Agency Insider #2: ChooseMalta.com

Just at the beginning of March, allow me to post the second of the 'Agency Insider' series of posts. This time, BLAB got in touch with Jonathan Shaw, agency insider and founder of the ChooseMalta.com brand (which over the past years has triggered a number of other ChooseToTravel sites). Below is BLAB's email interview.


In brief, what did kick-start ChooseMalta.com and how did it develop to become a global initiative – ChooseToTravel.com?

I was working and living in New York when I realised that the way forward for any business is the internet and also that Malta lacked a real-time, Malta specific travel portal. I recall flying to LA for a meeting and spending 4 hours writing potential domain names. ChooseMalta.com was eventually available and I registered it. That same night, I woke up at around 3am and decided to register other available countries. We now have over 60 country domain name with the Choose branding.

Having no IT background, teaming up with one of my partners Chris Knights proved to be instrumental to our development plan.

How important is the users' experience on your online websites, and hence how important are analytics and statistics that measure that?

The user’s experience is crucial. I don’t come from an IT background so I always automatically think like a customer would do.

Chris Knights then has the difficult task of creating an output which is workable for a customer yet solid and functional from an IT point of view.

Analytics and stats are important yet they are only a tool in the whole business. How one can interpret these results to generate a competitive advantage for the business is another issue and it’s not always easy.

What is the feedback you get from hotels and other advertisers on ChooseMalta.com / ChooseToTravel?

We sell hotel accommodation online and real-time and different hotels have different performances. In just 3 years we have become Malta’s leading travel website and we are still experiencing huge growth.

We also just launched ChooseItaly.com, we have a Sales Representative in Milan and we are currently signing up hotels in Italy, it’s not easy but feedback is positive.

Any plans to grow further and who shall I speak to if I have a related innovative idea to put forward?

The plan is to launch all of our choose destinations and have substantial online traffic and bookings. The model has worked for some of other destinations and it’s now a matter of time & resources until we launch and manage all of our domain portfolio.

What in your opinion makes you different from other travel websites?

In my opinion we have 3 main criteria that make us different from the big travel sites: The Choose branding is rather catchy; We focus on one destination (per site) and provide concise travel info; Our system is easy and very transparent to use, no hidden fees, etc.

Nonetheless, the internet offers a huge platform to reach a huge market with no boundaries. Our aim is to have quality traffic and a consistent clientele that use our services for the various travel sites. We plan to focus on delivering a good product and service and we are confident that the numbers will add up in due course!