For years, I've been a part of the travel & tourism industry. You might say, it's in my blood. My experience comes from formal education, 1000s of books, reports, market research and other sources. One thing I do is help those in the travel & tourism industry make more money.
And with that in mind, I'd like to share with you two reasons why many travel site owners fail to realize their profit potential.
Missing Market Research
For many travel site owners, especially those looking to monetize via AdSense, it's all about finding some good paying keyword phrases and calling it a day. Unfortunately, this is a flawed plan in our industry. Site owners either get frustrated with making no real money or they make some money but lose out on a windfall of cash that the travel & tourism industry can bring.
To make money in this business, it's vital to know at least the basics of the market.
Unfortunately, learning even basic demographics and psychographics can take considerable resources (time and money) in the travel & tourism industry. However, there are places you can go to learn what's needed quickly and without great cost.
By having just a little proper market research in hand, you'll be prepared to go much further and make more money.
Lacking Proper Focus
Another issue that kills most travel site owners is the lack of focus. Many site owners incorrectly focus simply on destination rather than intent plus destination. Additionally, they try to create content that's too wide in scope.
Imagine any place in the world. Now imagine you are creating content for this place. Can any one piece satisfy all possible needs? Of course not.
Pick any destination you want and possible "intent actions" could be:
- Honeymoons
- Family vacation
- Thrill seeking
- Historical travel
- Religious travel
- Foodie travel
- and on and on and on
By focusing your travel content on destination rather than intent plus destination, you're wasting most of your traffic and making far less money than you should be. You can't be everything to everyone.
Before rushing out to stake your claim to the billions of dollars in the travel & tourism industry, take some time to get to know the specific market you want to target. If you can't afford to spend hundreds of hours or thousands of dollars in research, look for the sources that do it for you. For instance, honeymoon tourism has billions at stake, but if you just rush out there with a honeymoon travel site without knowing something about the honeymoon market, you'll be missing out.