OPIO EN PROVENCE, FRANCE
David Forder and Paula Lacey, both Advantage
5 STORIES HOT 2
Advantage audits agents’ websites
Lucy Huxley
lucy.huxley@
travelweekly.co.uk
Advantage Travel Partnership has carried out a secret audit of all members’ websites in a bid to improve online performance. The consortium has paid a specialist external company to assess each site, checking for malware, mobile-friendliness, website speed, content and search engine optimisation. The results are being assessed
and reports will be shared with members in the coming weeks. Members can then take their
report to a technical support partner or use Advantage’s resources to address their site’s weaknesses, according to group commercial director Paula Lacey. She said the website audit
was just one element of a wider strategy to transform Advantage from a buying group to a leading technology and marketing business. Lacey said: “If you can get the technology and marketing right, the commercials will follow.” Commenting on Advantage’s
marketing to date, she added: “A lot of it has been about retention – using direct-mail and mail drops to existing customers and databases etc. We need to do more of that, of course, but we also need to focus on recruiting new customers too. “This is about supporting
every member with the different digital help they need. “We want the advice to be
really bespoke. It’s not a case of them taking package A, B or C. There will be a whole menu of options for them to select from to fully optimise their site.” Lacey has recruited David
Forder, who previously worked for Wanderlust Travel Media and Flight Centre, to drive the project and the overall marketing and technology strategy. Forder sent letters to all members this week informing them of the website audit. “We want members to be more digital marketing-focused,” he said. “And we want to start concentrating our marketing ef- forts on our members’ individual customers using personalisation and segmentation.”
3
Oasis Travel to open cruise store
Lucy Huxley
lucy.huxley@
travelweekly.co.uk
Oasis Travel is to open a dedicated cruise business on the top floor of Knock Travel’s premises, the one-shop Belfast agency it acquired in March.
Oasis managing director Sandra
Corkin has registered the name The Northern Ireland Cruise Centre and plans to start trading by the end of June. It will be staffed initially by three
experienced agents. One will be Oasis agent Simon O’Neill, a cruise specialist and Clia ‘Master’, and Corkin is interviewing to fill the other two posts with Clia Masters. She said customers would be
able to call the cruise centre and make appointments to meet the team, while a side door with the name above it would allow people to walk in off the street. Corkin said the
centre would sell cruise lines’ holidays, and also create its own under its Atol licence.
“Knock is a really up-and- coming area of Belfast,” she said. “It is becoming really sought-
after with lots of fine dining, so we think it’s the right place to find new customers,” she said. “The cruise companies are
telling us there are a lot of people going on a cruise from Northern Ireland but not booking with an agent in Northern Ireland. So while we do have cruise expertise, they are not finding us. “There must be a feeling among consumers in Northern Ireland that we’ve not got the experience or the deals – but we have, we just need to market ourselves better." Meanwhile, Corkin has gutted
the former Knock Travel shop and is refurbishing it in the Oasis Travel style and branding, ready to reopen on May 30. “It’s got new lighting, heating, decoration and desks, and I’m taking the staff out to go through any training gaps they might have,” she said. Former Knock Travel
Sandra Corkin
owner Doreen McKenzie is staying on to provide consultancy advice two days a month.
18 May 2017
travelweekly.co.uk 5
PICTURES: NICK ROBB; ISTOCK; SHUTTERSTOCK
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