Continuing with my look at TripAdvisor’s TripBarometer report for 2014 and what it means for you as a travel marketer, I’m now taking a look at travelers’ emotions. Just a quick recap: this survey’s theme centered on “The Psychology of Travel,” and asked 53,000 travelers and hoteliers, with a little over 10% coming from the United States.
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This week’s post focuses on how TripAdvisor examined travelers’ emotions as they go through the vacation cycle. This is defined as booking, arrival, stay, departure and returning home. This chart reports on all respondents.
| Travel Stage | Excited | Relaxed | Fulfilled |
| Booking | 64% | 6% | 4% |
| Arrival at destination | 69% | 23% | 10% |
| During the stay | 40% | 49% | 19% |
| Departing from destination | 8% | 31% | 55% |
| Back home | 6% | 38% | 51% |
Not surprisingly, excitement dominates at the booking and arrival stages. Just about everyone enjoys and becomes thrilled with planning out their vacation by either looking on websites, thumbing through brochures or reading travel guides. They begin to have the anticipation of finally going somewhere fun and away from their normal routine and environment.
What you can do as an adventure travel marketer is capitalize on that feeling of excitement.
On your website and marketing materials, create content that gets people dreaming about their holiday. Include high impact visuals like colorful pictures and videos and testimonials from satisfied customers. (quick tip: if at all possible, include their full names because it will appear more credible). If you work with travel agents who sell your vacations, encourage them to sell their clients on the prospect of a dream holiday.
While those customers are with you and feeling relaxed, try to think of everything to make their experience with your company hassle-free and keep that easy-going feeling.
Take care of their transportation and accommodation concerns with a guide that spells out everything that will happen and contact point people in case anything should go wrong. Give them detailed descriptions of the basic itinerary. The key concept to remember here is worry-free. Brainstorm every possible way that your customers can achieve this state, so they can remain relaxed and happy during their trip with you.
As they return home and once they arrive, your customers reach fulfillment.
They are feeling good and rested from being on vacation. Welcome them back with nice thank you…and just a thank you. Don’t try to sell them on anything yet, even though some people might already be thinking about their next trip. Wait for another week or two, then send them another thank you and suggest trips for the future.
What kind of messages can you use to appeal to the emotions of your adventure travel customers? Share your thoughts below!
The post Travelers’ Emotions: TripAdvisor 2014 TripBarometer appeared first on Schultze Copywriting.
