How Is Digital Marketing Impacting Tourism Industry?

Tourism is one of the industries that are greatly impacted by the development of digital marketing. Transportation and accommodation companies are among the first ones to utilize digital marketing techniques in their practices to engage with communities and make sure their customers have the best possible away-from-home experience. In order to perform well and gain competitive advantages, players in the tourism industry are always looking for the newest and best ways to reach their buyers and tailor their offering for their target audience.

Today, we all have desktop computers, laptops or mobile devices, and have easy access to information of all aspects of the tourism industry, from accommodation, travel, to food and activities. Effective digital marketing is the best way to reach a large audience in a quick way at a lower cost.

Many aspects of tourism industry have been impacted by the developments of digital marketing.

Research

This is the greatest impact. Travelers no longer reserve with a travel agent, instead they go straight to online travel product sites for reviews and favorable rates. Travel companies have to compete with these sites, and an effective SEO strategy will help you come up higher in search rankings.

Social sharing sites like Instagram give travelers more reasons to search online as they could look to their peers for travel images and check-ins that will help them make a choice. Travel review sites like TripAdvisor allows visitors to easily find other people’s images, ratings and recommended things to do.

Customer Service

Twitter is often the first place a customer will go to make a complaint and they expect a quick response. 72% of customers expect a response within an hour, yet apparently 70% of companies ignore customer complaints. We’ve seen so many companies in this sector doing it well, including brands like Virgin Trains, Jet Blue and American Airlines. These companies have been able to use a tone of their own to spread brand messages through their digital marketing channels.

Mobile Marketing

Digital consumption is very different to what it used to be a few years ago. The usability of booking via mobile is important to the tourism sector as more people are using their mobiles to book air tickets and hotel rooms. We’re seeing a booming market of mobile travel agencies – at the moment they mainly focus on last minute deals but we should see the potential benefits when they could offer quick solutions for travelers.

In addition, thanks to the power of Wi-Fi, which is usually equipped with by hotel rooms and public locations such as tourist attractions, planning a trip on the spot has become quite easy for travelers.

On Board

Travelling from one place to another can be a long and boring experience. In an attempt to make the journey experience more pleasant for travelers, airlines have installed advanced in-flight entertainment systems that allow passengers to watch movies and TV shows, play games, listen to the radio and make phone calls from the aircraft.