Q&A with Netizen’s Fiona Canavan

Fiona Canavan is head of marketing for website design and development company Netizen. She answers questions on the current climate and website investment posed by Linda Fox

Q: Given the current climate are travel companies abandoning their website investment?

A: Some are but some are realising that it is really important they get all the business they can as long as they spend money in the right way and on the right technology. Some are very savvy, others are way behind and saying they have not got the money to spend because business has gone down and they have not got the cashflow. It has not had an impact on our business so far and if anything we are busier for the time of year. We have had some companies realising competitors’ websites are getting better so have had to up their game.

Q: If you were a travel company what would you be doing as the winter approaches?

A: It depends on what sort of travel I was selling. I would be looking at my marketing in terms of what I spend and what I get in return and can I track that because a lot of people have been doing pay-per-click and have received additional calls but they don’t know what revenue they are getting.

Q: Google Earth, RSS and these other tools we are hearing about – are they gimmicks or really useful customer loyalty building tools?

A: Again, it depends on the company and what they are trying to sell and how they integrate these things into their offering. There has been lots of press about Virgin’s RSS, how successful it has been and how much business it has driven. Companies need to consider these things carefully to see if it will help their customers. Every business knows their own customers so it’s considering whether it will be of interest and useful to them. For some types of holidays Google Earth immerses the user into the holiday experience much more. Some of these features appeal to different markets.

Q: There is a lot of talk about website personalisation – how difficult is it and how expensive?

A: It depends how far you want to take it. There are basic tools such as newsletter systems that pull out certain categories of customer and just show them certain images or specific information. It can be difficult to track what is happening and who is doing what on your site and at which pages people leave but you need to start somewhere.

Q: What do you foresee in the next six months to a year?

A: That is quite a long time in technology development terms especially with travel. It is so difficult to tell because natural disasters tend to happen and that impacts travel. The bigger guys have been catching up and investing time and money in making sure they are on the web because they have to. In a couple of years time people won’t even want to see a brochure because it is so flat. The web has moved on and clients have moved on in terms of what they want from websites. It’s much fiercer than it is offline – online, it is so easy for them to go somewhere else.