Travel brands are coping up slowly and adapting technology to not just ease their operations but also increase revenue. We use Virgin Holidays as a case study to learn how tech can enable travel agents reap the benefits of growing visibility online.

Since implementing online business listings management, Virgin Holidays have significantly increased its online visibility, with a 117% increase in Google views, 73% increase in clicks, and 74% increase in calls.

Virgin Holidays has over 80 travel agent locations, and with concession stores in Next, Debenhams, Tesco, House of Fraser, as well as its standalone high street stores. The company needed a centralised and streamlined way to manage and update its business listing information for all of its locations.

With thousands of listings across 100+ search platforms, updating information manually for each and every location – such as opening hours, address, telephone number, and website information – was time consuming and manually intensive.

Partnership with Uberall

Hence Virgin Holidays partnered with location marketing technology specialist Uberall to manage all of its business listings from one platform. The relevant information for all of Virgin Holidays’ travel agent locations was uploaded to Uberall’s Listings Control Centre, then published in real-time on search platforms globally, including Google, Facebook, and Yelp.

Whenever new store locations are added or store hours change, Virgin Holidays can now quickly and easily update location-specific data as needed, from a single point of truth.

With accurate business listings, Virgin Holidays customers can readily find their local store online and avoid the frustration of turning up at a store, only to find that the store hours have changed.

Business listing accuracy is also important to Virgin Holidays’ online visibility because search engines cross-check directories to verify their results, and if the information matches, it boosts search rankings. Any inconsistency or inaccuracy in business listings negatively impacts search results and can cause search engine rankings to drop. Most customers focus on the top three search results, so high search rankings are key to achieving meaningful online visibility.

“Multiple logins to one streamlined process”

Jamie Marchant, digital marketing manager Virgin Holidays, said: “Uberall has greatly enhanced the way we look after the digital presence of our retail stores by reducing what was once a very manual process with multiple logins to one streamlined process. This has allowed us to quickly get new stores the presence they need across key directories to drive consumer footfall”.

“Business listings will tangibly benefit from increased online visibility”

Daniel Mathew, Vice President UK, Uberall, commented: “Increasingly, consumers are using their mobile phones to search online, and with the top three search results accounting for 70% of clicks, travel companies that automate and centralise the way they update and monitor their business listings will tangibly benefit from increased online visibility.”