In the current environment of lockdown and closed borders, most travellers are limited to dreaming of their next holiday. Thankfully, dreaming is unlimited and as HM discovers in this exclusive chat with Anthony Gallagher from travel tech upstart, Vacaay, inspiration can take you around the world.
While people are unable to adventure around the world at present, how important is the dreaming and planning phase as an alternative?
The planning phase is now more important than ever, as travellers are delving deeper into research with more time to dream and set long term travel plans. Vacaay showcases the best attributes of social media, combining beautiful content with an effortless user experience, delivering destination, product and inspiration galore.
What feedback is the hotel industry providing Vacaay about its guest metrics services and inspiration-to-booking conversion capabilities?
Any travel inspiration media outlet that generates traceable, direct booking enquiries is of interest to hotel marketers. Vacaay uses custom tagged URL’s for every campaign, allowing our partners to track visitors engagement and bookings generated. Our campaigns reach active and engaged audiences and drive huge volumes of traffic whilst capturing highly-valuable data. Hotel interest is very positive as Vacaay reaches untapped audiences, creating new customers.
Tell us about some of the most popular holiday and travel styles researched on Vacaay?
Luxury hotels and resorts, road trips, outdoor adventures, island getaways, city weekend ‘Staycations’, Australia and the South Pacific. Staycations are gaining, although the real interest is coming from remote nature-based locations.
How much has travel content changed, in terms of user consumption, both before and during the pandemic? Are users researching domestic destinations or still dreaming of abroad?
Visually inspiring media is the winner here as traditional travel media retreats and inevitably shrinks due to COVID-19. Vacaay was created after seeing the seismic shift in media consumption, from print to digital, then social. Pre-COVID, we recorded stronger international interest, although our data now indicates a clear shift toward domestic travel.
What are some of the key differences between Vacaay and a platform such as TripAdvisor?
Vacaay sits in a more potent inspirational space and has a far superior aesthetic appeal. TripAdvisor has its place, but we’ve identified a clear gap in the market with proven consumer and industry demand. Our team personally curates our content, with the highest standard of high-definition, inspiring imagery. Our user engagement is industry leading, including destinations viewed per visitor, average session duration, bounce rate, retention and CTR.
Vacaay’s app is a travel discovery game changer, capturing and keeping users full attention due to the fact that we deliver unique travel content in a platform like no other.