Interview with Laurent Briquet, Managing Director of Speedmedia, who sheds some light on the technological solutions available to tour operators for creating dynamic, connected websites.
Speedmedia is the best solution today for redesigning your travel website and showcasing tour operator offer catalogs.
Combined with an excellent digital strategy, Speedmedia is the best solution for keeping your agency open 24 hours a day.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself and Speedmedia?
Hello, my name is Laurent BRIQUET.
Throughout my professional career, I’ve been lucky enough to make a number of significant achievements in the Tourism industry and particularly in the Internet and New Technologies sector.
Most recently in 2015, I joined SpeedMedia Services as Managing Director.
SpeedMedia Services is a multi-tour operator, multi-source online booking engine that can be integrated into travel agency websites.
In particular, the company publishes and develops the SpeedResa distribution platform, which is connected to over 70 tour operators and used by over 200 websites and around a hundred travel agencies.
Since 2019, I’ve also been Development Director of the RESANEO – SPEEDMEDIA Group.
What does SpeedMedia offer tour operators?
SpeedMedia is a travel software company.
We supply websites to travel agencies and tour operators via our multi-TO booking platform.
Our customers range from local travel agencies to major accounts, and include networks of all sizes, distributors, producers, coach operators, works councils and inter-communal organizations.
We help tourism and leisure professionals optimize their digital strategy.
But SpeedMedia Services is also a team of search engine and reservation specialists for major clients.
Tailor-made projects to build booking platforms for big names in the market.
Connected to hundreds of external sources, Transport connectors to the major GDSs, over 30 airlines or low-cost carriers directly, offer aggregators, the NDC standard, railway companies, accommodation, hotel platforms, car rental companies, etc.
What advice would you give to a travel agency or tour operator looking to (re)create a website?
Make or remake, sometimes undo, but not necessarily break everything, when sometimes it’s just a matter of making a few improvements.
Strategies vary greatly from one player to another.
Is it “just” a showcase site?
Do they want to offer online booking?
Is it a web-to-store player?
Tailor-made only or TO catalogs?
…
The questions are numerous, and so are the answers.
That’s why we’ve built a large part of our development on the flexibility of our solutions, whether they’re business or purely Web-based.
This is what really characterizes SpeedMedia and its teams of developers.
While the pooling of a large number of developments makes software access very simple and, above all, inexpensive to use, the ability to address players of all sizes, sometimes with different needs, makes the product very interesting.
How important is SEO for a travel agency?
The “ref. nat” or SEO, is a very long debate.
It should be the foundation on which any website is built.
Most SpeedMedia customers can easily manage their sites themselves.
So without making SEO necessarily something too complicated and inaccessible, at the very least respect the basics and fundamentals.
And this doesn’t just apply to the technical construction of the site itself.
When you talk to a travel agent about respecting H1 and H2 tags, meta tags, <strong> and <bold> in a text, they’re quick to pick up the phone…
But when you explain the processes and rules to be followed, and talk to them about backlinks, the use of Google My Business and social networks, for example, they’re much more captive and often even more willing to make suggestions.
What features should a tour operator or travel agency website have?
We can talk about aesthetics, design and navigability.
We’re in an industry where visuals are paramount, and it should always be fun to browse travel sites with beautiful landscapes.
Unfortunately, how often do I see product photos on sites that have been placed there simply because a visual was needed… and at the opposite end of the spectrum, I also often find very beautiful photos but… three poor lines of text.
In addition to this approach, functionalities differ depending on whether the site is a merchant or not.
A good contact form behind a few presentation pages will be more than enough if the site only offers contact with the agency and its consultants.
However, even on sites for specialists and professionals who only work on à la carte or made-to-measure offers, it can be interesting to have an offer presentation engine; an engine or pages that present trips on the market and give an initial idea of the possibilities and average costs for a given destination.
For example, we have installed our search engines on sites that use the offers coming from our platform in an “inspirational” way, even though the basis of our business is to offer real-time reservations…
How can travel agencies best prepare for the online recovery?
For many months now, we’ve been breaking all our crystal balls.
So I won’t venture to predict a meteoric recovery rather than a “diesel” one, nor to convince everyone that the Web has won a decade while the return to physical outlets has rapidly taken shape.
On the other hand, it’s clear that it’s now – unfortunately a very slow period in terms of sales and tourism activity – that you need to prepare your tools, ask yourself the right questions, move forward and fine-tune your website.
The solutions for establishing a presence, whether in web-to-store mode or by proposing an e-Commerce site, are very accessible, and there are numerous aids available to help you get over the hurdle. Now is the time to get started… there’s bound to be a lot of traffic jams later on if you don’t do it now.
Having a website is great, but what are your recommendations for communicating on it?
There are dozens of ways to communicate on the Web.
The website is often no more than an intermediary that is little or insufficiently exploited.
It’s a situation experienced by all communications agencies: making a strategic recommendation is complicated, so imagine for the client who finds himself faced with a blank copy.
Of course, social networks are central to any good communications strategy.
It’s not the only one, but many of our customers use them in the hope of winning new customers and boosting their sales.
Do they really get the results they want?
I’m not sure.
That’s why we’ve selected a number of Partners who are able to support our customers in their digital strategy, from taking complete charge of communications to training staff within the agency so that they can continue this in-depth, long-term work.
The final word?
The final word is in relation to the very complicated and difficult period of 2020 and 2021 (I don’t hope beyond…) :
- Now get busy with your site and let’s talk!
Even if we don’t have all the answers, we may have some leads! - Don’t stop communicating!
Easy to say, harder to do at the moment, but stay online and close to your customers and prospects! - Adapt your communications and, if necessary, your formats, with a long-term communication plan built with the pros!
- Hang in there…
