TRAVELtech follow up – in pursuit of creditable destination information

A key issue at TRAVELtech expo this week was an overwhelming concern regarding the accuracy and reliability of information provided to travellers through user generated content available on the internet.

Philip Thorniley, Executive Director of the Association of National Tourist Office Representatives said yesterday that the national tourist office community in Australia offers travel agents a worldwide first, one URL which offers instant access to over 50 pages of destination information, providing up to date and credible information.

The power of national tourist office websites and their ability to provide accurate and verified information was a major theme of ANTOR’s recent e-marketing seminar, with results of U.S. research by USDM, an interactive marketing agency for the travel industry saying that 55% of respondents who visited 11 official tourism destination web sites, later visited the destinations, spending an estimated $9 billion collectively on lodging, dining, shopping, entertainment and transportation.  USDM said an estimated $7 billion in additional revenues may come from these visitors in 2006.

Philip added, “This experience is borne out by Tourism Australia with Michael Londegran ,Vice President the Americas saying that www.australia.com is the number one web site in the USA and Canada with more people using it for trip planning for Australia than Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz, with this telling us that people are looking for a worthy reference point for doing their planning”.

Traffic to www.antor.travel supports this trend, with its pages being visited over 20,000 times per month by travel industry users.

Philip added, “ANTOR works with retail travel agency groups to ensure that their travel consultants have ready access to reliable, authenticated destination information on our rebuilt website www.antor.travel”  

“Our 51 NTO members each create a simple quick-to-open factsheet, containing information which is specifically designed for Australian travel agents.”  “For further information, users have the option of linking to a destination’s complete website or e-mailing a request to the member’s Australian office.”  “This facility saves time for travel consultants and reduces the number of telephone inquiries handled by national tourist offices.”  “As importantly it ensures that only information endorsed by official tourist offices is used; something which a web surf can’t guarantee”

“Links to www.antor.travel are available from travel agency groups’ intranets, with two major chains already using the facility and others to follow.”

Report by The Mole