Based on the SmartTravelAsia.Com Reader Survey released September 2007
Use Virtual Newscasters
Hire a Virtual Newscaster to get your message across. Pick a background and we'll create the voice text.
Talk to frequent fliers: The average number of trips per reader is 14.79 per annum. This represents a mix of business and leisure travel.
Talk to high spenders: Reader households on average earn a significantly high US$164,684 per annum before tax.
Huge sales volume: Our readers may generate a potential 15 million air trips (based on roundtrips and not just sectors flown) and 45 million room nights annually, or the equivalent of 62,000 full A-340s. Engage this audience to tap into some of this potential.
The right frame of mind: Talk to consumers while they are actively researching travel and shopping. As many as 89 percent of readers use the Web to gauge brand information and "image".
Decisions on the Web: As many as 85.9 percent of readers frequently make travel decisions Online. Their priority is independent information (83.9 percent) NOT "best price" (16.1 percent), or hotel, NTO, or travel agency sites. They look for editorial opinions and endorsements. Research comes before retail.
Travel and lifestyle interests: Smart Travel Asia readers have a broad range of travel and lifestyle interests.
Business Travel is, overall, one of the main factors influencing the huge total volume of travel.
Shopping is a key pursuit for 46 percent of our audience (sharply impacting on visits to places like Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Singapore). Interestingly, our Hong Kong shopping guide and the Kuala Lumpur shopper survey are two of the most dominant stories at SmartTravelAsia.Com.
Spa holidays are a key interest for 50.1 percent of our audience, reflecting the growing demand for health and wellness products.
Culture and History interest to 36.5 percent of our audience. Nature and Eco Tours attract 29.4 percent, Adventure Travel 29.2 percent, while active pursuits like Golf, Diving, and Driving (including Driving Holidays) and Cruises attract approximately 16-20 percent each.
Quality purchases: Smart Travel Asia readers are interested in making quality high-end purchases during the year. There is huge demand for property (both for luxury city apartments as well as for holiday villas). There is also a high interest in purchasing a car.
In percentage terms this shopping wish-list for the year includes cutting-edge Mobile Phones/ PDAs (38.1%), City Property/ Holiday Villas (36.7%), Luxury Fashion (35.4%), Car (33.2%), Digital Video/ Camera (29.5%), Laptop (27.9%), Duty-Free Alcohol (23.5%), and Medical Tourism Package (9%).
Geographic breakdown: Circulation is dynamic, responding constantly to reader demands and the changing monthly content at SmartTravelAsia.Com. Readers are well spread out through Asia and beyond. The average visitor profile by Net location is, Asia 60 percent (largely Hongkong, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, India, China, Thailand, Philippines and Australia), USA 20 percent, and UK/Europe 20 percent. Fastest-growing markets are India, China, Malaysia, Thailand and the UAE.
What do they read? Where do they come from? What browsers do they use? How long do they read us?
Where on earth are they? SmartTravelAsia.Com readers are tracked in real time using the services of professional Web traffic analysis companies. Real time tracking gives our team instant feedback.
What are they reading? Reading times averages 2.5 minutes. Most time is spent on hotel surveys and airline seating pages. We are therefore expanding our premium by-invitation Top Asian Hotels online collection. In one week of February 2008, our Clickstream traffic off the homepage alone showed as many as 22% of visitors going into the Top Asian Hotels section. This was the biggest single draw.
We have consistently high page one rankings for popular search queries on Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL etc
Page one Search Engine ranking: SmartTravelAsia.Com gets top rankings on major search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, and search consolidators like Mama.Com and Dogpile.Com. This is no mean feat. Google alone has over 10 billion pages documented. See some sample Google results for small airlines or kuala lumpur shopping or widest seat.
Information first, price later: The majority of viewers who search online are looking for review-based information FIRST. Not price. Without this key research and comparative shopping, they will not proceed to pricing, or booking.
Key words and phrases: Our visibility ensures your message gets heard 24 hours a day. See a sample of some of our search engine traffic brought in by Google and Yahoo over a sample period of two weeks as well as popular search queries that found us during the same period.
Joint promotions, Lucky Draws, syndicated columns, international magazine and newspaper referrals
Lucky draws: Lucky draws have provided valuable exposure both for Smart Travel Asia as well as participating hotels, resorts and spas. The Faces of Asia Lucky Draw (as we term it) features six select properties on an elegant page that is direct marketed to our 24,000 opt-in subscriber base.
International Referrals: Several companies around the region have promoted SmartTravelAsia.Com to their audience as a premium "travel companion" and "resource". THAI Airways International has promoted Smart Travel Asia in its quarterly mailers to 400,000 of their top frequent fliers. Referrals have come in online from publications like The New York Times, TIME and International Herald Tribune.
Postcard mailers: Ever so often to give a boost to a particular city, we mail out attractive postcards to the most affluent residential homes. In Hong Kong, for example, we mailed out 20,000 postcards to homes with the highest average rental value.
Editorial reprints/ syndicated columns: Several quality publications around Asia (including a few in China) purchase our stories for reprint and run our "syndicated" columns. Our URL address runs prominently with these. These reprints and columns reach over 400,000 persons each month.
Streaming or looping Flash video, Virtual Newscasters, elegant printable A4 pages with video and music
Looping Video
Run a TV spot in a fast-opening 15-second looping video format 200 x 150 pixels.
Looping video: Television advertising is costly and reach can be elusive. At SmartTravelAsia.Com we can offer a unique looping Television
spot (up to 15 seconds max) at 200 x 150 pixels. See video in action on one of our pages. This is embedded video without audio that opens directly on screen without the fuss and frustration of media players. Catch your customers around the clock with this powerful cutting-edge technique.
Streaming Video: Or splash out on a novel streaming video Three Minute Video Guide offered on a state-of-the-art universal Flash platform. We take out all the hassle by shooting, producing, editing and optimising the streaming video for Web. Or send us a three-minute clip in a Quicktime .MOV format. Sponsorship for this premium product usually runs up to a maximum of six months.
A4 online pages: With our long years of print magazine design experience, we are specialists at creating A4 html pages that download quickly, are elegant and visually eye-catching, and have the ability to print out easily on A4 paper anywhere in the world.
Streaming Video
Brand your destination or product using streaming videot. Click the image to view a Bali video.
Get your message or brochure, into the bedroom or the boardroom where decisions get taken See a sample A4 page for the Qantas flat bed. See a four-page package with video and music put together for a high-profile Incredible India campaign. Use this novel A4 format for fashion, cars, hotels, airlines, beds, tours, cruises, property, shopping...
Top Asian Hotels Collection: If your business hotel, spa, or resort has a unique story to tell and is selected by our editors - for service, style, beauty, location - you might receive an invitation to our Top Asian Hotels Collection. This unique branding platform features an exclusive collection of Asia's best hotel products. We encourage our readers to view these pages with links (through our editorial stories) as well as through prominent signage on every page of our online magazine. We also offer several properties a rotating image that features on every page of our website along with the Top Asian Hotels logo.
Travellers looking for hotel information can click directly on a picture to go to a hotel's custom-made A4 page, click into the index page, or use a fast drop-down menu to access any of our featured properties in just ONE CLICK from ANY PAGE. We write and design the pages in our unique magazine-style template. The page carries information in a non-PR, chatty, journalistic style that carries credibility and weight. Most usefully, however, these pages print out in excellent quality on A4 paper anywhere in the world.
In the week of 5 August 2007, the Clickstream traffic leading off the homepage showed a preponderate 22% of visitors going into the Top Asian Hotels Collection. This is the biggest single draw on our web magazine highlighting once again the huge reader demand for quality, and independent, hotel information.
Virtual newscasters: A catchy way to grab attention is through our "talking" virtual newscasters. These can be humanoid (as on our editor's lively check-in page) or animated (as at the top left of this page). Unlike a television presenter, a Virtual Newscaster is online, and at work, 24 hours a day. No tiresome lunch breaks, overtime pay or tracking devious dashes to the mall.
Keep your computer speakers on, wait a few seconds, and the characters load and deliver your message. We script the text for the characters to speak. Virtual newscasters are a great way to catch younger people, especially in the North Asian markets like China, Japan and Korea. Employ humour, arrest reader attention, deliver information or news, announce package deals and hotel openings. We can deploy male or female personalities speaking with British or American accents. That's how customisable this format is.
Slideshows: Visually engaging slideshows are a great way to showcase your product/destination/fashion brand/ is through snappy 10-image slideshows. These are often combined with a banner. The banner links back to your web page while a text link below the banner opens the slideshow - fast, and without fuss.
Slide Show
10 pics US$2,000, 30 days. This usually runs via a text link in combination with a banner or an A4 page.
Television Spot
TV-style 15-sec max video loop, US$6,000/ 30 days, inside page. Without audio.
Three Minute Video
Streaming Flash video three minute hosting on dedicated page for just US$50,000 for 6 months.
A4 Advertorial
A4 format for Lucky Draw or other, single page, US$12,000/ 30 days.
Video and music are possible for an additional charge. Video only if available as a Quicktime .MOV file. We do design and writing. Material supplied by client.
Multi-Page Advert
Multi-page A4 format advertorial (minimum three pages), US$8,000 per page/ 30 days. Video and music extra.
Creative Services
We can create quality web collateral for you in various formats. Call us to discuss. Most of the banners and buttons on our site are produced by us.
Marked above are some of the more popular homepage positions including the page-top Masthead Ears (left and right) 110 x 110 pixels, the first Homepage Banner (600 x 80 pixels), Homepage Button (130 x 130 pixels). The Skyscraper Vertical Banner is 160 x 600 pixels at the top right of the page. See some Banner Templates (using our quick design format), and some Banner Art Styles that have run on our pages.
Less wastage and no dud magazines idling in empty hotel rooms
Travellers are moving to the Web: Information is moving a lot faster than it did ten years ago. Our lifestyles have changed, and with it, reading habits. People want news and information "instantly". They are moving away from slow print to the on-demand Internet.
Theatre-style browsing: We offer true theatre-style browsing with video, music and slideshows.
How many hotel copies? Print magazines offer static circulation with a huge percentage of idle bulk copies in hotel rooms. Hotel room and lounge distribution today may occupy 70-90 percent of a regional publication's circulation numbers. Few travellers read in their hotel rooms.
A dynamic footprint: The Web goes direct to consumers, it is a cost-effective medium for instant communication, and it offers a dynamic footprint. There is no hotel bulk. Our constant marketing through e-mail blasts to our customer base and beyond keeps viewership growing, as does search engine inflow.
Can you verify print circulation? Many print magazines ignore circulation audits and, in some cases, memberships have been terminated by the Hongkong Audit Bureau of Circulation (HKABC), the circulation watchdog for the region. Is your message reaching anyone?
We are read in nine languages: Thanks to an onsite translation engine in association with Alta Vista (Babel Fish), readers around the world can view our pages in simple Japanese, Korean, Chinese, German, French, Spanish and Italian. This gives us truly global reach. Yes, this direct machine translation spews out the occasional gobbledegook but the basic information gets through and it serves as a very useful extension device.
PAYMENT DETAILS: Payment is expected in full within 15 days of uploading to our “live” sites of any particular product/ advertorial/ banner or button advertising. Bank Drafts or Telegraphic Transfers must be made payable to “DANCING WOLF MEDIA” at The Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation Ltd, Hay Wah Building Branch, 71 Hennessy Rd, Wanchai, Hongkong, Account: 004-110-517331-001. Normal banner and button bookings/ cancellations 15 days prior to upload date. Special advertorial/ advertising bookings/ cancellations 30 days prior to upload or as specified in contract. All rates quoted here in Net US$.
Note: Telephone and fax numbers, e-mails, website addresses, rates and other details may change or get dated. Please check with your dealer/agent/service-provider or directly with the parties concerned. SmartTravel Asia accepts no responsibility for any inadvertent inaccuracies in this article. Links to websites are provided for the viewer's convenience. SmartTravel Asia accepts no responsibility for content on linked websites or any viruses or malicious programs that may reside therein. Linked website content is neither vetted nor endorsed by SmartTravelAsia. Please read our Terms & Conditions.
