Contrary to the general trend, the Internet advertising market is showing steady growth, which inspires optimistic expectations, and every year the share of advertisers who transfer their advertising budgets from “classical” advertising methods to the Internet is increasing. Sergey Kulebyakin, co-owner and head of the V Otpusk.ru project, spoke about what awaits the tourist advertising market and how its participants work in difficult conditions.
It is known that you were at the origins of the travel advertising market. How has it changed over the 15 years of your activity?
During this time, the tourism advertising market has changed dramatically several times. What happened in the beginning is not worth remembering. It is difficult to call it “experience” either - why do we need skills in an area that no longer exists? The generation has changed. Technologies. Market. By the way, in my memory, the tourism market and the advertising market died several times and revived again. We managed to develop in different situations and retain the leadership format. This instills confidence that the current situation is not a stalemate. Now many bright minds are simultaneously looking for a solution to the problem of survival and development in tourism. So there is a way out!
How do you assess the sharp turn of the tourist business towards domestic resorts?
I rate any sharp reversal negatively. How can I assess the situation when companies with a 20-year history go bankrupt, when thousands of professionals lose their jobs, when an industry demanded by millions of our compatriots suddenly becomes unprofitable … What's good? At the same time, I am not against domestic resorts. But, in my opinion, no one interfered with the development of Russian domestic tourism before. God grant that this U-turn will be beneficial and help realize a breakthrough in the quality of travel services.
What is the audience of VOTPUSK. RU and how interesting is it for advertisers?
The audience is formed by the content of the site. Our main audience is buyers of tours to mass destinations - the top 30 popular countries. The trends are common for the entire industry: the share of domestic tourism has grown, and independent travelers have been added to the "bags". We also traditionally develop a segment of the professional audience - representatives of the tourist business use our B2B services.
Our website and the websites of our advertising pool are visited by about 250,000 users per day. And every day new ones - they read, chose, bought, left and will return to us in six months for the next trip. More than 7,500,000 tourists per month. 100% target audience. This is a whole army, power, an advertising colossus! And each of them will definitely buy something, they are all buyers. Of course, such an audience should be of interest to active representatives of the industry, aimed at the future, at strengthening and expanding their presence in the market.
How now, in such difficult conditions, do you work with advertisers?
We have moved away from the formal sale of advertising by price list. Now we work individually with each client and offer a package of services in which classic advertising positions are supplemented with information support. These are publications of various materials, promotion of sales offices and other effective "chips" of B2B and B2C formats. This approach presupposes a long-term relationship that produces excellent results. The main thing is that our partner hears us and believes us. Well, and paid on time, of course.
How should the site change following the changing market?
The site should change catastrophically quickly. Layout, design, creation of new sections. Perhaps it is not striking, but we are constantly improving the site. There is always a question of physical capabilities. A chic service site, consisting of 20 pages, can be redesigned at least every month. Try to change a large portal at once! Hard. While he was about to change something, the trend changed. We've made the mobile version, it's time to make a responsive layout. While you are enthusiastically doing one thing, they have already come up with something else.
Do you have any interesting "promo projects", something creative, unusual?
Creativity is great! Promotions, contests and similar beautiful undertakings. But here you need to understand the following: coming up with an interesting plot is part of the job. Next, you need to make sure that as many people as possible learn about it. This is called advertising support. It takes very serious efforts to achieve a tangible result. We often come across creative ideas, but there is not enough money to advertise them. We have no desire to participate in such projects.
How can you describe this business - supporting a tourism information website? How does this happen?
By and large, the site is a publishing house. There are people involved in content, technical support, and advertising sales. The difference is that we layer materials and there are more and more of them. The site is getting older, and this gives a certain amount of "unsinkability". We can curl up into a crisis and turn back when things settle down. The consumable part can fluctuate greatly, and the base remains unshakable.
Is it possible nowadays to create a successful online travel publication?
Sure. But there are nuances … Many information projects began their development in the days of "mega-profitability". Not in terms of the total amount of money, but in the sense that during the growth and formation of the industry they sold their visitor very dearly. This allowed them to develop evolutionarily at their own expense. Now the situation has changed. The entry price is high. If you do something similar, count: the cost of tens of thousands of pages of content, programming, layout, client base, search engine optimization, external natural link mass, reputation, brand … Expensive and difficult. But you can do something …
All major travel sites have changed owners several times. What do you think about the investment, about the sale of a site or part of it. Who can your customers be?
We have always counted only on our own strength. But this is, of course, an outdated development model. We must state the fact that it is difficult to develop large information projects without investment. Some of our plans are postponed and gradually die. This is a question of finance, personnel, technology. We miss this. Now we are ready for dialogue and are analyzing various investment formats.
