Content Marketing Guidelines for Businesses in the Travel Industry

their travels and vacations. Researching and reading reviews is probably a big chunk of what goes into the final decision. You looked for ideas, suggestions and opinions of peers in order to make a well-informed purchase.

Deciding on travel plans is a commitment of money and time with the expectation of having a great experience; therefore travelers have always been very cautious before booking. That’s why content marketing has become an essential tool for advertising in the travel industry. Telling a compelling story in video format or a blog post has much bigger impact than a banner ad on.

Be on Relevant Platforms

Technology now offers the possibility to any traveler to share their experience instantly without barriers. YouTube has 1 billion users each month, Instagram has more than 200 million users, Twitter has nearly 300 million users and there are also other widely-used platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, Vine, Snapchat, Reddit, Vimeo. As a business in the travel industry, your content marketing strategy should take this into consideration and be present as a brand on relevant platforms.

Have Compelling Content

When someone is going online and looks at travel options, they are in one of five stages of travel:

• Dreaming
• Planning
• Booking
• Experiencing
• Sharing

People in four of those five stages are not deciding if they will travel, rather where they will go, when and how. They have already made up their mind on going, now they will pick the most attractive option to them. Having a lackluster message like “Book now!” or a generic unique value proposition to only save money will be difficult to convert a lot of customers.

Delivering valuable information that makes a customer a smarter and better traveler drives traffic and leads. Content that is overly promotional or that provides little value, will do poorly in engaging customers.

Gauge Your Audience’s Content

People love to talk about their travel experiences and that is a huge opportunity for travel businesses. Travelers in their “Experiencing” and “Sharing” stages are just as valuable to your business. Enable your customers to share their experiences and make it as easy as possible for them to do that. Having simple custom hashtags will increase the amount of content generated for your brand and all this will be coming from your audience, at no cost to you as a business.

Choose Quality over Quantity

Content is king in an industry like travel, where impressions and customer experience can either make or break a business. Just like valuable content will make a business thrive, content of poor quality will be harmful to your organization. Today’s consumers are savvy and low quality content will lead to them not coming back.

A content plan is a must for a business in the travel industry. Marketers who fail to establish and follow content schedules experience far less success than those who do.