Teletext Holidays is confident it will successfully shift business from analogue to digital and online channels despite the fact costs per call for travel agency and tour operator advertisers are likely to rise.
Teletext is removing all its services – including travel, news and information – from Sky in December, and is shutting down its news and information services completely from January 2010.
But Teletext Holidays managing director Vicky Sanders (pictured) said a decision had yet to be taken on whether travel would come off analogue TV in January 2010. The holiday service will remain on Freeview channel 101 and teletextholidays.co.uk, thisistravel.co.uk, and villarenters.com will continue as normal.
HTV and Granada are already switching off analogue completely in December. “This means 20% of overall calls will go naturally,” said Sanders.
There are currently 24 travel advertisers – a mix of agencies and operators – using Teletext’s loss-making analogue service, compared with 150 using the digital TV service and 100 on the website. All 24 are also advertising on the digital and online services, which have higher conversion rates, according to Sanders.
Sanders said: “I have not had one person give any negative feedback since the announcement. There is a declining percentage of sales coming from analogue, and we are just bringing forward the natural migration to digital TV.”
But she admitted online costs per call would rise for advertisers – currently £4.50 – from October 1. “It goes up every year, but in line with delivering advertisers more calls,” said Sanders. It is not yet known if digital costs will increase.
Teletext Holidays starts a consumer advertising campaign on Friday to make holidaymakers aware of the Freeview 101 travel channel. Sanders added: “The idea is that, because we are giving people enough notice, we can go out and see what advertisers are looking for on Freeview and online. Our radio advertising campaign is to make people aware of Freeview 101.”
Meanwhile, rumours some agents receive 60% of their leads via Teletext’s analogue service were dismissed by Jane Atkins, who heads up the Freedom Travel Group and Future Travel, one of the biggest advertisers on the service.
“Two or three years ago, they might have got 60% of calls from analogue, but I’d be surprised if anyone gets those volumes now. Clearly the service was going to go, and you’d have to have your head in the sand not to realise that,” she added.
She said members had been geared up to the switch-over and had already begun sourcing calls from other channels, including the group’s own websites and sites such as Travelzoo. “We assumed travel would come off analogue at the end of this year, and planned our business strategy around that,” she added.