In years past, small travel companies were at a disadvantage when it came to promoting their businesses. The high cost of phone book ads, newspaper advertising and cadres of sales people armed with expensive glossy collateral material were the way the big got bigger and small travel agencies remained small. But the world has changed in a just a few short years. The Internet has leveled the playing field by bringing many new ways to promote your business FREE. Five years ago avenues such as social media, online communities and travel review sites didn’t exist. These sites with their huge web traffic all provide small business the opportunity to compete on an equal playing field. Competing on price is never a smart move, but communicating knowledge and expertise in a personal way is and social media is a great way to do so.To create an online footprint, think of ways to create an online conversation:

• Do you use Twitter & Facebook? You know that each of these allows businesses to set up pages and promote themselves…FREE.
• Do you have a BLOG? This is the cheapest website you will have. Blog software is free from WordPress. You only have to have hosting space which is like $50 a year. Blogs allow you to enter the Blog community, linking and posting comments to other blogs getting more traffic.|
• Create a travel video and load it on YouTube linking back to your website or Blog.
• Post resort and cruise reviews on review sites. For my shameless plug…I created a resort review web site called www.ReviewResorts.com We actively encourage travel agents to post resort and cruise reviews FREE. The site gets a lot of traffic from people researching hotels or a cruise. They would see your review with your contact info.
• Post vacation classifieds on Craigslist and any other travel related site. Once again in my shameless attempt at self-promotion, travel agents can post vacation classifieds on www.ReviewResorts.com FREE!
• Do you publish Press Releases? Type into Google; Free Press Release and you will find hundreds of sites to publish your press releases
• Have you thought about creating a Ning community for your particular travel niche? Ning is like a Facebook forum only created and promoted entirely by you. If you cater to a special interest or destination travel market www.ning.com might be your best bet.Once again, the goal is to create as large an online footprint as possible to create momentum for your business.

George