As we emerge from the biggest health crisis of the last century, people are keen to get out of their homes and discover new places. This is great news for the travel industry. However, it means that competition will be worse than ever. To help your company succeed under these circumstances, we prepared several marketing ideas for travel businesses.
What Is the New Approach to Travel Marketing?
One thing that has changed significantly in our lives is digitalisation. People expect a safer, faster and more convenient way to access information, products and services through online tools and smart devices. Restaurants offer scannable QR codes instead of printed menus. Hotels allow digital check-in.
This new change reflects in the way the travel and hospitality sector markets its products. Gone are the days of in-person travel fairs, with crowds of people in an enclosed space. Now, marketing has also become digital and highly personalised.
Travel Companies Must Find Ways to Attract Each Customer in a Different Way
Travelling to a new destination now involves a high degree of confidence. You have to win your customers’ trust and give them the reasons they need to book your hotel or resort.
This means that you have to know what they expect and serve them the right ad or the right piece of content at the right moment. As difficult as it seems, detailed segmentation of your audience is the key to success. The good news is that big tech companies and social media platforms have come to your rescue.
For this year’s summer holiday season, you can benefit from several helpful tools created for the travel sector. Together with our marketing ideas for travel businesses, you will be able to create an integrated strategy with great results.
So, let us get started:
1. Do Not Overlook the Importance of Email Marketing
Email is one of the most effective marketing ideas for travel businesses. It is cost effective and easy to manage. And, if you do it right (with proper segmentation and personalisation), it is very effective.
People are looking for holiday ideas more than ever. At global level, there is an unprecedented increase in passport renewals (over 300% compared to the previous two years). Thus, everyone wants to go abroad for the summer holiday and they are keen on finding great recommendations.
With an effective email marketing campaign, you can activate many subscribers and determine them to stop reading about your travel destination and book it instead. Also, email tends to build closer relationships between customers and businesses and this is essential for winning their trust.
2. Perfect Your Content Marketing Strategy
Content marketing, especially blogging, remains one of the most effective marketing ideas for travel businesses. However, you have to be very careful about not becoming too boring and predictable.
This is the travel sector. People expect to see:
- Photos
- Videos
- Interactive content
- Exciting stories about your facility
- The assurance that they will have a great holiday at your hotel.
Now is not the moment to save on your marketing budget for content creation. Written text, videos and images must feel and look great and have your unique brand image embedded in them. This is your chance to recoup losses – don’t miss it! Happy customers of this summer will have more vivid memories compared to other years. You have the chance to get valuable referrals and win your guests’ loyalty.
3. Use the New Dynamic Ads Available on Snap
We said that big social media and tech platforms are coming to the rescue of the travel sector. This is the first instance. Snap has announced a new ad format – dynamic ads for travel.
These ads will be served to the right users, based on their behaviour and the places they have visited in the past. The Snap pixel is extremely versatile in collecting these types of information. The ad serving algorithm will make a perfect match between your ad for a specific destination and users who are most likely to want to visit that place.
4. Google Introduces Three New Features for the Hospitality Sectors
Hotels will be able to get more booking directly from Google searches and the Google Business Profile thanks to three new features announced by the Alphabet company.
The first feature is the implementation of industry-standard protocols for online hotel rates. Hotels can now use the best practices used in proprietary hotel booking platforms for the rates they upload on Google Business Profile.
Secondly, it will be easier to upload room rates to Google Business Profile. Until now, hotels had to create and upload complex spreadsheets. From now on, you can simply add the rates by editing your business profile on Google.
Finally, Hotels Centre will no longer be the only possibility to post Google ads in this sector. Any business will have open access to specific Hotel Ads. What does it mean for you and why do we believe it’s one of the best marketing ideas for travel businesses?
Here are some reasons:
- These ads will appear on Google search, Google Maps and YouTube
- The booking link takes the customer to your own website, not a booking platform
- You save money, by not having to pay fees to these platforms.
Of course, not everything is perfect and there are some downsides to this new option. Thus:
- You cannot add multiple rates for different room types
- You cannot add minimum stay restrictions
- You cannot add discounts for longer stays.
Conclusion
These marketing ideas for travel businesses work for all types of companies – large or small. We considered several restrictions – time and budget most importantly – and we believe that any business can find the best mix of tools and solutions to grow their sales in this summer season.
We know how hard your industry was hit in the last two years, but we also know that you are resilient, resourceful and will be able to recover and enjoy the results you had before the pandemic.