Your Downtime To-Do List: Steps To Maximize Bookings and Attract New Customers When Travel Returns

Here’s a recap on our latest webinar which took place on the 18th of August.

Lucas Ennis, Head of Growth at WeTravel, hosted guests Robin Harnish, Co-Founder of Tourism Solved, and Michael Lattig, Head of Brand Marketing at Tourism Solved, in an expert speaker session and Q&A.

Robin and Michael shared some practical steps that travel companies can take to maximize bookings today and attract new customers when travel returns. With COVID-19 halting travel, now is a great time for you to re-look at your online strategy and find some affordable, practical, and easy ways to improve your marketing.

We also held a Q&A session where Robin and Michael answered questions from the live listeners.

Background On The Companies

WeTravel is a payment and booking platform for SME travel businesses, tour operators, group trip organizers, and travel planners in the multi-day travel space.

Tourism Solved is a team of expert digital travel marketers who help tour operators and regional tourism organizations drive direct bookings and profitable growth.

Webinar Links

Click here for a summarized one-pager document of the webinar.

If you would like to take up Tourism Solved’s offer for a free digital fitness assessment of your website, then schedule it here by clicking on:

calendly.com/tourismsolved/wetravel

or by emailing growdirect@tourismsolved.com.

The team will set up a session to evaluate your direct website and provide actionable steps for improvement, giving you help along the way.

On The Agenda

The webinar touched on these main sections:

1. Best practices for SEO – search engine optimization is a long-term strategy, so it’s a good idea to implement measures now if you’re thinking of capturing travelers for 2021. They all start their journey of discovery with Google.
2. What makes great content – content is your opportunity to showcase what makes your brand special and unique. Use this time to refresh and add new content to your website. Make sure it’s relevant to your customer base, including the new travelers you are hoping to attract.
3. Top do’s and don’ts for email marketing– use email marketing to keep your existing customers informed and excited to return. Keep them updated on the times and how your business is handling the changes to travel.
4. How to find your ideal customer right now– travel behaviors are changing, how do you tweak your marketing to reach clients who might be thinking of traveling locally, with their friends/family, or who want to book closer to departure dates, and so on.

Maximize Downtime For Travel Companies

Why did we host this webinar?

Feedback from our previous webinars brought up that travel providers are looking for guidance on how to maintain and grow their brand.

Coming out of the pandemic, travel is going to look different, which means that travelers’ behaviors and expectations will also be different. Now is the time to think about these, and consider ways to realign your marketing efforts. You’ll need to delight this ‘new’ customer and responsibly address the ‘new’ way of doing things.

Main Takeaways: What Should Be On Your To-Do List?

1. Develop unique content, keywords, and a linking strategy to capture and organize traffic from Google.

• Encourage sign-ups from your website (use a lead capture that offers clear value)
• Quality over quantity when it comes to content
• Create content with intent – who is it going to speak to?
• Make sure the content is easy to digest
• Free tool that shows keyword search volume, competition, and trends: Keywords Everywhere
• Try Facebook ads to attract and remarket to travelers
• Drive engagement with email and social media

2. Ensure your site is optimized for mobile.

• Test for mobile viewing: search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
• Test for page load speed (mobile and all devices): developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

3. Don't underestimate the power of photos and videos.

• Before sharing, consider if the images and video fit your brand
• Are they compelling or inspiring for your audience?
• Use short, engaging videos

See below for the SlideShare presentation.

To leave us your thoughts and feedback from the webinar, access the form here:

https://bit.ly/feedback-aug18

Additional Resources and Useful Links

Mailchimp for email marketing automation: https://mailchimp.com/

InShot free video editing tool: http://www.inshot.com/

Video cover design tool: https://www.canva.com/