Significance Of Digital Marketing In Travel Industry
With the rise of digital marketing for travel and tourism and social media influencers, the world is more visible than before. Undoubtedly travelling industry is one of the most growing sectors in the world. Travelers are always looking for inspiration such as next big destination and the latest travelling offers.
It also opens up a massive opportunity for the travelling agency and brands around the world. The competition is increasing, and it is getting hard to be unique from other travel businesses.
Now, this is where plays an essential role in coming up with the digital marketing strategies for travel business. You have to be up-to-date with the latest digital travel trends and online travel industry trends.
Let’s learn all about digital marketing strategy in 2020.
Travel Industry Statistics & Facts:
- 200 new users write a review every minute to TripAdvisor. (Source).
- 95% of travellers in TrustYou survey always read and review before making any travelling booking. (Source).
- Mobile booking in travel increased from 2011 and 2015 by 1700%. (Source).
- Approx. 50% of users always visit TripAdvisor through phone and travel companies regularly eye on the rise in engagement on mobile phones (Source).
- 45% of travellers always book travel activities pre-trip via their mobile devices (TripBarometer, 2015).
- Research shows that 97% of millennials say that they tend to post photos while travelling, especially on Snapchat, WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook. (Source).
- 27% of Twitter users create positive buzz for the brands they mention by sharing good travel experiences (Source).
- 39% of users on Twitter access the platform mid-journey (Source).
Read: Target Audience- Your Simple Guide To Save Marketing Efforts
Let’s see Rohit, a Nomad traveler who love to explore the new places. What he says
Impact Of Covid 19 On Travel And Tourism
COVID-19 pandemic could cost millions of jobs in global tourism industry: UN body
- Let’s accept that social distancing will not go away at least for 1-2 years.
- Entire related travel industry such as Hotels, Airlines, Tour Operators, Restaurants, Travel Agents, Rail networks, Roadways, Auto-rickshaws, Water Transport and other transport sectors will be affected.
- No facility of ground activities is possible during this covid-19 pandemic.
- Luxury travel will play a significant part in the travel industry, individual lives and domestic market. Include digital marketing for travel and tourism if you are thinking to start Luxury travel business.
- As per WTTC (World Travel and Tourism Council), it is estimated that potential 50 million jobs are at risk globally,
- According to World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), International tourism could decline by 60-80 per cent in 2020 on 11th May due to coronavirus crisis. It results in a revenue loss of $910 billion to $1.2 trillion and placing millions of livelihoods at risk.
- Based on earlier crises, leisure travel is likely to recuperate quicker, mainly travel for visiting friends and relatives, than commercial travel.
How Does Digital Marketing Help Travel Industry Grow?
Trends 1: Virtual Tours
When it comes to hotels, people tend to rely more on virtual tours as opposed to photos. One of the reasons, as to why virtual tours have become so popular is because they offer more realistic view of the entire place, route, and property.
Besides, every single nook and corner can also be highlighted with the help of this mechanism. It is a proven fact that the hotels which offer virtual tour of the property to their visitors have 5 to 10 longer time spent by the visitors on the site.
You may include this in your digital marketing for travel and tourism business.
How To Implement Virtual Tour?
- Choose the right equipment & software
- Make the room & camera for the Shot
- Take different test shots
- Now take all photos in image list
- Build your virtual tour
- Share your virtual tour in different portals
- Edit Images for virtual tours
Software You Can Use: Pano2VR, Tourweaver, LiveTour, EYESPY360, 3DVista, Matterport
Trends 2: Personalization
One of the primary aspects of a digital marketing for travel and tourism is to show the right kind of message to the right kind of audience and at the right place. In tourism, especially when it comes to digital travel marketing, personalization is the key to success.
With the help of the most advanced tools and by using the right kind of marketing mechanisms, it has now become much easier to make use of the tons of data available in the travel industry.
As it has now become possible to translate such data to understand the customers and offer them personalized offer. Read digital marketing blogs for more information.
How To implement Personalization?
- Use AI-powered Chatbots and Online Customer Service such as Sam, intelligent travel chatbot!
- Apply Hyper-personalized Retargeting Campaigns. For instance- Cheapoflights.com reduces the fare price and retargets it to the customers who keep revisiting it for a particular time.
- Pinterest is a great part of social media marketing for travel brands across the world and must be included in strategy of digital marketing for travel and tourism.
Use the power of Social Media Marketing. For example: TUI, the world’s largest travel and tourism agency, is also one of the best performing travel agencies on the Facebook network.
Their strategy digital marketing for travel and tourism business include social media management tool to find out where your customers are from.
Trend 3: Instagram Stories
The best way to create a spontaneous content for the tourism sector is stories.
Stories can be used for recording any moment; this is a part of digital marketing for travel and tourism.
For instance, you can make stories with morning breakfast at the hotel restaurant, sunrise, meal preparation, and special moments from certain events and anything which you might think would trigger interest in your followers on Instagram.
Stories are basically suitable for situation “behind the scenes”, Brand use it as FOMO, or Fear Of Missing Out.
How To Implement Stories?
- Create an Instagram story with different places, events, Institution, historical places, things, and many more. It will create emotional and genuine rousing to your followers.
- Make your stories with four essential elements: 1) recognizable characters; 2) feelings (the struggle, the hope); 3) a particular time and place; and 4) details.
- Express your stories that display your integrity in action. People will click on it as they want to get to the story.
- Publish Stories daily.
- Analyze the stories statistics.
Trend 4: Email Marketing Automation
The process of email automation, is a mechanism, which is used to reach out to the right audience, with meaningful and relevant message, and most importantly, at the right time; without having to repeat the same process, over and over again.
This has been an integral part of digital marketing for travel and tourism. It is also useful for travel industry advertising.
When the analytics of a particular website is linked an email marketing platform, it becomes easier to target audiences, based on various parameters, like their preferences, behavior, previous sales experience and others.
It then becomes possible to personalize customer experience and enhance the relevance of the messages. One of the striking features of digital marketing for travel and tourism is the fact that it offers excellent ROI in minimum budget.
How To Implement Email Marketing Automation?
Email marketing automation is one the top method of digital marketing for travel and tourism. You can use below email marketing tools to tracking and monitoring, testing, automation, list building and many more. Below are some of the best email marketing tools-
Trend 5: Dynamic Remarketing
What Google says on dynamic remarketing?
With the help of remarketing, it is possible to show ads to those people who have already used your mobile app, or paid a visit to your website. When it comes to Dynamic remarketing, the concept is a bit more advanced, where helps you see the ads which were shown to the previous visitors on your website. Dynamic remarketing helps to create tailored messages for you audience and helps in building leads, which in turn enhances the volume of sales.
Executing dynamic remarketing is not simple, but once done, ads will later produce themselves and users will be shown exactly what’s pertinent to them. Dynamic remarketing is more complicated but also a very influential practice that brings exceptional results! That is why in 2020 you should try to apply it in your business. It’s a must include online tourism marketing method.
How To Implement Dynamic Remarketing?
To implement the right way, you can visit this guide.
Google’s Suggestion On Travelling Customer Booking Journey
Usually, travel is not something which is done on impulse. There are people, who do travel on a moment’s decision; however, they are exceptions.
As a matter of fact, making travel plans can be a prolonged process, which involves some degree of research, making reservations, booking hotels, comparing price and so on. The process of digital marketing for travel and tourism can help the customers in this regard
Google has broken down the travel customer journey into 4 stages which can help in digital marketing solutions for travel. You can include these stages in your online marketing strategy. They are as follows:
- Dreaming: This is the initial phase, where travelers haven’t yet decided where to go, neither they are sure about their travelling plans.
- Planning: In this phase, travelers have decided on their destination; however, they are flexible on their travel dates, hotel bookings and other aspects.
- Booking: In this phase, travelers have confirmed their travelling dates, flight timings and other details. It is time for them to make the reservations.
- Experiencing: In this stage, travelers are already on your trip and sharing their experience, using the online platforms.
When it comes to digital marketing for travel and tourism, it is very important for you to make sure that your potential customers are targeted on every single stage. Help them with all the possible details and information, which would help them to take a quick and prompt decision. This is one the important digital marketing tactics.
Airbnb has done excellent strategies for digital marketing in travel industry by offering resources that feeds into their product naturally. They have collaborated with the local hosts and have come up with Airbnb Guidebooks, which contains insider knowledge on all the major destinations.
How To Market Travel Agency Business Online (Lead Gen)
You might be wondering “how to market a travel agency or any travelling business”. Let me show you the best lead generation strategy in digital marketing for travel and tourism.
- Classified Ads
- Content marketing
- Youtube Video Marketing
- Niche Branding
- Referral Program
- Leads Program
- Word of Mouth Marketing
- Attractive Website
- Chatbots
- Build your Community
- SEO
- Live stream of new destinations
- Paid Ads
- Social Media
- Quora
- Regular Press Release
Read: 8 Effective Techniques To Generate Leads Through Digital Marketing
Conclusion
We are positive that together we can overcome this current situation and recover slowly but confidently. Digital marketing strategies for the travel industry are so successful in the travel and tourism industry is because they systematically check how individuals interact with nearby environments while travelling.
These understandings aid them to identify current customer needs and give travellers the necessary drive to create the “wow” effect with minimal effort and safeguard repeat business.
Get in touch with ensett.com, Tourism marketers who is experienced in travel industry marketing and come up with an effective digital marketing strategy for the travel industry. We offer a proven digital marketing solution for travel industry. We have an in-house team of SEO, social media marketing, website development, content writing & marketing, voice search optimization, immersive videos and many more.
Bonus Tip: