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Nine essential digital marketing trends for tourism /

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 entrepreneurs

Technology trends in digital marketing for tourism and Tourism Tribe’s essential nine tips for
getting on that digital surfboard and riding today’s technology wave

Last updated on December 13, 2019

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Posted on 17th April 2019

Whilst there is very little in life that is guaranteed for tourism business entrepreneurs, one thing that
is certain is that technology is going to continue to develop at an increasing rate and will continue to
change our world and how we operate our businesses.

Whilst computing capacity continues to increase, more and more data is available to businesses and
consumers are adopting new technology at a faster rate, creating endless opportunities for tourism
businesses. When digital marketing opportunities are applied properly to suit the business, the
bene ts can be signi cant and underpin growth and sustainability strategies to ensure the business
and destination can survive and thrive through the next wave of marketplace change.

There has never been a more exciting time for entrepreneurial tourism businesses as they have so
many opportunities to improve their customer’s experience and having a commitment to constantly
improve customer experience is a hallmark of being an entrepreneur.

Following are Tourism Tribe’s essential nine tips for getting on that digital surfboard and riding
today’s technology wave.

1. Create – and market – experiences

People are valuing experiences more highly than material things and especially when it comes to
travel.  Millennials have led this trend and the latest research into the seniors market also shows
how over 55’s are putting dollars on the table to have immersive holiday experiences.

People are seeking holidays that create meaningful interactions with people and cultures, new
learnings, happiness, ful lment and lasting memories. And social media is exposing those holiday
experiences in action, through images and video, with travellers sharing experiences and telling their
story about your region and your business.

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Evolving search engine algorithms empower consumers to search holiday options based on special

interests, experiences they are seeking or travel party requirements, so you need to tell your story.
Don’t just say what you o er – tell your audience the why, what, who and how – the
history, the behind the scenes, the unique experiences of your region, the culture, the fauna, the
ora, the food.

Travel and storytelling go hand in glove making travel the perfect industry for storytelling –

and videos, podcasts, blog posts, images and social media are available to all business as perfect
tools to tell their unique story.

2. Personalise your content and marketing

The internet has changed the way consumers expect to be treated. They have become accustomed
to being treated as individuals as search and social media algorithms have evolved to present
individualised search results and news feeds. To operate in a relevant way in the current
marketplace we need to shift our mindset to a one-to-one relationship online, especially when it/
comes to interacting as a business on social media. We should not treat social media as a platform
tosell to customers, but see Facebook and Instagram each as a platform to connect and engage
with one person, our ideal guest, on their terms, o ering them content that interests them.

You need to gear your marketing strategy to market to an individual – your ideal guest “persona” –
not to a group of customers. You might have several guest personas depending on your business.
Learn as much as you can about each one to make them “real” and every piece of content you create
and share on social media or through a blog post needs to be tailored speci cally to a persona.

Always create content that connects with your ideal guest, inspires them and is useful to them. You
can learn about your ideal guests through their content and social media, through your online
analytics, as well as talking to them of course!

3. Make guest content a part of your marketing plan

Guest content trumps business content in today’s marketing environment with more than two-thirds
of your marketing being done by your guests and user-generated content (UGC) is one of the most
compelling trends in marketing and is key in order for brands to convey authenticity. Guest content
is authentic with real people sharing their experiences and this includes guest reviews, social media
content and in uencer blogs and social content.

Approximately 90 per cent of people trust peer content over what you say about your business and
one in four people ignore online adverts so we are seeing rapid growth in UGC.

TripAdvisor is the largest travel website in the world and its new personalised user interface allows
users to post images and create their own ‘trips’. This new functionality is going to generate an
enormous amount of UGC and be very in uential on travellers.

To align your marketing strategy with this signi cant market trend, you must blend your own,
quality, branded content with guest content for the best e ect and identify ways to encourage more
guest reviews, social media content and understand how to work with in uencers.

You can learn more about how to integrate guest content into your strategy from Tourism Tribe’s
immersion training on guest content.

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 

4. Video is a must-have in your content strategy

The amount of video online is growing at an exponential rate and video content is ideal for
storytelling as it so engaging and aids information retention.  We are being encouraged by the
primary social platforms to create and post original video content and Social video generates on
average 12 times more shares than text and images combined.

Video must be part of your marketing strategy today, both professional video on your website
and branded YouTube channel, and also quality, amateur (authentic) video for social media.

Facebook (FB) and Instagram are taking on YouTube for market share! Businesses have more than

just FB and Instagram pre-recorded video to work with, there’s also FB Live and Instagram Live,
FB Premiere and IGTV, a standalone video application owned by Instagram, allowing users to upload
videos up to 10 minutes in length (basic accounts). Instagram Stories are also a form of video and
they are engaging and entertaining. Access the Instagram Stories tutorial here and the Instagram
Stories training webinar here.
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To utilise the power of

video for storytelling and creating an emotional connection with ideal guests, but remember to use
your unique selling proposition and content themes to guide topics and stay on brand.

5. Podcasting for tourism and cultural storytelling

Podcasting has become the fastest-growing, on-demand audio medium with 3.5 million Australian
listeners aged 16 to 64.

From interviews with interesting characters to fascinating “tours” of historic landmarks, the power of
the human voice is attracting people to tune in creating a massive opportunity for storytelling for
tourism businesses and destinations.

Think about what stories you could tell via podcasts that are going to engage and educate your
target audience.

You could collaborate with other tourism operators in your region to create podcasts about your
area. Consider trend 1 – experiences – take listeners on a journey of all the di erent experiences in
your region (one experience per podcast). Create a series of podcasts!

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 

6. Online advertising should be part of your marketing strategy

Due to competition online from other businesses and destinations and advancements in search and
social media algorithms we are seeing an increasing number of tourism businesses investing in
search engine marketing (Google Ads) as well as Facebook and Instagram advertising, because they
believe they need to pay for eyeballs. This is a good strategy providing you have the right strategy
behind the investment.

In most cases the advertising objective is to drive tra c to your website to capture direct business.
To optimise this opportunity there is much you need to have in place before doing paid advertising,
including a quality online presence and high levels of satisfaction by your ideal guests and
customers when they visit your website. You also need to be clear about your objectives for
advertising, have Google Analytics capabilities in your business and have tracking and ecommerce
set up on Google Analytics so you can measure your return on investment. Also landing pages on
your website from the advertising need to be optimised, because if you can achieve getting the user
to visit your website you need to have the right content and functionality in front of them to increase
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the chances of them doing what you what them to eg purchase your package or sign up for your

specials emails.

Given the evolution of social media algorithms making it more di cult to reach your ideal audience,
social media advertising is also a viable strategy. However, it is vitally important that you get your
organic social media foundations to a quality standard rst.

7. Turn on Facebook messages – your customers want you to!

Facebook’s messaging or ‘online chat’ function is a useful and simple tool to set up and is a golden
opportunity for your business.

There is a massive trend towards people preferring online chat to phoning, with more than 1bn
Facebook messages a month from consumers to businesses; and 53 per cent of people say they are
more likely to shop with a business they can contact via a chat app.

Make sure you have Messaging turned on for your Facebook Page. You can also create popular
questions to prompt engagement.

You can also add the Facebook messaging widget to your website quickly and easily and set it up to
encourage engagement. Simply go to Messaging Platform in your Settings on your Facebook page to
copy the widget code and add it to your website.

Online chat, like you’ll see on the Tourism Tribe website, is a useful tool for understanding your
customers’ questions and needs and best of all, when you make a chat app available you are
connecting with your ideal guests on their terms.

8. Get on board the VR juggernaut

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This is not the future, it’s now and the price is coming down, making extended reality media much
 a ordable than it was as an emerging technology. There are two main forms of extended
more
reality media – augmented reality and virtual reality – and both are tools to create experiences in the
digital space.

AR (augmented reality) requires a screen to view and the screen becomes your world – so your
“world” gets an overlay of information that is triggered by what you are looking at. It often is
deployed as an app on your phone, making it widely accessible. AR is ideal for helping visitors gain
deeper insight into a destination through self-guided touring and whilst exploring an area as they
can interact with content overlayed on what they are looking at through their phone’s camera,
providing them with historical information, audio, discount coupons etc…the options are endless.

In VR (virtual reality), you need equipment that covers your eyes and projects a new world creating a
highly personalised experience where your senses and emotions are stimulated. There are many
case studies now of the impact of VR on people to engage and convert them to purchase holiday
experiences and the information retention that comes from VR is high. The opportunities for travel
agent training and way- nding are plentiful. Check out more info here with Digital Frontier.

9. Measure your return on investment in marketing

There is so much freely available data available to businesses today to assist them to evaluate their
return on investment and to support their decision making. Whilst big data is increasingly being
used for evidence-based decision making and targeted marketing, there is no excuse for all
businesses, big and small, not to measure and analyse their business performance.

With growing investment and time being spent on digital marketing in tourism businesses we are
observing more operators wanting to gain the skills to be able to determine the value of marketing
to their business, so they know what return they are getting on their money and time, what’s
working and what’s not and to make decisions on that basis.

Google Analytics and your sales data are free and valuable sources of data that you can report on
and analyse, so you need to learn the capabilities of Google Analytics, set up e-commerce and
tracking and measure website visitor movements and conversion.

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 

In conclusion…
If you’re serious about growing your tourism business and collaborating to make your destination’s
tourism economy stronger and more sustainable, then you need to be addressing each of these
opportunities. Your marketing strategy must recognise constantly changing travel and technology
trends and your marketing plan will rely on quality content that is relevant to your ideal guest
personas.

Connecting with your customers on a personalised level using technology and content that is right
for them is fundamental to your success in marketing and being able to measure your online
business and marketing to inform your marketing activity plan is essential.

Look for opportunities to collaborate on content like podcasting and extended reality apps and what
experiences or itineraries could you create in partnership with other tourism businesses? The most
entrepreneurial destinations are collaborative and have a nimble strategy that is constantly seeking
to improve customer experience.

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If you would like to know more about any of these trends and tactics contact the team on

help@tourismtribe.com or check out Tourism Tribe’s training calendar as many of these topics have
been covered by previous online training sessions or will be coming up soon.

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