In the continuing series of Sherpa Schultze’s (my) favorite sites…another is Eye for Travel, a UK-based news source that focuses on a fascinating slate of travel marketing articles.
This week, they’ve linked to a surprising study extract, from Axonn Research, which surveyed almost 500 travel professionals. The author, Arash Hekmat, reported on these companies’ intended target audiences, the kind of content they create, their marketing campaign value and how their messages are heard.
Some general findings from this report:
Almost 70% of these companies market mostly to families. If they are incorporating content strategies in their marketing plans, they’ll go after more of the luxury market than budget travelers. A little less than 40% prefer using Facebook instead of other social media outlets to communicate with their audiences and share travel information.
What I found most astonishing is what these companies aren’t doing, especially in the face of the current “content is king” environment.
Less than half (40.9%) tailors their information to an international audience, and therefore don’t bother with multilingual copy. A little more than half (52.9%) think video marketing is a great engagement tool but aren’t using or planning to use it. Only a quarter of those who do not would seriously consider it for plans in the near future.
So what kind of content would these industry pros believe work best for audience engagement and eventual sales?
Travel guides and info – providing necessary details about destinations and ease of travel to those places – ranked slightly ahead of social media postings. Far behind those types were blogs, videos (again) and infographics.
Content does play a crucial role to inform travelers about the kind of time and financial obligation they’re getting into. In fact, one of the pros surveyed, Joel Brandon-Bravo of TravelZoo UK, said
“[It] must fulfill the knowledge gap for families. They require reassurance that their needs can be met before embarking on what might be the largest single outlay of the year for them.”
But I had no idea that some marketers still fail to recognize its value as a proven engagement and conversion tool, especially with video.
Every traveler needs reliable information about where they are going. Yet, travel is such a visually oriented activity that it naturally lends itself to visual content. That’s why, in addition to the lack of video presence on these sites, I’m also somewhat surprised Facebook remains the top social media site for the industry and not YouTube or Pinterest. Perhaps the reason why is familiarity – it’s the place everyone knows and is comfortable with, like the neighborhood bar.
Also, this survey extract didn’t indicate if these results were taken from mostly British and/or European professionals. I’m wondering if this is slightly different for the U.S. travel industry, because just by informal observation, I’m noticing more visual content on American-based travel companies.
What kind of visuals are you providing on your sites? Are you finding that having more videos and photos brings in more visitors – and customers – to your business?