Social media driving up business for travel companies

Social media services are not only bringing pictures of exotic locales into homes, but also driving up business for travel companies, as the wired generation increasingly turns to online tweets and posts to firm up travel plans. 

For the world's largest tour operator TUI, leads through social media for its India arm have risen from nil about two years ago to about 20% now, its country managing director Arjun Sharma said. 

For mid-sized travel firm Pearl Luxe, about a quarter of the bookings come through social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google+. Pearl Luxe's promoter Taruna Seth has ramped up presence on these platforms after some pictures she had posted online of her trip to Chamonix in France ended up getting her over a dozen queries. 

Seth is hopeful that some of them will translate into bookings for her company. "The Indian society has always had such pressures (from online peers). This is making it more intense," TUI's Sharma said. To tap this growing traffic, travel firms and tourism boards are now paying more attention to engaging with potential customers on forums such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+. 

According to a spokesperson for Facebook, several travel portals have set up Facebook Pages to grow their business. For instance, Yatra has hosted apps like the "Happy Travel Jigsaw" and posted interesting information about travel destinations. Yatra and Makemytrip. com, another online travel company, have over 821,000 and 694,000 'Likes' on their Facebook pages, respectively, the spokesperson added. Facebook claims it has 1.06 billion users, of which 71 million are in India. It is not just travel firms but also tourism boards that are actively using social media to woo visitors. 

Tourism Malaysia, for instance, has a team that tracks all posts on Facebook that talk about the country. "We also encourage people to post their photographs of Malaysia and their experiences in the country on our Facebook page," said P Manoharan, director, Tourism Malaysia. "What we have seen is that this peer pressure influences people towards experiential travel. 

Many people want to show they are one up on others in their group." Singapore Tourism's GB Srithar said social media for them is akin to mouth publicity. "We try to join in on conversations around Singapore on Facebook, engage with people, but not try to sell," the area director for South Asia, said. Social media is also helping people make informed choices. 

Twenty-seven-year-old Siddhesh Sharma, president of Baidyanath Ayurvedic, and his wife Bhawna weren't considering South America for their honeymoon until they saw some pictures and updates on the FB page of a close friend. So Brazil, Argentina and Peru it was. 

"A little out of the box, but we decided to go for it," said Sharma. Travel companies are also realising the potential of social media for generating referral business. "Personal reference does carry more weight," said Karan Anand, head, relationships at Cox & Kings.