Travelocity Aims to Boost Sales with Rich Media Promotions
Travelocity signs a deal with Yahoo! Broadcast Services tocreate interactive television-like travel promotion sites.
Another day, another new venture for Travelocity.com Inc., which is aggressively pursuing new promotional and business opportunities. On Wednesday the travel site signed a broadcast services agreement with Yahoo Inc.
The latest deal will enable Travelocity members “to experience video and audio travel and shopping information through cutting-edge Internet broadcasting centers,” the company said.
Yahoo said its business services division, Yahoo Broadcast Services, will develop and deploy the broadcast centers, creating a rich media environment similar to interactive television for travel information and video content. Financial arrangements were not disclosed.
Just yesterday, Fort Worth, Texas-based Travelocity signed a deal with Site59.com to launch a new last-minute travel center featuring discounted weekend getaways and air fares.
Travelocity said the new multi-media broadcast sites, expected to launch later this summer, will bring together its video, audio, photo images and text information about thousands of travel locations creating comprehensive travel information sites.
Customers will have one location where they can access and view channels with hotel, resort, shopping and country- or city-specific information.
“The new broadcast centers…will give us the kind of dynamic interaction and video offering that consumers prefer when making travel decisions,” said Michael Altomari, vice president for online distribution at Travelocity.
Altomari is convinced that rich media makes a difference. “Customers have told us time and again that video and rich media information helps them make their purchases…Customers have upgraded cabins and selected resorts and hotel properties based on what they’ve seen through rich media information and video,” he said.
The rich-media sites will be based on a new marketing services application, launched earlier this week, Yahoo said. The new applications add flexibility to control content and more quickly post updated video and audio information.
