Tourism Internet Marketing U

Why Consumer Generated Media is Important

The World Wide Web is host to more than 100 million comments from consumers alone.

Consumer generated media is the fasted growing media online and should be as important to travel and tourism related businesses as it is to other consumers. Listening to and leveraging consumer generated media may well be the most important source of competitive advantage for any travel and tourism company. Studies have shown that when it comes to product information consumers place far more trust in other consumers than they do in manufacturers, marketers and advertisers. By listening to CGM and to what your customers are saying you can gain truthful insights as to how they view your business, products, services and destination.

Consumers consistently rank word-of-mouth as one of the top sources for making purchasing decisions. An eMarketer study found that 65% of consumers trust their friends the most for product recommendations, while 27% trust experts and 8% trust celebrities. It is for this reason and the rapid growth of this trend that it poses both challenges and opportunities for marketing, advertising and public relation teams.

Merrill Lynch, estimates that by 2010 online reservations will account for 45% of all reservations in the travel and tourism industry. With such an increase in online usage, the likelihood of more and more consumer comments being generated online also increases. With more consumers incorporating some form of multi-media, such as photos or videos, to their comments, they are becoming even more persuasive.

There is a whole new world opening up online. Don’t be left behind, check out my latest book 101 Ways to Promote Your Tourism Business Web Site.

- written by Susan Sweeney, CA, CSP, HoF