Marketing is the joint term given to marketing strategies that are used within the travel and tourism industry. It includes the marketing strategies used by all industries involved in tourism, like hotels and resorts, the restaurant industry, the airline industry, and travel agents. The main aim of tourism marketing is to promote the business, create brand awareness, distinguish themselves from their competition, and attract customers. With the proliferation of the internet, many contemporary tourism marketing techniques use online advertisements and social media platforms to gain and retain customers.
The effect of the pandemic on tourism marketing
The coronavirus pandemic was a great blow to the tourism industry, with all travel coming to a standstill due to lockdowns and restrictions. Consumer values and consumer demands have changed drastically post-pandemic. This makes it crucial for the people involved in the travel industry to understand the new trend and devise new strategies accordingly to better engage the customers.
Travel marketing trends for 2022
After a long pandemic-induced lockdown, the travel industry is attempting to make a long-awaited comeback in 2022. This means you need to brush up on the latest marketing trends to attract new customers and boost your profits.
Let your customers experience a VR tour
Everybody is busy in this fast-paced world, making it extremely difficult to find time for some well-deserved time off. People have always been skeptical about traveling, more so in these post-pandemic times. They are also prone to last-minute cancellations. In such cases, a VR tour can be advantageous. It will make your customers happy and can also serve as a good advertisement for your resort, hotel, or tourist attraction. Panorama and 360-degree videos are popular tools that can be used to give a real-life experience to the viewers.
Social media advertisements
Social media is a driving force for market success. Social media websites like Facebook and Instagram can be used as a platform to promote your travel business by giving unique and attractive ads. Motivate the customers to travel by offering them the experience of a lifetime.
Blogging
Blogs are one of the oldest marketing tools in any industry, and they are relevant even today. Blogs can be used to attract customers by giving them relevant information like testimonials of precious travelers along with your brand image. This will create a positive boost for your brand and help you gain more customers.
Review Marketing
Online reviews play a big role in deciding the future of your business since a lot of prospective customers rely on online reviews to make their choice. Review marketing is like a tight rope walk since you need to strike a balance between positive and negative reviews to have a credible look. Not having any negative reviews can be detrimental since they will look fabricated. But also make sure that your positive reviews outweigh your negative ones.
Remarketing
This strategy is used when a potential customer loses interest halfway through booking an experience. In most cases, this happens when the customer is doubtful about some of your products or has not found what they were looking for. In such instances, you can use remarketing to nudge customers back to your site by strategically placing ads that promote your brand when they are looking for products similar to yours.
Influencer marketing
Influencers on social media platforms like YouTube and Instagram have a large fan following. The audience trusts them and will most likely go for a brand endorsed by the influencers. So, collaborating with an influencer and adding photos and videos detailing their travel experiences can help you gain a lot of new prospective customers.
Newsletters and email marketing
You can constantly stay in touch with your customers through newsletters and emails. Inform them about new offers and discounts, travel trends, details about your company, and much more through them. Through these emails, you can also discover their preferences and give them unique solutions.
Customer service
Seamless and swift customer service is crucial to the success of any brand. Be swift in answering the queries and solving the issues of the customers. This will build trust in your brand, and you will gain several loyal customers. AI chatbots can be used to provide answers to frequently asked questions. This will reduce the wait time experienced by many customers.
Use SEO tools
Optimize your website using SEO tools so that potential clients find your website before your competitors. This will make a good first impression on the customers.
The emerging travel marketing trends offer a myriad of opportunities for travel businesses to promote their brands. With proper utilization, they can be used to gain customers and generate considerable amounts of profits.
Tracy is the Design Manager here at Redwood Creative. She’s been designing amazing graphics and web layouts for large and small businesses for upwards of 7 years.
