Selling Travel on Your Website

When it comes to promoting dive travel and local dive activities, dive stores’ needs vary widely.

• While some stores offer one or more group vacation trips a year, others do not because, like many stores in south Florida, they are a vacation destination.
• Some stores operate dive boats or inland dive sites; others are land locked.
• Many stores offer local diving activities, such as treasure hunts, campouts and pumpkin-carving contests.

What to put in your website’s Travel/Activities section will reflect a balance between what you offer your customers’ needs. Our sample website represents a store located in an area in which local diving activities abound — put which also offers several group trips and opportunities for individuals, couples and small groups. See example.

The opening page of the Travel section makes sure visitors know that, even if their travel needs cannot be met by the store’s group trips, the store can still help them with travel arrangements.

For visitors who are already at least somewhat aware of the store’s group-travel program, a table provides quick links to individual trip pages. If this does not provide enough information, there are links to a dedicated Group Travel page that provides an overview of each trip. See example

When writing about dive destinations, it’s important to stress the differences between destinations, rather than the similarities. As any dive magazine editor will tell you, its all too easy to make every island in the Caribbean or Pacific sound like a clone of the next. Focus on which trips best meet individual customer needs. For example:

• Liveaboards provide the ultimate experience for those who only want to eat, sleep and dive. They are a disastrous choice, however, for those with nondiving spouses or small kids.
• Islands such as Saba and Saint Lucia are great for peace, quiet and romantic getaways. If you are looking for great shopping and dining, however, you might want to try Grand Cayman or Cozumel.

The better you can match customer needs with individual trips, the happier everyone will be.

What Every Traveler Needs to Know »

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