Does your travel web site have these four critical sales elements clearly and quickly represented, that most effective travel web sites have? If not you are missing opportunities, losing sales and money.

1. Creates a desire to use your tourism services, visit your destination or participate in your unique tourism option.*
2. Clearly informs prospects of travel and service benefits, options, sites, nature/environment, safety and activities.*
3. Answer top questions and concerns all prospective visitors have.*
4. Motivates prospects to contact you quickly (not your competitor) for more information, travel options and dates, answer questions and address concerns.*

FACT:
* You have 5-15 seconds to communicate these four points before your new prospects are gone. Usually Forever.

How-To Grab Prospects Fast & Sell More Travel
Good news. I am going to share with you how to grab prospects attention and sell more trips. If your site achieves all these goals, then the prospects that have visited your site will be more excited, motivated, qualified, informed and much closer to giving you a booking or visiting your country.

This article is not about web design and layout theory, but why the written word and consumer psychology is a prime factor in influencing arrivals and sales.

Create a Desire To Visit Your Destination or Travel With Your Company
Prospective travelers may or may not choose to visit your destination based on what they read on your web site – usually just your home page.

If you read the article Tourist Safety and Security then you know how crucial it is to first communicate to prospective travelers that your destination and/or tour is a safe, secure and fun place to visit. With so many global destination choices online and so much international turmoil, you MUST communicate clearly and quickly it is a safe and fun destination quickly.

The best place to first communicate your safety, security, and experience, is on your home page, not buried deep in your site.
When someone first comes to your tourism web site, you literally have five to fifteen seconds to grab their interest and compel them to want to know more about your destination, tours, etc. If you don’t grab them on your home page, they are gone. Those prospective tourists are back to surfing the web, seeking out a more interesting, compelling travel web site and vacation destination.

Here’s The Proof On Travel Web Site Visitors – Length of Visit
If you look at your log report, (the statistical report that your internet service provider should make accessible to you) that monitors your web visitors activity, i.e. pages visited, length of time on your site, key words used to find your site, etc., you may notice that the majority of visitors stay less then a minute. On a poorly written and designed web site, often less then fifteen seconds. So grabbing their attention and motivating them to want to know more is your first obstacle and opportunity. Testimonials and photos of happy tourist are perfect for communicating safety and experience quickly. Use them liberally.

Tourism Web Site Must Clearly inform
One of the prime reasons people travel is to experience “something different” from their ordinary life and location. Especially active and ecotourists want to learn about new cultures, see different houses, hear and speak a different language, reflect on ancient religions and buildings, marvel at unbroken vistas, or try a new activity. This is exactly what most adventure travel and ecotourism operator and destinations are selling and what you must communicate to your web visitors.

Too many web sites give web visitors unknown destinations instead of activities or types of regions. Most people surfing your web site are not going to know, for example, what they’ll find in Hosgol, Khenti, or the Gobi. These are major regions of Mongolia I discovered during two consulting projects I did there for USAID and their tourism Association and ministry. You be better off to define what type of regions they are and what they have to offer.

Use Descriptive Words That Everyone Will Understand. For Example:

Hosgol –Mountains • Lakes • Fishing • Horseback • Riding • Hiking
Khenti – Steppes • Rivers • Fishing • Horseback & Mt. Biking • Religious Sites
Gobi – Desert • Camel Riding • Trekking • Archeology

You must use descriptive text and compelling words that paint a desirable mental picture.

Summarize your trips in bullets and short headlines and sub-headlines.

Use descriptive verbs and compelling words in the body of the text to give substance and details to the headlines and sub-heads.

Effective Tourism Marketing Web Sites Answer Questions and Concerns
When a prospective tourist is considering a destination, in addition to types of regions and activities, they have additional questions and concerns that must be addressed to earn their visit or booking. The same holds true with Out Bound Booking Agents, but even more so. (Read – How-to Find and Create New Relationships With Outbound Tour Operators – to be published in 2006)

Some of these questions and concerns include:

• Safety precautions and procedures
• How you are going to protect their safety?
• Length of vacation
• Costs
• Difficulty of trip resources
• Qualifications of staff
• Experience level of company
• Exchange rates & procedures
• Times of year to visit
• Group discounts
• Children – minimum age/experience
• Travel options to Ulaan Bataar
• Lodging – hotel, camping or Ger
• Food– vegetarian or special restrictions
• Water – Is it safe?
• Medical emergency/1st aide resources
• Insurance needs/options
• Cancellation policy /minimums for departure
• In-country transportation & equipment
• Visa requirements
• Inoculations/disease precautions
• Language

One of the best ways to deal with all the typical questions you’ll get from prospective clients is a Frequently Asked Questions and Answers page – FAQ’s. You should also create a pre-written response E-mail that responds to these questions and more.

Written and Audio Testimonials and Pictures Sell More Travel – Guaranteed!

One of the latest easy and cheap new developments to help convert your web site visitors into travel buyers is streaming audio with guest testimonials. Here are a couple examples from an Alaskan Vacation Provide and others along the right-hand side endorsing my marketing communication guide, Tourism Marketing Success.

• Is fun, safe and secure on the home and subsequent pages.
• Effectively answer questions and concerns
• Uses a blend of testimonials and images of happy visitors (especially celebrities and/or recognized media)

• http://adventurebizsuccess.com/
• http://www.bajaairventures.com/
• http://www.lostcampersusa.com/

Travel Web Site Earns Rafting Company Best 4 Years Since 1978
The rafting web site above, combines with using other successful tourism marketing and E-marketing strategies earned Whitewater Excitement the most sales and profitable years in their 28 year history. It was especially rewarding since the majority of their competitors businesses were down 15-30% in the same post 9/11 years. The same holds true for the Baja and Alaska Sites in the list above. All these travel companies used the same technique listed in this article and in my new “Tourism Marketing Success” 2nd Ed. guide mentioned below combined with their high search engine ranking . To earn top search engine ranking, see below.

Here’s The Secret to Creating Travel Web Sites that Sell
Here is one of the best resources to help you define and communicate your most important information to prospective visitors and guests fast and effectively. This will motivate them to call, e-mail and give you a booking. Tourism Marketing Success ©2005. This special step by step guide will take you easily through the process and help you create effective and profitable tourism marketing communications for web sites, brochures tradeshow booths, advertising, videos and much more.

Here’s Your Travel Web Site Check List for Success

Web sites are a major part of the marketing success strategy used by international tourism promoters.

Prospective travelers may or may not choose to visit your region or use your tour, based on what they read on your web site – usually just your home page.

Your web site quickly communicates that your destinations and tours are fun, safe and secure.

Your web site effectively answers questions and concerns.

The best place to first communicate safety, security and fun is on your home page, not buried deep in your site.

Use written, audio and video guest testimonials everywhere.

You must use descriptive text and compelling words that paint a desirable mental picture.

Summarize your trips in bullets and short headlines and sub-headlines

Use descriptive verbs and compelling words in the body of the text to give substance and details to the headlines and sub-heads.

One of the best ways to deal with all the typical questions you’ll get from prospective clients is a Frequently Asked Questions and Answers page – FAQ’s.

*****ATTENTION****

Travel Web Sites That Sell Won’t Make MONEY Without Web Site Traffic

To get lots of qualified prospects to your website, you must show up in the top 1 –30 positions of most popular directories and search engines (like Google and Yahoo) from a relevant key word search and/or Pay Per Click advertising. Without this, no matter how well written and laid out your web site is, you will loose out on the majority of prospective clients.