4 Brilliant Examples of Content Marketing in the Travel Industry
Marie Wiseman
(January 2022)
v Would you prefer to watch Marie deliver the video rather than read it? Click here https://youtu.be/zBp4t5y0GtA
v The full presentation referred to in the blog, outlining the different
types of content marketing suitable for a travel related website with 12 great
examples is available here. https://www.slideshare.net/MarieDavies13/content-marketing-best-practices-in-the-travel-industry-250959237
Content Marketing is a crucial part of marketing in today’s world and today I’d like to share 4 particularly strong examples of content marketing in the tourism industry.
Blogs
are a Must in Travel
Blogs are essential to content marketing in most industries, but in particular tourism. People want to learn about the places they plan to visit.
There are many excellent blogs out there but the Oyster blog is particularly good. (https://www.oyster.com/articles)
Image 1 – www.Oyster.com website (2021) – screen shot
Firstly their blog is called Stories, which although a small thing, does make it more accessible to a wider audience. There is a good variety of story themes – Rookie Mistakes, Luxury for Less, Hidden Gems to name but a few. The words used are consumer-friendly, insightful and draw the reader in and topics are absolutely based on customer needs. Whilst Oyster are ultimately trying to sell holiday packages, the sell is subtle and each post is enjoyable and engaging with lots of beautiful imagery to really bring it to life.
The other blog I included in the presentation, Travelfish, is also good but it’s more difficult to navigate and some of the posts have little imagery, which makes it a more challenging read. https://www.travelfish.org/travel-planning/what-to-pack
Video Content Matters
Next is Video. Video has grown hugely as a content marketing tool in the last 5 years. In his 2021 HubSpot article, Adam Hayes highlights that 86% of businesses used video as a marketing tool in 2021, vs just 61% just 5 years ago (Hayes A 2021). Caroline Forsey in her HubSpot article earlier this month predicts that Video content will continue to rule over the coming decade, particularly with the growth in platforms such as TikTok (Forsey C 2022).
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The Lonely Planet and GoPro series of videos is exceptional. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izq6PwH3VaI&t=42s Not only are the production values great, it’s a brilliant collaboration between 2 brands at the top of their game. Lonely Planet is all about exploring our world and GoPro couldn’t be better suited to helping them do it. The result is a series of thoroughly enjoyable, engaging and educational videos which position both brands as experts in their field without once having to sell to the viewer. The fact that there are 2 companies involved will also have helped make best use of budgets. As well as Lisbon, there are videos looking at other parts of Portugal, New Zealand, Croatia and more besides.
Why do I chose this over the video from Intro Travel? https://www.introtravel.com/small-change/ Whilst this again has lovely production values, is engaging, and draws the viewer in, the campaignability of the Lonely Planet and GoPro series, makes that a more powerful piece of content.
Interactive
Content
The third area I would like to focus on is interactive content. Forsey C (2022), highlights that 45% of B2B buyers say interactive content is one of their top three preferred content types, and interactive content gets 2 times more engagement than static content. She sees this trend continuing into the coming decade.
Image 3 – Wanderlust website (2021) – Quiz link – screen shot
There’s lots of good interactive content out there and whilst the
Expedia example I shared is indeed clever, it’s ultimately a hard sell and not
hugely fun. The Wanderlust Travel Magazine quiz on the other hand is not only very entertaining, it reminds the
viewer/player of just how much of an authority on travel Wanderlust Travel
Magazine is. As well as being housed on
the website, subscribers are emailed the quiz every Friday at 1pm, allowing it
to become a Friday afternoon feature for its readers, the start point of the
weekend. It’s an excellent example of interactive
content.
User-Generated Content (UGC)
Finally, I’d like to look at User Generated Content or UGC. Content that is generated for you by others is the digital
equivalent of a word of mouth recommendation so is incredibly effective in
terms of building brand authority and ultimately sales. Indeed Todd Kunsman in his 2021 everyone
social article, highlights that ‘79% of
people say UGC highly impacts their purchasing decision’.
Whilst TripAdvisor is arguably the Daddy of UGC, it’s ultimately a feedback forum. UGC is at it’s best when it captures people’s passions and creativity. The ‘Call of the Wild’ campaign, a 2018 joint initiative between the Department of Transport and Sport, Fáilte Ireland and Tourism Ireland, asked local people on the Wild Atlantic Way to share images and video of their hidden gems, in return for the chance to win a 2 night getaway along the Wild Atlantic Way. In total over 4,000 images and videos were shared, with the best of these collated into a 4 week social media campaign by the companies involved, securing over 1 million views across the world (Fáilte Ireland, 2018). The campaign captured the pride locals have in their locality to create something very special and at a very low cost to those involved.
Image 4 – Failte Ireland (2021) – ‘Winning photo of Connemara from Genevieve Callander – Call of the Wild campaign- – photograph
So there you have it, 4 excellent examples of content marketing at its best in this industry. What each of these have in common is they’ve got the customer at the heart of what they do, they’re positioning the brands as experts in their fields without doing the hard sell and the result is original, engaging and valuable content that is ultimately actionable.
Thank you for your time.
If you’d like to find out more, visit my blog at mariewisemandigitalmarketing.blogspot.com
Bibliography
Oyster.com website (2021) – ‘Articles’ (screen shot). Available at https://www.oyster.com/articles/ [accessed 31 December 2021]
Hayes A (2021) - ‘What Video Marketers should know in 2021, according to Wyzowl Research’ HubSpot (online). Available at https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/state-of-video-marketing-new-data [accessed 5 January 2022]
Forsey C (2022) – ‘‘The Evolution of Content Marketing: How It's Changed and Where It's Going in the Next Decade’ HubSpot (online). Available at https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/future-content-marketing?utm_campaign=Marketing%20Blog%20Weekly%20Email%20Sends&utm_medium=email&utm_content=199969113&utm_source=hs_email [accessed 5 January 2022]
Lonely Planet YouTube page (2022) – ‘See Lisbon from the water on a sailing adventure - Lonely Planet x GoPro’ (screen shot). Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izq6PwH3VaI&t=42s [accessed 2 January 2022]
Kunsman T (2021) – ‘36 User-Generated Content Statistics That You Can’t Ignore’ everyonesocial (online). Available at https://everyonesocial.com/blog/user-generated-content-statistics/ [accessed 3 January 2022]
Wanderlust (2021) – ‘The Ultimate Florida travel quiz’ (screen shot). Available at https://www.wanderlust.co.uk/content/the-ultimate-florida-travel-quiz/ [accessed 3 January 2022]
Failte Ireland (2018) – ‘Millions to go Wild on Social Media for Wild Atlantic Way Campaign’ Fáilte Ireland (online). Available at https://www.failteireland.ie/Utility/News-Library/Millions-to-Go-Wild-on-Social-Media-for-Wild-Atlan.aspx [accessed 3 January 2022]
Failte Ireland (2018) – ‘Winning photo of Connemara from Genevieve Callander’ (photograph). Available at https://www.failteireland.ie/Utility/News-Library/Millions-to-Go-Wild-on-Social-Media-for-Wild-Atlan.aspx [accessed 3 January 2022]
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