They’re compact, dynamic, and incredibly helpful. Widgets are found everywhere in today’s digital world, used across an array of industries for an array of purposes. Implementing a travel widget for your website can enhance the traveler journey by providing essential info at the touch of a button.
What’s a widget?
A widget is a web application that can be embedded onto a website with ease, requiring the copying and pasting of simple code. Widgets add various features to a website, and can enhance both its design and functionality. You most likely encounter widgets on a daily basis in the form of weather insights, live chat boxes, or social media streams on the sites you frequent.
Here’s a couple of examples of widgets in action. Trustpilot offers their Trustbox widget, which displays Trustpilot reviews directly on a website. A Trustpilot survey found that over 70% of their visitors say they’re more likely to purchase from a site with Trustpilot reviews. This engaging widget can help strengthen brand trust, without the customer leaving the site to search on their own for consumer reviews.
Collaboration platform Beekeeper provides widgets to support frontline employees, like their Shifts and Tasks widgets. Employees can instantly view their work schedules and to-do lists, along with a progress bar that shows what’s been completed thus far. As frontline workers manage work responsibilities on-the-go, these widgets consolidate essential info to keep communication clear and increase productivity.
From the creative to the super practical, widgets can play a key role in any organization’s digital transformation.
Why widgets?
The value of travel widgets all comes down to the traveler journey: the full experience from trip planning, to being on the trip, to returning home and re-engaging with the brands one has booked their trip with. Providing inspired content to your audience and bringing ease to the planning process can really make waves for your brand in terms of guest trust and loyalty.
Firstly, widgets can help make your website a one-stop shop for your customers. Not only are travel organizations increasingly seeking to provide a broad scope of bookings under their brand – like airfare, accommodations, and excursions – but they’re seeking to provide authoritative travel information to their travelers, from health and safety info to dining recommendations.
Picture this. A family is preparing an out-of-country holiday. What goes into the planning? Beyond choosing their airline and hotel, they’ll need to understand the health and safety protocols for entering that country. They’ll also be seeking guidance on local attractions, dining options, and transportation. To find all this information they may need to search across a great number of websites, from the World Health Organization’s site to the tourism bureau of their destination, along with travel blogs, review websites, photos in search results, etc.
It’s easy to see how this can quickly become overwhelming, confusing, and stressful – especially when heading to a destination the traveler hasn’t visited before. This is where widgets can play a major role in supporting your customers. Widgets can concisely provide visibility into realtime health insights and travel recommendations, without your guest having to venture out into web searches on their own. Combined with your blog, chatbot support, and landing pages, you can boost confidence in bookings and provide peace of mind straight from your site.
Widgets can also greatly support your content marketing efforts. On a global scale, it’s a nearly impossible task to manage destination information and travel requirements that can change on a dime. Widgets present up-to-date information from authoritative third-party sources, leaving your marketing team time to thoughtfully create content on specific topics. Who knows, maybe the information gleaned from your widgets will inspire a new post!
Finally, widgets can enhance your website, making it more engaging and interactive. Many widgets can also be customized to integrate into the design aesthetic of your site. A landing page for a destination can be optimized with weather data, photos of top attractions, and a chat widget should the guest have any questions. While a visit to a travel blog might leave the reader overwhelmed with ads strewn all over the page, widgets can provide helpful information displayed in an organized way.
Discovering Smartvel widgets
We offer a selection of travel widgets to keep your customers engaged and informed. Our EntryDocs widget, for example, displays travel requirements specific to each country. EntryDocs provides a travel advisory hub with essential info on vaccine requirements, necessary documentation, and VISA information, to help your clients with planning and minimize confusion during the boarding process.
Next, our Trip Planner widget provides travel recommendations for all your destinations. Whether your customer is scoping out museums in the US or the best restaurants in France, Trip Planner has got you covered. What’s more, Trip Planner is customizable and multilingual. Travelers can also create their own itineraries and save their plans as PDFs.
To make planning even more personalized, there’s our Customized Travel Guides widget. The widget currently covers over 400 destinations, displaying travel recommendations for specific themes. From kid-friendly activities to outdoor adventures, travelers can lock in on helpful insights specific to their interests. The widget even includes a seasonality feature. Christmas fairs, springtime gardening festivals: the Customized Travel Guides widget can enrich your guests’ planning process with timely advice that’s sure to delight.
Our widgets are supported by AI and machine learning, so you don’t have to worry about constantly updating the content. This is especially important for travel requirements information, which are different for each country and can change at a moment’s notice. And for travel recommendations, content that displays per season or for specific date ranges can greatly support the traveler journey.
Travel widgets can enrich your customer’s experience
When it comes to digital tools, widgets are a major resource. They’re easy to implement, display cohesively on your website, and can bring a host of benefits for your guests. Adding a widget to your travel website can help you meet the needs of your guests by streamlining the planning process and enhancing your customer service offerings.
Our Smartvel widgets are customizable, multilingual, and can be implemented swiftly. Connect with our team to schedule a demo!
