Online tourism?!

Article: http://www.traveldailynews.com/pages/show_page/40595-Online-usability-with-travel-sites-is-rising-despite-continued-poor-customer-service-

No need in telling you why I chose to share this article with you I suppose? Owning a touristic enterprise when having absolutely no knowledge of websites, blogs, twitter,… could it be? Hmm, as we are living in the century of the Internet-diehards/addicts, I believe profiling your company on the world wide web is required!

As my lecturer, colleagues and I discussed in class, having an uncomplicated website is crucial in the touristic industry in the 21^st century! Booking  a trip online nowadays must be a five minute job and must be as easy cheesy as it can get! But as mentioned in the article, offering your customer a clear overview of your products and services simply doesn’t cut it anymore! Although customer and salesman will never really have a face to face conversation when booking a trip online, the customer considers the travel agent to be the one person to rely on before, during and after his trip. Unfortunately that is where the shoe seems to pinch. Many (surprisingly renowned) touristic companies seem to have forgotten the after sales service.   

As touristic entrepreneurs we ought not to forget that the customer partially indicates the (economic) way to go. Being one step ahead on your clients is what to aim for in theory, but is it realistic? The consumers pattern changes constantly and the consumer's behaviour is not only determined by what is on offer. So trying to guess what the costumer's interests will be in 2020 is a bit of a lost cause.

Today (in 2010) many travellers are crying out for safe and secured trips just to make sure that their money was well invested (because each year big money is spend on the dream vacation). Priority number one for touristic businesses therefore should be to give the customer this warm and protected feeling. By offering holidays online, personal contact is often limited to an absolute minimum. But please, let’s not forget that even these Internet-diehards need someone to count on when being in a tricky holiday situation!

So I guess what I’m trying to say is to be careful when reducing the personal contact with the client! Customer service before, during and after the trip is not to be forgotten or left out (for we are working with people, not robots)!