Why travel & tourism content marketing? Efficient and effective if target-oriented

Travel & tour­ism con­tent mar­ket­ing may be an under­val­ued and poorly used ele­ment in the stra­tegic mar­ket­ing mix; par­tic­u­larly among des­tin­a­tions that want to increase the ‘qual­ity’ and ‘yield’ of their vis­it­ors, and private-sec­tor stake­hold­ers who claim they don’t have the time or resources for it.

In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, Zohreh Khos­ravi and Dav­id Gill­banks scratch the sur­face of what’s pos­sible with tar­get-ori­ented travel & tour­ism con­tent marketing.

[You too can write a “GT” Insight.]

One of the least expens­ive and most effect­ive meth­ods for pro­mot­ing travel & tour­ism des­tin­a­tions, attrac­tions, and ser­vices is con­tent marketing. 

Why do we call it one of the least expens­ive methods?

We don’t intend to imply that con­tent mar­ket­ing is free of charge. Of course not; it’s how we (espe­cially Zohreh) make our liv­ing, after all.

What we mean is that you must com­pare total cost against poten­tial returns, and against oth­er forms of mar­ket­ing and promotion.

For example, com­pare the cost of the basics of con­tent marketing …

• Start­ing accounts on (often free) social media (such as Facebook);
• Launch­ing a blog on an open source CMS (such as Word­Press) or self-pub­lish­ing plat­form (Substack or similar);
• Cre­at­ing con­tent spe­cific­ally for the tar­get mar­ket you want for your des­tin­a­tion or travel ser­vices; and
• Enga­ging a full- or part-time con­tent mar­ket­ing expert, SEO expert, social media expert, and advert­ising expert (or one per­son who can do it all) to man­age it.

… against, say, rent­ing one of those mag­ni­fi­cent bill­boards in Tehran’s high street. 

Paper cata­logues are anoth­er form of con­tent mar­ket­ing, as are infomer­cials on TV and advertori­als in print pub­lic­a­tions. How­ever, not only do these tra­di­tion­al media con­tin­ue to suf­fer from an inab­il­ity to be prop­erly tracked and ana­lysed, they are also very much in decline in the face of digit­al and online media. 

That’s why our focus on ‘travel & tour­ism con­tent mar­ket­ing’ in this “GT” Insight is in the con­text of the digit­al and online space. (In any case, we are in an age in which we can and should stop using paper for any­thing that we don’t need it for.) 

Here are two scen­ari­os in which travel & tour­ism con­tent mar­ket­ing should prove to be very valu­able: Tour­ism des­tin­a­tions seek­ing high-yield­ing vis­it­ors and private-sec­tor ser­vice pro­viders who claim to have little time or too few resources.

Travel & tourism content marketing for destinations seeking ‘yield’

Des­tin­a­tions with lim­ited budgets and/or a healthy respect for where their budgets ori­gin­ate (tax­pay­ers, industry stake­hold­ers, or oth­er­wise), should make the com­par­is­on between the total cost of con­tent mar­ket­ing and oth­er forms of marketing. 

They will likely con­clude that con­tent mar­ket­ing is one of the least expens­ive and most cost-effect­ive ways that a tour­ism des­tin­a­tion can achieve its objectives … 

Espe­cially if those object­ives include attract­ing tour­ists with spe­cif­ic interests and needs that the des­tin­a­tion can cater to and satisfy. 

At a time when many des­tin­a­tions say they want to focus on ‘yield’ and ‘qual­ity’, con­tent mar­ket­ing is an ideal means of attract­ing interest from exactly the ‘right’ type of trav­el­ler who will per­haps stay longer and/or spend more. 

How?

Let’s say your des­tin­a­tion offers won­der­ful walks and hikes and has both the car­ry­ing capa­city and oper­a­tion­al capa­city to serve addi­tion­al vis­it­ors. You know that walk­ers and hikers stay longer because their interests align with your offer­ings. And per­haps you’ve determ­ined that this vis­it­or seg­ment spends more per day in your des­tin­a­tion, on aver­age, than many others.

• Your new blog about the walks and hikes in your des­tin­a­tion can con­cen­trate on cre­at­ing con­tent based on quer­ies and needs of avid walk­ers and hikers around the world (or in the spe­cif­ic source mar­kets you are inter­ested in);
• Your social media accounts can join and con­nect with groups and pages ded­ic­ated to walk­ing and hik­ing, as well as indi­vidu­als who are inter­ested in those activ­it­ies, includ­ing social influ­en­cers and opin­ion leaders;
• If you have a budget for social media and/or search engine mar­ket­ing, you can lever­age the micro-tar­get­ing cap­ab­il­it­ies of those plat­forms con­fid­ent that your blog and social media con­tent will be highly rel­ev­ant to walk­ers and hikers.
• The costs asso­ci­ated with cre­at­ing and mar­ket­ing your con­tent might be off­set through the con­tri­bu­tions and spon­sor­ship of travel & tour­ism ser­vice pro­viders who are inter­ested in cater­ing to vis­it­ing walk­ers and hikers. 

Indeed, on that last point, des­tin­a­tion stake­hold­ers may likely be much more open to con­trib­ut­ing to tar­geted mar­ket­ing activ­it­ies that can gen­er­ate busi­ness for them dir­ectly, than in sup­port­ing your destination’s van­ity ‘brand’ campaign.

Fur­ther­more, your des­tin­a­tion’s sub-regions and stake­hold­er groups may have mul­tiple tar­get mar­kets based on dif­fer­ent interests and/or source mar­kets. Appro­pri­ately-focussed travel & tour­ism con­tent mar­ket­ing can apply to all of them.

Travel & tourism content marketing for the private sector: You have the time!

For private-sec­tor travel organ­isa­tions, the same prin­ciples apply. 

Per­haps their only con­cern will be time.

You have the time!

Hav­ing a Word­Press (or sim­il­ar) blog site, or main­tain­ing a Substack (or sim­il­ar), is sim­pler than you might ima­gine. And man­aging its social media pres­ence is merely an exten­sion of your own.

Today, access­ing the Inter­net is not that dif­fi­cult no mat­ter where you are on this blue plan­et, so there are no real excuses for not updat­ing your web­site and social media. 

Indeed it’s almost as easy for you to do as it is for your pro­spect­ive cus­tom­ers to do their travel research on their smart­phones; and then choos­ing a des­tin­a­tion, pur­chas­ing tick­ets, book­ing the appro­pri­ate lodging, tours, and activities … 

Don’t miss oth­er “GT” con­tent tagged with
“Travel & tour­ism and des­tin­a­tion marketing”

… all based on their interests.

If their interests align with yours, and with the products you offer, wouldn’t you want them to find out about you dur­ing their research? Would­n’t you like to help them along in their travel plan­ning? Wouldn’t you at least want to be considered?

If you don’t have the time nor the inclin­a­tion to do it all your­self — why would you? — then it may be worth enga­ging a travel & tour­ism con­tent mar­ket­ing professional.

If the strategy is right, and your costs are man­aged — it can cost far less than what you could pay for advert­ising on tele­vi­sion or bill­boards — you’ll make more money with con­tent mar­ket­ing than you might anticipate.

Travel & tour­ism con­tent mar­ket­ing is a large top­ic to explore, but we will con­clude with a few tips and some notes about search engine optim­isa­tion (SEO).

A few tips for travel & tourism content marketing

The primary tip is to hire a travel & tour­ism con­tent mar­ket­ing pro­fes­sion­al (full- or part-time, cas­u­al, or as an advisor) to help you through the setup pro­cess and ongo­ing man­age­ment. If that’s not an option, then:

• Select the platform(s) on which to pub­lish con­tent about your des­tin­a­tion or brand and to dis­sem­in­ate that con­tent. (Which plat­forms do your tar­get com­munity use the most?)
• Decide on the tone of your brand; form­al or informal?
• Learn to write clearly, con­cisely, and simply (or employ professionals).
• Don’t go over­board or exag­ger­ate when describ­ing your des­tin­a­tion / products;
• Don’t over­pro­cess pho­tos and videos to make your des­tin­a­tion / products look more idyll­ic than they are;
• Give as much pre­cise fac­tu­al inform­a­tion as you can to aid travel plan­ning and increase levels of trust with your tar­get audi­ence, such as: 
  • ways to travel there, prices, and what they can expect;
  • the loc­al cul­ture and what it expects from visitors;
  • the lodgings available;
  • the cuisines and eat­er­ies in the area; and
  • a list or sum­mary of oth­er activ­it­ies available.
• Post reviews from real customers.
• Take note of user feed­back and con­sider it carefully.

This is merely the begin­ning of the work, which is why it may make sense to engage a travel & tour­ism con­tent mar­ket­ing pro­fes­sion­al in at least an advis­ory capacity. 

Through exper­i­ence you will gradu­ally learn the meth­ods and tools of con­tent ana­lys­is, as well as your tar­get mar­ket’s needs and pref­er­ences. Once you have a clear­er under­stand­ing of your audi­ence, you can cre­ate bet­ter con­tent for them.

Notes on search engine optimisation (SEO)

Good writ­ing (and oth­er con­tent) will always be val­ued by those who come across it and find it rel­ev­ant to their lives, regard­less of search engine algorithms. Great writ­ing (and oth­er con­tent) will be shared.

So while search engine optim­isa­tion (SEO) is import­ant in travel & tour­ism con­tent mar­ket­ing, do not let it dis­tract you from your primary object­ive which is to deliv­er rel­ev­ant and inspir­ing con­tent to your pro­spect­ive guests. 

Not everything should be reduced to SEO. Write for your pro­spect­ive pas­sen­gers, vis­it­ors, or guests. After all, you have dir­ect means of reach­ing your tar­get audi­ences, includ­ing interest-ori­ented social media groups and third-party web­sites, as well as email or chat group lists that you can grow over time.

Remem­ber, travel & tour­ism con­tent mar­ket­ing is mar­ket­ing, so: 

• Find out what your tar­get mar­ket wants and deliv­er it. 
• Dis­cov­er their desires and ful­fil them. 
• Under­stand their prob­lems and solve them.

Don’t cre­ate con­tent en masse for a cyn­ic­al scat­ter­shot SEO cam­paign. Instead:

• Do keyword research related to your des­tin­a­tion and/or the interests of those you wish to attract, and then cre­ate con­tent that helps answer the ques­tions that under­lie those search quer­ies; and
• Read oth­er people’s con­tent and pay close atten­tion to user com­ments and their ques­tions, then write con­tent that answers the most fre­quently asked ques­tions.

We hope you find this “GT” Insight a use­ful start­ing point for think­ing about travel & tour­ism con­tent marketing.

Fea­tured image (top of post): Travel & tour­ism con­tent mar­ket­ing hit or miss? Image by 15299 (CC0) via Pixabay.

About the authors

Zohreh Khos­ravi is a travel & tour­ism con­tent mar­ket­ing strategist with more than 10 years of exper­i­ence in vari­ous seg­ments of the tour­ism industry. Her favour­ite fields include sus­tain­able tour­ism, respons­ible travel, and her­it­age interpretation.

Dav­id Gill­banks is the pub­lish­er of this website.