4 Ways Tour Operators Can Demonstrate Value In The Digital Age
Even though travel demand is currently low, it will pick up again. Already there’s talk of several...
As vaccination roll-out gains momentum across the world, the travel industry is beginning to reopen. Is your business prepped and ready to welcome new clients?
During the pandemic ‘downtime,’ many travel companies addressed aspects of their business that needed attention. From working on their digital presence, adopting new technology, and updating products, business heads worked on their strategy to meet the new market when the time was right.
Now that there’s light on the horizon, one of the final checks left to do is to give your travel brand a digital spring cleaning. Ask yourself:
- Are all of your social and online profiles up to date?
- Does your brand image and logo still accurately reflect who you are?
- Is your website and blog copy still relevant?
- Are your new travel products displayed for everyone to see?
- Is it easy to pick up on your latest COVID-19 safety protocols?
Making these sorts of updates doesn't require any major digital overhauls—just a thorough once over and a bit of attention.
Here’s how to go about organizing a digital refresh of your travel brand.
How To Refresh Your Travel Brand With A Digital Spring Cleaning
1. Give Your Social Media Profiles The Once-Over
Social media is one of your company’s most effective marketing tools. You need to be active on these platforms to engage your audience. The platforms also need to contain the latest information about your business to help send traffic to your website.
Instagram is a fun and interactive place for your followers to get their visual fix of what your travel brand offers. One of the first things to do on this platform is to make sure your bio is updated. You have 155 characters to use, and it’s more eye-catching if you type out short separate lines instead of one paragraph.
Your bio should include some engaging copy, a link to your website, a CTA of sorts, and your hashtag for your followers to tag. Try using emojis to save character space and make your bio entertaining.
It's a good look for your brand to have a consistent profile picture across your various platforms. Be sure to make the image or logo bright and distinctive.
Like IG, it's vital that your page info is up to date and you have linked your site in your bio.
Facebook offers an “About” section, which is an excellent way for your company to incorporate storytelling into your bio. Potential customers would love to hear about the formation or values of your brand from a personal perspective.
On the technical side, update your page with your business hours, products (you can add pictures), contact details, and location.
2. Does Your Brand Logo Need An Update?
When digital spring cleaning, it’s essential to decide whether your brand logo needs an update. A general benchmark to work from is to refresh your look to keep up appeal with customers every five years.
The good news is that it’s simple enough to hire a designer to take on the job of revamping your logo design. Be sure to add this new image to your email copy, ad copy, social media platforms, and website.
3. Do An Audit Of Your Website
Your website is a window to your business, and user experience is everything in the digital age. Take the time to optimize your on-page SEO, remove pages that no longer serve your customers, and update all policies and disclaimers for 2021.
There’s nothing more frustrating for web visitors than browsing through a website with slow loading times or being sent to pages that no longer exist. So check your URLs and ensure you’re signed up with a decent hosting company.
Of course, automating processes where possible creates a smooth and stress-free experience for your customers. For example, add customer service chat to your website to respond to general queries. It can also let your clients know it's out of hours, but someone will get back to them shortly. Another idea is to automate booking confirmation emails or sending of automatic payment receipts.
4. Update Your Blog
While digital spring cleaning, you’re bound to find old blog posts that no longer have any relevance to your audience. Maybe you previously targeted a different cohort, or COVID-19 changed the travel landscape to the extent that some of your articles require a rework?
You can either delete these posts completely or update them so they're relevant to today's audience. Before deleting, first, check in with an expert to ensure that doing so won't significantly impact your website's SEO.
5. Add In Your 2021 Tour Copy
If you have added new travel products or tours to your line-up, now is the time to make sure they’re published on your website for all to see. Remove the information to packages that are no longer on offer, and ensure that you have all the latest COVID and safety information up and displayed prominently.
6. Update Listings & Delete Dormant Accounts
Your travel company may have at some point tried using different online platforms to boost its presence. It could have been listings on different OTAs, local tourism sites, various DMOs, local community boards, etc.
Take stock of where these touchpoints are, and assess whether they need updating or deleting. Perhaps you haven’t used one in the previous two years or don’t get any traffic from it. If your accounts no longer serve the best interest of your company, delete them.
It can take a lot of time to keep producing consistent and meaningful content on these platforms. Sometimes it simply isn’t worth the effort needed to keep them running.
Instead, focus on the platforms that are seeing growth and potential.
Final Thoughts
Give your travel brand the refresher it needs with a digital spring cleaning as we move further into the summer holidays and the travel industry opens up.
We’d love to connect with you. If you’re looking for more tips to help your business move with confidence into the emerging travel market, join our LinkedIn community today.
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