Over the past decade, digitization has dramatically transformed the travel industry. Gone are the days when travelers visit the counter to make a reservation.
Planning a trip is now just a click away, from researching the trip to booking tickets and hotel accommodation. Driven by digitization, the travel industry, which is now an online sector, feels the constant need to build and nurture relationships with its customers.
The practice provides them with a seamless experience to retain customers and sustain themselves in the competitive market. Since the tourism industry is a highly competitive space, it is essential to keep up with the latest trends to achieve greater success.
Here are the 4 digital marketing trends with the most future in view of the transformation of the tourism industry.
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Create mobile-friendly websites
In today’s fast-paced world, everyone prefers to get information on the go. From finding a taxi to booking tickets, the Internet has taken over our lives and is giving us the convenience of doing things right from our phones. This revolutionary trend has led to the rise of the Mobile-First Approach.
Device-optimized solutions are also increasingly being used now by travel companies to attract more and more guests to their travel services. They have observed how it is much easier for users to search Google for travel destinations or portals on their mobile phones or, at most, on iPads / tablets.
They know that mobile responsive websites are on the rise. If your travel company’s website is not optimized for mobile, you are off the radar and you are losing a large part of the audience.
A classic example is that of a business traveler. Business travelers have traditionally made their travel decisions and online hotel reservations. Due to time constraints, it appears they are switching to their cell phones to make these reservations. Companies are already beginning to optimize their websites for this trend, as can be seen in the following article.
Marketing in social networks
Today’s digital times have seen the rise of Facebook as a household name. Gone are the days when Facebook was considered a networking site to keep in touch with family and friends.
It is now a very effective marketing platform for displaying your product or service. It possesses the power to influence people and inspire them to travel and explore new places.
According to some studies and online research, it was found that travel companies that engage with online audiences on social media tend to leverage their brand image more effectively.
This leads to an increase in the number of followers, reviewers, and influencers which, in turn, results in a higher ROI. Travel companies (like Trip Advisor, Travel Triangle, Julius Homes etc.) are regularly making their presence felt on influential digital platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter through creative messaging, carousel ads, canvas ads, and call-to-action (CTA) ads, depending on the nature of the ad.
The recommendations do wonders for being able to influence the spending habits of most people. It can bring in more clues than expensive promotional digital advertising as almost everyone today wants to check the reliability of the travel services they are planning to buy online.
However, you need to ensure that your services are always up to scratch and of high quality as one negative comment can take your entire marketing strategy downhill.
The management of online reputation can make or break your brand, so when such an unfortunate event occurs, the key to resurface is to respond to the client immediately and take steps as soon as possible.
Personalization with Big Data – Segmentation and Relocation
Reorientation is a foolproof strategy to generate quality leads for your business. With this technique, travel companies create a personalized audience of travelers who have visited their resorts or published their services online.
From check-ins to reviews, all users who have been remotely associated with the brand are grouped into a personalized audience. Ads are generated with this target audience in mind. Since these users are already familiar with your brand, turning them into long-term customers is easier than reaching out to new users.
It is also very interesting how booking portals have started integrating passenger profiles on social media to offer personalized offers. They use pop-up questionnaires as a means of asking customers for their preferences.
Customers also don’t mind filling out a few questions if they’re going to receive personalization on their reservations. The latest development is the analysis of passenger profiles on social media, to sit them down with people with similar interests on flights.
This analysis is normally carried out at the time of booking. The right data helps travel companies assess their customers’ needs, based on interests, demographics, possible budget range, desired vacation destinations, etc. and thereby, helping in the creation of better travel experience for them.
Content is king
Content is the backbone of all digital marketing efforts undertaken by a travel company. Just as reviews and recommendations can bring amazing results in generating leads, security through SEO certainly helps your business grow further and increases its popularity among other vacation companies.
Content plays an important role in SEO efforts in the form of blogs, infographics, videos, and images. It is important to create content that your target audience will find attractive. When it comes to travel companies, relevant videos on travel, and tourism work as the best SEO strategy.
Videos used to market a travel company may include panoramic views of hotels (exteriors/interiors of rooms), amenities offered, local attractions, and things to remember before visiting places, such as name a few. These low-cost videos can tell the story of your brand and can be as simple as whiteboard clips, GIFs, simple animations, or even a series of beautiful images.
Influencers gain weight
As its name indicates, it is the commercialization of its brands through e specialists whose opinions, criticisms and testimonies draw the attention of the press and the public.
The Travel Influencers are specifically those who are avid travelers, either to a particular destination at a specific resort or a destination type (mountains, beaches, sacred places, spiritual). They also include deep travelers who have a huge following on Instagram or Twitter and those whose profiles reverberate with the demographics of their target audience.
They are paid to curate the content of travel vacation packages. Usually, your words are taken literally, as their content is built to fit the context perfectly. If you are considering using influencer marketing, read our blog on tips for your first influencer marketing campaign.
