CorpComms Magazine

Ryanair is aiming to ramp up its Internet presence by developing an online travel community and engaging with customers through its website. Planned additions to the site include a flight comparison engine and collaboration with travel specialist Frommer's to offer more information.

Until now, the budget airline has provided little more than basic booking facilities on its site. But in a departure from its usual approach, it is now looking to embrace consumer input. The ryanair.com destinations section will provide five pages of information on local attractions and nightlife for 100 of the cities to which Ryanair flies. Passengers will then be able to offer recommendations and comment on attractions.

Despite a desire to engage with customers, however, the airline will not be using third-party social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter to do so. Spokesman Stephen McNamara said that given the size of the airline, which will carry 73 million passengers this year, it would mean pouring a lot of resources into having people available to answer questions at all times. 'With social media you get any and every query and a lot of rubbish, like people asking if they can bring a 10kg bag, which of course you can. The information is there on our site.'

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