TRAVEL INDUSTRY EXECS AND CONSUMERS

DISCOVER THE WORLD WIDE WEB

By Charlotte Novom

As more and more executives in the travel industry strive to reach their target market

directly, there is a growing demand for reaching this market in an efficient and cost effective

manner through web marketing.

Consumer travelers also prefer using The World Wide Web to enhance their decision

making process making before turning to their travel agents.

“With the power of the Internet, executives representing upscale travel products and

services find there is a less expensive alternative to typical marketing methods such as

newspaper and magazine advertising and direct mail,” Concordia Executive Director,

Diane McDavitt.

In Los Angeles county alone, the total economic impact of travel/tourism is $26

billion, according to Executive Vice President of the Los Angeles Convention & Visitors Bureau

Michael C. R. Collins.

McDavitt added, “Luxury travel marketers want to receive the best value for their money

and we offer this through or service, Luxury Link.”

Concordia’s Luxury Link is the invention of McDavitt with her co-founder

Birgitt Stepanow Adams. The company has positioned Luxury Link to provide Internet

connectivity between the sophisticated buyer and the seller of upscale travel products and

services via an Internet search engine.

Concordia’s main objective is to identify appropriate luxury travel suppliers and provide

news about the supplier’s products (luxury hotels, cruise lines and high-end tour companies)

to qualified, upscale consumers and travel agents available exclusively through Luxury Link.

Marketing Executives Reap Results On The Web

Luxury travel executives benefit from this unique web site in the following ways:

Concordia Luxury Link:

* Provides a “one-stop shop” format

* Directs information to a very specific upscale audiences

* Eliminates the need for costly advertising and expensive color brochures

* Reaches a critical target audience with greater frequency (on a daily basis)

* Provides assistance in customer service

* Gives the ability to send e-mail messages to consumers and travel professionals

about special promotions, late-breaking offers, travel information and provides them

timely travel tips

* Allows for Home Page and Specialty Page exposure

* Presents updated user information so that marketing efforts can be intensified and

qualified prospects are identified

Consumer Travelers

Have Access to One-Stop Research Capabilities

Consumer travelers also find that tapping onto a web site is cost-free, easy to access and

a convenient and time-saving method to obtain specific information about a product or service.

Luxury Link is designed to provide upscale travel goers with this and more with a

unique luxury web site that gives them discriminating resources for locating news and

information about the world’s most sophisticated travel choices at anytime. Rather than having

consumers search extensively for travel information on a general travel web site, Luxury Link

is the first web site of its kind to specialize in the luxury level.

Luxury Link not only allows travelers to find the typical luxury travel products they have

come to expect, but also give them to uncover the unexpected — an “insider’s” look at intimate

hideaways and exotic destinations. Internet users can access time-sensitive information and

promotional offers from the world’s most exclusive hotels, cruise lines and tour operators.

Recently, Luxury Link has added a special ongoing offer that allows web users to register

to win a luxury vacation. The site’s newest online luxury travel auction also offers consumers

a chance to bid on an upscale trip at up to 75 percent off the retail value.

“After we provide consumers with an assigned password, they can obtain

information bout the perfect vacation, and can click onto a “Travel Search” option categorizing

2000+ products by destination, region, special interests and season. They have only to pick up

the phone and call their travel agent to book the arrangements,” says McDavitt.

The easy to access web site highlights “Select Opportunities,” “Where To Go Next,”

“Unique Travel, “Millennium Journeys,” and an “Intimate Hideaways” sections.

The home page is divided into several sections including “Headline

News” which details daily updated offerings, and a “Pick of the Week.” A “Travel

Publications” page gives consumers access to seven leading luxury travel publications

including Travel & Leisure, Conde Nast Travel and Andrew Harper’s Hideaway Report.

Color visuals can be downloaded in seconds on a particular destination accompanied by

a concise description.

Internet users can click on “up to the minute” useful information about the weather,

world embassies, tourist offices, state departments, health advisories, and a universal currency

converter. Travelers can also link to information about luxury yachts and villas.

Whether seeking to capture a target audience via marketing on the web or accessing

specific travel information for one’s own personal travel plans, both executives and consumers

increasingly realize that there are a multitude of advantages in marketing or accessing

information on the web.

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Charlotte Novom is with Novom Marketing, a Marketing Consultant to the Hotel & Tourism Industries with Offices in Beverly Hills.