February 03, 2020
An Alternative Vacation Site
Vacations are one of the only times in life when couples, friends, and families can relax and truly enjoy each others' company away from the stresses of "real life." As with all major industries around the world, vacations are now primarily planned and purchased over the internet, and revenues are increasing every year.
Internet travel agencies make it extremely easy and convenient to find the absolute best deal for your vacationing needs, with many surveyed consumers saying that they have used the internet to book their last 5 flights.
While traditional ad exchanges such as Expedia (News - Alert), Kayak and Priceline dominate the market by offering very narrowly discounted prices over their competitors, there is an ever increasing amount of market share silently slipping to another type of travel website altogether.
The concept behind these sites is simple and nothing new; you get a 5-star all-inclusive vacation at a price that almost seems too good to be true. The catch, however, is that you must attend a mandatory time share sales seminar during one of the days on your one or two week long stays.
While this may sound appalling to some travelers, others are more than happy to attend the short seminars in exchange for the largely discounted rate on their trip. Take the most popular timeshare vacation website on social media, for example, Book VIP. According to customer reviews of Bookvip.com, people are overwhelmingly positive about this tradeoff and for the most part are entirely grateful for the all-inclusive vacation.
And even though sites like BookVIP are rapidly acquiring customers every day, the internet giants controlling the travel industry overall will likely continue to stay away from discounted timeshare vacations and leave that to the little guys. While it's very positive for customers, it's an entirely different market than a site like Expedia, who is constantly fighting to be even 1 cent cheaper than their competitors at the time a customer compares travel options online.
Google (News - Alert) has recently entered the market as well, by providing Google Travel search results first whenever a person searches terms closely related to planning a trip. This marks a possible future end to at least 50% of the traffic to sites like Expedia, while "super deals" like BookVIP generally rely on social media advertising as their main source of traffic.
Regardless of your preference and budget, you can find a vacation perfect for you and your loved ones much easier and cheaper than ever - and you can thank the internet for that. While the competition continues heating up amongst all of the players in the online marketplace, discounts and deals keep getting better for the consumer - and that's ultimately what matters most.
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