How did Weather2Travel.com start?

We started Weather2Travel.com way back in 2005, off the back of a film and TV industry website helping producers decide where to shoot on location. The original idea was to showcase our climate content and sell data licences to online travel companies. However, we quickly discovered that we could publish the guides ourselves and monetise them through advertising and affiliate marketing.

Over the years, online publishing overtook data licenses as the main priority, although we continue to offer climate data to clients including Expedia, Cox & Kings and Audley Travel. The website slowly evolved from a holiday weather guide to a full-blown travel website built on a principle of impartial advice to holidaymakers.

We’ve observed many changes in online publishing, affiliate marketing and the travel industry over the years, with publishers disappearing due to Google updates such as Panda and Penguin plus takeovers and travel companies going bust. We’ve been lucky to navigate our way through all these times and find ourselves in a good place in 2018.


What differentiates Weather2Travel.com from other publishers in the travel vertical?

The weather has always been at the core of our website, as it’s such an important element of deciding when and where to go on holiday. In all the research we’ve seen, weather and price are usually the top two reasons for choosing a holiday destination.

This means that our customers are usually in the research stage of booking, firmly at the top of the marketing funnel, somewhere in the awareness and interest stages. Since we are specifically a travel publisher, we can focus 100% on working with travel merchants to promote their products and latest offers to an engaged audience.

Added to this is our travel blog, which has grown exponentially in recent years both regarding topics but also quality. We have an amazing pool of experienced writers who can cover almost any topic for any destination in the world. We’re continually working to find new and innovative ways of tying this inspiring content into the requirements of our key partners.

As we have evolved to become a complete holiday research tool, we’ve been able to develop our unique take on product search tools with 100% control on which merchants we promote and when. This means we can tailor our exposure for each merchant down to specific destinations and product pages.

What are the plans for next 12 months?

We have ambitious plans for the next 12 months, as we revisit our product pages and give them an update. We’ve already created unique research tools for beach holidays and city breaks with many new products on the way.

There are also plans to create game-changing projects and partnerships that will disturb the travel and affiliate industries – although you’ll have to wait for more details on these! Hopefully, we can continue to grow from strength to strength, and enhance our reputation as a B2B and B2C company.

With what advertisers would you like to start working?

There are still many travel companies that we’d like to work with across all product types. For holidays the likes of Travel Republic, Trailfinders and the Travelopia brands would be brilliant. There is also an endless list of airlines that we’d love to partner with including Norwegian, Icelandair, WOW Air and Primera Air – plus other national carriers from around the world. We are always willing to discuss new partnerships across any travel product.

 

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Many thanks for Colin at Weather2Travel for answering our questions. If you would like to work with Weather2Travel you can invite them to join your program, their publisher ID is 43051.

Want to know more about recruiting publishers to promote your products? Get in touch with support@webgains.com!