Hotels.com questions European search marketing strategies

Hotels.com has warned that internet firms are failing to tap into the growing European market because search marketing campaigns are dominated by the English language. Head of marketing Matt Walls said companies are cutting out huge swathes of potential business because they are neglecting to tailor campaigns to individual markets. He added that suppliers and…

Hotels.com has warned that internet firms are failing to tap into the growing European market because search marketing campaigns are dominated by the English language.


Head of marketing Matt Walls said companies are cutting out huge swathes of potential business because they are neglecting to tailor campaigns to individual markets.


He added that suppliers and online agencies are also not taking local tastes into account in their product offering.


Walls said: “To fully exploit new markets, localisation is going to become critical. While English is currently the lingua franca of the internet, and therefore dominates search and search marketing, this is simply a result of the rapid development of the web in the US and UK.


“There is a substantial challenge for international travel businesses to adapt local-language websites, and implement local-language search marketing to drive traffic to them.”


Walls added that said search marketing in local languages is only the first adaption. Local cultural trends must also be taken into account.


“In our market for example, Russians are interested in totally different destinations to Italians or Americans,” said Walls. “We therefore tailor local language searches to local search habits.”