11 creative tourism marketing ideas

Updated June 2022 – Since most tour and activity companies are located in vacation destinations, the market can quickly become crowded. It can be challenging for you, as a tour and activity operator, to stand out against the local competition.

In order to get noticed, you need to keep those creative juices flowing. Here are 11 unique tourism marketing ideas that will help you spread brand awareness:

1. Create a tourism marketing strategy for your business

You should never wing it when it comes to marketing your tour and activity company. It’s critical that you create a tourism marketing strategy that establishes the steps that need to be taken in order to effectively promote your products to the most motivated market segments. With an outline available, you will be able to make thoughtful decisions that will yield results. Thinking of expanding your social media presence? Then create a step-by-step guide of the content you are looking to produce and how you will measure success in the context of the platform. Interested in delving into the world of search engine optimization (SEO) by creating online content that boosts your website’s ranking on Google? Consider researching your target audience’s internet usage and create specific content that targets both their needs and your business’s unique selling point.

2. Communicate your company’s value proposition through content marketing

A content marketing strategy for tourism company growth should play a large role in your overall marketing plans. You should work with experienced professionals to create high-quality written content that demonstrates your company’s unique value proposition. Multimedia content such as slideshows and videos can also be utilized in content marketing. They help to attract customers by visually capturing your services and generating greater awareness.

3. Tailor your marketing mix to fit specific traveler niches

Your tourism marketing ideas and promotional materials should never be generic. You need to offer prospective travelers concrete, specific information about what makes you different from other tour and activity operators in the area. If you offer an exclusive look at a popular attraction, focus on that message. If you provide amenities that others don’t have access to, make sure to brag about it in your promotional materials (in a tasteful manner, of course). Your travelers need to know that you offer a distinct experience that can’t be found anywhere else.

The manner in which you construct your marketing mix in travel and tourism forms a key part of ensuring your promotions are targeted enough to ‘speak’ to the traveler niche you are trying to reel in. Are you appealing to backpackers? Utilize tourism market trends on social media to create city guides or advice posts for travelers about the best hostels or bars near your business. Or, if you want to attract adventure travelers, post gripping videos of your tour or activity online that will entice local adrenaline-seekers to check out your website.

4. Use content and video marketing to create helpful guides for travelers

Tourism marketing is an investment, so you will want to utilize your resources wisely. Spend your budget where it counts by focusing on the most motivated traveler market segments. Use data to discover who your customers are, and create content and video marketing materials that will attract those travelers. Genuinely insightful and useful content that targets your specific audience’s needs is more likely to be shared amongst prospective customers. This will help in further growing your brand awareness and online presence. Local video SEO, for example, is perfectly suited to the visual nature of the tourism industry. With millions of online users consuming video content every month, platforms such as YouTube offer an easy-to-use space to showcase your venue and provide helpful tips for travelers.

5. Generate discussion across social media platforms

Social media is a paradise for travelers, as they can browse potential holiday activities and destinations. Social media allows tourists to travel online by providing them with endless photos of stunning destinations. These photos would usually be almost impossible to find without insider knowledge. There are numerous social media platforms that attract different demographics. Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok offer a space to reach prospective customers and entice them with visually-striking images and videos that will leave them envisioning what it’d be like to experience your tour offline. Social media is also a great tool for advertising special events, creating competitions, and handling customer service inquiries.

6. Build a great customer experience that lasts from start to finish

The importance of branding in tourism extends across numerous channels. The customer experience with your brand begins long before the tour or activity starts. By focusing on the usability of your website or updating your automated messaging services, you will be able to improve the customer experience from the moment they discover your brand until after they leave their feedback online.

7. Partner with social media influencers

One of the most popular tourism market trends is partnering with social media influencers to spread brand awareness. Uncover travel bloggers and social media stars whose followers include your target market segment. Give them a taste of your experience, and allow them to showcase your brand on their social sites. Before reaching out to social media influencers, take some time to research:

• Potential candidates
• Their price points
• Whether they have previously promoted similar services to yours

All these factors are extremely crucial to ensuring you develop a successful and effective influencer campaign.

8. Promote user-generated content like challenges and brand mentions

One of the most engaging aspects of social media is that it provides everyone with an equal footing. Not only to promote their own content but also to engage with other individuals and businesses. Creating the next viral TikTok challenge or Instagram hashtag may not be on the cards for your business’s tourism marketing strategy. However, encouraging social media users to interact with your online presence is a sure-fire way to secure a greater following.

9. Pay attention to online reviews

While there’s no definite consensus amongst researchers on the specific percentage of people who frequently read online reviews, one thing is undeniable: a majority of people read online reviews prior to signing up for experiences.

Nobody expects you to have a perfect 5 star ranking on Google reviews. In fact, a 4.2-4.5 star rating is deemed much more trustworthy amongst online reviewers than 5 stars.

People perusing online reviews will appreciate seeing that your business has replied to both positive and negative reviews in a polite, courteous manner. Defensive answers to poor reviews can read as distasteful. Take some time out of your day to answer online reviews and consider linking specific review channels that you want to target on your website or social media platform.

10. Optimize your search engine marketing strategy

Search engine marketing is a valuable strategy for businesses across all industries – including those providing travel and tourism services.

Search engine marketing (or SEM) involves pay-per-click ads, which come in numerous different formats including text-based ads or product listing ads. Both ads are a powerful marketing strategy as they ensure your product or service appears in front of motivated customers who are on the verge of making a purchase. Before investing in SEM, it’s important to conduct keyword research, which forms the backbone of advertising on search engines. You’ll need to identify keywords that not only are actively used by your prospective clients but also relate to your business’s tourism marketing strategy.

11. Stay on top of the latest tourism market trends

The tourism industry is constantly evolving. In the same way, new destinations grow exponentially in popularity over certain periods of time. Tourism marketing rarely stays stagnant for too long. To stay on top of trending tourism market trends you’ll require digital literacy, an openness to collaborate with others, and a willingness to experiment with different forms of content. The best tourism marketing strategy won’t just embrace change: it leads to change. Don’t be afraid to try out new tactics to attract audience attention. In a world where people have been acclimated to ‘sameness’ in marketing tactics, travel businesses should prioritize planning content in advance to ensure consistently creative marketing that doesn’t rely on outdated trends.

Once you have developed an innovative tourism marketing strategy, you will want to consistently utilize hospitality reporting analytics to examine the data and use the metrics available to measure your success. Your tourism marketing strategy should be a living document that is constantly adapting to the changing climate at your business.

For more information on the best tourism marketing ideas for tour and activity operators, download the Rezdy online marketing e-book today.

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