COMPLETE GUIDE TO TRAVEL AGENCY DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN

Overview

Managing a travel business is definitely not a matter of a joke. Well, you see,  the highly competitive travel industry is also minimized to some extent.

Even a travel agency with a lot of experience can fail with bad luck and poor management.

The Covid-19 pandemic has influenced almost every sector including the travel industry. It has given a new life to domestic tourism, where travelers are getting a chance to explore their hometowns.

Moreover, in the early stage of 2020, 90 % of the global population in countries were living with corona virus-related travel restrictions. So as a travel agent, you have to take the advantage of online advertising in order to cope up with the present situation.

Even International tourism is trying to renew the loss it has faced in recent years. Sooner or later, they will be back in the race. Till then you need to show some effort in embarking on offering domestic tour packages and improve your business.

There are ample technologies and social distancing practices inspiring travel aspirants to avail tour operators online which for them is more comfortable.

So, implement a travel agency marketing agency through various online channels like search engines, social media, and take the benefit out of it.

The article below gives a detailed outline of formulating smart and ethical travel agency branding to increase the online visibility of your domestic travel agency. This blog can be kept as a reference and create digital marketing strategies for your domestic travel agency.

Why Should Travel Agencies Focus on Domestic Travel?

You see, the present situation is like, almost all industries have faced a predictable decline in revenue, sales, and overall growth. The reason is of course due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Out of them, the industry that has experienced a massive fall is global travel and tourism agencies. By implementing new norms like quarantine practices, border restrictions, and social distancing have become a nightmare for travel industries.

  • As per the recent statistical report from United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), it is clear about the decline of international tourism to 98% coz of the lockdown impositions in May 2020 as compared to 2019.
  • When it comes to International tourist arrivals in the same year and check out the revenue, it has faced almost a loss of US$ 935 billion in export revenues. It is more than 10 times compared to the loss in 2009, due to the impact of the global economic crisis.
  • Countries like Asia and the Pacific faced about 82% of the decline in tourism arrivals in January-October 2020. The Middle East showed a 73% decrease.
  • Africa recorded a 69% drop within the period of ten months. Both Europe and America saw the decline of International arrivals by 68%.
  • As you can see the decrease in international tourism in 2020. From this, it can be estimated a loss equivalent to 1 billion arrivals and US$ 1.1 trillion in international tourism receipts.
  • This dive in the international tourism industry can be estimated as an economic loss of over US$ 2 trillion in global GDP.

Travel restrictions have become a part of domestic travel and international tourism. It breathed a new life in regions like Russia, China, Russia, and many other regions.

Most of the panel experts from UNWTO expect a recovery in the international tourism sector, most probably by the third quarter of 2021. Not only this, the demand for the speedy renewal of Domestic tourism exceeds international travel sectors.

UNWTO conducted a global survey with its tourism experts panel relating the impact of COVID-19 on tourism and the expected time of recovery. And the recent survey of  Asia and the Pacific shows the most positive regions regarding the contribution of domestic tourism in case of fast recovery.

Few Reasons Why Travelers Love Domestic Tourism

Now, when you know that the COVID-19 pandemic is the key reason for domestic tourism to grow.

Here are a few more reasons why travelers opt for domestic tours.

  • Normally the domestic trips are  within a pocket-friendly budget
  • As locations are quite familiar, so it becomes very easy for a perfect  itinerary plan
  • Amazing way to explore and know more about your own home country, heritage, language, and many more.
  • It leads in the contribution to the country’s GDP & local economy
  • No limitation regarding the luggage
  • Documents like visas, passports are not required.

How does Digital Marketing help to Gain Domestic Travel Clients?

If you really want to reach travelers who are interested in domestic tourism? Then, all you need is the implementation of digital marketing.

Powerful digital marketing strategies and plannings like search engine optimization, OTAs, aggregators, and mobile apps have replaced the traditional style of marketing travel agency marketing.

Moreover, tourists nowadays have practiced paper-free travel for check-ins & check-outs at the airport, booking flights, and other such related services.

Some points to justify the above statement:

  • More than 70 % of people, especially adults prefer to book their travel online
  • Online travel bookings are completed crossing worth business of millions every year.
  • As per the current situation, it can be predicted that online hotel bookings will be increased by 2023
  • Online travel bookings are expected to hike up to 10 times more than it is today.
  • Online marketing strategies in sectors like aviation, travel, and tourism will be more than 300 billion dollars in value between 2016 and 2024

Here, we would like to walk through digital marketing techniques to create your own identity for your domestic tour company.

How To Advertise for Your Travel Agency:

1. Local SEO

The very first thing that travelers do is search. Local SEO is the best way to optimize your domestic travel agency website and acquire nearby bookings from the search results. Search engines such as Bing, Google usually understand the intention of users and deliver the relevant results as per their requirements.

Search engines then concentrate on the quality after knowing the intentions of the users. Search engines are totally against spamming SEO practices and pull down these sites in the search results.

It is quite impossible in retaining the same position on SERP in the ever-changing world of local SEO. A small error in the SEO practice can ruin your website traffic, rankings and affect your brand name.

We are here to guide you through some SEO guidelines and mistakes to be avoided.

Lists of common SEO  mistakes to be avoided:

  • Ignoring the importance of using long-term keywords
  • Not concentrating on optimizing  the meta tags, headings, and title
  • Not optimizing the mobile page and voice search
  • Failure in running regular website audits
  • Creating links that are irrelevant and of  poor quality
  • Less focussing on bounce rate
  • Creating average content just for algorithm purpose
  • Ignoring the list of Google My Business
  • Lacking in the field of SEO trends
  • Less focus on page load time

Now, you may be clear that, by practicing a healthy SEO in hand, you are ready to win many travel leads.

2. Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing has completely transformed the traditional tourism industry into a digital one. Social media platforms have influenced travelers globally.  

  • Near about 90 % of internet users are now using social media platforms while traveling
  • Most people opt for  social media regarding travel inspiration and ideas
  • The photos shared on social media while traveling helps the users while traveling
  • The hashtags searched for travel sectors are increasing day-by-day
  • Nearly half of the Facebook users get inspired by their friend’s traveling related photos

Below listed are Digital Marketing Strategies that will help you to establish a strong connection with the audience.

  • Maintain an impressive business account to attract your audience that is different from your private account.
  • Get in touch with social media influencers
  • Attract more audience by utilizing key demographics
  • Drive more viewers by posting  images and videos regarding your tour
  • Regularly monitoring your online performance

3. PPC ads

PPC ads are something that you need to invest in in order to deliver profitable outcomes to your online travel agency. It mainly works as per the user’s query and is finally displayed on the platforms you prefer.

Let’s say, for example, a user searches for the black color bag in Google and leaves the page without purchasing. Now, ads related to bags would be displayed on various social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and others.

STEPS TO DESIGN APPEALING PPC ADS?

  • Detailed information about everything must be informed to the tourists as per their need and desire.
  • Convince tourists to plan for their dream trip.
  • Reminding tourists to be in touch with the previously visited touring spots.

Never mind if you are new to the travel industry or have already established your roots in this sector, the attractive ads that you publish will definitely help you make a mark in the online tourism space.

4. Metasearch Engines & OTAs

Metasearch engines such as Tripadvisor, Trivago, and many more have developed a standard in the marketing medium.

This in result has supported many travel agencies to maximize their digital presence and stay competitive.

Let’s check out the benefits you get from metasearch engine marketing
  • It helps you to update dynamic pricing budgets on a daily or weekly basis related to travel booking.
  • You get amazing feedbacks, reviews from travelers about the travel agency.
  • Responding quickly to any kind of negative comments given by travelers.

Having a strong presence on metasearch engines can make your travel website acquiring maximum travel bookings from millions of travel aspirants. This will make your website gain a unique identity in the travel industry.

5. Online Travel Agencies, OTAs

Online travel agencies, in short, known as OTAs are a powerhouse in providing a powerful and smooth travel planning experience.

The OTA giants have always caught the attention of a huge set of domestic travelers.

40% of the travel market belongs to online travel agencies, and it is expected to grow eventually.

Overall, all these travel online marketing strategies are useful in making your website grow and succeed in beating your competitors.

BENEFITS OF OTAs IN DOMESTIC TRAVEL ADVERTISING
  • High online visibility of your website becomes easier and it results in gaining maximum travelers.
  • You can expand your services to other groups of travelers.
  • You can easily access reviews related to our services and users can check the prices in one place.
  • These OTAs issue a dedicated support team and excellent services

If you like to learn more about our digital marketing campaigns and know about the future related to the domestic travel industry then click on our website. – in order to get appropriate answers for all their queries.

6. Email Marketing

Nowadays, industries such as real estate, e-commerce, NPO, education, etc are taking the advantage of email marketing to showcase their expertise and engage travelers.

Maybe email marketing is one of the oldest selling channels but still works. The main objective of email marketing is not only to attract but to retain existing travelers and increase customer’s interest.

Gathering email accounts.

Collecting user emails is the first step to be followed. The simplest and best way to approach this is by allowing travelers to sign up for additional services such as informative newsletters, offers, and price drop alerts.

Choose the correct mailing tool.

Perfect mailing agent offers customized segmentation and emailing automation like price expectations, airport departures, etc. It can even allow for analyzing user behavior, such as the number of clicks, or even bounce rate.

You can make use of mailing Tools like active campaign and Mailchimp.

Track behavior and create customized offers.

Regular monitoring behavior to collect the information regarding travel products and price range travelers usually react to. This helps you to pick the right customers.

Through effective email marketing, you can retain your regular customers.

It is the easiest travel agency marketing strategy for travel brands to track the performance and get in touch with the customers directly.

STEPS TO GENERATE EMAIL MARKETING FOR YOUR DOMESTIC TRAVEL WEBSITE

  • Customize email marketing promotions as per the traveler’s interests and according to the traveler’s interests and past experiences.
  • Grab more attention from users by posting informative and attractive videos in emails. As half of the travelers love to watch videos while searching for a destination.

How to use social networks to promote your travel agency?

Include events and offers:

Social media is a perfect way to let people know about your agency’s activities and events, like attending a tourism fair or an info strip. This way your company will be able to get the required attention from travelers globally. 

You can even promote your services and offers, depending on the type like early booking, promotions for holidays, and lots more.

Encourage clients for online reviews:

You can approach your clients for some reviews, on your Facebook page and post a photo on Instagram by tagging your agency account after they have completed their trip.

This enables good PR for your business, bringing you to the attention of new customers.

Arrange contests:

Generate more leads and expand your fan base by organizing various contests. It is an interesting way to drive more customers to your website. You can implement user-generated content through these contests to gain more subscribers and fan community on other social networks.

When it comes to the travel industry, the decision of booking a trip is sometimes triggered by a visual element, that’s the reason, platforms such Youtube, Facebook, and Instagram are the best ways to promote your travel agency services.

Must try the following examples of Strategies:

  • Social networks are the best way to showcase the trending destinations and resorts
  • Post about sales and offers
  • Organize contests for the customers
  •  Share interesting tourism articles or videos

Social media- The best place to share  your team’s experience

Your team with an amazing travel experience can definitely boost the confidence of your potential clients regarding your brand and services.

Not only that, you can easily reach your potential customers with the help of social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.

The more viewers on your social media accounts, the more is the chance you generate more customers.

Organize a Domestic Travel Agency Profile

Now, when you have read this post, you would have gained enough information on how to formulate digital marketing strategies for your domestic travel agency.

But still, if you find it challenging to focus on digital marketing, then we are there to assist you with travel digital marketing experts.

As most digital marketing service providers fail to keep up their promises, so be careful in choosing the right one. Do proper research about their experience, portfolios, and other achievements carefully for a successful partnership.

Tachomind is a leading digital marketing agency offering the best and specialized solutions to travel agencies. Our knowledge in digital marketing strategies and experience with travel clients will help you build up a brand mark in the online space.

Final Words

In short, when it comes to promoting a travel agency, these are the initial techniques that we consider to be essential. You need to offer your services in front of your customers depending on the size of your business.

Follow the above-mentioned tips to reach your target audience. Once you catch them,  try to give them useful travel tips and expertise. Do not confuse them with all sorts of offers and price charts, in order to build trust and generate bookings.

Contact us if you are interested to discuss these schemes and find ways to increase the number of customers and profits of your travel agency.

Login to our website for more useful information related to your digital marketing requirements.

Feel free to contact us at the number below any time. We are happy to work with you!

HOPE THIS HELPS!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Partnership