There’s a rapidly growing belief in the travel industry that Facebook will replace Google as the primary driver of traffic to travel websites sooner rather than later. In a show of hands at Sydney Travel Tribe last night, almost 50% agreed with the proposition that Facebook will generate more travel website visits than Google within two years. It’s now clear that this is not just wishful thinking.
World Nomads GM Chris Noble said Facebook was already generating 20% to 25% of Google’s transaction volume for the travel insurance company.
At Web In Travel, Kathleen Tan from AirAsia said Facebook, which it only recent started getting serious about, now drives 12% of the airline’s traffic compared with Google 17.6%, and Yahoo 10%. Present growth rates all favour Facebook.
The main reason, ironically, appears to be trust. People will trust their friend’s recommendations over Google’s. Good old word of mouth. Yet there’s a flaw in this argument because a lot of the traffic, one assumes, is coming through corporate Facebook pages. They are communities run by companies. Are they a friend? I think not.
The other contradicition is that when the same crowd was asked if they actually trusted Facebook, “the company”, hardly a hand went up. Same with Google. And Qantas for that matter. Trust no-one but your friends.
Who are your friends? The 562 people you’ve “friended” but never met on Facebook.
Anyone else see the humour in this?
Hi Martin – I agree with the facebook proposition (that it will drive a large % of travel traffic very soon) – ours is certinaly growing and we also find on VisitVineyards.com that fb-origin traffic is more highly engaged, stays for a considerable length of time, and has fewer bounces.
However I don’t agree with your analysis of the ‘flaw in the argument’. As in the real world, people tend not to trust large companies, especially those whose employees read company scripts (or type them on twitter) instead of genuinely responding to and solving their queries, concerns or complaints.
Smaller companies are another matter entirely, and can certainly be ‘friends’ – I think you will find they are far more trusted. Remember, trust is something that is earned, and smaller companies work very hard indeed to engage with and meet their customers/clients’ needs, thus earning not only trust but respect (and ongoing business loyalty).
As for your own fb friends, if you are sufficiently engaged with them online you pretty quickly get to know what they are like, even if you have never met. This is also the nature of online business today.
In terms of trusting the recommendations of friends, I don’t think someone needs to be a friend to trust their recommendation. After all, I see people with thousands of friends on Facebook and they can’t possibly have met them all or have a personal connection with each one of them. Look at the success of TripAdvisor – people value those reviews, even though they are effectively by strangers (not friends), and yet it is the No.1 travel site on the internet today. In fact, I sometimes value the recommendations of people I don’t know more than those I do know. I may have an aunty who I know always finds something to complain about, so I’d be very quick to dismiss any travel opinions she may have. Yet I may give more weight to a stranger’s review on TripAdvisor.
Going back to Facebook, this year around 60% of the referral traffic to our website comes from organic Google, Bing and Yahoo searches. Facebook is somewhere at like 0.2% of referral traffic for us. So Facebook really has a long way to go for us anyway.
[…] the SMH today from Jon Casimir, ad industry observer and co-creator of The Gruen Transfer. See also Facebook To Trump Google… Share and […]
I saw this. Thought it was very intersting
Stor
[…] Who will end up as the largest travel site?By admin. Filed in Travel | Every other day or two, you hear about a new travel app, a travel related company, or a mega travel partnering, acquiring, or developing the next industry killer app. Recent news is being touted about how Facebook will trump Google as the most important travel site. Granted, Google is acquiring ITA, a 14-year-old flight information software company, for $700 million in cash. ITA was founded in the 1990s by computer scientists from MIT. The company revolutionized the ability of consumers to find the cheapest fares by making it easy to compare fares among airlines. It has licensed its product widely, and customers include companies like American Airlines and Continental Airlines. Web sites like Hotwire, Kayak, Orbitz and Farecast, which is now part of Microsoft’s Bing search service, also use ITA’s software. Facebook, not to be outdone, is acquiring Nextstop, a San Francisco-based startup for recommending things to do or places to go, as well as providing a plethora of travel links. Truth be known, most of us trust our friends and family for travel advise. This may be the reason so many people beleive that Facebook will be the next portal that acts as a referrer to travel sites and will therefore start competing for a portion of the 63 percent of the American search market, that Google owns. Everyone has their own opinion on travel, most of us don’t care, we just want the best deal although, a large part of the travel decisions are made at the spur of the moment. The differentiator, are those travel companies that develop a relationship with airlines, railways, hotels, etc… to pre-negotiate deeply discounted travel, that is more of a one off, as opposed to a standard price. Think TravelZoo or Priceline.com, that Facebook can link to, or Google can search for, to augment the ITA acquisition. As we know, no one business can stay on top for long, without looking over your shoulder, or buying up the competition, if you can’t beat them. To find out more about this trend take a look at this link below to read the entire article in a new window: http://www.traveltrends.biz/ttn555-facebook-to-trump-google-as-most-important-travel-site […]
I may have an aunty who I know always finds something to complain about, so I’d be very quick to dismiss any travel opinions she may have
interesting. Any insight into conversion rate from both sources? I’d assume that Google would be much higher due to the way people use FB & Google. Is that correct?
Depends what you’re talking about. Early feedback on Facebook advertising is very positive because it is highly targeted – they have a lot of personal data. The corporate pages also probably have good conversions in that people have to sign up. Not sure about Google conversions. Would no doubt vary depending on the offer and the ad.
If 95% of the friends you have on facebook aren’t people you know in real life, you’re doing it wrong. 😀