Monique Chambers
I’ve almost had enough of the heat and I’m already looking forward to visiting Christmas markets and a long weekend ski break. With the weather across Europe at the moment, I may not have to wait too long for snowfall. It’s rather bizarre, then, that the timing on some promotions for our almost all-year-round-sunshine-island Malta is a little slow. For instance, across the mainland, this week and the next are the last of the ‘Summer Holidays’ and national holidays across the board are, unlike Malta’s, coming to an end. Are we not watching the weather and taking heed of these factors? Should we not be looking to maximise numbers and getting the shoulder months off to a good start with some scorching last minute deals? It takes less time to prepare a web page with an offer than the average six minutes a consumer visits a travel website. And with 10,000 impressions a day on visitmalta.com, and 12,000 on the choosemalta.com booking engine - the two main sites - we have a lot of lookers to turn into bookers.
These sites are the right kind of site, fresh, up to date, informative and professional-looking, packed with events and innovative features like MP3 tours and recorded phrases. They are up there in terms of taking advantage of technology. In fact, I’d like to see some other destination sites (Prague, Marrakech and St Petersburg listen up) take benefit from the same tactics and offer links to the social media affluent grownups use.
If you think customers that book from an online source only counts for about 1% of the total visitors then its clear that we need to be absolutely sure we tick the boxes on all of the above and be prepared and proactive with delivering information and not reading potential visitors minds by deciding for them when they will be looking and what they will be looking at. Whilst it’s all important to analyse a visitor’s stay, how about conducting some market research in advance of the main booking season and indeed the slower seasons? Wise move me thinks. I bet they’d discover that not all busy businessmen are the only ones that want to book a flight the day before and that last minute flights should be cheaper in case people that don’t have to worry too much about child or pet care can pack up and jet off. Off Malta of course.
Conversion factors for those we email and subsequently speak to can be 7 in 10. We promote our call centre capabilities – maybe we should employ one? And maintaining contact with the customer after they have departed, say with an email postcard reminding them of the fabulousness that is here; or timely reminders of upcoming events and special offers should certainly be another.
Each week there is letter after letter from a departed tourist in one of the papers who care enough to raise an issue, be it something that is easily addressed or something we know already, but what happens to these apart from being printed? Is someone whose job it is to manage Malta’s reputation getting back to the visitor who bothered to pen their thoughts and send them on their return? Hoping they will of course look online or pick up the phone, and come back.