UK travel business targets Australian travel suppliers with new social networking site

London, 08 March 2010

A British-based company has harnessed the power of social media to link intending British visitors to Australia with Australian travel suppliers.The social-media initiative, called OZ DIRECT, lets Australian suppliers (including tour operators, travel firms, trade suppliers and accommodation properties) list their product free, where prospective travellers can view it. Despite the free aspect, take-up has been slow so far, according to director Graeme Archer.

Archer, an Australian, was well known in the Australian industry a few years ago. He held senior positions with Travel Online, United Vacations and Sheraton and was based in Sydney and then Port Douglas. He now lives in Kent, just outside London, and is directing Travel Match, trading as the Australian Travel Company (ATC). ATC (www. AustralianTravel.co.uk) is behind OZ DIRECT.

Australian travel suppliers can join the OZ DIRECT site free, post pictures or a video of their product, post an advert on the travel classifieds, post a blog, post a message on the forum, or even post a blog with pictures and video embedded in it. They can set up a special group for their region/product (Aboriginal-based travel and tours, for instance) or chat in real time with consumers.

ATC has contacted hundreds of Australian travel suppliers to let them know about the promotion platform. Because the site is dedicated to the UK market the premier inbound market for Australia Archer expected Australian firms would move quickly to showcase and promote their product. In theory, the strong Australian dollar should make any free promotional opportunity attractive for the struggling inbound market. Advertising in the UK is expensive otherwise.

Archer has found that Australian travel suppliers need more prodding than he expected, perhaps because they are unfamiliar with the concept of marketing via social networks.

“The site or the social media side of it is about providing an interactive social media platform for Australia where consumers in the UK can access Australian travel and trade suppliers in OZ DIRECT to plan their own bookings,” Archer said yesterday. “We are not listing UK-based Australia suppliers although we are listing UK-based Australia-specialist agents like Austravel or Trailfinders, if consumers want an agent to do their travel booking. What makes this online destination-specific information model so different from any others out there is the social media interface.”

Archer says Australian tour operators and accommodation suppliers “can avoid the extra pricing layers inherent within the traditional ´vertical distribution‘ inbound market model for selling and marketing to the overseas inbound market to Australia through intermediaries, realising improved margins on their sales.”

OZ DIRECT is developing “serious traction” with over 500 unique users a day logging onto the site in its first week, according to Archer.

Social networking has caught on fast. Generation Y (generally defined as the children of Baby Boomers) already outnumber Boomers. And according to some estimates, 96% of Gen Y have joined a social network.

Written by: Peter Needham