Increasingly little, especially online.

there is “brand recognition” but not “brand affinity” - two very different things.

our recent cover story…

… explains the difficulties travel companies have with gaining brand loyalty online.

We as a family always book the annual holiday with a brand like Thomson, Thomson or First Choice but short breaks we find it cheaper and easier to book a flight and then search for a hotel.

You are right though trust is important.

I am not sure I agree that brands are important because I look at price over anything else.

Trust is important.

Brand affinity is how you feel about it. For instance: for me KFC has great brand recognition, poor brand affinity (can’t stand the stuff).

Two things I think you could expand on -

1) Given that consumer review and metasearch play a part in the first phase of so many online holiday bookings, how does brand trust manifests itself in the research process? Does it mean, for instance, that you begin your search at a small number of ‘trusted’ places? That you will run fewer checks or comparisons on what you’re buying? That you’ll ignore metasearch results from unfamiliar brands?

2) You mention travel associations. Do you think ABTA, FTO, TTA etc do enough to make their brands meaningful to consumers - particularly in terms of affinity ?

Nathan is right, of course.

in addition, if you type “holiday mallorca” into google, the results of any number of companies which may (or may not!!) have come conection to holidays in mallorca are returned.

Research (some of it our own) shows that web users are drawn primarily drawn to the first half a dozen or so results on the first page of google, and not much else - especially for travel products.

They would rather refine their search parameters than click on page after page of search results.

This means that strong SEO on Travolutionholidays.com (I made that up, by they way!) could place us next to results for holiday giant Thomas Cook.

So:

1) Consumers may like our prices and may think “they’re on page one of Google!”, so what’s the difference between them and Thomas Cook - let’s book with the Travo people!

2) Price is everything - still (no matter what travel people will say). Metasearch and OTAs are still listing holidays, flights, hotels primarily by the cost of the product. Big brands might have the best “value” for a holiday, but not the best “cost” - different thing entirely.

3) Economic downturn will push this brand issue even further. Reigning in that expensive holiday for something mid-haul rather than the long-haul holiday? If money is tight, there is a suggestion that the long-haul holiday would still appeal if it is offered by someone else at a cheaper price.

The web has commoditised goods (not just travel) to such a degree that sites like travelsupermarket, cheapflights, kayak etc have become increasingly powerful as a starting point for consumers, and increasingly regardless of the type of holiday.

The web is far too noisy to build brand affinity (which is what every travel marketer wants, rather than recognition) easily.

The way to do it is to ensure that the user experience of a website is as best as it can possibly be so that if consumers do happen to find themselves on a site, they may start to build an affinity with a brand.

Er, that’s enough……

it’s difficult to say - i haven’t searched for holidays as a “consumer” for a fairly long time now. i write about the travel industry for a living, so my purchase behaviour is skewed by wanting to try things out that we’ve heard about.

for general consumer buying habits, you can try this (our study into the ways different age groups interact with brands on the web):

http://www.travolution.co.uk/Articles/2007/09/20/1062/Travolution+Generations.html

Hi,
I cant say anything about trust but hooking up with a big brand sure is a wise thing to do.

Darren

ABTA, AITO etc. do promote holidays on there websites from there members. The idea is that people are looking for a travel association they trust, why not provided the information to find the holiday?

Another point worth making is ABTA, AITO etc. only work with travel agents. So hotel booking agents (who I find often have better service and better deals) can’t apply. It only covers flights. My advice is if you are using a big comparison site don’t be scared of clicking on a name you don’t know, trust the comparison site to pick legitimate companies. I’ve found some great little site with a much more personal service that way and saved a lot of money.

Darren

These assiocations have always been paid for and worked on behalf on members. The likes of ABTA and AITO have a sperate division looking after consumers, and yes they can make travel companies do things, in fact sometimes it is scary being on reciving end of the enforcement side. Keep in mind that ABTA has fined members in 100′000 range.

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Based on the last two breaks I booked: when I went to Istanbul I started by checking Thomson city breaks, then checked Thomas Cook, Expedia, Opodo and lastminute. Then I put the prices into perspective on travelsupermarket. I ended up going with Thomson. So in terms of where I started my search, brand recognition was certainly an influence.

My last booking - to Ghent - was a break for my brother, who is a gardener and earns virtually nothing, so it needed to be as cheap as possible. Brand didn’t figure at all. I started on hostelbookers.com and eventually found a hotel room on ebookers via travelsupermarket (we already had eurostar vouchers to cover travel). Interestingly, I felt far less comfortable booking that way than I did booking Istanbul with Thomson - but it was fine in the end, obviously.