If there’s one thing that we can always count on, it’s the ever-changing nature of the online travel marketing world. It changes just as much as the physical traveling world!
This is especially true when it comes to social media travel marketing, and the impact of social media on tourism - both when it comes to consumer demands, booking behaviors and the success of travel businesses such as travel agencies.
Of course, there are many aspects of online travel marketing, however arguably alongside Search Engine Optimization and traditional Paid Search Advertising, social media is one of the most influential forms of travel marketing right now - and has been for many years. With around 97% of millenials posting content of their travel experiences on social platforms and the influence of community recommendation sites and forums, the internet is a vast, visual and word-of-mouth hive of inspirational and incentivizing content for travelers and travel agencies alike.
When it comes to travel and tourism marketing, there's no better way to ensure your success as a travel agency than nailing the basics and lifting your online presence.
Considering the sustained importance of social media, customer preferences for personalized services and the competitiveness of tourism marketing as a whole, it’s obvious as to why it’s so important that your travel agency dedicates time to revamping, or improving your online travel marketing to capitalize on demand and stand out from the crowd!
So here are some of the most beneficial ways that you as travel advisors can market yourselves and your services online and take up as much space as possible. Get ready to launch into viral success!
Want to get to the 'good stuff' straight away? Scroll to the bottom of this article to find a helpful guide on travel posts for social media engagement! And check out this handy article if you want to learn exactly how Bedsonline can help boost your success as travel advisors!
The travel shopper is powered by intent-driven factors, termed ‘micro-moments’ in the marketing industry. It’s critical to understand how to market for these intentions and to be present when your customer needs you most.
These moments are defined in the travel industry as:
When you are planning your approach to travel marketing, what channels will be most beneficial for your target audiences and how to structure your success, consider each stage of these ‘micro moments’, and ask yourself these questions:
Being able to market your brand around these key moments will shape your strategy into one that is relevant, clearly defined, and relevant to customer preferences. Of course, there's no one-size fits all approach that guarantees instant success, but understanding the customer journey and the key moments when travelers are thinking about their trips is critical.
You can learn more about the key stages of a customer journey with our quick guide - offering an overview of the complex customer-travel advisor relationship which may help you define your strategy.
Plus, marketing to meet these key customer needs is something that Insights, our powerful search and recommendation tool, lets you do effortlessly as it offers personalized recommendations including destinations, hotels and experiences that are most relevant your specific market!
But first, let’s explore some key tips on how to build your online travel marketing this year.
With 1 billion active users worldwide, TikTok is the perfect platform for opening up new destinations like windows, letting would-be travelers step into another world. It also means travel advisors can tap into that reliable marketing strategy: FOMO (fear of missing out).
If you’re not using this social app already to gain visibility amongst the travelers of tomorrow – Gen Z specifically – it’s worth considering how TikTok can be used for those important micro-moments.
As a visual platform, alongside firm performers like Instagram, TikTok aligns itself perfectly with dreaming moments. You can put your destinations in front of potential customers and make them green around the gills that they’ve got nothing booked with you.
It’s all about providing valuable but exciting content that differentiates you from other travel advisors.
But it’s important that you’re highlighting on-trend destinations, right?
Which brings us to our next tip...
Keeping competitive is one of the main challenges in the travel industry – and if you’re not staying competitive, then it’s easy to lose customers to those agencies who can offer deals in the latest trending locations.
If only there was a tool that allowed you to keep up with the latest travel trends, we hear you cry!
Well, you’re in luck.
Insights is an award-winning search and recommendation tool designed specifically for travel advisors, packed with real-time global insights and data for the most accurate and up-to-date travel trends and opportunities.
Well, when they’re combined with a powerful algorithm that collates data into trending destinations for your specific market, we’d say that’s a pretty powerful tool to have under your belt.
This is exactly what Insights offers with its trending destinations, influenced by:
As soon as you log in to Insights, you’ll see your ‘top’ destinations, ranked by their opportunity and growth value for you and your specific market. As we mentioned, these destinations are categorized by global data bespoke to your own market, which means that you can recommend and showcase destinations which will be in-demand within your key market.
Having tailored recommendations at your fingertips ensures that you’re promoting and recommending destinations which are the most relevant to your customer needs and which present the most valuable opportunities for you as an agency, to scale your growth.
This information can also be used to inform your online marketing strategies, allowing you to populate your social media content with the destinations that are most likely to get engagement and keep you ahead of competitors.
After all, more ‘hot’ destinations equals more bookings!
As far back as 2016, newspapers such as The Financial Times were using VR to showcase cities, while some travel agencies were doing the same to sell high-quality packages. VR tours and experiences achieve something unique for travel marketing:
They ‘replicate (or give a taste of) an experience so palpable that you can’t wait to enjoy it in the real world’, as suggested by Head of marketing at Kemosabe, John Speers.
In other words, they create ‘digital experiences’ which exist as gateways for customers, making them hungry for the real thing.
Vancouver-based ToursByLocals have launched more than 150 virtual tours since the pandemic with incredible success; Qantas Airlines released a VR app for destinations like Sydney and the Great Barrier Reef; and many other travel providers have utilized VR experiences to keep them ‘top of mind’.
Work on your understanding of the audiences that book with you most, and how these demographics might have changed during the pandemic. Escaping into nature has become a key factor for many travelers, as well as those wanting the more adventurous or ‘big-ticket’ experiences – and VR can whet customers’ appetite, getting them excited to book with you.
As part of a wider strategy, personalized travel agency marketing materials not only help to cement new customer relations but re-engage high value, repeat customers and also those who have lapsed.
Considerate travel marketing can accommodate the booking moment of your customer’s journey, offering a tailored path of communication that says your travel agency is the best for their needs, sidelining your competitors in the process.
This is especially important when 92% of marketers suggest that customers expect a personalized experience, and 76% of customers say it’s frustrating when personalized service isn’t offered as standard.
But personalizing your marketing materials takes time, so how can this be done in a succinct and intuitive way? Well, that’s also where Insights comes in (again).
Insights’ unique Custom Flyer Tool makes sharing bespoke promotional materials with clients even easier. Once you’ve refined your search based on customer requirements, up to 8 hotels can be collated into a user-friendly flyer which can be personalized with a disclaimer for customers on an individual basis!
Plus, as you can share any travel marketing materials through a variety of methods including WhatsApp, Email, Downloadable files, even a personalized QR code, Insights gets your promo material directly onto customers’ screens, making sure that you stay connected and convenient for your clients.
Of course, aside from the booking-boosting tools that we offer as a travel partner, one of the other main benefits of working with us at Bedsonline is that we continually promote and showcase our portfolio across our main distribution networks. We negotiate valuable rates and experiences from some of the best hotel providers and travel experience providers in the world, and run marketing campaigns to help you boost your business.
We also offer an expansive global portfolio of hotels and travel products including care hire and transfers, which means that everything your customers could want is at your fingertips.
So, not only can you curate a travel marketing strategy which is tailored to your unique KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), business goals and requirements, but you can make the most of timely, seasonal campaigns to offer your customers the best prices on their must-visit destinations and stays!
This means that during the most in-demand periods throughout the global travel year, you will be supported with amazing deals for your customers, to incentivize and inspire them to book.
Now, more companies than ever before are taking advantage of social technology’s ability to support collaboration and to build communities through which customers, brands and influencers can share news and experiences about travel with one another.
Therefore, it’s pivotal that as a travel advisor you consider how your social media strategy is forming, or how you can build these communities of travelers, destinations, influencers, and yourself as the provider.
Social media is embedded with the desire for people to share their stories, and it’s the travel advisors that get social media to do the talking for them that succeed in this current moment.
Not only this, but social sharing - content designed to inspire engagement from users and viewers - has had a notable influence on the 'democratisation' of online reviews; where customers can honestly review products and experiences to one another. Interestingly, over 59% of US travelers recently suggested that online review sites like TripAdivsor were a vital source of information when planning a trip.
So using User Generated Content to garner engagement from customers, and create a 'hive' of social sharing around your agency could create some well-received buzz!
Not sure on how to structure or approach your social media travel marketing strategy, or which travel posts perform well?
Download our guide on travel posts for social media engagement for inspiration!
Your website is the cornerstone of your online marketing efforts. After all, it’s where you’re going to be driving all your customers, and there’s no sense in curating a perfect social media campaign which drives high volumes of interested traffic to your site, if the actual user experience on site is below par.
Mobile-indexing and site speed are the most important ranking factors across industries – and this is something your competitors will be more than aware of.
Consider this when looking at your site:
Ensuring your website is optimized for user experience makes it easier for your customer to plan their dream trip from your portfolio and book with ease – it's critical to many of those micro-moments we discussed earlier!
Of course, one of the most successful approaches to online marketing for travel agencies is ensuring you’re keeping ‘top of mind’ for your audience. And doing this is best involves keeping ahead of the competition, and in line with ever-changing travel trends.
Starting with Insights as your base tool gives you a foundation that is rooted in real-time market and direct booking behaviors within your market. From there, you can tackle your online and social media marketing strategy. It’s a win-win!
Our guide exploring the top travel posts for social media engagement breaks down the complex world of social media into clear, actionable points.
You’ll learn:
⭐ Why social media is beneficial for advisors in the first place.
⭐ Which type of content 54% of marketers agree is unbeatable for brands.
⭐ Why you need a content strategy to stand a chance of being visible online.
And many more game-changing pointers!
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