If you’ve been trying to drum up business by getting other companies to host links to your web site (while you do the same for them), don’t. Why not? Because neither you nor your “partners” are likely to place one another’s links prominently. Nobody wants visitors distracted by another company’s links. Instead, you should pursue “link popularity,” a term Google uses to describe web pages that not only rank consistently high in visitor volume but are reached from sites that are related to them by topic or content. (Go here to see a great discussion on what we’re talking about: http://TravelWebs.net/TravelWebs/Library/WebLinking_Dead.htm) However, unlike reciprocal linking, you have to pay for popular pages to carry your “link”. The best places to find popular pages relevant to your business are portal sites like Cultural Travels.

Our ads draw a higher volume of pre-qualified travelers than any number of reciprocal links. Best of all our ”links” are “Brand Awareness” building ads, linking from pages directly relative to your company’s services. "Brand Awareness" building ads and high quality incoming links do double duty. Since we do not sell competing ads on the same page, each time people come to one of our popular pages that carries your ad, your company is the star. P.S. Due to the high linkage value from CulturalTravels.com, our Web Page Ads frequently show up in Google et al near or above a company's own web site.

To: Cultural Travels
Subject: Re: Inside CT Industry News Feb 2004

Thank you for your emphatic explanation of the pitfalls of Alexa. I had this counter recommended to me for my website. When I took a look at it (I always read ALL the fine print), I was horrified at the thought of putting what amounts to spyware on my site. Needless to say, I moved on quickly!

Yours is consistently the best newsletter coming to my inbox (and I get a lot of them).

Sincerely yours,

M. L., CTC
Northridge, CA
 

We respect the New York Times as much as anybody else, but, oy, when it comes to the travel industry, even the Times shows how painfully clueless journalists and analysis can be. In its April 4^th  “Travelers Go to Book Online” article www.nytimes.com/2004/04/04/travel/04rep.html (free registration required) the reporter discusses the difference in services offered by “online travel agencies,” like Expedia and Orbitz, vs. web sites owned by specific airlines or hotel chains. The article faults individual web sites, such as Southwest Airlines’, for not providing, say, maps the way Expedia does. The “online agents”, commodity brokers that throw in generic extras to make their offerings seem sweeter, are a comparison shopper’s dream who attempt to differentiate themselves, not by offering the best rate, ease of use or schedule, but by making travelers believe that more is better. Travelers going directly to the airline site they know they will fly, quickly and easily find just what they need, an air ticket to their destination.

The Times buries the article’s real point when it casually quotes a market research analysis, “With travel agents, you'd get a packet for your trip, with tickets and maps, and then they'd tell you about great restaurants to visit," she said. "Travel sites (in general, including Travelocity, etc.) are not approximating what you can get in the bricks-and-mortar world." Amen, lady. For the 10 millionth time: You want comprehensive service and a great trip? Book it through a human travel agent.

(The average visitor to the Cultural Travels web site stays 16.5 minutes. The site is now drawing visitors at a rate of 900,000 per year. By June, that figure will be well over 1 million.)

This past month, Cultural Travels celebrated it’s fourth year. Compared to GM, IBM or AT&T, we’re just a baby. But looking back, we have to say we are one tough baby: We were founded at the height of the dot-com boom, when all sorts of Internet-oriented companies were slicing through investors’ money like a Benihana chef assaulting a sirloin. Instead, just like you, we invested our owe money and time and relied on the stubbornness, sweat equity and midnight toil of the small group of us at the core of this company. We learned how to operate at maximum efficiency for the least expenditure. More important, not having other people’s money to insulate us from reality forced us to look at the travel market with clarity. Here are some of the successful predictions we’ve made along the way:

The pundits said: “The era of the travel agent is over. The Internet has taken over agent functions.”

We responded: “The Internet can’t replace agents. Agents will come back when tools that let them use the Internet to their advantage are in place. We’re one of those tools.”

What happened: Agents are back. Because they’re classic middlemen, with middlemen’s connections, savvy and inside knowledge, they’re appealing to travelers who’ve been burned by the Internet’s impersonality. Our portal site, with the world’s largest database of specialty operators, gives independent agents a powerful research tool. The college kids and telemarketers staffing travel sites like Expedia and Orbitz can’t provide even 1/10th the value-added service agents can.

The pundits said: “You’re too small to ever get noticed.”

We said: “Oh, yeah?”

What happened: Check out the figures at the top of this item. Check out the interview that Travel Weekly conducted with us after we published a critique of various online booking sites (see: “Online booking sites – a whopping 400% difference in rates!” in the February 2004 issue of The Cultured Traveler). To read the Travel Weekly article, go to: http://www.twcrossroads.com/columns/Columnwrapper.asp?section=Traveling&archive=-1&startAt=1&articleID=41745 (free registration required)

The ad mavens said: “You can’t make money unless you make your ads intrusive.”

We said: “It isn’t our mission to irritate people into buying travel by pushing “look-at-me!” ads in their faces. We have a better idea: Compile the world’s best database of culturally oriented tour operators, then present them in a jargon-free, easy-to-read, play-no-favorites format. We’re betting people can find what they’re looking for without us thrusting it at them.”

What happened: Our ad model, based on the classic magazine model of delivering a pre-qualified readership, is one that more and more online marketers are adopting. Based on very conservative calculations, we estimate that Cultural Travels directly influenced the purchase of more than $150 million in travel over the past 12 months.

We predicted: Companies like Trips Advisor, with their user-created database of tips and recommendations, would be acquired by larger travel companies that were coming to understand how important the personal touch has become in the affluent travel market.

What happened: Trip Advisor was acquired in March by IAC (InterActiveCorp.). Expect to see more consolidation in this sector and acquisitions of content rich companies like Trip Advisor (and Cultural Travels) that can provide a crucial informational element that the Bigs just aren’t equipped to do.

* With apologies to AA Milne