For the first time senior executives and bloggers stare into their crystal balls to second-guess the events which will shape the industry over the course of the next 12 months

Now before you delve right in, be aware: this is a very long post! There’s some interesting perspectives to be read and a few clashing views (always fun!), but it’s a good insight none-the-less. To save you a bit of time we’ve picked out the six most relevant points for our specific audience…

From Graham Donoghue, Travelsupermarket

“Customers will be more promiscuous. Whereas they may have looked at four websites before making a decision on their holiday in 2008, they will be looking at probably at least eight in 2009.”

Good news for any sites not appearing on the first page of Google!

From Francesca Ecsery, Cheapflights UK

“People will be more prepared to shop around for a good deal. Price will play a vital role in securing consumers in 2009. As the world’s economic position continues to dominate the news, people will think smarter about where their money goes and will be prepared to take the time to find a good deal. Consumers are expected to cut back spending on items such as clothing, new home furnishings and cares, however recent reports show holidays are the one thing consumers will resist giving up in a recession.”

Bookings may come later, but they’ll still come. At least, we hope so.

From Neil Mason, Foviance:

“The seamless integration of Web 2.0 content to provide a richer customer experience will also be key in 2009. The multi-channel silos that create the barriers between web, mobile, call centre and high street physical store (for those that are still around!) will no longer be tolerated by consumers and organisations that fail to deliver a consistent customer experience will begin to suffer the consequences.”

Experience, experience, experience! Note that word.

From Steve Evans, lastminute.com

“Usability – people are going to start to recognise the massive ROI to be had from making your site and particularly your booking flow usable. Given the economic climate I think we’ll see less ‘ground-breaking’ new functionality and more improvement of what exists to make conversion easier for customers.”

Hmmm, yes – improving what’s there already. Certainly seems more valuable right now, than splashing out the big bucks on, I quote, “ground-breaking new functionality”.

From Mel Carson, Microsoft AdCenter

“More brands will be getting into social media, and I don’t just mean Facebook and Twitter, but understanding and valuing online feedback from blogs and forums and acting on it will pay dividends.”

We agree. Low-cost online interactive marketing will become crucial this year.

From Justin Cooke, Fortune Cookie

“User experience budgets will double as companies realise that experience is everything.”

Ah, there it is again; Experience. Want to know our predictions for travel industry in 2009?

Providing your customers with the best possible experience (online and offline), giving a ‘money well spent’ feeling, will be the a-factor in this year’s game.

the goal of Google’s travel division—aside from tapping into the $90+ billion global travel ad and sales market—is to give users a destination where they can research travel plans, read user reviews, and see user uploaded videos and photos. Already, about 50% of travelers use some sort of online social media site to research their plans, says Torres. Why not give them a one-stop shop for travel information? “We are already so highly searched for travel,”

This news adds to the speculation that Google are doing a lot of work around ‘vertical search’, and the travel market could be one of the first industries to see the effects.

There are also concerns from travel operators and marketers that Google could to use their strong position and large resources to quickly dominate the online travel market. However, it is unlikely that Google would want to enter the market for online bookings or sales due to the sheer scale of that undertaking.

So for operators and tour companies this could be good news, but for the myriad of hotel booking portals and cheap-flight brokers maybe not so good. Nevertheless, it is definitely worth keeping track of this development.

Most importantly for our industry, the most popular products/services bought online by European shoppers were travel tickets (54%) and holidays (42%).

With a huge 80% of European internet users claiming to have made a purchase online these figures make a pretty strong business case for investing in online marketing.

Another key finding of the report shows how web users are researching their purchases more. The EIAA report states:

40% of all European online shoppers have changed their mind about which brand to buy following research on the web, highlighting the power that websites can have in the purchasing decision.

Online shoppers from more mature online markets are more likely to change their mind on what brand to buy following web research, than online consumers from less developed markets. As markets develop in online sophistication, shoppers will consume a wider variety of marketing messages and information sources to make their purchase decision which increasingly influences their brand and product choice. As a result, marketers must develop ever more effective strategies to engage with their consumers.

To me the underlying message is if you’re not already looking at social media and ‘web 2.0’ for marketing your business then you really should begin to do so.

The executive summary of the report can be downloaded here or by visiting the EIAA web site.

(Via Multilingual Search)

China already equates for a large percentage of overseas visitors within the Japanese Ski Resorts. And it seems that booking online is becoming much more widespread.

The value of China’s online travel market is to reach 3.84 billion yuan (519 million U.S. dollars) this year, with a projected growth rate of 70.7 percent, according to a nationwide survey.

The survey showed that China’s online travel services market was worth 2.25 billion (300 million U.S. dollars) in 2007, with an estimated 65 percent expansion for the industry from 2006.

We, at Tactic Group, expect to see this growth affect not only the Japanese ski industry but many other internationally-attractive destinations too. South Korea, as China’s closest skiing destination, will certainly see one of the biggest surges in Chinese visitors. Australia and New Zealand, with their winter season occurring at the opposite time of year to their Northern Hemisphere counterparts, will also see a reasonable increase. Even Europe and North America should see a small growth in Chinese visitors over the coming years.

Of course, all this is very dependent on the level of online ‘cross-culture marketing’ directed towards the Chinese.

With global warming being such a hot topic lately, I thought it time to jump on the bandwagon and take a look at how our somewhat desultory climate is effecting the favourite Tactic Group topic: web marketing for winter tourism.

The threat

The obvious threats of our changing climate to the snow sports industry are slowly being pushed to the forefront of people’s minds. To be candid about it, the Earth is heating up and we all know it. With rising temperatures you would generally equate less snow. Likely but not definitive!

Global warming does not necessarily correlate to a lack of snowfall. Warm air holds more moisture than cold air, so there’s actually potential for larger storms and an increase in snowfall. But, and it’s a big but, only in some places.

Most scientists believe that the snow line will slowly move to higher altitudes. The ‘more experienced’ (can I just say older?) snow-goers among us will remember the days of enormous snowfalls at low-lying levels. Just take a look at those old black and white photos of people skiing off the roof of their 1950’s home, sporting their wooden straight skis and leather boots. Those days are no longer and they are not likely to return, at least not in our lifetimes (particularly not the wooden straight skis, thank god).

Not only is the snow line expected to migrate upwards, storms are thought to become less predictable and snow packs are forecast to melt quicker. Potentially, resorts found at lower altitudes could be hosting a shorter ski season.

So what’s the plan?

Well, ski resorts worldwide seem to be treating this issue very differently, although most have acknowledged that there are climate change concerns.

Many resorts are investing huge amounts in costly snowmaking systems, with the aim of securing themselves a season-long snow base. But to make snow you need cold temperatures. Although most resorts are managing to succeed here, the process is proving to be very consuming due to the ever-changing weather. Nevertheless, higher-altitude resorts are generally maintaining their lengthy ski seasons, even if the conditions do falter more than they did 20 years ago.

Some of the less elevated European ski resorts have started embracing climate change instead of working against it. These resorts are putting more emphasis on their summer sports, like golf, hiking or mountain biking and are changing their marketing strategies to suit. Makes sense to me – go for the more sustainable, year-round trade.

There are ski resorts that have begun doing their bit to help slow the global warming process. Mammoth Mountain in California uses solar power in a number of lift stations, whilst Jackson Hole, found in Wyoming, have been harnessing wind power to run a few of their chair lifts.

It’s certainly a start and this ‘bottom-up’ approach is great to see, particularly as Governments don’t seem to be enforcing any ‘top-down’ approach to the issue – yet. The Keep Winter Cool programme in the States is a good place to learn more about the efforts of American resorts.

Climatise your web site

“What’s this got to do with web marketing” I hear you say? A fair amount, if you think about it. The emerging climate change issues will have a ‘trickle down’ impact on how products and services are marketed through the web. But before we get into that, let’s consider another matter first; the operational changes of your business.

Let’s just say that due to climate change your business now has to operate evenly across a two-season year, as opposed to a one-season year. Just to clarify, we’re talking about a winter trade and a summer trade. The operational plans and procedures you undertake pre-season, during-season and post-season now have to double to cope with the extra summer trade. Your business suddenly has two pre-season periods and potentially double the preparation time.

Shops that once focused primarily on skiing may begin to cater for rock climbing, resulting in two product indenting periods each year. Ski schools may offer mountain bike guiding services in the summer, meaning two annual staff intakes and training periods. The examples are endless.

In light of this, shouldn’t your marketing adapt as well?

With the web now becoming the most prominent marketing resource, it goes without saying that this be your first port of call.

It’s time to climatise your web site. Adapt it to suit the ‘extra’ season. Consider your new target markets and think about the whens, whats and whys of your new audience’s needs.

To help you get started here’s a few things to consider:

• Your site’s look and feel.
  The characteristics of summer and winter are very different and you may feel the need for two contrasting visual designs. One common approach is to relaunch the site between seasons: replacing photographs and graphics, changing the colour scheme to a more relevant palette and replacing written content to suit. You must consider the timing of when you do this as many tourists research their holidays out-of-season. To avoid this complication, some companies and resorts develop two separate sites which sit alongside each other. These sibling sites are made available all year round, ensuring that the users can access information about either season when the need arises.
• Web site advertising and referring links.
  A great way to build traffic to your site and get better search engine rankings is to gain incoming links from other relevant sites. This gives you what search engines call ‘authority’. If you are taking this approach, be careful to track which of your pages the third party sites are linking to. An incoming link from a reputable skiing resource can be a valuable thing. If the page they link to remains in the same place and the content does not change, the third party site will maintain the connection. However, if the page changes and becomes less relevant, or disappears completely, the third party will eventually notice and will probably remove the link. The implication on pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is similar. If you are paying to advertise your site in the context of the winter season, any broken links in these adverts during the summer (or lack of summer advertising), will lead to budget being poured down the drain.
• Product catalog.
  If you are a products company rather than a services company and you cater to multiple seasons, it is advisable to provide seasonal catalogues. This approach puts emphasis on the products which will be most relevant to your customers at the time they will be looking for them. It will be rare that a customer will be looking to buy snowboard bindings at the same time as a set of suspension forks for their mountain bike. With this in mind, it is good practice to allow customers to get to the products they are seeking as quickly as possible.

Changes for stable one-season traders

Some businesses will be lucky enough not to have to confront the complications of two-season trading. Ski resorts found at higher-altitudes may not be effected as much by the rising temperatures.

Even so, businesses in this category will still need to consider the future of their customer base. The potential of less snow-sure destinations, means fewer options for winter tourists. People will travel further afield and look to new horizons in search of good snow. Winter tourism businesses will see opportunities open in new target markets. Business marketers will have to consider how best to capture these new cultures. Cross-culture marketing is on the up!

In summary

One-season or two, changes are imminent. I believe that summer trading is a solid option as most skiers and snowboarders will continue to venture to the mountains, regardless of snow.

It does seem that the majority of people involved in the snow sports industry, tourists included, are believers of the Global Warming theory. Appealing to your audiences environmental conscience may be a lucrative theme for the marketing of your company. Here’s a chalet company in France that demonstrates this well.

If you’re one of the few that haven’t accepted the Global Warming theory yet, take ten minutes to watch this YouTube clip – you may just find it all becomes a moot point.

That said, I urge you to think about (and share below) any other trickle-down effects that climate change might bring about for the tourism industry.