There is no doubt that 2018 is going to be a year in which the tourism sector will continue to be treated with great affection . And both professionals and travelers expect a lot from it! Travel intentions are not only increasing among the different markets, but new forms of travel and, consequently, new tourists are continually appearing.
Tourism marketing was born out of the need to promote a product that, before the 1960s, did not exist. Until the tourist boom of that decade, people traveled only out of necessity, so the concept of ‘tourism’ changed its meaning completely from that moment on.
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We can affirm that we are currently facing another boom where traveling for pleasure is the order of the day and is among the consumption priorities of many users. Even business travel has become a mix of work and leisure travel (what we know as “business travel”). bleisure travel).
2018 is going to be a year where creativity and detailed audience segmentation will take you a long way. In short, you have endless possibilities to stand out. And how will we achieve 12 months of success? With all the tools offered by tourism marketing, now modernized and changing day by day.
De-seasonalization. A 2018 of mid-seasons.
The concept of low season will no longer have the meaning with which we have known it until now. Increasingly, efforts are being made to deseasonalize the various destinations. More and more hotels are extending their seasons or even not closing their doors.
Spain is one of the countries that this 2018 will notice more this deseasonalization. According to PWC Spain, the Spanishhotel sector expects to exceed overnight stays this low season compared to 2017, when 78.71 million overnight stays were already recorded.
Travelers are demanding to be able to visit destinations that, in high season, are sometimes impossible due to high occupancy or because prices are not affordable for everyone.
Destination marketing. Promote your city to promote your hotel.
Destination marketing, far from being the same as tourism marketing, is about promoting a city or country as a tourist destination. Although it is true that some travelers repeat destinations year after year (and even hotel and room), the reality is that, especially among millennial travelers, the trend to visit new destinations and live new experiences has grown. So, now the competition is endless.
That is why it is important for hoteliers to work not only on promoting their products or services, but also the destination in which they are located. In this sense, we can speak of Inbound Marketing as the strategy to attract, capture the attention and convert Internet travelers. What audiences are likely to be attracted to your destination? What information will you look for on the web to find out about your city? What activities will interest you? Offer this content through your website.
Although in the past the task of promoting the destination was basically a job for public entities, with the birth of the Internet and online content, anyone can (and should) promote a city and offer information of interest. Position yourself in this type of searches and become a reference hotel for future visitors to your city.
Segment to sell unique experiences
The age, gender and nationality of your target audience will become less and less important. Don’t get us wrong, because it’s true that these are the first characteristics that we had in mind until now to segment the different audiences we wanted to attract to our business (young couple, family with teenage children, retired couple…). But the traveler is already beyond these obvious and easily collected characteristics.
In addition to this information, we must know the traveler’s concerns, to the point of being able to guess his travel intentions, his illusions and even predict what will be his next step in the process of the traveler’s journey.
Tourism marketing as we know it today can collect this type of information and, consequently, will allow us to carry out detailed segmentations so that we can target each traveler as if he or she were our only customer. How? Through powerful hotel CRM software and conversion-focused content strategies.
Personalization of our communications is no longer an option, but a necessity. Users who provide us with their contact information with which we can work on a marketing strategy.
lead nurturing
expect a lot from us. Among the multitude of e-mails and offers that Internet users receive daily, ours must stand out.
How will we achieve this? Offering such a personalized offer that our public sees that it is designed by and for them.
Growth Hacking will take importance in tourism marketing in 2018.
Although in other countries Growth Hacking has already been talked about for some years, in Spain it has started to gain importance in the last months of 2017 and it will be this year 2018 when it will be positioned as an essential digital marketing trend.
What is Growth Hacking? This concept pursues the objective of quickly and measurably increasing the number of leads that enter a company with a minimum investment. For example, we would talk about those natural conversions through our website: newsletter registrations, ebook downloads worked in an Inbound Marketing strategy or even direct online sales from our booking engine.
Are you ready for tourism marketing in 2018?
