Arguments vary over the best route to customers on the technical side, whether it’s distributed marketing, distribution of transactions or some other method.

But perhaps when you run a classic Long Tail product like Temple Safari, the most powerful tool of distribution is inspiration and people you know. Or so says Nick Ray of Hanuman Tourism, Cambodia.

“If you can inspire travel companies and travel journalists to believe in your ideas, then the product will take off.”

As such, Ray has been cultivating contacts and connections that can help them spread the word.

“Hanuman has been very fortunate in this respect. We partner a number of market leaders in the UK, US and France and their growth has helped fuel our growth over the years. We also have a very good relationship with journalists and travel writers in general as we are used to VIP hosting through our work with Hanuman Films.”

One of its most recent guests was the feisty celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay.

According to the Hanuman blog, executive director Kulikar Sotho, whose family is behind Hanuman Tourism, was the Cambodian Fixer for Ramsey’s television series Gordon’s Great Escape – in which he travels all over the world learning about and cooking local cuisines.

Other celebrities it’s hosted include Angelina Jolie, Daniel Craig and Jeremy Clarkson, “so we get the word out through our partner travel agents and international journalists who are inspired by the original concepts we are promoting”, reckons Ray.

In its Temple Safaris, it takes visitors out to the jungle temples of Northern Cambodia where luxury tents are pitched close to ancient cultural sites and guests can enjoy the quiet of the wilderness away from mass tourism. The product is the company’s signature trip was conceived on a trip to Uganda and Rwanda by Kulikar.

Currently, most of its customers come from the UK with some from the US. One of its strongest promoters has been Audley Travel, in the UK. Other supporters include Cox & Kings, Indochina Travel and Bamboo Travel.

In a good year, the company takes about 250-500 people a year on safari. Ray estimates the price to be about US$300 per day per person, covering four-wheel drives, tour guide and all meals. “It is not a budget product due to the mobile nature of the camps and the support team this requires.”

Because it works through partners, it does limited direct marketing other than the public relations work it does with journalists and celebrities. However it is giving its website a massive overhaul. Currently, 70% of its business come through its partners and 30% through the website.

Every time I attend events such as the Mekong Tourism Forum, I end up with two main thoughts.

I wish I had more time to travel to experience all the wonderful things I learnt about and how does one, as a traveller, find all these products in the crowded, cluttered, confusing web?

From zip lining, tiger spotting and communing with gibbons in Laos, to temple safaris in Cambodia and sleeping in Tibetan-style tents in Yunnan, these are the products that make the Mekong region such a tourism jewel – but unless you are a traveller with very specific interests, and you go searching for them, how do you find these products?

Often, they are created by people who are passionate about authenticity and committed to conservation but don’t have the budgets to stand out in the crowded marketplace and they also don’t have the ability to scale – nor do they necessarily want to.

As Jef Reumaux who founded The Gibbon Experience in Bokeo, Northern Laos, says proudly: “We have no potential to be replicated.”

[In The Gibbon Experience, customers sleep in tree houses 40 metres high and there’s a network of cable bridges to help scout the canopy for the gibbons whose distinct calls are heard throughout the forest every morning]

The theory is that the internet is able to help guys in the Long Tail reach customers they wouldn’t normally be able to – but what if the Long Tail is extremely long and awesomely big as it is in tourism, where the heartbeat and lifeblood of the industry is often not in the big brands in the big cities but in the small parts that make the whole?

Talking to the more experienced operators in the Mekong, there is the acknowledgement that they know how to create authentic experiences to delight customers – the missing piece of the puzzle is often how to get these customers in the first place.

In a region where the mix of travellers is also changing – the share of arrivals from the ASEAN region to the Greater Mekong Subregion has grown from 24% to 56% in the last eight years – it’s become even more critical for these operators to seek out new segments of customers that will continue to want to pay for these experiences.

Social media is cited as one of the new tools that could help these small operators.

Passionate travellers tend to be passionate about sharing as well although there may be some customers who don’t wish to share because it’s getting harder and harder to find places where you can get away from the mainstream.

Jia Liming of Wild China, acknowledged as China’s leading cultural and sustainable tour operator, says her company is directing more efforts towards its website and social media to spread the company’s message.

The website has a TripAdvisor recommendation and tools by which customers can connect with through Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and Twitter.

At Green Discovery Laos, managing director Vianney Catteau says walk-in sales through its seven offices in Laos account for 70% of its business but 15% comes through the internet, an increasingly important channel for the company.

It’s a channel small operators know is their future. But for as long as they are reliant on tour operators, their margins will always be restricted.

At the other end of the value chain are the traditional tour operators whose margins are being squeezed on all fronts and who may see the potential to own such Long Tail supply in destinations.

The challenge is in aggregration, physically and virtually. Several Asian operators have tried to combine forces under alliances and marketing partnerships – they have had limited success. The intent may be noble but the challenge is always human – often these companies are run by independent-minded entrepreneurs who find it hard to see a greater purpose beyond their own ego.

Then there are companies who have tried to do it on their own – Asian Oasis in Thailand, for example, builds, owns and operates its own products under one brand. But again, hard to scale and difficult to bring in like-minded players who may not want to go under another company’s brand, especially if they see it as a competitor.

Then there’s the thought that perhaps they could all band together and come under an Expedia-like umbrella and then I say, perish the thought.

Unlike books that can all be bought under Amazon, the idea somehow doesn’t work as well in tourism – surely, unique, authentic experiences cannot be commoditised?

And then I wonder if a Worldhotels-like organisation can exist for unique, independent hotels, why not for these small adventure and ecotourism operators?

And again, I abandon the thought because as Reumaux of The Gibbon Experience says, when asked to share the secrets of his project’s success:

“Stay free-minded and passionate. Postpone marketing when possible. Respect local culture. Renounce excessive conformism. Question the industry’s mainstreams. Enforce your dreams.”

Yes, perhaps the answer to finding the Long Tail in travel is allowing it to swing free and wild as with the gibbons, and only those who seek shall find.

NB: The Bokeo Nature Reserve consists of 123,000 hectares of mix-deciduous forest in a mountainous terrain ranging from 500m to 1500m in elevation.

It was established by the Lao Forestry Authorities and Animo, the company that runs The Gibbon Experience, with a practical approach and no external funds.

In 2004, Animo was given a government mandate to protect this rich asset of Northern Laos that borders the Nam Ha Protected Area.

With margins being squeezed at every point of the supply chain, the future for traditional outbound tour operators is apparently in destination management and to own Long Tail supply.

Hans Lerch, vice chairman of the Migros Group of Switzerland, which owns Hotelplan, who was recently appointed caretaker global CEO of Hotelplan, says this is a logical step.

“Just look at yourself when you buy something – you may not buy at the cheapest price, what you want is the best value for money. And when you go to a destination, it does not matter if you spend $20 or $30 for a meal – what you want is the experience. People, when they are in-destination, will not bargain as hard and tend to spend more.”

Lerch reckons disintermediation has taken out the margins in all parts of the value chain, adding:

“Tour operators give less margin to the travel agent, and you are earning less and less as you bring the product to the client.”

This was why tour operating groups like Hotelplan are looking at buying suppliers of in-destination products such as ski operators or dive companies.

Lerch says:

“These kind of services add to the experience of a destination and customers will pay on the ground for these services.”

Owning such Long Tail supply also means more control over destination services given stricter legislation makes tour operators like Hotelplan liable for accidents that happen to customers when using sub-contracted suppliers.

It’s a model that has been tried before, with tour operators starting up their own hotel operations. But Lerch says this is difficult, claiming that running a hotel “is a different business” from running a tour operator.

But niche, specialty products and services are different, he says, and these cannot be copied by online travel agencies, adding: “Virtuality stops somewhere.”

As caretaker CEO, Lerch aims to reposition Hotelplan. He says: “In 1965, it [Hotelplan] was substantially bigger than Kuoni, but Kuoni is now two-and-half times bigger.”

Indeed, it was Lerch who was responsible for building up Kuoni’s global operations.

Asked if he intends to do with Hotelplan what he did with Kuoni, Lerch says: “That took over 40 years to build. That train has left the station.”

Instead, Lerch sees four ways traditional tour operator can grow in the new marketplace:

1. Continuing to grow the legacy model “which still pays the salaries”.
2. Invest in the online channel. Every tour operator has to take part in this. “The good news is that Expedia did not knock out the legacy tour operators within two years like they said they would and was feared. Many legacy tour operators have made good investments in the online channel and have built good businesses.”
3. Through companies that cannot be copied in their content and brand or the way it is packaged. For example, Abercrombie & Kent in UK or Intrepid Travel in Australia. “These continue to enjoy good organic growth.”
4. Expansion by geographic markets. “Where is business going to grow quicker and how can you attack these markets?”

Fiverr is a simple concept, attracting a fair amount of attention in the online tech media mostly for its ease-of-use although its quirkiness has to be a factor.

The site allows users to buy, sell and rate services via the web – but only ever charges the end user $5.

It covers everything from the practical (”I will set up and secure your PC for $5″) to the topical but rather surreal (”I will create an Avatar movie portrait from your picture for $5″).

Interestingly, it also has a sizeable amount of travel-related things for sale as well.

Here are some of those listed on the site:

• I will tell you the best ancient sites to visit if you’re going on holiday to Egypt for $5.
• I will recommend hotels, coffee shops and fun things to do in Amsterdam for $5.
• I will give you a detailed write-up of how we’ve gotten our 5yo and 3yo to travel on airplanes without hassles, tears or tantrums for $5.
• I will give you travel tips about Buenos Aires for $5.

So a travel company or hotel shifting 50,ooo+ travellers a year might not be attracted to spending its time and effort on getting involved in something like Fiverr, but those at the sharper and lengthier end of the Long Tail of tourism might be.

From a commercial perspective (and those wondering how Fiverr makes any money), each seller pays the site $1 as a brokerage fee.

PhoCusWright published an article recently with the premise that travel companies in the long tail are taking traffic away from the big online travel agencies.

Certainly that feels true, given all the movement in what I call the “emerging travel segments” – emerging referring to their recent adoption of electronic distribution as a viable sales channel – including golf, tours and activities, timeshares and vacation (villa/apartment) rentals.

Let me say at the start that my definition of electronic distribution is any information provided electronically (to trading partners, distributors, brand.com) about the product (the safari, the castle in France), not just the transaction.

Distribution covers everything from a photo of the product to richer media to an availability calendar (real-time or not) to pricing and terms to the actual booking transaction.

Often segments new to distribution assume it’s all about the transaction, but in these speciality segments, that’s just not true.

Emerging segments are interested in distribution, but companies in these segments, especially those that provide travel products with a lot of moving parts (niche or specialty tours, vacation rentals), find the established OTAs, while well-suited for distributing non-experiential travel like business and non-complex leisure travel, are definitely not set up to distribute more complicated products.

These products have generally been distributed in a manual, very high-touch way, which is good for the traveler (lots of personalized service) but not so good for keeping operator costs down (lots of manual processes and human overhead), and has definitely limited research to the times of day when someone would answer the phone.

But times are changing. Costs are high and travelers of all types are now used to researching and buying online, including their business travel and uncomplicated leisure travel, and they’re used to researching whenever it suits them, not just during tour operator office hours.

It was only a matter of time until the buyers of complicated travel started asking for some information about those travel products online – at the very least, rich media like images and videos, and some idea of availability.

However, the large OTAs are built for the transaction not the research.  When planning a safari in Africa or a tour of castles in France, the process of researching is a part of the experience, and the large OTA brands don’t support that function and probably don’t want that kind of overhead.

So small tour operator technology providers that enable distribution are stepping into that gap in the States and Europe, like PEAK 15 Systems, Rezgo and TourCMS, and many specialized content aggregators are popping up as well, including well-known names like National Geographic Traveler and Travel + Leisure, but real-time availability is rare and most transactions in these segments take place off-line.

The obstacles to real-time distribution are several and familiar – outdated business processes, technology and money.

One tour operator software provider says his primary competition is Excel, not other technology companies.

In the adventure travel and vacation rental segments, standardization of the descriptors of product (define safari, define tent, define castle, define moat) is a huge business issue that these segments must address before electronic distribution can really be effective.

Other segments have done it (air, rental car, rail, hotel, even cruise) so standardization is a reachable goal with a known payoff in cost reduction, increased sales and brand reach.

The technology and distribution providers stepping into this market are generally start-ups, and the cost of entry is high.

Funding for technology start-ups is still very tight, but interest and demand for these travel products is rising, and they are higher ticket products with higher margins than business travel and uncomplicated leisure travel products.

There could be a role in these segments for the large OTAs.

Orbitz owns away.com, an aggregator of adventure travel content (but there’s no integrated search capability and no booking capability), and the large OTAs have the scalable infrastructure and technical knowledge to support the distribution of any type of inventory unit.

They would have to be willing to be more research oriented and less transaction-oriented, at least in the short term.

Orbitz’ example of away.com is a possible model for the other OTAs, provided it becomes more integrated with orbitz.com.

There’s a real financial prize to be had in these emerging segments but the winners will have to have patience to support lots of online looking without much initial online booking, and will have to drive standardization of product definition, product presentation and product distribution to realize those financial prizes.