By Heidi Schneigansz on 2009/11/17
Tourism is big business. In fact, it’s the world’s largest industry. I don’t have to tell you that Social Media is also big, so it is a no brainer that these are a match made in heaven.
User generated content is used by 40% of online travel researchers to determine whether they visit a destination. Yup, 40%! It’s not just a bunch of geeks or a few back packing students – but 4 out of 10 of all the people researching travel (and that’s a lot of people).
Jupiter’s US Online Travel Consumer Survey from May 2008 found that for this 40%, ratings were the most popular (used by 58%), followed by reviews and recommendations (49%). Next came user generated photo content (18%) and friend’s social networking websites (18%). Other travellers’ blogs were consulted by 12% and user generated video by 5%.
Because of this, tourism businesses around the world are focussing their marketing strategies on Social Media, some even leading with it over traditional advertising. And why not? If you can get a campaign to go viral, you will get heaps of free PR and, in turn, more people travelling to your destinations, right? Unfortunately it’s not that easy.
Despite all this, the world is not visiting Queensland in droves. The number of international holidaymakers travelling to Queensland actually dropped by 8% in the 2008-09 financial year.
Can Social Media Really Drive Conversion in the Tourism Industry?
In my opinion, the mistake that Queensland Tourism made was not driving conversion strongly enough. If you visit the campaign site, the only call to visit the islands is a tiny text link on the “About the Islands” page. It’s a well documented Web Design policy, if you want users to convert, have strong Calls to Action (there’s even a whole section dedicated to it in our textbook).
Excuse the corny pun, but the Queensland Tourism campaign taught us that no man, or marketing effort, is an island. The trick is to use Social Media as part of integrated, deal driven campaigns that make your destination attractive and drive people to book.
As with all marketing efforts, the sum of the right parts make an infinitely better whole.
Social Media Tools for Tourism Businesses
Ok, saying this is all well and good, but as a tourism business, how do you use Social Media and what tools are the best for you?
Facebook: With over 300 million global users, Facebook can be an extremely powerful tool for tourism. Set up a Facebook fan page around a subject that people will get excited about and that is related to your brand (e.g. wine or extreme sports), give users tips and tricks to make your page a valuable resource and then update it with relevant deals and specials.
Twitter: Much hyped and still relatively small, Twitter is nonetheless an awesome way to communicate with an opt-in base of followers in short bursts. Tweet deals, interesting facts and links to interactive video and photo content. Write a monthly conversation plan before-hand and schedule tweets using a service like HootSuite and it doesn’t have to take up all of your valuable time.
Blogs: Append a blog to your tourism site. Yes, we’ve heard this all before but for good reason, blogs provide a stream of fresh content, rank well on search engines, encourage interaction through comments and provide your tourism business with a human face.
In travel and tourism, more than in any other space, niche social networks have emerged that cater for user’s specific needs, so you don’t just have to use the usual suspects above. Consider starting profiles on sites like:
- TripAdvisor: The Big Daddy of the online tourism sites, TripAdvisor offers the world’s largest database of travel reviews. The site allows users to read user reviews of travel destinations and experiences and to write their own. The amount of reviews on the site rose topped 15 million in 2008 and there are a multitude of TripAdvisor apps, in Facebook, for the iPhone and elsewhere.
- WAYN: Short for “Where Are You Now”, it is one of the fastest growing players in the industry. WAYN enables its users to create a profile and upload photos. Users can search for like-minded travellers and link them to their profiles. People can then send and receive messages to their WAYN friends, plan meet-ups on their travels and check out recommended destinations. List your tourism business on WAYN and you could profit from some of WAYN’s 11 million eyeballs on your page.
- There are loads more tourism-specific Social Media spaces, Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree, Tripit, tripwolf and TravelMole, to name a few. Experiment with these to see if they are a fit for your business.
All these Social Media spaces may seem pretty daunting, but they are mostly very simple and the rewards for your efforts could be amazing. A great example is TheAdventureTeam.co.uk, a tourism business that started less than 9 months ago. Since using Social Media, their revenue has way exceeded their expectations. Over 40% of their business now comes directly through Social Media channels. Now that they see the potential, they will inevitably invest more time and energy in this area as it’s proved itself as a very cost effective way of promoting and increasing their business.
So, as you can see, Social Media can work to increase a tourism business’ revenue and brand profile, you just have to invest time and creativity into it and drive people toward conversion. You also don’t need huge volumes to make a success of Social Media. With the right message, in the right space, talking to the right audience – Social Media is an essential arrow in your marketing quiver.
Find out more about what Social Media can do for your brand by getting in touch with the QuirkStars today.
