This week in Industry Insider we talk to Steven Slicer of Asia Escape Holidays, and how he is going to war on Online Travel Agents.

“I have a background in online marketing and have worked with a variety of OTAs on a freelance basis before I stepped into wholesale three and a half years ago. Experience in both digital and wholesale marketing has been valuable, but in January 2016 I started something new at Asia Escape Holidays.

I began to go out and see some of our travel agents to have discussions and one-on-one workshops. I learned more than I ever have about travel marketing and the Australian travel industry by doing this.

Certain agents who book with us that I have spent time with are beginning to take back bookings back from OTAs successfully and it is a growing trend.

I believe we have to take a deep breath & respect that companies like WebJet have a growth strategy, and part of that strategy is to make booking with travel agents an occulture by getting everyone to book online, this strategy resulted in the recent WebJet TV campaigns – the best way to guard against this happening is to get travel agents visible online by any means and that is one of my major goals in wholesale marketing at Asia Escape Holidays.

So in addition to the visits we began to invite groups in for marketing workshops. Earlier this year I sent out my first email invitation for travel agents to come into the Asia Escape Holidays office and learn about online marketing, for me to learn about the needs of travel agents and to help bring them up to speed with what is possible online. In the invitation I wrote “learn to compete against WebJet and other OTAs”.

Mentioning WebJet was just a hook to get people into the sessions, which were a general overview of what is possible with email marketing and social media, my actual example in the session was LuxuryEscapes because they have no live online booking engine which I felt more relevant example to agents, plus the way LuxuryEscapes operate is more vulnerable to disruption by travel agents, there was nothing WebJet-specific planned in the session.

So without any WebJet content, of course in the very first session an agent goes “what about WebJet?”. The TV campaign was on and really had them worked up, so I went off track and opened up the facebook ad manager and showed them how to directly target WebJet followers on Facebook with their own ads, mentioned how they are free to bid on WebJet deal related keywords on Google AdWords and strongly advised them build their own email lists so they can put out whatever rhetoric they like in reaction to what WebJet do.

I’ve never seen travel agents take notes as fast as that moment.

Since then it has gathered more momentum and many travel agents I have spent time with are beginning to be very visible online. We have seen increases of up to 400% in room nights booked on certain deals from certain travel agents who have partaken in coordinated online disruptions of online travel agent campaigns. My boss calls me the troublemaker.

Yes, that does mean that travel agents are taking business from OTAs online – it is possible and actually happening, we can definitely see it trending upwards at Asia Escape Holidays.

I personally know more than one bricks and mortar travel agency that gets so busy from their online marketing efforts that they have to pause their ad campaigns to keep up with the enquiries and bookings.

Travel agents who are getting visible online needn’t worry too much about online travel agents or WebJet’s TV advertisements, get your facebook game face on, build your email marketing list, build landing pages with enquiry forms and email capture forms, bid on AdWords, max out your online visibility, put up Facebook carousels and Lead-Ads and think mobile. Make the most of more flexible deals from your wholesaler and use them to disrupt and dilute online deals, use the visibility and limitations of big companies against them – you are free to advertise the same hotel as their deal at a cheaper price with less room nights and put it all over social media in your local area, they are too big to operate on a suburb level.

Travel agents who book with Asia Escape Holidays will receive our full support with getting themselves visible online. We have new marketing projects, tools, workshops and tutorials on the way in the coming months.

There’s business out there.

For more information on future marketing workshops, comments or questions:

steven@asiaescapeholidays.com

https://twitter.com/stevenslicer

Do you have something you want to say about the travel industry? Want to stand on your soapbox and yell it to the world? If yes, we want to hear from you. Email kate@travelweekly.com.au and let your voice be heard.