5 Tips to Help You Build a Successful Travel & Tourism Campaign

Despite concerns about inflation, weather, and unruly passengers, U.S. consumers remain optimistic about travel and tourism. It is no surprise that domestic travel ranks the highest on the travel plan, but international plans don’t seem to be slowing!

Learn how to maximize your travel and tourism campaign performance by exploring key trends, understanding the current market, and, most importantly, who your customer is and how to reach them along their journey with these five tips:

1. Timing is everything. Segment your ideal consumer and when they are most likely to make their purchase. Could this be 6, 12, or 24 months out? It’s crucial to understand the unique customer journey and the impact on consumer behavior and their purchasing decisions.

2. Don’t underestimate the value of a holistic media strategy. From targeting to activations, every aspect is important to ensure maximum performance and outcomes. This includes understanding the key performance indicators specific to your brand or client and their campaign. By leveraging a full-funnel approach, you can work from awareness to consideration, then to intent, purchase, foot traffic, and finally, loyalty.

3. Leverage low-funnel attribution insights to make strategic, real-time optimizations against your specific KPIs based on conversion data. By utilizing this valuable data, you can pinpoint where to retarget audiences to re-engage them through video and display formats, delivering brand messaging in the right place, at the right time, and in the right mindset.

4. Creative matters! Cut through the noise and leverage high-engagement creatives to be seen by the right audience at the right time.

5. A performance-driven and connected approach is key. Marry strategy and activation, creative solutions to measurement, and derive insights to put the best foot forward for your brand or clients’ goals.

The State of the Travel Industry (Source)

• Despite increasing costs, 64% of global travelers prioritize leisure travel and reduce other personal spending categories to save for travel experiences.
• Consumers are prioritizing experiences over material possessions, leading to a 7.1% year-over-year increase in travel costs but little change in demand due to this trend.
• Business travel has been slower to recover, but it still accounts for 25% of all U.S. travel. Also, with the rise of flexible work-from-home policies, remote workers have created a new opportunity for “workcations,” which combine vacation and remote work. Twenty percent of Americans plan to take a workcation in 2024.

Travel Marketing Key Trends

1. Sustainability – We are seeing growth in ethical trips, supporting local businesses, and eco-friendly accommodations.

2. Authentic Experiences – Travelers are distancing themselves from mainstream tourism, instead opting for unique, once-in-a-lifetime experiences. (Source)

3. “Workations” are now a thing – Remote workers are now blending business and leisure travel with destinations catering to their needs.

4. Solo traveling is on the rise – Statistics show a significant increase in the number of people traveling solo versus pre-pandemic.

Travel & Tourism Marketing Strategy FAQs

How Does Digital Marketing Technology Help a Travel and Tourism Agency?

Digital marketing technology, like Digital Remedy’s digital media solutions, can simplify your workflow by centralizing every aspect of your travel marketing campaign.

Our omnichannel platform allows you to run high-performing campaigns specifically optimized for your audience. This gives you the flexibility to reach a college student making spring break plans with customized OTT advertising campaigns or honeymooners searching for the best European getaways on mobile.

With 24/7 campaign monitoring, you can pivot when your campaign isn’t yielding your desired results.

Why Is OTT/CTV Advertising Essential for My Travel Marketing Strategy?

Simply put, connected TV is where consumers live.

From binge-watching the latest Hulu special to tuning into Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime, the people you want to reach with your tourism advertising campaign are using connected TV.

In fact, 80% of consumers planning a trip abroad or domestically within the next year watch ad-supported OTT, according to MRI-Simmons’ November 2022 Cord Evolution study.

Digital Remedy’s performance CTV platform allows you to target, buy, optimize, and measure your travel OTT campaigns with precision, all on one simple-to-use dashboard. Our state-of-the-art solutions can inform exactly what creative and which publishers are driving performance for your travel marketing campaign.

What Are the 7Ps of Tourism Marketing?

When creating your travel and tourism advertising strategy, you’ll want to start by understanding the basic components of tourism marketing, which helps you craft an informed campaign. Developed by professors at Comilla University and Stamford University Bangladesh, the 7Ps of tourism marketing are:

• Product
• Promotion
• Price
• Place
• People
• Process
• Physical evidence

Elevate Your Travel & Tourism Advertising Campaign With Digital Remedy

With Travel through Digital Remedy, our point-to-point travel solutions drive sales, monitor variants in foot traffic patterns, and identify audience trends that best impact geo-centric sales results.

Our team of experts understands the market, having launched 100+ successful campaigns across 80 travel and tourism advertisers. We recognize that each type of advertiser is unique but can propel our experience in this category with (but not limited to):

• Hotels/Rentals/Airlines
• Regional Hospitality
• Tourism

We also have extensive experience with the customer journey and its impact on consumer behavior and purchasing decisions.

We apply a full-funnel approach to our strategies, including key outcomes such as:

• Showing how to drive brand awareness
• Providing information on what your destination has to offer
• Showcasing the experience that awaits
• Driving travelers to destinations
• Helping to increase hotel bookings and cruise stays
• Driving last-minute ticket sales and establishing brand loyalty

Our Performance-Driven Approach

• Omnichannel activation: Connect media channels and data. Digital Remedy provides access to leading travel and hospitality-focused sites. Tap into our comprehensive list of targeting, inventory, and measurement data partners.
• Creative and branding solutions: Capitalize on high-engagement creatives to be seen where it matters most.
• Measurement and insights to drive optimization: This helps us gain insights into what methodologies and targeting strategies are driving your performance and provide that data to you. Decode the consumer mindset to engage in-market consumers with messaging that will resonate. Harness market research, data science, and machine learning to tease correlations with the highest impact. Discover brand-relevant behaviors, track searches and engagements, and apply limitless look-alike segmentation to boost ROAS.

Our dedicated team tailors strategies depending on your goals:

• Upper funnel – Driving brand awareness, providing information on what your destination has to offer, and showcasing the experience that awaits. Leverage contextual targeting to connect with potential customers as they consume related articles, delivering brand messaging alongside relevant content.
• Lower funnel – Driving travelers to destinations, booking hotel and cruise stays, garnering last-minute ticket sales, and establishing brand loyalty. Digital Remedy directly connects ad impressions to foot traffic, allowing advertisers to understand the complete traveler journey.

Contact a member of our team to learn more about how our digital marketing platforms can take your travel and tourism campaign to the next level.