Search Engines, the New Walmart for Local Travel Economies?
The Information Age dawned with the internet, the reason the sun is still shinning on this age is the inception of Search Engines. We are now, all of us in their debt or held hostage for our access to information.
Looking for information in years past meant a trip to the library, looking in card catalogues, periodical indexes, etc. The information was arranged alphabetically, giving no more or less importance to minor or major works or sources. Today, the search engines have the difficult task of trying to organize and prioritize a much larger pool of pertinent information to help the researcher. In order to do this they have had to adopt certain criteria for choosing which material or web sites to present first for a given search query. The systems and criteria are having profoundly negative impacts on small businesses. The travel industry is a good case in point as even in the remotest “inbound” locations (travel destinations) throughout the world the internet and ability to create a web site are available. The same can be said for the other side of the coin. “Outbound” services (travel agencies) with the help of the internet allow an agency for example in Japan to be able to send American tourists to Europe. There in lies the problem.
In order to be “found” easily on the internet, a company or web site must come up on the first one or two pages of search engine results for a search query. People generally don’t have the time or willingness to search much further. The search engine companies necessarily need to choose criteria for their “ranking” of results in order to be of the most service to their clients. They must also battle companies who try to manipulate the criteria in order to raise the ranking of a web site undeserving of a higher ranking. There is an entire industry devoted to doing just that. It is called “Search Engine Optimization” or SEO. There job, often costing tens of thousands of dollars is to manipulate the search engines rankings. There is a war going on between people who want to buy their way into preferred rankings and the search engines who are trying their best to deliver fair and accurate search results. The criteria and tactics of search engines have been evolving, but four basic criteria seem to be surviving.
Compelling content, traffic, links from legitimate related websites and dynamics and age of a web site.
Large international travel agencies and dot com travel sites appear at the top of search result rankings because they receive a large quantity of traffic and their large marketing budgets allow them to use “pay per click” advertisements which appear at the sides of search results to enhance the traffic still further. These companies sell travel to every corner of the globe and receive traffic for people looking to go to every corner of the globe, unlike a locally owned web site which would receive traffic only for people interested in their one particular location.
The net effect of search engines criteria for ranking websites on local travel companies, the inhabitants of travel destinations throughout the world is to bury their company’s web sites near the bottom of search results, making them basically un-findable. Not being able to draw customers directly to their business they are often forced to work for the large international agencies whose web site is available on the first couple of pages of a search result or pay dot com travel sites for the ability to be seen. If the inhabitants of a destination are working for an international travel agency they are providing their services for a huge discount to their actual world value. If they are paying a Dot Com travel site their net earnings are also discounted.
Every day another international travel agency announces “their” new tour of some precious travel destination. These agencies make money marketing destinations throughout the world, but share none of the responsibility for the impact their clients will have or for the care of the immediate environment, nor do they pay taxes on the profits they make to the government which has the responsibility for the care of that destination. It would be as if someone offered tours of your neighborhood, promoted it on the web, made money from these tours, but had no responsibility for the maintenance of your streets, nor care about the impact tour buses would have on the general quality of life in your neighborhood.
There was a time before the existence and world wide use of the internet when these travel agencies provided a valuable service to their clients. They were accountable for their client’s experience and could offer the same level of service and accountability to destinations throughout the world. This provided a sense of security for the traveler. Now, the value of that “homogenized” service is debatable. With the rise of many popular travel review websites, anyone anywhere in the world can know before they go into whose hands they are intrusting their vacation (www.cometogalapagos.com)
Dot com travel sites are essentially new age telemarketers and present an opportunity to large international travel agencies where they can pay for a preferred location within those sites. Small local companies can not afford the fees for preferred placements within dot com travel sites which occupy many of the first results for a search engine query regarding travel and again, just as international travel agencies make money marketing destinations throughout the world, they share none of the responsibility for the impact their clients will have or for the care of the immediate environment, nor do they pay taxes on the revenues they earn marketing a specific destination to the government of that destination.
Part 2- A Case Study of San Cristobal, Galapagos
Part 3- Solutions for both travelers and local governments
Rick Schleicher
http://www.articlesbase.com/exotic-locations-articles/search-engines-the-new-walmart-for-local-travel-economies-686811.html
