View from the top.Online in 2009 - go global by going local.

Lee Mancini, eCommerce Manager for Emirates Hotels & Resorts, discusses his online marketing priorities in the challenging year ahead.

While nobody welcomes economic downturns, they can act as periods of real business innovation. All companies from the smallest to the largest have to be nimble in adapting to market conditions and the shifting priorities of consumers. Emirates Hotels & Resorts is no exception and the travel industry, particularly in the Middle East has to evolve, with the web increasingly taking centre stage.

Dubai in particular has become one the world’s premier holiday resorts in the past decade but the credit crunch has hit its traditional markets hard. The UK in particular has been our largest source of in-bound tourism, but the falling value of the pound against the US dollar has made once affordable holidays 30% more expensive, compared to just 3 months ago. This has meant an even greater focus than before on reaching new global markets and engineering a truly global online marketing strategy.

In many ways this is easier than it sounds and one of the key hurdles, is actually one of the most fundamental. As much as we’d wish it to be the case, the entire world does not read English, particularly key emerging online markets such as Russia, China and The Middle East. Building multi-lingual transactional websites and in particular maintaining multi-language content has in the past proven prohibitively expensive for many brands.

This issue has then cascaded to many companies' wider online approach. For instance, investing in search engine marketing and online advertising campaigns in local languages is pretty worthless if people can’t buy online from you in their own language. With Search, both organic and PPC now the cornerstone of attracting international traffic, there has never been a bigger incentive for brands to make the investment in localised content.

The second weapon of choice in reaching out to new audiences in new markets is social networking, and again, language is a key consideration. Looking at the Middle East as an example, there’s been an explosion in the use of social networking sites, despite operating in a region where in some countries social interaction is often monitored by the state. Social media is beginning to make a significant difference with women with sites such as 3roos.com, lakii.com and uaewomen.com developing loyal followings with women looking for specialised female friendly content and an outlet to express themselves. For brands to really take advantage of social networking they need to ensure that they are engaging in real two-way conversation in the local language.

Whether it's search, social media or online advertising brands always need to remember the complete customer journey from the online into the real world. This means everything from customer support in call centres, Hotel check-in desks, waiters and shop-fronts that have linguistic staff, down to multi lingual menus and price tags. All this requires extra investment but real globalization can’t be achieved on the cheap or just in English!