The best way to sell travel is to tell stories about the experience. Whether it is skinny dipping in the crystal-blue oceans of the Bahamas or bungee jumping from the Macau tower in China, you want your audience to feel the excitement as if they were there themselves.
However, the credibility of your story is best augmented by first-hand experiencers. So, as a travel agency, if you want to sell any experience, the surest way to do so is let original travelers tell their story. Give them a free rein- a platform on your site- to share the joy and excitement they felt on their journey. This user generated content (UGC) will go a long way to boost the number of inquiries about your service.
What is User Generated Content?
In online marketing, content is everything. In addition...
In tourism, we have the luxury of selling “fun.” Total piece of cake, right? No need for super detailed marketing, because who in the world doesn’t like fun?!
While it seems simple in theory, tour and hospitality marketing takes a great deal of planning and strategy. There’s a lot of competition, a ton of noise in targeted publications, and countless visitor profile types to keep track of.
So where does one start?
Begin with Data
To break through and create an action (i.e. sales), you’ll need to set goals for messaging. The types of goals depend largely on what you already have going for your brand…. But more importantly, where you can improve.
Ask yourself, what is your biggest traveler market segment? Where do they come from? Do they book on mobile or desktop? How...
Last week, Google reached out to website owners through Google Search Console informing them that from October 2017, Chrome will mark HTTP pages that collect data through forms as ‘not secure’. Below is an example of the message sent by Google.
The most common examples of collecting data through forms include:
• when somebody tries signing up to your email newsletter
• when somebody is making an inquiry on your website.
Starting from version 62 of Chrome, Google will start flagging sites as “not secure” when entering data on a page – e.g. inquiry forms, etc. We’re currently at version 60.
62 will be released in October.
Here’s how it will look…
Why act now?
Migrating your website to HTTPS is quickly becoming a necessity.
• HTTPS is regarded as a...
If you're an in-house tourism marketer, you're probably a very busy bee. Whether you're managing the spill over into sales or helping with booking redemption logistics, your work is never quite finished.
While it may be easy to get sidetracked in the many arms of a tourism or hospitality company, using automation tools and strategizing ways to keep focus will help you work efficiently and achieve results much sooner.
Here's a few of our favorite tips:
1) Listen to your market.
Base new endeavors on statistics and trends. Think
While direct bookings are the #1 objective for accommodations businesses, utilizing the exposure and reach of an OTA is a great way to add sales.
On July 11th, 2017, we had the opportunity to partner with the LTPA in providing a workshop on OTA marketing. The turn out was super and we could not have had a better crowd.
If you missed the presentation, have no fear! Just check out the link below to view the full PowerPoint:
When it comes to online sales, TripAdvisor may be tourism’s answer to Amazon. By highlighting social proof, offering booking immediacy through 3rd parties, and utilizing various tactics for user engagement, the website has become a high ranking, widely used portal for people across the globe to plan holidays.
Conversion rates sit at about 6%, so by very simple calculations, that comes out to 23.4 million people making an action on the site monthly!
Clearly, collaborating with TripAdvisor can be a lucrative venture for tour and travel based businesses. TA makes this pretty easy, with a management...
