129: Keep the conversation going with a call
After a customer has experienced one of your products it is always good to ask for feedback, and one of the best ways is to have an actual conversation with them over the phone. First, send them an email within the first 30 days and ask if it would be ok for you to call at a time suitable to them. Frame this around asking for feedback. Offer a promotion at the end like a discount code as a th...
1m Jan 06, 2018
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128: Mix Business With Pleasure
For those who travel for business purposes it often includes some downtime for themselves. A recent study shows that 62 percent of those who travel for business are more likely to extend their stay. If you are a hotel, send your customers a welcome email, or SMS message, inviting them to stay a little longer. Entice them with a discounted room rate and maybe a free meal for one if they invite...
1m Jan 05, 2018
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127: Pay Per Click on a Budget
If you have a tight marketing budget and are not sure what to put into PPC then follow these three quick tips… Target ads for in-destination customers. A lot of customers book activities and tour in destination so target this to a set radius from your location. Choose manual CPC so you can set a daily spend rather than Google doing this automatically. Set the best time of day to display your...
1m Jan 04, 2018
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125: The Binge Watch Culture
We all do it. People can’t wait for the next episode of their favourite show. I just watched Stranger Things 2 in one day! Sad I know. When it comes to creating video content, do this on a regular basis but keep them short and to the point. Think about launching a series of 60 second videos that users can binge watch.  This may be short stories from your tour guides or hotel staff. Make them...
1m Jan 02, 2018
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124: The Future of Tourism, Part 4
My next and final prediction will be the death of the OTA. OTA’s have not taken the market share they would like and are launching ways to take over this space to the detriment of most small tourism businesses. I am seeing a big backlash in businesses using OTA’s especially with the amount of commission you the business owner must pay. Just recently, GetYourGuide told its customers they will...
1m Jan 01, 2018
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123: The Future of Tourism, Part 3
The next big thing in Tourism will be face recognition. Why? Phones can detect your face to unlock your phone. In time your phone will track the mood you are in, how your face looks when viewing images and it will suggest that you need a break and where to go simply by the expressions on your face. This may sound like something from Blade Runner, but it is coming. In fact, to an extent it is ...
1m Dec 31, 2017
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122: The Future of Tourism, Part 2
Virtual Reality will become huge in travel. Let me be clear, VR will not make people not wish to visit your destination, far from it. It will inspire them to visit as nothing competes with the real thing. Adding a VR element to your brand and products will enhance the customer experience. Imagine a customer visiting the Sagrada Família in Barcelona. Armed with a VR set they could be standing...
1m Dec 30, 2017
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121: The Future of Tourism, Part 1
In episode #109 I made the statement that Facebook will become the saviour of travel, and I stand by that. However, they will have competition and it will not come from Google from what I can see. It will come from the biggest social platform in China… WeChat. WeChat acts like a Swiss Army Knife of apps. It allows you to socialise with friends, make purchases, book taxis, food and holidays al...
1m Dec 29, 2017
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120: The Five Stages of Travel, Part 5
Stage five is sharing. Sharing happens at two key points. During a trip and when they return home. This is when they tell their friends how good, or bad, a time they had. They may be thinking about writing a review or editing and sharing a video of their time. This is all about spreading a positive message about your business, creating word of mouth referrals.  This is the stage you want to...
1m Dec 28, 2017
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119: The Five Stages Of Travel, Part 4
Stage four is experiencing. This is when your customer takes part in your product, activity and experience. This is when they should be enjoying once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Witnessing hidden gems and falling in love with a destination.  No matter how well you have done everything up to this point, it will all fall down if you do not offer a seamless and first class service.  Make sure y...
1m Dec 27, 2017
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118: The Five Stages Of Travel, Part 3
Stage three of the five stages of travel is Booking. Your customer now knows the destination they wish to travel to, what they wish to see and what they want to do. This is when a simple, easy to use one page booking system and checkout is key. With 50% and above of bookings now being made on mobile it is super important that your site uses a system that makes it easy and quick for the user....
1m Dec 26, 2017
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117: The Five Stages Of Travel, Part 2
Stage two is Planning. The customer is ready to plan their trip, visiting sites, reading reviews and weighing up the competition. This is why I keep banging on about investing in your website. It is too important a stage to skimp on. Showcase those good reviews, create inspiring content and video. For the most part, don’t worry about your competitor’s prices or trying to compete with them. ...
1m Dec 25, 2017
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116: The Five Stages Of Travel, Part 1
When Google released their five stages of Travel I could not have been happier. It validated everything I have been advising and mentoring over the years. Each stage is the main element of a customer’s journey, and it starts with stage one… the dreaming stage.  This is the moment a customer starts to dream of places you wish to travel to. They may have seen your ad on social media, a post on ...
1m Dec 24, 2017
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115: Time To Cut The Cord On Activities
Creating the right product to gain the best revenue is what every business seeks. Choosing those activities that will help increase your revenue is key. However, from experience, tourism brands need to be smarter about he products and activities they create. Far too many of them promote and supply products that simply do not sell well or have very small margins. Why? Some believe they need t...
1m Dec 23, 2017
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114: How Golf Clubs Can Use Social, Part 3
It has never been easier to target potential members when using Facebook. Facebook ads allow you to segment your audience. For example, you could choose to show your ads to men or women aged 35-55, who have listed golf as a hobby in their profiles and who live 5, 10 or 15km of your golf club. This level of targeting typically drives higher conversion rates because the audience is so targeted...
1m Dec 22, 2017
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113: How Golf Clubs Can Use Social, Part 2
Golf is one of these games that is equally frustrating and rewarding. Create video tips and guides using your golf pro. How to take the perfect drive or how to hold the putter.  These are videos every golfer will watch and engage with. If you have a golf pro coaching members then this is a great opportunity to showcase his/her expertise and pull in new members to your club.
1m Dec 21, 2017
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112: How Golf Clubs Can Use Social, Part 1
Social Media should be used to communicate with your members. Golf club members really are a social bunch. Trust me, for better or worse, I am one of them. Engaging with your members through Facebook, Twitter and sharing photo updates through Instagram is a fantastic way to keep your members in touch with the club.  Facebook can be used to promote events at your club or post video guides of ...
1m Dec 20, 2017
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111: The Power of Scarcity
Ever been to Booking.com or Trivago? Did the notifications telling you 5 people have booked today already? Scarcity creates a sense of urgency in your customer and can be powerful if done right.  This approach can work for other sectors and not just hotels and accommodation. If you are an activity provider you can use this approach to help create demand for your product. Don’t go overboard h...
1m Dec 19, 2017
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110: Target Customers At Airports
When a potential customer arrives at an airport, they will often post on social media what destination they are headed. This is a good opportunity for tourism businesses to connect with them. For example, you can ask them what are they looking forward to during their visit. If they respond you can make suggestions and possibly offer a deal to entice them. There are tools available that allow ...
1m Dec 18, 2017
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109: Facebook The Saviour Of Travel?
With other big players looking to take over and disrupt the travel sector Facebook may be the only saviour. With over 1.8 billion active users, 1 billion of which are active every day, Facebook will become the main platform to view, share and purchase tours and activities, accommodation and flights. Remember they also own Instagram and WhatsApp too. Because of this customer base, Facebook wil...
1m Dec 17, 2017
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108: The Uber Effect
In episode #106 I mentioned my thoughts and serious concerns with the new Viator booking platform and how this will make it even harder for tourism businesses. Viator are not the only ones trying to disrupt the market. AirBNB are ramping up the activity section of their business and Google are also looking at how to take over this space too. What we are seeing here is no different to how Uber...
1m Dec 16, 2017
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107: Generate Revenue From Referrals
Referral business is the best form of marketing. It is also the easiest.  However, generating a good number of referrals requires you to have the right system in place.  Customers are more likely to refer your business if they are rewarded. A promo code for a future tour, or a free gift, can help persuade them.  Send them a reminder email a few days after the tour. Don’t do this straight awa...
1m Dec 15, 2017
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106: What Does Viator's Booking Platform Mean For You?
So, TripAdvisor owned Viator have released their own booking platform potentially allowing anyone to create a commission based travel business, selling other suppliers products. Now, I was always wary about TripAdvisor buying Viator as to me, this would mean they would show preference to those on TripAdvisor for example. What Viator have released now creates even more competition in the marke...
1m Dec 14, 2017
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105: PR In Tourism
PR can be a powerful thing to raise brand awareness. The press will be interested to speak with you if you can become newsworthy and of public interest. Spend time to send out articles about any events you may be hosting or any new products. If you are a hotel invite them to stay the night to try a new menu you may have just launched with a new chef. Build relationships with journalists to g...
1m Dec 13, 2017
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104: Targeting local business
Vineet of Fun Travel recently asked how he can target people living near him as most of his business comes from outside his destination. The simple answer is, Facebook. Facebook is hands down the best marketing platform to target locals as no other platform allows you to target specifics like Facebook can. Local, gender, age, interests… You can create ads to cater for just about anything as l...
1m Dec 12, 2017
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103: What about Virtual Reality in Tourism?
Let me clear… VR will never replace a real life experience a customer can take part in. If it did I would lose all faith in humanity. However, just like video is an amazing marketing tool, VR will become just as important. I would say VR is about 5 years away from being mainstream but that does not mean you should wait that long. Experiment how VR can be integrated into your products and how ...
1m Dec 11, 2017
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102: Use Gift Cards for More Revenue
Gift cards and vouchers are a fantastic way to generate extra revenue. They make buying an experience easy especially those looking for a gift with a difference at Christmas say. There are other benefits too. Customers who use gift cards are more likely to overspend by at least 33% so the opportunity to upsell is massive.  Another selling point is to never have an expiry date. This can help ...
1m Dec 10, 2017
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101: It’s all about authenticity in adventure travel
Good content is not enough. Customers are savvy and have high expectations. Your content needs to be authentic, honest, and engaging. Adventure Travellers crave experiences. They are also more likely to prefer small things like street food and travel on local amenities as they wish to experience the culture of a destination. Adventure Travellers are also more likely to document their experien...
1m Dec 09, 2017
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100: The Weakest Link
Your customer can interact with your brand in many ways so your customer experience is only as good as your weakest link. From the person responding to social media to your driver, tour guide or hotel receptionist, every interaction defines the customers’ expectations.  Each person in each area must be well prepared and engage the customer in a meaningful way. Your business can come across a...
1m Dec 08, 2017
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99: Create Food Tours for Tasty Profits
Food tours are a fantastic way to expand your business. Everyone loves to eat food. Most will post great dishes on social media and we love to interact with locals. The thing is, this element can be added to most tours for little cost and provide a healthy profit. Food tours also can help your local community by bringing in money to local restaurants and food vendors. Create lasting relatio...
1m Dec 07, 2017
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98: Get Personal in Tours & Activities
Travellers these days want a personalised experience. An American Express survey showed that 85% of travellers wish to have a customised experience over a packaged itinerary, and they love to receive a personal touch. The same survey also highlighted that 72% of travellers would spend more time planning a trip that is tailored to their interests, and they would happily pay more for the privil...
1m Dec 06, 2017
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97: Boost your brand on TripAdvisor, Part 4
Engaging with your customers post trip is a must for good reviews and repeat business. Encourage your customers to leave a review in your follow up email but don’t include discount codes or another promotion as this could be seen as a bribe. Feel free to offer this without their prior knowledge after the fact.  TripAdvisor provide tools so you can automate emails post trip so make good use of...
1m Dec 05, 2017
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96: Boost your brand on TripAdvisor, Part 3
Building reviews on TripAdvisor is something that you should manage constantly. Fresh reviews carry more importance than older reviews. TripAdvisor will boost your listing if you keep generating new reviews as it will see this as a more relevant and up-to-date assessment of your business. This obviously, all depends on you providing an out of this world service so make sure you are doing all ...
1m Dec 04, 2017
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95: Boost your brand on TripAdvisor, Part 2
Being blacklisted from TripAdvisor is just as bad as your site disappearing form Google. It should go without saying that bad practices like posting fake reviews on your own or a competitors listing is not the way you should be growing your brand. All it will do is damage your reputation. The quality of your reviews are far more important than the quantity so do everything you can to entice c...
1m Dec 03, 2017
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94: Boost your brand on TripAdvisor, Part 1
Images and videos can give travellers a clear understanding of what to expect when they partake in one of your products. TripAdvisor say that listing that show with around 30 images gets 41% more engagement that those with much less. Make sure your listing contains a good amount of high quality images as this will increase your chances of making more bookings.
1m Dec 02, 2017
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93: Boost your brand on Instagram, Part 4
When you post content on Instagram do not make it a mixed bag. Select a theme or topic and stick with it. This will not only help you focus on one area, say architecture, but build up a strong following. Just recently a fitness fanatic who posted on Instagram every day suddenly stopped posting about fitness and nutrition and lost 70,000 followers in the process. Pick a theme that ties in wit...
1m Dec 01, 2017
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92: Boost your brand on Instagram, Part 3
Don’t just rely on photos. Just like any other form of marketing video is massively important, be it a full 60 second destination or staff story or a short, clever boomerang video. We as humans love visual stimulation and video is hands down the best form there is. It makes content easy to consume and with internet bandwidths and phone networks becoming faster each year, video is here to stay ...
1m Nov 30, 2017
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91: Boost your brand on Instagram, Part 2
Creating your own hashtag for Instagram is just as important as the content itself. Use multiple hashtags including a brand specific one. For example, one of my clients, Ace Adventures, uses #MyAceAdventure as it has a double meaning. Tie this in with more generic tags like #whitewaterrafting or #travel for example. Hashtags on Instagram, more than most other platforms, are vitally important...
1m Nov 29, 2017
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90: Boost your brand on Instagram, Part 1
With Instagram being all about photos and videos, make sure you post one piece of great content per day. You are lucky enough to be in an industry that was tailor made for Instagram. Take good photos of your destination and even post seldom seen areas to show you are an expert. Travellers love to see hidden gems. Don’t worry if you feel you do not have an eye for photography. Instagram’s filt...
1m Nov 28, 2017
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89: Pay Per Click Advertising in Tourism, Part 3
Unfortunately, you are in what is arguably the most competitive industry for PPC. Your competitors are often trying to target a very similar audience as you. It is vitally important to research and track your competitor’s PPC ads and overall online marketing strategy as this will help you in many ways. For example, it can even highlight the weak points in your own campaign and adjust accordin...
1m Nov 27, 2017
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88: Pay Per Click Advertising in Tourism, Part 2
What people search for in Summer is different to what they search for in Winter. You need to adjust your PPC keywords accordingly because you don’t want to deal with a low-performing summer campaign in winter. All you are doing is wasting money. PPC should also be adjusted for mobile devices. People search on these differently. Searches tend to be shorter and more specific. Keep monitoring yo...
1m Nov 26, 2017
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87: Pay Per Click Advertising in Tourism, Part 1
From experience Keywords and terms that tourism businesses use within their PPC campaigns are often too generic or broad to really reach a precise audience. You need to achieve a more targeted keyword approach that uncovers better keywords to use in your ads. Long-tail keywords are full phrases rather than one or two words. For example, instead of “cheap flights,” you should use “cheap flight...
1m Nov 25, 2017
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86: Timing is Crucial
If you're planning a campaign to encourage more bookings for the next season you should start creating your campaign now. Give yourself as much time as possible to plan your campaign and make changes along the way. This will also give you time to find where your customers hang out online. Customers do a lot of research and narrow down their options before finally making a booking with a tour ...
1m Nov 24, 2017
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84: Email Marketing in Tourism, Part 3
Choosing the right day to send your email is vitally important. Segment your user list into 2-3 separate lists to do some split testing of your email to see which generates the best open rates. Some platforms will recommend a time and date for you but this can be inaccurate and manual testing will let you know for sure. Some ‘experts’ may say the best day and time to send out email newsletter...
1m Nov 22, 2017
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83: Email Marketing in Tourism, Part 2
If you wish to increase your open rates, create a punchy, attention grabbing subject line. Subject lines must be no longer than 78 characters so that it is shown in its entirety on most software and devices. If you wish your email to get to your customer in the first place, do not use all capital letters and words like ‘special offer’ as spam filters may stop this from going through.
1m Nov 21, 2017
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85: You Are Driving Customers Away
When it comes to driving your customers away from making a booking one of the main culprits is the checkout page. I have seen businesses ask far too many questions when all the customer wishes to do is book. Some businesses will tell me they need this information and do not wish to spend the time chasing customers. What would you rather have? More bookings or less? Making a call or email to ...
1m Nov 21, 2017
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82: Email Marketing in Tourism, Part 1
Customers do not wish to be bombarded with email newsletters 4-5 times per week, and believe me that happens. You must strike a balance of reinforcing your brand while providing content they wish to read. I recommend sending no more than once per month. This should be sent on the same day or each month. Make it an ‘event’, giving your customers something to look forward to. Something only they...
1m Nov 20, 2017
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81: Become a Social Carer
If you haven’t already, you should become a social carer by offering customer support on social media. Facebook and Twitter are great platforms to engage with your customers on a support level.  Personally, I would handle this on your main account so other potential customers can see that you care and support them, but you can create a dedicated page or account specifically for customer servi...
1m Nov 19, 2017
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80: Challenge Your Customers
Challenge your customers on social media with a fun promotion that gets them sharing and generating buzz around your brand. Ask them to share a funny video about themselves and why they should be picked to win a trip to your destination, or a weekend at your hotel. This will help generate a viral campaign that will put your brand into the minds of the viewer and help generate a new batch of c...
1m Nov 18, 2017
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79: Commission Is Killing You Slowly
Commission is one of the biggest issues I hear when speaking with businesses and clients. The many commission rates form OTA’s, booking systems, payment gateways etc are already eating away at your tight margins and profits. Some of these are unavoidable as they are required for you to function as a business, but you can reduce them dramatically. By putting more time and money into your own ...
1m Nov 17, 2017
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