Google’s cleverly devised notion of ‘micro-moments’ poses interesting challenges for travel agents who want to continue to drive new customers to their websites.
Don’t know what a micro moment is? Here is Google’s definition:
“intent-driven moments of decision-making and preference-shaping that occur throughout the entire consumer journey”
Whilst travel agents have existing client databases, ensuring brand awareness and fresh customers is a must to keep business continuity, which means micro-moments need to be considered.
With one-in-three people now having a smartphone, mobile internet is now firmly becoming the choice of access for many users, whether on the go or stationary.
Typical needs of buyers today
Today, buyers will (in an instant secondary action) load a web page on their mobile device, seek inspiration, quickly search, avidly absorb and then carry on doing what they were primarily doing away from their device.
Some buyers will even use voice search to vocally query a request and then have OK Google return the relevant information.
This is a very different experience compared to that of the early 2000s, the era when print brochures were still in circulation and webpages were visited either at a work or home desk.
Typical micro-moment searches for travel buyers
Whilst on the go, buyers will search using a variety of phrases, all with a new, common format:
- Dreaming – “what is the weather like in Paris in July”
- Planning – “Best restaurants in Paris”
- Buying – “Hotels in Paris”
- Experiencing – “Restaurants near me”
Conducting some searches in Google, the usual travel websites such as Tripadvisor return results for these types of queries but, how do travel agents also gain exposure for these moments and gain traffic from potential buyers?
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