Travelblather

Oh help. I need to book a summer holiday for the family (me + wife and 3 year old). I like to think I’m quite plugged into the world of online travel content, but I still find myself stuck in an endless loop of google searches and tripadvisor reviews. So it was cool to find a genuinely useful piece about holidays with babies by William Gray (a long established, excellent travel writer) on the 101 Holidays website. (Disclosure: I know Mark Hodson one of the 101 founders and William too).

There were some useful suggestions and it reminded me of the coolest, bestest family holiday hotel we have stayed at – the Almyra in Paphos. If I could find another place like that, my quest would be over (assuming we could afford it). And I wanted to share that info too – tell a few other people who might be looking just like me for this kind of a holiday! Better still I wrote it up for Takethefamily.com so I could link to my piece on there which would mean no need to write heaps in the comments.

Except there was no comments field on the post. I felt  really cheated!

I tweeted Mark Hodson to ask why. And he replied saying that they didn’t want UGC (user generated content) cluttering up ‘evergreen content’ like this. By evergreen I’m assuming he means content quite closely tied to the product that won’t change much. In real world terms, the shop window rather than the visitor’s book.

This is a classic web conundrum for me. I think web should be all about conversation and discussion and sharing your tips and ideas for great kid-friendly hotels, well that’s bound to be something lots of people would be interesting to take part in.

But does that mean that every page should offer space for readers to comment – or should  there be some spaces that are just about the brand/business setting out their stall?

I don’t usually do PR things. But I was offered the chance to talk to Pete Ward the CEO of WAYN (Where Are You Now?) a few weeks back. I vaguely remembered this backpacker social network site from way back – long before Facebook. And, it’s still going strong with some 21 million users. Regular readers will know I am no fan of Facebook. So, how was a social media business like WAYN surviving? I was curious to find out – particularly because they were on the verge of relaunching with a completely new user experience. I found Pete engaging, thoughtful and interesting. Here’s what we talked about:

What’s WAYN’s mission? Has it changed?
Imagine you can see where your mates are on a map. That was how it started. Mainly as a result of my own backpacking experiences. Nowadays it has evolved - to help people make the most out of life. Our vision is to help people discover where to go, what do to and who to meet.

Who are your customers?
It’s a global audience of people who love to travel. But not as big a backpacker market concentration as you’d think. Our biggest demographic is 25 to 35. But our most active demographic is over 50. I think that participating in it made older people feel a bit younger – and even allowed them to be a bit voyeuristic.

What does the new site do compared to the old site?
This has been the biggest shift we’ve ever made. We are only 10% of the way. Even at 10% we’re very excited. Not just the travel website scene but the web more generally has seen the ‘Pinterestisation’ of media, the way we engage with content on line is evolving - fast. Previously we had a quite magazinesque site -  a nice shop front but not much else. But social sites like Facebook reinvented this – things like the newsfeed, the wall for accessing info and ideas are quite different… adding content from people like you – personalization and relevance and timeliness is changing the way we consume and create content. Filtering is a big thing and it's still not done very well.

Why have you made these changes?
I don’t think anyone has cracked social travel including ourselves. Trip Advisor are doing it quite well, Gogobot has nice design features but doesn’t have the scale. We’re been around a while and have an ever growing community. What has been the core ingredient? We are social in our DNA. People come to the site to connect and socialise – that is the glue for our community and that’s what makes it a sticky site.

Our realisation was that if we are going to truly become the leading travel social platform we need to rebuild from the bottom up- but we mustn’t lose the social engagement. So we took the social engagement stuff and fused it with a recommendation engine for where to go and what to do. We recognise that our users will provide some of that info, but there are other things like check ins from other social sites, content like recommendations from Time Out and expert reviews that complement the decision-making process so the wall is a great way to integrate all  those elements and then to personalise it so that it’s really relevant.

What’s your view on making people share more to access more of your services? The premium services look exactly like Badoo - a dating site – is WAYN about dating or about travelling?
Is the impulse the same? Yes from a purely social context. There’s the same human needs that drive engagement – influence – everyone wants to be seen to be influential in something… the more friends you have the better.

People are that shallow…?
[Laughs] Well, they are interested in popularity – it makes them feel good. Everyone. Even the over 50s. Think about the celebrity factor. Much as you’d like to treat these people like anyone else, you can’t help being a bit keen to be their friend. We look up to people who are better than us and want to be like them – it’s in our DNA.

That’s one side of sociability – but there’s a more generous thing. If you can encourage people to share advice and recommendations that makes them feel good about themselves.

Social in the context of travel isn’t ‘I want to meet them because they are fit’ it’s ‘I want to connect with them because I know they are influential on Paris’. So we want to algorithmically bring people who are authorities/experts to the fore – so people can endorse people they see as experts.

Could these experts be professionals rather than members? For example a brand’s social media manager?
Yes. We could say the social media manager for Visit London could be one of these experts. A tourist board can sponsor a page directly. We did a recent promotion where the Air New Zealand marketing manager was promoted as a genuine user and he used it to add content about his travels round the world and we promoted it more. It was hugely successful. Our members really engaged with it.

Do many people use the premium services?
Those who pay are 10 times more active. Less than one percent are subscribers at  the moment. But they represent nearly 10 percent of our traffic.

What’s the core revenue driver? Subscribers or advertising?
The real value is, we think, in monetisation with brands – that is the scalable opportunity. Once you have an active audience, that’s your opportunity - as long as you engage with them in a way that is relevant.

Do you agree that the moment a free service starts to focus more on monetization, the user experience deteriorates?
We’ve come full circle – you used to have to buy premium membership to interact. Then we went free and ad funded and now we are freemium. Money v traffic is the trade-off. We reckoned there is a way to get the best of both. Restrict the things that don’t stifle interaction but that are still regarded as valuable by users.

For example?
Sending messages – now you can send as many as you want. But if you receive a message you have to pay to see it. Another way to offset that is – if you don’t want to pay - do something that we value as a business... do something else to help us and we will give you access. So share WAYN with a bunch more of your friends for example - that gives us new customers.

Do you see a role for professionally written content on WAYN?
I do funnily enough – beforehand it was no. Now we are seeing the value in creating an aspirational platform which inspires people to discover new places and partnering with tourist boards has shown us that. Mostly it’s Tourist Boards that are the people who have the best content on their destination. By doing innovative social engagement campaigns with them we have found that users respond really well. So whether it will be commissioning directly from writers or more likely working with third parties like Tourist Boards I think it’s useful. There’s a place for pro-content on a social platform but it needs to be served up in a really smart way. Like say an awesome photo to get people to engage with something quick and short and then maybe dive deeper.

How is WAYN different to Trip Advisor?
We have a strong advantage over Trip Advisor. You know the 1 to 99% rule? Most people don’t add reviews only a minority do. People go to Trip Advisor much closer to the end of the booking process. What you don’t do is hang out there… it’s not like that. People’s WAYN profiles are much more rich… what people like, where they want to go, what they’d love to do… we have huge numbers of data points about people and social signal data too. You can follow a brand on WAYN as well… just like Facebook. We can break down the 350k friends of South Africa and look at the data and see… what are they looking for? We know for South Africa it’s adventure sports, then wine tasting. We got 160,000 respondents to a survey we did with South Africa. Doing more surveys with consumer brands is something we see as really interesting for our future business – everyone has an opinion and we can aggregate them really fast.

Do you see privacy as a growing issue
I’d say it’s a ‘perceived risk’ with privacy. Despite the naysayers – those same people are adding more content on themselves. Ultimately people don’t feel as protective – they accept it’s part of the process. You have to do it  to make the most of the service. The winning businesses will respect privacy and not abuse that trust. The negative impact is 10-fold… 28-fold. We aggregate data – which allows us to present more tailored offers to you. We’re going to serve you ads anyway – so might as well show you ads that. You might be interested in.

Any questions you think I should have asked and didn't?

I'm delighted to welcome Nellie Huang and her husband Alberto to Travelblather. I've wanted to get the inside story on their Wild Junket Magazine project for months. From a standing start they have already hit the 100,000 user mark which is a tremendous achievement. So... how have they done it? I asked a few questions.

How did Wild Junket Magazine start?
It started as a way to provide more value to our readers than the usual blog post or eBook. We wanted to combine our (Nellie and Alberto) skills to create a unique product that would fill a gap in the market. With Nellie's experience in travel writing and my proficiency in photography and design, it felt like the perfect option. It was also an excellent time to launch the digital magazine as there were less than ten digital travel magazines in the market then. We also did some research and found out that more than 50% of magazine readers in the US now access content through digital sources.

What are its USPs? What makes it different?
We are a new-age magazine designed for modern, social travelers who are looking for more than just quality content. With links embedded and videos soon to be included, we provide a full multimedia experience rather than just old-school magazine content. What makes us stand out from the other digital magazines is that we marry long form travel narratives with an interactive design and format.

You're personally pretty strongly associated with the Wild Junket brand (indeed some might say you ARE Wild Junket) - do you think having a real person at the centre of the project helps people connect with it more?
I (Nellie) have spent years building the WildJunket brand, and I think that with a real person behind the brand, readers feel that there's a more personal connection. They know who we are, what we stand for, and are able to relate with us and interact with us on a deeper level. Even though we are delivering a professional product here, we don't want to lose the familiarity that our readers have with us.

What's your thinking about charging people to read your content?
We believe that payment is proportional to quality of content. That is why we pay our contributors to have the best possible content for our magazine and therefore readers in turn pay for the quality content we offer. We think this is something our readers understand and appreciate. Although this system does work, we want even more people to enjoy our work, so we plan to make our magazine free and widely available for new website subscribers. The new website which is dedicated to just the magazine, will be launched at the end of the year and all newsletter subscribers will have free access to the magazine.

So does that mean you are abandoning the subscriber model?
No. Our readers generally fall into two groups: those that found our magazine through Zinio or Magzter, and those who are loyal readers of our website. Our goal is to increase our numbers for both groups of readers. We'll keep the subscription model, but our aim for 2013 is to increase advertising revenue, so we want to focus more on building our readership rather than making money from subscriptions. So, to convert even more of our website readers to magazine readers, we’ll give them free access to the magazine if they subscribe to our newsletter. This way we’ll really build up our mailing list and increase subscriber numbers. Of course we run the risk of Zinio/Magzter subscribers heading over to the website for a free subscription - but that just means we gain another website reader - which is a good thing!

You offer the magazine on multiple platforms - why?
We don't want to limit readers to just one platform. Each person enjoys content in a different way and from different sources. There are still a few platforms we would like to get on, so we are working hard to meet the goal. As a matter of fact, we didn't intend to release print versions of our issues but we decided to offer it on the print-on-demand site, Magcloud, due to a few readers' requests. It's all about what our readers want.

What have been your biggest learnings about publishing on multiple platforms?
Each platform has its own set of rules and functionality and it can be difficult to comply with everything. But once we found a common area to work from and organized ourselves properly, it was not very different from publishing on just one platform.

Which platform has been most successful for you?
Zinio has proven to be the most successful to date, allowing us to reach readers outside of our initial fan base. They are the biggest online magazine store and also the most professional, in terms of production process and organization. This is why we have made them our default subscription platform.

How do you adapt the content to work across different platforms - is it just technical or do you edit it and write it in different ways too?
It is mostly technical. We try to be as consistent as possible so that a person reading our print issue will receive the same content from his/her iPad. And since most platforms are PDF based, the technical changes are usually easy to perform.

How do you choose what kinds of features to publish each issue?
We plan our editorial calendar months in advance and we tend to plan each issue's content around a certain theme. For example, our winter issue has a focus on winter activities featuring destinations like Iceland and Finland, but we also make sure to include other non-related destinations like Cambodia and Palestine to give it variety. Starting from our Winter 2012/2013 issue, we will be publishing on a quarterly rather than bimonthly basis, which helps us to plan things better. In general, we tend to publish articles on less conventional destinations and unusual experiences: such as a yurt stay in Mongolia or learning to build an igloo in Austria.

What's in it for advertisers? Give us your best sales pitch!
By partnering up with us, advertisers can get access to over 115,000 unique readers. Each issue receives over 1,65 million unique views over a shelf life of 3 months. These readers are mainly based in the US, UK and Canada, aged 25 to 44 years old, who book all their trips online and travel at least three times a year. Our readers love adventure and special interest journeys such as wildlife safaris, mountain treks and expedition cruises.

We have worked with several global companies such as G Adventures, Viator Tours, Lattitude, and Visit Finland. They have all found advertising on our magazine an effective way of reaching their targeted clientele.

We're also proud to share that WildJunket Magazine is a finalist in the Digital Magazine Awards 2012, for both Best Travel Magazine of the Year and Magazine Launch of the Year! We are very excited and we're confident this means that our magazine is looking at a bright future.

How can people subscribe or find out more?
There are many ways to subscribe to WildJunket Magazine: directly from our iOS Newsstand app, or via Zinio and Magzter that are available for both computer and mobile devices. You can also get print copies of our issues delivered straight to your doorstep on Magcloud.

Are you interested in writers pitching ideas at you and do you pay?
We are more than happy to receive new pitches although we have already planned the editorial calendar for the next year. We pay for contributions. Anyone interested can check our guidelines here: http://www.wildjunket.com/magazine/editorial-guidelines

Here's the content of my talk at Travelblogcamp - delivered to a boisterous room of travel writers, bloggers, PRs and tour cos on the evening of Tuesday 6th November.

What does back to basics mean?

I thought long and hard about this. I decided for me it means putting aside the bright glittery things that the internet throws at us and remembering what really matters. Sure technology marches onwards – but you know what? People are still people. They still have similar desires when it comes to choosing a holiday. They still need similar information much of the time.

Apparently there’s some kind of big election going on this evening. Something to do with the next leader of the free world (apparently). And back to basics has a bit of a campaigning edge to it doesn’t it. It could almost be a conservative party slogan.

So, ladies and gents – I give you my Back to Basics content manifesto. Like I say, it’s at heart all about trying to ignore the frilly bullshit of the net and focus on important stuff. Stuff that’s about people, not machines.

Like any good manifesto it has a bunch of bullet points - unlike most manifestos there will probably be a few swear words.

1) Great content isn’t regulated by Google
I hate the way Google has become this all-knowing arbiter of what’s best. We are so lazy – it’s so damn easy to click the first search result Google (or Bing for that matter) comes back with. You know what – I’ll let you into a little secret. Google is still gameable. Big companies spend zillions on SEO because despite all the pandas and penguins you can still game the algorithm. And frankly – it just isn’t that good anyway. So… people… once in a while make yourself go to page 6. Don’t let Google dictate what is or isn’t good. And if you find something that’s good there… on page 6. Promote it… talk about it. Tell your friends and colleagues to read it. Go on - G+ it if you really must.

2) Great content should not be at the behest of advertisers
If your business model relies solely on advertising, then the ad guys will rule the roost and sure as day follows night the content you publish will be compromised. They just want your content to sell stuff for them. People don’t as a rule like being sold to very much. I read a great interview in the Times magazine with Lewis Hamilton a while back. There was sentence in there about how Lewis was wearing a particular brand of watch (Tag if you want to know). It was totally unsubtle. So much so that I’m sure the writer did it on purpose. Lewis Hamilton is of course sponsored by them. I hate that shit. It is so demeaning to the reader. Are we – any of us – that easy to influence? (PR people – next time you insist on some kind of lunatically obvious product placement… ask yourself what the point is. And if it’s just to keep your client happy have the guts to tell then they are wrong.)

3) Great content should not be free
I hate the way content online is free. It distorts the market. How can we as consumers tell what’s good and what’s not if there is no price attached to anything? It’s the most basic of mechanisms in consumer society. And the smart arses who came up with the idea of short circuiting it did us all a massive disservice. By ‘good’ I don’t just mean how well written something is, but how trustworthy and believable. Friends – if you are enjoying ‘free’ content or ‘free’ social networks – firstly it might well not be any good. Secondly you are paying for it – far more subtle and dubious ways. YOU are the content. Your every move is being watched so that you can be sold stuff. The sophistication of this technology is getting better and better – but it has hardly started. I don’t like that one little bit. If you want a great book to put on your Christmas present list I cannot recommend The Filter Bubble: What The Internet Is Hiding From Youby Eli Pariser highly enough. If you want to really see where the free model will end up… read it and be as concerned as I am. Don’t worry – there’s a link to the book on my blog – right now.

4) Great content is all about the reader
I work for a search and social media agency iCrossing part time – mainly because I got bored of the lousy money on offer for travel writing. One thing that I have been amazed by is the number of big brand companies that you ask ‘who is your customer’ and they don’t have a clue. The old model of creating search term driven fluff to reel people in and try and sell them stuff has made many larger travel brands totally lazy. They just spent cash gaming Google to get them at the top of search results and sat back. Just pour as many people in the top of the funnel and enough will book to keep you in business. It’s leading to a superabundance of cheap crap on the internet. Great content by contrast is written with a reader in mind. Do you know who yours are? If you take the time to create content that's properly focussed on your reader, they will come back. There's this old marketing maxim called the 80/20 rule. 20 % of your customers account for 80% of your business. Instead of just chucking as many people through the front door of your website as possible - try developing long term relationships with that 20% - they'll keep coming back if you give them reason to.

5) Great content takes time to create
One of the things that defines quality is uniqueness. And writing something unique takes time and research and consideration. It’s a craft. As readers we need to get better at spotting that kind of really great stuff and promoting it. And as content creators we need to stand up to whoever pays the bill and tell them how much it will cost and why they should make the investment. Sure it’s easy to say and hard to do – but the recent changes in the algorithm have produced this sudden obsession with content. In some ways that’s a good thing – at least it has made people think about content seriously. But it’s still all too often all about churning out mediocre content as fast as possible for SEO purposes. Insist on giving them better content and make them pay. It’s about quality not quantity. If you’ve banged something out in half an hour without doing any research first – take it from me – it’s crap.

6) Great content is about detail
Writing really good travel journalism is in my opinion about spotting the little things that people miss and surfacing them in smart and concise ways. Often it’s about taking the time to stop and look and listen and smell and taste. Moments of quiet on busy trips are often hard to come by – but they are gold dust. A vital part of listening is asking the right kinds of questions of the right kinds of people. Really good travel journalism is often about telling stories – other peoples’ stories. Learning to seek out those hidden gems of interest or local wisdom and finding entertaining and engaging ways to communicate them takes time and focus. It’s a craft and it’s something you can get better at even if you’ve done it for a decade or more.

7) Great content is collaborative
Remember editors? The role of the editor has been forgotten in the online world of self-published blogs. Editors can be arrogant people – but they tend to be where they are for a reason. The people in editorial positions at national magazines and newspapers and book publishers have an instinct for their readers that has taken years to develop. Importantly they are people (not an algorithm). They choose what to publish and what not to publish for all sorts of reasons. Some very subtle – often quite human. Content – proper content – is about real communication. And that suggests a relationship. Relationships are quirky, fun, frustrating things – but they are all about being human. I don’t want a machine dictating what I should read. I want a real person. Editors don’t just add coherence and relevance – they also ensure quality control. I’m sorry. Maybe kids in their 20s don’t care about decent sentence construction and grammar. But I do. That’s not about being pedantic. It’s about the craft of writing – things like rhythm, assonance, alliteration, metaphors and similes.

 What do you think?

Many people would say that price comparison websites like say Travelsupermarket.com; skyscanner or carrentals.co.uk do customers a huge service – by allowing them to choose the cheapest deals without having to do a stack of time consuming research. At its most basic level this is absolutely the case.

But, they focus people totally and utterly on price. Mercilessly.

By exhibiting a bunch of deals side by side with virtually no branding alongside they are a brand marketer’s nightmare. (All that cash spent carefully trying to differentiate your product from a competitor’s is just stripped away and levelled down to a price with little else.) And they quickly drive customers to think about nothing but the best price. Ever found yourself thinking 'hang on we're talking about £5 difference in price here!'

Some comparison sites do add back some extras into the mix – but the ultimate aim is to smooth all the products into virtual ubiquity so that people can make swift choices between them – driven by price and nothing else.

I wonder how great they are for customers too? This really commoditised marketplace is about cutting cost rather than innovation. Everyone is effectively selling the same stuff and spending much of their energy on the supply chain – cutting costs remorselessly to be able to compete more effectively on price.

But it’s not just about price is it?

A holiday, a flight, a hire car – all of these things are about way more than just a simple product and a price. (Particularly if things go wrong!)  I think it’s time people started really thinking about customer service and what it could add back into the equation.

I look a lot at the financial services industry and laugh at the idiocy of it all at the moment. So crap, so commoditised, so tied down by regulation, so stiffled of innovation. Ironically, all the banks have to differentiate themselves with is customer service. So they try remorselessly to convince us that they are 'on our side'. And fail to deliver because they don't make real fundamental changes to the way they  do business. If you're going to do customer service you have to do it from the top to the bottom of a business and be fanatical. Not enough to trot out some old tired cliches like the banks do.

But - travel is a 'real' people business and the touch points for delighting customers on say a package holiday are myriad. Customer service should be absolutely critical. What would it cost to add proper customer service back into the mix? A price differential of say £10 onto a booking of £100? I have no idea, but if you did it the smartest possible way and used technology to do it really efficiently… how much would it really cost? And - how much harder would it be for a competitor to copy you if you did?

The internet-fueled obsession with lowest cost and lack of balls to stand out from the crowd and say in the words of certain beer brand ‘we are reassuringly expensive’ is I think slowly screwing the industry.

And you know what, price comparison sites are so DULL. Holidays should be fun, inspiring and exciting - and that includes the purchase of them. Price matters... but there should be so much more to buying a holiday.

The only brand I can think of really selling on service right now is Virgin Holidays. Can you think of others?

Would you pay more for better service or does it have little or no influence on your booking habits these days?