3 ways your website could be losing bookings

As an established tour operator you could have everything in place for success; from outstanding tours, a prominent location, partnerships with tourist offices, integration with online travel agents, plus strong customer feedback. But, you aren’t getting as many bookings through your website as you would like, or website visitors seem quite low.

Ideally, you want customers to come directly to your website so that you can offer the best service experience from start to finish, plus, you will also avoid paying hefty commission fees.

Here are 3 simple reasons why you could be losing bookings on your website:

1. Your website domain

There are two ways that your customer might be misdirected when trying to visit your website.

First, could be if your website domain is not what a user would expect expected. An example of this is nissan.com. We would assume that this is the website domain for Nissan Motors who are very well established, however, it is the domain for a company that sells computers. Both companies could be missing out on this domain name. Nissan Motors may lose traffic by not being easily found, and Nissan Computers might get a high volume of visitors but these users aren't interested in their product.

When selecting a domain, choose one that best matches the name of your company so it can easily be found. Avoid using a dash '-' between words, keep the URL short, and if there is more than one domain that could match your website - for example, zermatttours.com and zermatttour.com - then purchase both and link them to your main website page.

Untitled-5

Second, check that your domain won't be misspelled or mistyped by users. A company with the domain fatbrain.com also purchased fatbrian.com to avoid losing traffic from fast typing.

It has also been known that businesses have purchased misspelled competitor domains to gain their traffic. Just visit www.disneywurld.com.

2. Loading time & layout

Before a user reaches your website, they may choose to leave due to loading time. According to recent research by Google, ‘the average time it takes to fully load the average mobile landing page is 22 seconds.’ However, the research also states that ‘53% of people will leave a mobile page if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load.’ Load time is impacted by the size of your website which is on average 1.9mb. In 2018, the recommended size is to be under 500kb which is achieved by optimising you site.

In 2011 there was the 59-second rule, as on average a user would spend 59 seconds on a website before deciding whether to continue to another page or to leave the site completely. Today, research shows that it takes just 7 seconds for a website to make an impression before a user decides if they want to remain or leave the site.

It’s vital to have a user-friendly, clean website with bold links of where to click next. When designing your website layout, keep your target market in mind. Generation X might prefer more information, pricing details and offers, whereas Millennial visitors will look for videos, pictures and how to share with others.

Example 1 (Generation X):

Website Example 2

Example 2 (Millennial):

Website Example

3. No online live bookings

Users want to book directly on your website, in fact, 82% of all tour and activity bookings processed by TrekkSoft take place on a company’s website or mobile app. That's because it's easiest for guests: they don't have to pick up the phone, email, or go through a third-party site. Get set up for online bookings, and you'll convert more interest to bookings (and lose fewer customers to competitors)

49% of tour and activity bookings are on mobile. By using an online booking system like TrekkSoft, you're covered on any device. Your online booking process will be optimised for mobile and ready for bookings wherever they are.