Our work

House of Travel: Travel Experiences

Our Challenge

The retail outlets wanted to derive greater benefit from the House of Travel website. What could it do for them and their business? And the cost of getting an inquiry was creeping up. In the travel market, increasing attention has been given to the short-haul battle of the cheapest flights, and travel deals —especially in the domestic market. But these are high-volume, low- (or no) margin products, while longer overseas travel offers higher commissions and expenditure. The goal was to push consumers in research mode into action mode, and make them book the holiday they desired.

The Solution

The idea was to focus on experiences. When booking a holiday, we often get bogged down in the details. Young & Shand wanted to remind consumers why they travel: for unique experiences, for a time of our lives that we’ll remember fondly—and not for the cheap cost.

We developed a series of six micro-sites focused around House of Travel Experiences. Aspirational images were used to bring users back into the holiday mindset, with a series of images showing the possibilities available: beach, adventure, shopping, romantic breaks etc.

Social reinforcement was also incorporated, with Facebook buttons allowing users to ‘like’ the experiences. This instantly communicated their affinity for the experience to their social network, and confirmed its popularity as an experience to other users. Who wants to go on holiday to a destination no one likes?

The landing pages were also developed based on international research to avoid distracting users with other options and links that might take them back into research mode. It was crucial to ensure the right information was in the right place to get consumers to take action.

Young & Shand developed a strategy that made sense and drove results, which pushed up our leads by 10% in the month. They made a difference to our business

Val Green, Marketing Director

The Result

Young & Shand successfully took consumers out of the research mindset, achieving a 3% conversion rate on the web pages. Traffic costs decreased by a significant margin, meaning the overall acquisition cost was 30% below target price.