Travel Marketing Strategies

Doug Downs (00:04):

In Oxford, England, where Louis Carroll wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the local tourism boards and businesses every year hold Alice's Day celebrations. The events involve theatrical performances, storytelling sessions, workshops, and guided tours that trace the footsteps of Carroll around the city. They turn Oxford into a living storybook, offering visitors the chance to experience the magic of the story in its original setting. Travel agencies market this event by highlighting the unique blend of literary history and culture and enticing tourists with the promise of stepping into a real life wonderland. Drawing tourists through famous literary works is just one strategy in tourism marketing, really, people are looking for experiences for emotional connections when they travel, as well as perceptions of value. In these days, our perceptions of value are changing. We expect to do a little work when we travel, or maybe we expect to do a little travel as we work today on stories and strategies, exploring the changes to modern tourism marketing through the looking Glass. My name is Doug Gals. My guests this week are Danny Hanna and Allegra Diversion. Allegra, you are joining from Pacific City, Oregon Place. I would love to see a picture, a land of never ending trees. Is that about right?

Dani Hannah (01:47):

That about describes it. Doug, it's great to be here and yes, beautiful cloudy spring weather here on the Oregon coast.

Doug Downs (01:54):

Perfect. And Danny, you're in Fresno where I bet it's warmer than spring. In fact, maybe getting downright hot these days. It

Dani Hannah (02:01):

Sure is. We're already prepping for eighties, I think next week. I've already had my AC checked out. We are rocking and rolling.

Doug Downs (02:11):

You get those forest fires, do you get the fires coming down with the Santa Ana winds and all that?

Dani Hannah (02:16):

It really depends because we're in the valley. It all kind of traps down here anyways, so hopefully we won't have it. Too bad.

Doug Downs (02:24):

Awesome. Allegra, you're the client success director for integrated marketing initiatives at the Abbey Agency. You have a BA from the University of Nevada, and you have 11 years experience managing external communications as a marketing director. Danny, you are a senior public relations account manager at the Abbey Agency. You bring eight years experience across different roles in public relations and marketing. And just a bit about the Abbey Agency. You are a full service agency working with world-class travel destinations, national health initiatives, and Fortune 500 heavyweights. Okay. Let's first talk through some travel industry trends 2024. I've read your ebook, which was awesome by the way, navigating the Traveler's mindset 2024. First step in marketing is to understand the customer and some of the trends are, for example, fall is becoming a more popular time to travel as opposed, as opposed to summer, I guess. Yeah. Why is

Dani Hannah (03:26):

That? I think lesser crowds avoid the heat, less populated, easier to get

Doug Downs (03:32):

To, doesn't cost as much. People are not planning ahead quite as much as they used to.

Allegra Demerjian (03:39):

Yep. We've seen that booking window shrink from about 9.8 weeks down to six, so people are taking a lot more last minute trips here.

Doug Downs (03:49):

Awesome. Business and leisure, we're transitioning from bleisure, which I take to mean we're traveling on business, but we're going to fit in some time to more lessness, meaning we're traveling for leisure, but I'm going to bring my laptop, which I confess that is me.

Dani Hannah (04:07):

Oh, I think it's a little bit of all of us. I think that we all have that habit to check our emails every once in a while

Doug Downs (04:14):

And maybe even approve some documents and stuff like that. Oh yeah, Traveler's perceptions of value since the pandemic are lower, so we're going on trips, we're paying a certain whatever that amount is, and we're going, I don't know if I really got what I expected there.

Allegra Demerjian (04:32):

They're looking for more than they ever have in the past. That is for sure.

Doug Downs (04:37):

And why is that? Is it because we're just naturally more entitled these days, or is it what's going on?

Allegra Demerjian (04:43):

To some degree, I think we really saw out of the pandemic people wanting to take those big bucket list trips and just having a little bit more, I guess for lack of better word, entitlement around travel. And so I think that's carrying through in that value factor too.

Doug Downs (05:00):

That makes sense. It's like a Disney line. I've waited for two and a half hours that ride. Yeah, I got it. And TikTok travel podcasts and live events are becoming dynamic marketing forces in the industry, right?

Dani Hannah (05:15):

Oh yeah. I think that TikTok has changed everything across the board, the way people are searching, the way people are digesting content, and I think that translates over to those different mediums like podcasts as well.

Doug Downs (05:27):

So let's take all those trends and some of the others I haven't mentioned. What are the trends that stand out to you before we get into the others?

Allegra Demerjian (05:35):

I'll jump in. Yeah, so I'll talk a little bit about TikTok. I think as Danny just said, it has really transformed the space, but one of the things that I think brands are a little bit behind on and we're trying to encourage our clients to catch up on is TikTok and other social platforms as a search engine, audiences aren't going as much to Google and saying, what do I do when I visit Las Vegas, Nevada? They're going to TikTok. That's interesting. Yeah. I'm looking to see what a person who's like them did when they visited a place. So

Doug Downs (06:11):

Oh, key phrase there. Someone just like me. That's what we're looking for. So are we using chat GPT at all for that? Or is because not everybody has G PT for? Is that not quite the trend? It's TikTok.

Allegra Demerjian (06:23):

Yeah, I definitely think that the technical savvy travelers might be using chat GPT and playing with some of those tools, but just your everyday run of the mill consumer is really out there, just like you said, Doug, looking for people who are like them to give them recommendations.

Doug Downs (06:43):

So how is it different marketing travel destinations to boomers as opposed to Xers like me or millennials or Gen Z or what the alphas are starting to get older too, so how is it different amongst those generations?

Dani Hannah (06:57):

Yeah, I think it really depends on each destination and really who they're identifying as their target audience. I think that each platform really tailors to that different audience. So for example, if you're really looking for that boomer, you should probably shift over to Facebook and take a look at those demographics versus if you're wanting to do more millennial generated content or Gen Z targeted stuff, head over to TikTok. But I think that there's also a big misconception that newer platforms like TikTok are only for Gen Zers in 2020. We saw a huge jump to go to millennials as well. So I think that really taking a step back, thinking about who you want to target and really taking the time to research where those people are, that's going to get your message to the right people at the right time.

Doug Downs (07:47):

I have to admit, as an Xer, I actually love TikTok. I don't know all the idiosyncrasies to it. I don't know how to harness it fully. I readily admit that, but I love just mindlessly scrolling through and getting ideas and you're seeing more and more. You mentioned millennials, but Xers are starting to do that as well, I'm sure.

Dani Hannah (08:08):

Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, especially with moms, right? I think that the family trip planners, they're looking on TikTok, YouTube shorts, what have you. It all kind of blends together, but I think for specific messages you really want to hone in on that platform and that audience.

Allegra Demerjian (08:26):

I'll add onto that, I think it's more challenging than ever now for brands because everyone is number one, digesting so much different types of content, and that consumer journey is so fragmented. So if I am looking to go on a trip to Mexico, say I might start with an ad and that ad inspired me, but then I'm going to go searching for all sorts of different information. I'm going to search about what parts of the country I want to visit and what are the benefits, and I want to look at other people's personal experiences in different parts of the region. So all to say the consumer today is taking in hundreds of different touch points as they are considering where to travel. And so it's really challenging for brands, number one, to meet them in the right moment with the right message based on where they're at in that travel planning process.

(09:25):

But number two, it's even harder I think, at this moment for brands to grapple with the fact that generations are consuming and interacting with different mediums so differently and at a much more accelerated pace now than we've seen in the past. So it is hard. It's hard to identify where do I need to be and what type of effort do I need to put into each channel? So that is why in our ebook we included a big section, a whole guide on what are these generational differences. So as a brand, as a destination, you can start to think about what does my strategy look like underneath that crazy complicated umbrella.

Doug Downs (10:02):

That is so interesting. So does that change the marketing funnel? I mean, we go back and forth between the points. We don't just go from awareness to interest to desire and blah, blah, blah. We go back and forth, but is that changing the shape of the funnel? Are people bouncing all over the place within that?

Allegra Demerjian (10:20):

Absolutely. Yeah. The availability of information and the way over the last decade that people have gotten information, how that's transformed. We've really kind of blown up the concept of a marketing funnel at the Abbey Agency. We talk in terms of the micro moments lifecycle. So we know that a traveler hits a number of different milestones. You can call them as they go through their booking process, but it's not as linear as it used to be. So it used to be we go from awareness to engagement to conversion. Now, like you just said, they might bounce around. I might be looking at hotels and then pull back up and think about a whole different destination, putting me back up at that inspiration level. So it's very, very complicated. Our team works really hard, and I think a lot of effective teams out there to look at all of the data of behavioral data, demographic data, search data, all of these different pieces to try and figure out where is that traveler right now? Are they dreaming? Are they planning, are they booking or are they actually in market experiencing? Because at each of those stages, you have to be serving up different messages and engaging them in different ways.

Doug Downs (11:37):

Tell me a bit about narrative storytelling and rich content. You're trying to bring destinations to life so I can experience a little bit, not just get teased, but feel a value even from that short experience show and tell or mostly show. What's your perspective?

Dani Hannah (11:56):

I think it's a little bit of both, to be honest. I mean, I think that as marketers we're so used to just showing, showing and in reality, consumers are looking for people to tell them. And that first person experience from someone who lives in the community that they're thinking about going to visit is so much more powerful than seeing just a blanket statement. I think that really putting content out there that's very descriptive, very narrative focused, really visual is going to be way more impactful for that audience because you're not just saying, Hey, look at my destination. You're saying, Hey, look at what makes my destination so special, and here are the people that you can come across and meet. I think that that's also really important as travelers are looking for that value aspect that we talked about earlier. How are they going to make the most value? What kind of memories are they going to walk away with? One of the destinations that we work with, we just implemented an ambassador program that feeds all service lines. So pr, social, creative, media buys, everybody kind of fed in. We met with local community stakeholders and these iconic personalities of the destination, and we're flushing out a full ambassadorship program that includes itinerary social media posts, interview esque video content that people can consume prior to their trip, really making the traveler excited to go not only to the place but to meet the people.

Doug Downs (13:28):

So I got to ask about virtual reality then, because it's not even new technology, it's becoming newly more adopted technology. How does VR and I guess SEO and even generative AI fit in with the new technologies?

Allegra Demerjian (13:45):

Yeah, I can jump in. I'll start with vr virtual reality. Again, it sounds really complicated, but I do at this point in 2024, think that most people have interacted with VR at some point. So what VR is is essentially bringing someone from that in-person experience to a digital one. So if you see a QR code, you've scanned it, and then you are experiencing an enhanced digital experience on your phone of the world around you, that is a VR experience. There's also ways to serve up and show your destination to someone who is not in the destination with vr. So I know Danny and our PR team has worked specifically with media to create VR experiences and then bring media headsets so they can actually, without stepping into the destination or leaving their office, experience it for themselves. So there's a lot of really unique and interesting ways.

(14:48):

One way that I just experienced virtual reality as a visitor myself, I was visiting Portland a couple hours away a few weekends ago, and all over the city, they've recently installed these sidewalk clings that say, Hey, you're standing right here. Find out about what's around you. And if you scan that cling, it brings you to a virtual experience that's integrated with the Travel Portland website and tells you, Hey, not only is this big attraction here, but here's all these little businesses you might not have known about. So really powerful ways to bridge that technology and in-person experience of your destination.

Dani Hannah (15:26):

I think it also is a really supportive tool for that show and tell piece. So you can show them all of these things through vr, and then you can also inform, like Allegra mentioned in that Portland experience, that's a way that people are then broadening their trips, broadening what they're doing, where they're spending their traveler money, where they're dining, what they're walking away with from the ad experience. So I think that can be a really powerful tool.

Doug Downs (15:51):

How about SEO and generative ai?

Allegra Demerjian (15:54):

Yeah. SEO is such a big question, a big piece that's constantly evolving. We could spend hours just discussing what SEO has done this year so far, but we did talk to our SEO experts. So a few things that we would recommend if you're a travel brand, thinking about how can I hone my strategy this year? First we would say get more in depth with how you're rolling out your keyword strategy. So not just saying things to do in Carmel, California or events in Carmel, but find out what is the name of that actual event that people are searching for and create content on your website to own those actual events and capture that traffic. And then I think the other biggest thing with SEO is just the social media and SEO integration. There's really two sides of it. First is that people are searching more through TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, even rather than going to Google.

(16:54):

83% of shoppers last year reported that they use social media for researching products, which is a huge increase from what we've seen in recent years. And that's across generations. And of course we're seeing this with younger consumers even more. But what you need to keep in mind as a brand is how are people finding me on these social platforms as people are looking for these things to do in my city and my destination? How are they stumbling across me as a brand? And because of this, the flip side is now that Google is starting to integrate social media within search results, so if I search things to do in Murrieta, California, I'm going to see TikTok and Instagram and some other of that content embedded there. So it really, the big SEO takeaway right now is that social media is more important to SEO than it ever has been before.

Doug Downs (17:45):

Interesting. And then Gen ai, you tend to think chat GBT, but that's one tool within Gen ai. But the ability for generative AI to create more imagery, more videos, more interactive experiences, quite frankly. How is it changing already and how do you see it in the next five years impacting tourism marketing?

Dani Hannah (18:09):

I think that off the jump, if you think that you haven't already used ai, you definitely have. It's definitely involved in so much of what we do now that we don't even notice it. And I think as marketers, it can be a really impactful tool for us to get our message across and making sure that we are feeding AI the proper information, the proper brand message that we want communicated, and teaching it how to communicate authentically as authentically as it can with the information that we provide it with

Allegra Demerjian (18:44):

AI in the travel industry, just like all other industries, we're definitely seeing that stage being set for transformation. There are so many plugins and different generative AI tools that are coming out, and I wouldn't say at this moment there's really an industry leader that has taken the rise. There's still just so many different trial softwares that we're looking at, but if you're looking as a brand to uplevel your website or give your travelers more of that interactive experience and generate an itinerary right on your website, there are tools out there now where you can start test running some of that, and it's worth it because if you're not offering it and integrating it through your website, visitors will start to look for it elsewhere.

Doug Downs (19:33):

Yep. Okay. Last question, million dollar question. How do you measure campaign success? Is it just CTRs, click-through rates, so many channels, so many different perspectives and emotional points of beginning for potential customers as you've described. How do you produce analytics for the success of your campaign?

Allegra Demerjian (19:58):

That is another big question, Doug. Huge, huge. The question I'll just start by saying it's definitely not one size fits all. Every single client that we work with, every single brand out there has nuanced goals, and so I think we work with our clients to understand what are those goals? Are we looking, are you a tiny destination that no one's ever heard of? If that's the case, we need to grow your awareness. We need to be caring about what our reach looks like, what our views and impressions look like. Those would be kind of the goals at that level. If you're gaining foothold and we need to be growing website traffic, it's going to be engagement and clickthrough rates, responses, followers, all of those types of metrics. And then finally the actual booking, that conversion level, there's a lot of different ways to measure that.

(20:53):

Some really cool technology I will speak to that's emerged there, but kind of more of the standard way would be a book now message searching to book a trip. But there are very cool tools out there now where they are able to watch your anonymized location and credit card data from your cell phone and say, okay, we targeted this campaign to you and then within three months you came and visited Carmel. We saw that you physically entered that region and based on your anonymized geofencing. Yep, exactly. Geofencing. And then based on anonymized credit card data, they're able to say, oh, and the visitor split is 50% to hotels and 30% to food. And so all to say the data and the measurement and the proof of conversion for the travel industry is really headed in places that we have never seen before. There is a lot, lot more powerful metrics there than we could have imagined five years ago. I would say.

Doug Downs (21:55):

You know what I love is now that I've done this travel episode with the two of you, how much you want to bet in the next half hour, I start getting travel ads on my social media feeds.

Allegra Demerjian (22:05):

Absolutely.

Doug Downs (22:05):

Bet your coffee.

Allegra Demerjian (22:07):

I'll take that bet.

Doug Downs (22:12):

Thank you so much for the time the two of you have spent. Really appreciate it.

Allegra Demerjian (22:15):

Of course. Thank you, Doug. Thank you so much. Doug.

Doug Downs (22:19):

If you'd like to send a message to my guests, Dani Hanna or Allegra Demerjian, we've got their contact information in the show notes, Stories and Strategies is a co-production of JGR Communications and Stories and Strategies podcasts. Special thanks to Emily Page for helping to put this all together. As always, your time is so valuable. Thank you for spending it here and listening to this episode. If it was time well spent, maybe forward this episode to one friend. Thanks for listening.