Experiences refined for people
Did you know a heavy reliance on Online Travel Agency (OTA) bookings such as Booking.com or Expedia can significantly limit your access to crucial marketing data? If the thought of being over-reliant on OTAs concerns you, you’re not alone.
The quest to attract travelers directly to your brand’s digital doorstep is more than a trend – it’s a necessity.
In this comprehensive guide to destination marketing, we cover the challenges and solutions of navigating the OTA-dominated landscape. This guide is packed with insights on how to reclaim control of your customer relationships, enhance direct booking profitability, and leverage your marketing data’s full potential.
Destination marketing is a strategic marketing approach that promotes a specific location, such as a city, region, attraction, or hotel, to entice visitors and online bookings. This specialized form of marketing encompasses creating a compelling image of the destination, highlighting its unique interests, culture, and experiences.
Digital travel marketing leverages online platforms and technologies, such as a dedicated SEO-optimized website, social media, influencer partnerships, and targeted online advertising. Analytics plays a crucial role in understanding audience behavior and refining marketing efforts.
Destination marketing aims to increase awareness, inspire travel decisions, and boost tourism through strategic, creative, and data-driven digital campaigns.
To capture the attention and wallets of the right travelers, it’s imperative that you not only speak their language but also resonate with their unique travel aspirations.
Demographic profiling is your goldmine in destination marketing. Understand who your travelers are, segmenting by age, income, geographic location, and even lifestyle. From there, dive deeper into behavioral insights—what are their buying habits? What inspires them to choose a destination?
Building out an audience persona for your ideal customer is incredibly helpful. This information will help you speak directly to them through your creative and discover where they spend their time online, what they stream, and how they prefer to book their travel.
First-Party data is an invaluable source of information. Analyzing data from your past and current visitors helps reveal patterns and preferences. For example, targeting similar demographics could lead to productive outcomes if you notice a significant number of visitors from a specific state or region. This data is also instrumental in creating accurate lookalike audiences. Leveraging First-Party data allows you to more effectively capture the attention and engagement of travelers most likely to be drawn to your destination.
“Back in 2017, all you needed was one stunning shot and a sentence or two to influence someone’s travel plans through social media. Today, there is so much content that cutting through the noise is more important than ever. Customers are now looking for authentic experiences from real people exploring on the ground – they crave genuine, unfiltered insights into the places they dream of visiting. This shift has led to a rise in storytelling, where travel bloggers and influencers share more in-depth narratives about their experiences. It’s not just about the visuals anymore; it’s about connecting with an audience through personal stories and practical tips that give a true sense of the destination.”
Understanding the customer journey from initial awareness to post-experience advocacy is crucial. Each stage is pivotal in transforming potential visitors into real-world bookings and future loyal advocates for a destination.
In this initial stage, travelers learn about a destination, including its unique regions, hotels, and attractions. It’s about capturing the travelers’ attention and planting the seed of interest.
At this stage, potential visitors delve deeper into what the destination offers. They explore specific aspects, such as the distinctive features of accommodations or the experiences provided by local attractions, shaping their travel desires.
Travelers now compare their options, weighing the benefits and drawbacks of different destinations, hotels, and attractions. This stage involves thoughtful contemplation about what each choice offers regarding value, experience, and suitability.
The critical decision-making point is where interest turns into action. Travelers finalize their choices and make bookings. Ensuring a seamless and straightforward booking process is vital to successful business conversions.
Post-experience, satisfied travelers can become repeat visitors (loyal) and act as advocates, sharing their positive experiences with others and indirectly promoting the destination, hotel, or attraction through word-of-mouth or social media. This stage is essential for building a sustainable visitor base and enhancing brand reputation.
“A core content problem the travel industry faces today is authenticity. Whereas glossy images that painted a picture of perfection once ruled the tourism landscape, the industry has been going through a reckoning. Consumers no longer want that fabricated, sanitized scenery. They want to interact with residents and participate in experiences, events, and activities that are unique to this space and place.
This reckoning offers an incredible opportunity for businesses to impact messaging for their destination. Through quality travel content marketing that includes diverse representation, local storytellers, and an environmental focus, individuals within the travel industry can change the entire landscape.”
Effective destination marketing requires a strategic approach tailored to different customer journey stages across marketing channels. Explore recommended marketing channels for each funnel stage, ensuring a comprehensive and impactful outreach to potential travelers.
At this initial stage, it’s all about capturing the attention of potential visitors and making them aware of your destination. The channels recommended here are geared towards broad reach and generating interest:
During the interest stage, potential visitors delve deeper into the specifics of a destination or location. The channels here focus on providing detailed information and engaging content:
At the consideration stage, travelers compare options. The channels here should provide deeper insights and comparisons to aid in their decision-making:
This critical stage is where interest turns into action—bookings. Channels here should facilitate a smooth booking experience:
After the travel experience, it’s crucial to turn satisfied travelers into repeat visitors and advocates:
Enhancing Destination Marketing with Retargeting Strategies
Retargeting is a crucial tool in destination marketing, serving as a bridge across various customer journey stages. This overview highlights critical retargeting strategies:
Incorporating these strategies can significantly boost the effectiveness of your destination marketing efforts, converting interest into bookings and building lasting customer relationships.
Marketing specific attractions and activities is one of the more long-term tourism funnels. Travelers who are planners will likely do their research in advance and even purchase entrance tickets and passes, including deals across multiple attractions. Others wait until they arrive at their vacation or travel destination to choose activities.
In 2023, travel often begins online, and the hospitality sector—encompassing hotels and accommodations—plays a pivotal role in shaping a traveler’s journey. From the moment a traveler starts planning their trip, the choice of accommodation stands as a critical decision, influencing the trajectory of their entire travel experience. This section explores the nuances of hospitality marketing, underscoring the importance of understanding and adapting to evolving online booking preferences and effective customer engagement strategies in a digitally connected world.
State and regional marketing captures meticulous planners and spur-of-the-moment tourists, engaging potential travelers at the outset of their journey planning. Whether it’s the allure of unfamiliar cities or the charm of scenic regions, the marketing strategies here lay the foundation for travelers’ choices, with preferences often swayed by factors like pricing and the time required for the trip.
Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) play an integral role in shaping the tourism landscape, combining strategic marketing initiatives encompassing regions, attractions, and accommodations. They are responsible for crafting a compelling, cohesive destination image, appealing to a broad spectrum of travelers, from meticulous planners to spontaneous adventurers.
“The rise of data dashboards that grant DMO leaders access to vast amounts of comprehensive data in one place is noteworthy. However, interpreting this information poses a challenge. Anticipating technological strides, especially with AI advancements, suggests a shift towards understanding how all the varying data sets work together.”
Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) like Booking.com and Expedia have become go-to platforms for many travelers, especially those making last-minute plans or seeking budget-friendly options. They offer a convenient one-stop shop for comparing prices and availability, making them popular (41% of travelers prefer an OTA).
There are trade-offs to using OTAs. When customers book through these platforms, businesses lose valuable data and a significant portion of revenue to commission fees. Direct bookings through a company’s website or a dedicated app are more profitable and provide richer customer data. This information is vital for personalized marketing and improving the customer experience.
It’s important to remember that OTAs are often used for research purposes, even by customers who prefer direct bookings. For example, a traveler loyal to a specific airline might use OTA sites to track flight pricing trends before purchasing directly from the airline’s app. Similarly, travelers often browse OTAs to explore accommodation options but ultimately book now with the hotel or use credit card rewards programs for added security and benefits.
While it’s beneficial to maintain a presence on OTAs for visibility and to capture a specific customer segment, businesses should strategically guide customers toward direct booking channels. CTAs on websites and marketing materials should ideally lead to the business’s booking system rather than an OTA. This approach not only increases profitability but also strengthens direct relationships with customers.
Expanding your market reach beyond neighboring states requires a data-driven approach to identify untapped markets. Instead of solely focusing on geographical proximity, dive into visitor data to uncover trends and new potential markets, including international audiences. Critical strategies include leveraging data to understand broader market trends, accommodating various transportation preferences, and customizing international marketing efforts.
Analyze visitor data comprehensively to pinpoint emerging interest from non-adjacent regions or overseas. This insight allows for more targeted marketing, aligning with the interests and preferences of these newfound audiences.
Travelers prefer different transportation modes – road, air, rail, or bus. Understanding these preferences through data can guide partnerships with travel companies, fostering attractive travel packages and improving accessibility to your destination. How tourists and visitors arrive at your location can also help you gather more info. For example, if most visitors check out your museum drive rather than fly, DOOH billboards along the highway will be far more effective than those in the airport.
Consider cultural, linguistic, and travel behavior differences when targeting international markets. Adapt marketing materials to resonate with these audiences and stay informed about visa and travel policies that may affect them.
Our expert strategists analyze your brand, audience, and competition, delivering data-driven recommendations that outperform generic tools.
Gain actionable insights, audience attributes, and sure-to-be-successful strategies.
Accurately measuring the effectiveness of your destination marketing efforts is crucial in understanding the impact of your strategies and making informed decisions for future campaigns. Key performance indicators (KPIs) play a vital role in this evaluation process, providing quantifiable metrics that reflect the success of various marketing initiatives across the customer journey.
Tracking a range of KPIs throughout the marketing funnel is essential to gain a holistic view of your marketing effectiveness.
These include:
Prioritizing direct booking channels in your marketing CTAs is essential. Direct bookings through your website or app increase profitability and provide valuable data for refining your marketing strategies and understanding customer preferences.
Successful destination promotion is as dynamic as the destinations themselves. By embracing innovative strategies, understanding the diverse needs of travelers, and leveraging the power of data-driven insights, you can create compelling, memorable experiences that attract and retain a loyal and enthusiastic visitor base.
About the Author
Erik Stubenvoll is a Managing Director at KORTX with over 20 years of experience. When he is not learning about his client’s goals, he is on the sidelines with his wife at his daughter’s softball and soccer games or on the golf course.
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