Businesses in the competitive and growing tourism space can capture the attention of travellers with smart marketing strategies and tactics.
The travel and tourism industry is reaching new heights thanks to rapid globalization, accessibility to remote and beautiful destinations, government investment post-COVID and rising levels of disposable income. The sector is projected to be worth US$972.5 billion by 2031, up from US$615.2 billion in 2022.
Destinations, hotels, vehicle rental companies, airlines, booking services, and travel and tour agencies are all looking for innovative ways to stand out in an increasingly crowded market. Marketing strategies and tactics are key to helping the wide range of businesses in the tourism space capture the attention of travellers. An effective marketing strategy is a competitive advantage.
What is tourism marketing?
Tourism marketing refers to the strategies and tactics that destinations and hospitality businesses use to promote themselves, attract travellers and sell their products and services. These strategies are part of a comprehensive approach that spans the buyer’s journey, from awareness to consideration to decision. Effective tourism marketing is more than promotion. It is aspirational and allows travellers to see themselves creating fond memories. It starts with a clear understanding of the target audience and embraces emerging technologies to develop campaigns that attract, engage and convert online searchers into customers.
Why is tourism marketing important?
Tourism is one of the biggest industries in the world. It is also one of the most competitive. A comprehensive tourism marketing plan can help brands find their unique value proposition and promote it to high-intent audiences at the right time and in the right way, raising awareness and driving conversions.
Top 12 effective tourism marketing strategies
1. Set goals, monitor and manage your marketing efforts
Set specific and measurable goals for your tourism marketing strategy. Common goals include:
- Build brand awareness.
- Improve social media engagement.
- Increase online bookings.
- Enhance customer experience.
For maximum impact, the goals should also align with broader marketing and business objectives. Establish key performance indicators to ensure you are moving in the right direction. Regularly monitor and assess the data you’re collecting to spot trends and use data analytics across your platforms to optimize campaigns.
2. Know your target audience and create marketing content for them
A clear understanding of your target audience is the foundation for an effective marketing strategy. Use data-based research to create an audience persona. Similar to a buyer persona, an audience persona is a research-based fictionalized profile that represents a group of similar people within your target audience. It includes demographic information, such as age, gender, race, location, level of education and income. It also incorporates their travel interests and how they make decisions. The audience persona will allow you to personalize all of your marketing and advertising campaigns to ensure you are creating content and curating experiences that match their interests and needs.
3. Create a strong content plan
Well executed content marketing is both cost-efficient and effective in providing target audiences with the information they want in the way they want to receive it and on the platforms they prefer — all in a manner that feels organic. From practical guides and itineraries to insider advice to popular and lesser known local experiences, the content can cover a wide range of topics. It can be presented in many formats, including blogs, articles, social media posts, ebooks, infographics, videos and podcasts. Visual storytelling is gaining traction, with short-form immersive mobile-first, long-form and live videos emerging as top content marketing trends. Create a content calendar to ensure you are consistently posting new content — a key factor in ranking high on search engines.
4. Take a holistic approach to search engine optimization (SEO)
SEO is a digital marketing strategy to help improve rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs). Top SERPs rankings help drive high-intent traffic to your website. One of the best ways to attract relevant users is by using the right keywords. These are the words and terms your target audience is most likely to use when conducting a search for the type of travel experience they’re after. Be strategic: use the keywords you’ve identified in website content, meta tags and headings. An effective SEO strategy goes well beyond keywords. Ensuring a great user experience is key for Google’s algorithm and the core of an effective SEO strategy. This means providing user-centric, accessible, easy-to-navigate web design, fast load times, visual stability and pages optimized for mobile. Linking to credible sources in the travel industry will also help enhance trust in your site — for search engines and users alike.
5. Use live video marketing
Creating live videos to showcase destinations will help users feel as though they are sharing the experience with you. It also gives them the opportunity to ask questions and interact. This real-time, real-life aspect of live video marketing builds excitement and confidence.
6. Create a comprehensive social media strategy
Social media is a natural fit for tourism marketing because these are the go-to channels for consumers planning to travel. The top three social channels for tourism marketing are Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram. The key is to be authentic and make sure your brand voice and style are consistent across all your social channels. Most importantly, create great content that emotionally engages with your target audience — and that they will want to share. From real-time Q&A sessions on Instagram Stories to virtual tours on Facebook Live Events to inspiration boards on Pinterest, there are all kinds of ways to use social media to build awareness and engage with your target audience. Encourage happy customers to create and share their posts. User-generated content (UGC) is one of the most effective ways to get people to engage with your brand and to build trust. Reposting USG is a great way to build a sense of community and turn customers into brand ambassadors.
7. Embrace online bookings
In today’s convenience-driven marketplace, one of the best ways to improve efficiency, cut costs and gain traction with users around the world is to implement online booking. The key is to make sure the automation does in fact streamline the booking process in a way that is intuitive and easy for your target audience to use across devices. The fewer the steps to complete a reservation the better. Make sure your site is optimized for mobile, provides real-time availability and offers secure online payment options. Build trust in the process by clearly stating the security measures you have implemented to protect sensitive information. One way to incentivize online bookings is to offer exclusive promotions or packages to people who book on your site.
8. Develop a high-performing email campaign
More than 4.4 billion people use email. It’s an important tool in tourism marketing, offering a highly effective way to directly engage with potential clients, build trust and create meaningful connections. Email marketing can take several forms, including simple updates, regular newsletters designed to keep you top of mind, promotions that put a spotlight on special events and post-visit follow-ups. A big benefit of email is the ability to be precise in your messaging based on how people have come to your mailing list.
Use the data you’ve collected about your customers to segment your email audience by past interactions, travel interests, demographics or whatever you think is most relevant to your business. Having one long list of email addresses will not help you drive conversions. Once you have segmented your email audience, you can create and share personalized content that will help build engagement and trust.
9. Encourage customer reviews
Reading customer testimonials and reviews is now part of the buying journey. This is especially true in the world of tourism, where users rely on platforms such as Yelp, TripAdvisor and Google Local to help determine their next travel destination. Create a reviews page on your website and make sure it’s listed on your main navigation page. Include a call to action (CTA) on the review page encouraging people to share their experience with your brand. If you’re already asking customers for their feedback via a survey or poll, add a CTA to review your business. Google recommends responding to reviews as a best practice that goes a long way to earning customer loyalty and strengthening relationships. Good or bad, be sure to respond within 24 hours – that’s when most customers expect to see some sort of reply or acknowledgment. This is especially important when responding to negative reviews.
10. Create an experience
Experiential or engagement marketing focuses on creating fun, unique and memorable real-life experiences your target audience will want to share. Designed to build a lasting and emotional connection, experiential marketing goes well beyond promoting a destination, product or service. Themed events build on a unique aspect of a destination A showcase of local artists, interactive tours and storytelling, and culinary tours and cooking classes are all examples of experiential marketing.
11. Collaborate with an influencer
Partnering with an influencer who shares your brand’s values and focuses on topics that align with your tourism business is a powerful way to build awareness and gain traction with potential customers. That’s because their followers trust them and are inclined to act on their reviews, recommendations and opinions. Authenticity is key.
12. Embrace emerging technologies
Augmented reality and virtual reality in marketing are changing how people interact with brands. In the tourism space, they can help create unique, bespoke experiences designed to impress and engage. Artificial intelligence provides new insights to better understand and target audiences, analyze user interactions and adapt campaigns in real-time. It can also enhance customer service through the use of chatbots that are always available to answer user questions. The tourism industry is fast changing and highly competitive. Implementing a comprehensive marketing strategy will help ensure you’re always up to date on the best ways to engage potential customers and ready to gain a competitive advantage.
