After two years of pandemic-related impact and now an economic downturn, it certainly hasn’t been easy for tour and attraction operators within the travel industry.
The industry has changed. It’s more competitive than ever before, and operators that continue to adapt and evolve their travel digital marketing strategy will stand out above their competitors.
That’s why, in this blog, we take a look at the hottest travel marketing trends that can help to generate new bookings for your business over the coming year.
1. The use of photos to enhance travel marketing strategies
The Hilton 2023 Trends Report has revealed that nearly half of travelers will be looking for “immersive and authentic” cultural experiences in 2023. That’s why tour and activity operators that are able to show real customers having fantastic experiences with their brand will be in a great position to generate new bookings.
The most effective way to do this? Through the implementation of a photo marketing strategy.
By providing photo memories to your customers for free on a custom-branded web page, you can build brand advocates that help you generate referral bookings, enhance the customer experience and increase repeat bookings through email remarketing.
2. Personalization is critical
Today’s customers expect a personalized experience, whether it be your guides addressing guests by their names or sending photo memories to your customers. Likewise, your prospects also want to know that they are investing into an experience that will be personal for them.
That’s why building a travel and tourism marketing program that focuses on showing the right message to the right people at the right time is critical. When building marketing campaigns or targeted adverts, make sure it’s targeted to the specific customer you are looking to land with the aim of displaying a message that directly appeals to what they want from an experience.
3. TikTok is now a mainstream marketing platform
With more than 2 billion downloads and over 1 billion monthly active users, activity and tour operators have a unique opportunity to make themselves stand out with interesting and compelling travel-related videos on the social media platform TikTok.
With TikTok, anyone has the potential to go viral with well thought out videos. By creating enticing videos of your tour or attraction and posting them to TikTok, tourism businesses are able to reach an entirely new audience of potential customers and enhance their travel digital marketing program.
4. Virtual tours of your attraction or activity
Virtual tours won’t work for all tour and activity operators, but for some it’s a valuable way to give potential customers a glimpse of what to expect before they make a booking.
The ability to provide potential customers with a realistic virtual tour of what they can expect from your business can result in benefits such as:
- Standing out over your competitors with a better representation of what customers can expect from your brand.
- Increasing trust with potential customers.
- Giving guests the opportunity to imagine their experience with your brand, increasing the likelihood that a booking will be made.
5. Website SEO is more important than ever
Organic SEO is how your business improves website rankings on search engines like Google, reaching new prospects and generating more bookings for your tour or activity. This has never been more important, particularly when it comes to local SEO, which focuses on presenting your website to people in your geographic area.
According to Google, “near me” mobile searches that contain a variant of “can I buy” or “to buy” have grown over 500 percent over the last two years. These include things like “where can I buy stamps near me,” “places to buy scrubs near me,” or “where to buy vinyl records near me.”
Using specific local and geographic search terms as part of your SEO strategy can help you to build content that reaches both potential new customers in your area, as well as tourists who are in the area and looking for an experience they can remember.
Interested in learning more about how you can enhance your travel digital marketing strategy in 2023, particularly through a photo marketing platform that makes sharing customer memories easy? Book a demo with Fotaflo today.
