create their own package while the second allows them to choose from prepackaged plans.
Below are four tips and reminders to be aware of when designing your website.
Stick to One Website: Your website may have three partners: the airlines, the transportation, and the hotel. However, if the customer has to access three different websites to make one booking then the whole point of e-commerce is lost. For example, Amazon works with many vendors, however all selections, purchases, and communications occurs via Amazon for the customer. Similarly, your travel business should ensure the customer only sees one website, otherwise, they may loose trust or become frustrated.
Visuals: With e-commerce, a picture really does speak a 1000 words. Images excite customers and multiple images, especially with previous customers in addition to reviews reinforce trust. It also encourages customers to explore for more deals and packages available.
Search Facility: Customers love deals. Sometimes a well-placed offer with stunning images can seal the deal for a browsing customer. This is why it is important to have a thorough search engine facility. What a customer wants can change at a moment's notice and search engines are designed to respond to the change. If your website does not offer a search facility, or if it is not collecting all the possible results available, you are likely to loose the customer because they will go to another website with better implemented technical features.
Booking Features: Online booking is one of the biggest perks to e-commerce. The moment a customer sees that online booking is not an option, they are very quick to move onto another business that offers them such features. Of course, telephone and emails are important, and some customers will prefer to use these options for booking. But the majority of website users are looking for online booking options.
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