Travel companies follow their customers on social media web sites

If you want your message to be heard by airlines, hoteliers, and other travel industry vendors, you should be Tweeting on Twitter.  At the annual EyeforTravel conference on “Social Media Strategies for Travel” in San Francisco this week, more than 200 representatives of travel providers from across the country gathered to discuss the use of social media web sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, by their customers.

Travel companies are definitely seeking new ways to reach their customers and market their products on social media web sites.  Those companies that have mastered the social media web sites generally recognize that these sites are not at all about them, but rather a place where travelers gather to converse.

Conference speakers urged travel companies to listen and participate in conversations between customers on social media web sites.  “The conversation will happen with or without us,” Porter Gale, the Vice President of Marketing at Virgin America Airlines, told the audience.   Of course some travel companies are more conscientious and adept than others in monitoring the “Twittisphere”, as one speaker referred to that place in cyberspace where travelers banter and rant about their travel experiences.

Of course, frequent travelers were already conversing on Flyertalk long before social media caught on with the rest of the world.  However, I was amazed to learn that there may be as many as 60 million people using Twitter and even more amazed that the vast majority of travel companies at the conference are among those Twitter users.  Many said they monitor conversations about their products on Twitter and have responded to Tweets sent by customers to correct a problem noted by that customer or to simply build a relationship with that customer.

In contrast I was surprised to learn that only 4% of hoteliers actually respond to posts on Trip Advisor, which is certainly the premier web site for user hotel reviews and has also been around longer than most popular social media sites.  Trip Advisor currently has 32 million reviews in their database with an average of 16 new reviews posted every minute, according to April Robb, Communications Specialist for Trip Advisor.  Despite the disappointing statistic that so few hoteliers use the reviews in Trip Advisor to help correct problems at their properties, that enormous database of reviews makes it highly likely to find recent posts from other travelers at just about any hotel you are considering.

While Americans flock to Facebook and Twitter, in a parallel universe a social media web site called QQ International attracts many millions of Chinese users and Orkut is a social media web site used primarily by people in Brazil, India and a handful of other countries.

Of course not all social media web sites have enjoyed sustained success.  My Space was the most popular site for a while and has lost that status in recent years and most travel companies at the conference agreed that Second Life never became the social force many thought it would be just several years ago.

Ted Souder, Head of Industry – Central Travel at Google, also gave a very interesting presentation on the convergence of mobile computing and social media.  Souder told the audience that 1.2 billion cell phones equipped with Internet access will be shipped this year and Google projects that 50% of all Internet usage will be conducted via mobile phones in the next five years.  According to Souder 100 million people already use Facebook mobile applications.

With travel vendors clamoring to enter the social media space to monitor and respond to conversations about their products and manage their customers, every traveler ought to be using online social media web sites to provide input and feedback and better manage the travel providers.