TravelMole Interview: Miguel Cartagena, Imagion.com

Thursday, 07 Nov, 2003 0

If you want more business from your website, compare it to a restaurant, suggests Miguel Cartagena.

“You can have a beautiful restaurant, and the best chef in town, but no one may know where you’re located, so it does you no good,” he told TravelMole.com.

Mr Cartagena’s company, Imagion.com, specializes in providing websites to travel agents. He regularly gives seminars and lectures on how travel agents can use their website to sell more travel (one of his recent talks was at the ASTA meeting in Miami).

His major point is that travel agent websites must be created so users can be pointedly directed to their site without facing a lot of choices.

“You have to have a balance between good design and good marketing. And people have to be able to find your site,” he said. “A lot of agents think just because they have a website, they’re going to get sales without any effort.”

The key word for travel agents on the internet is “travel,” he said.

In Mr Cartagena’s presentations, he makes the point that his company’s web designs have placed travel agents at various locations among the top ten lists for search engines.

Among his various suggestions: include company information such as history and customer-focus, but also go beyond that in including valuable information.

“You don’t have to give away the store. However, you do need to offer your expertise,” he said.

A website can serve various goals such as a company brochure, an information service and a way to generate new leads.

“You’d be surprised how many agents don’t even have a website,” he said, adding that the internet has become such a valuable selling tool that 90% of online travelers or about 44% of the US adult population use the internet for travel information.

At the same time, however, travel agent markets have not changed.

“The market you had yesterday is the same market you have today,” he said. “The internet simply gives you a new way to reach your customers.”

He emphasizes that the web is not like a book, read from page one forwards. Instead, the web is about information and customer service.

“The quality of your information and service is what will make or break your reputation online,” he said.