SA tourism is not taking the Internet seriously enough, with up to a third of local tourism industry sites failing to include contact details and ignoring e-mail queries, according to a new Web survey conducted by tourism marketing consultancy, The Marketing Plan.
The survey was conducted to determine how serious the different industry businesses are about their own Web sites as tools for marketing, communication and sales. The results were presented to the Southern Africa Tourism Services Association annual general meeting in Cape Town last week.
The survey, which looked at airlines, tour operators, car rental services and hotels, found that only 32.5% of the sites surveyed contained full contact details, 23% contained outdated information, and over 33% did not respond to e-mail queries within 48 hours.
The Marketing Plan owner Japie Swanepoel says that while the Web sites were usually attractive and contained useful information, they generally did not live up to their potential.
"It`s no use having a lovely site but not responding to queries. The biggest need for improvement I saw was the response time," says Swanepoel.
He adds that the bulk of tourism bookings come through travel agencies, tour operators and conference organisers, yet most sites did not have special trade sections.
The survey assessed seven key areas: contact details, trade dedicated sections, embedded keywords, up to date information, site accessibility without a www, presence of details of the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) and enquiry response period.
The companies surveyed included five car rental firms, five airlines, eight hotel groups, eight tour operators, ten game lodges and numerous hotels and guesthouses. Among the known names surveyed were Avis, Hertz, Europcar, Tempest, Budget, SAA, SA Express, Nationwide, BA, Sunair, Protea Hotels, Sun International, Relais Hotels, Don Hotels, Gooderson, Three Cities, Kapama, Sabi Sabi, Singita, Mala Mala, Djuma and Makweti game lodges.
Only 32.5% of the sites had full contact details, 25.5% had a trade section, and 23% had embedded keywords. Some form of outdated information was found on 23% of the sites surveyed, 65% could not be accessed without a www and only 7% contained PAIA details.
The response time to online enquiries varied, with 35% responding within 12 hours, 16% responding in under 18 hours, 6% responding between 18 and 36 hours and 33% having sent no response at all after 48 hours. There was no response or no e-mail details on 9% of the sites.
Swanepoel says the sites that impressed more than others included City Lodge for having the fastest response time to an Internet query, Sun International for its good trade section with image gallery, and confidential rates accessible via password. "Sabi Sabi`s site is probably one of the best sites with just about all the relevant information one could require from them," Swanepoel says.
The Marketing Plan aims to undertake this survey twice a year to gauge the industry changes in attitude to the importance and relevance of the Internet. Future surveys will assess whether the same companies have improved, and will also expand to cover more sites.
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