When the going gets tough, the tough (should) get marketing We in the tourism industry can sometimes feel life is really hard for us. The pressure can feel unremitting: economic pressure shocks like terrorism (I am writing this a few weeks after the attacks on New Zealand and Sri Lanka). So when I am advising small businesses and destinations, they’ll often say they find it hard to find the time to do marketing. In particular, time to do marketing consistently i.e. the regular posting of videos, newsletters etc., But there is one very good … [Read more...]
7 Key Tourism Marketing Principles to Stick To
Standing on the 'stand on the shoulders of giants'. Over the years, I've been privileged to work with or learn from some of the great minds in tourism marketing. In particular, I've learned a great deal from my former business partner Bronwyn White over the years. She's introduced me to some great gurus including Neil Patel, thus making our business more resilient as I take on this element. Thanks to this I read this fabulous piece where he outlines his 34 principles of marketing. If you've read my blog on strategy earlier, you'll know I'm … [Read more...]
The Evolution of Tourism Marketing: Artificial Intelligence in Tourism
The term ‘Artificial Intelligence’ is as amazing and technologically advanced as it sounds. We have been hearing it for years in movies and documentaries, but now artificial intelligence is present in the real world and is affecting our everyday lives and the evolution of tourism marketing. This extends through to tourism marketing and the travel and tourism industry in general. I tackled this topic recently at our successful Tourism Marketing Convention, together with my co-director Carolyn Childs and our clients. We discussed the development … [Read more...]
How tourism businesses can profit in our ‘post truth’ world
In 2016, a new word entered the English language: post-truth. In fact, it was Oxford Dictionaries’ word of the year. It reflected the idea ‘objective’ facts no longer matter as much as what we believe is true based on what ‘ought’ to be true. Actually, this is the culmination of many years of psychological research in which we understood that consumers fit things into a narrative they already have. One common cognitive bias is what’s called confirmation bias: that we are more likely to believe things that confirm what we already thought than … [Read more...]
Connect With The Right Content At The Right Time.
As a tour operator, hotel, or destination, there are many ways to connect to your customers on their path to purchase. Nearly all leisure travel begins with an online search. Consequently, online content is more effective than traditional marketing such as brochures and advertising. At each step of the path to purchase the best way to connect with your customer is therefore through inspiring and engaging content – a combination of images, words, stories, and video. Remember this, a traveller needs to minimise the risk associated with the … [Read more...]
How to Engage with Booming Tech-Savvy Indian Travellers
One of the great side benefits of participating in Australia Business Week in India earlier this month was the chance for some ‘ethnographic’ observations of this exciting source market. One of the most noticeable observations we have made has been around the Indian travellers market’s tech-savviness. A jointly-published report from the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB (Indian Market Research Bureau) International stated that India was expected to surpass the US as the second-largest internet user base globally, behind … [Read more...]
The Travel Path To Purchase – Dreaming
Parks Canada has just announced that it will be putting Wifi into Canada’s National Parks. This has provoked a flurry of debate. Surely the point of a National Park is to enjoy wilderness and undisturbed by emails or the need to connect? After all, we now recognise Nature-Deficit Disorder as a condition and JWT identifies Mindful Living as a key trend. SHARING SPURS DREAMING But I’m going to disagree - this is a fantastic initiative. Sharing has a strong role in driving conversion across the Path to Purchase. Over the years I’ve worked … [Read more...]
Semantic Search For The Tourism Industry – Part 2
Welcome to Part 2 of Google semantic search for the travel and tourism industry. This could be a vital part of your content marketing in the travel industry strategy and we will go through some of the practicalities of implementing a strategy to make the most of semantic search and the knowledge graph as introduced in Part 1 . By doing all or at least some of these things, you will be well on your way to being connected to your potential customers when they are searching the web. The series of articles have been set into 3 parts. … [Read more...]