Promotion of a Travel Agency

Travel companies constantly need to attract new clients and return old ones. This is necessary to make a profit and scale the business. Website promotion on the Internet is an effective way to maximally cover the target audience and convert it into clients. We told you what methods the travel business should use to promote itself online and what nuances to consider.

What are the goals and methods of promotion?

The industry’s specifics determine the goals and objectives of website promotion. They should be formulated before the promotion is launched in order to select methods and tools for the tasks. A tourism business can order comprehensive website promotion and set one or more goals, including:

• increasing sales through the website;
• expanding presence in the regions;
• informing about new areas of work;
• creating a positive reputation.

Other options are also possible – it all depends on business goals.

Intermediate tasks may include:

• wider coverage of the target audience (TA);
• increasing website traffic;
• reduction in the failure rate;
• increasing the depth of views;
• improving conversion on pages;
• increase in average check and LTV;
• formation and increase of a pool of regular customers;
• receiving positive feedback;
• displacing negative information about the brand from search results.

To solve these problems, a complex of paid and free promotion methods is used. These include search engine promotion (SEO), maintaining pages in social networks (SMM), paid advertising in search results, on websites, in social networks, content placement, email and messenger mailings. 

What are the features of promoting travel companies on the Internet?

The peculiarities arise from industry specifics.

Target audience.  It is wide because both high-income users and budget tour consumers travel. Some are looking for a family vacation, others – youth or extreme tours. Therefore, it is necessary to segment the target audience by income level and other criteria. For each segment, you should create your own USP and select channels to broadcast it on.

Deferred demand. Not all consumers want to go on holiday right now, but many are interested in holiday options six months before the trip, or even earlier. Therefore, it is important to attract and retain site visitors and community subscribers in advance and conduct long-term warm-ups.

Hot demand. There is a group of users who, for various reasons, monitor and buy “last minute tours”. Separate offers need to be created for this segment.

Relatively high average check. For most users in each segment, travel is not an ordinary purchase. It often exceeds the average monthly income of the buyer.

Long transaction cycle. Few people buy a tour after the first call or visit to the page; more often, the decision-making process takes up to 30 days.

Regionality. Often the client is looking for a vacation in a region that is convenient to get to from his place of residence.

Seasonality. Demand for different destinations depends greatly on the season. Thus, in summer, most people go to seaside resorts, in winter – to ski resorts, and on holidays – on excursion tours. Expanding the range of products helps offset the seasonal decline in sales. Then the business will always have offers that meet seasonal demand.

Online reputation. Users pay a lot of attention to reviews and publications about the tour operator. Any negative comments regarding the quality of services and fulfillment of obligations are broadcast quite widely and affect sales. Therefore, the travel agency should manage its reputation so that successful cases are actively discussed online, and there are many positive reviews.

How to conduct SEO website promotion?

Before launching any promotion, you need to conduct an audit of the resource that will receive traffic. Search audit includes an assessment of the technical condition of a tourist site or landing page and check it for compliance with search engine requirements. Here they check:

• presence of pages in the index;
• dynamics of visibility and positions;
• ranking limitations;
• position in search relative to direct competitors; 
• semantic core;
• occurrences, link mass, behavioral factors;
• traffic sources;
• brand popularity;
• the tone of company mentions;
• history of work on the site and how it affected traffic.

Data for audits are taken from Google Search Console and Analytics, as well as third-party tools. 

Technical parameters are important not only as indicators of resource performance. This applies, for example, to page accessibility, loading speed, and the presence of a mobile version. Search engines believe that a site that takes a long time to load or is poorly displayed on a smartphone is of little use to the user. Accordingly, it will not receive high positions in search results. It is also necessary to check:

• quality of site navigation: breadcrumbs, categories, tags;
• internal links: they should not lead to missing pages;
• duplicate content, titles and URLs: these need to be eliminated;
• the presence and functionality of the robots.txt file and sitemap.xml.

For a selling travel agency website, it is important to have commercial ranking factors. That is, each page should contain:

• title, text, images, video, geotag on maps that will provide the user with complete information to make a purchase decision;
• accommodation and service options at the hotel;
• offers for air tickets or other transport;
• the ability to start booking, leave a request;
• reviews;
• contacts, payment methods – it is enough to place them in the header of the tourist site and not duplicate them on each page.

It is useful to have a tour selection form on the main page so that the user can specify parameters and receive a selection. 

It is also worth making seasonal and thematic selections to make it easier for the user to search.

For some clusters of queries, travel aggregators are in the lead in search results. These are large portals that collect offers from individual agencies in real-time and sell them through their website. Due to their size and breadth of product range, they are ahead of travel agencies. In this case, you should promote your offers for these queries within the aggregators.

How to promote in social networks?

A community in a social network can inform subscribers, bring traffic to the site, work on reputation and loyalty, and conduct direct sales. In networks such as VKontakte and Odnoklassniki, you can use the public “event” format to highlight author or thematic tours. In Telegram, you can only run a channel.

To attract attention, you need to beautifully design the community and fill it with relevant content. Information and humor are mostly in demand. You can talk about hotels, give advice to travelers, and publish offers from the site. 

Next, you can use targeted advertising and publications in specialized communities or bloggers. In the first case, you place an ad through the social network’s advertising account for a fee. Advertising with bloggers or in other people’s publics is ordered through exchanges or directly from the owner. This method is more suitable for brand promotion, working with image and reputation.

How to use paid tools?

Contextual advertising is one of the most effective tools for attracting customers in the tourism industry. It allows you to target an audience that is already interested in buying a tour and is ready to make a purchase.

Google Adsense provides wide opportunities for setting up advertising campaigns, which allows you to define the target audience as accurately as possible and optimize the budget. Advertising on search results and on partner sites (YAN) allows you to reach a larger audience and attract more potential customers.

• Contextual advertising is especially effective for promoting “last minute tours” and popular destinations, as it allows you to quickly attract the attention of those who are actively looking for specific offers. 

• Banners and other YAN formats are displayed on sites that are relevant to the topic, as well as to users whose online behavior reflects an interest in tourism. It is suitable for warming up the audience. With its help, you can “catch up” with visitors who looked at offers on the site, but did not leave a request.

For each offer for a separate audience segment, it is worth setting up a separate ad. You need to correctly collect keywords for search results and specify data about the audience. It is useful to determine negative words that the client cannot search for for the advertised tour. Next, you need to choose a strategy based on which the ads will be shown. And also determine the rate per click, the campaign budget, its limit per day.

Incorrect settings based on incorrect data will make the campaign ineffective. Therefore, businesses increasingly turn to specialists who have experience in analyzing, setting up and adjusting impressions to set up advertising.

Targeted advertising is similar to contextual advertising in terms of its operating principles. But it only works within social networks. It has a smaller reach than search engines, so the cost of attracting an audience is lower. 

To launch advertising on VKontakte or Odnoklassniki, it is important to choose a goal, for example:

• advertise the site;
• invite subscribers to the community;
• promote a specific tour.

Further, flexible ad settings allow you to target it to the desired audience segment. For example, to subscribers of other tourism communities and users of the network similar to them in behavior and interests.

In Telegram, you can only promote a channel in the messenger through the advertising account. For advertising with external links, you will have to contact the owners of thematic channels directly or through exchanges. 

What other promotion methods can be used?

These tools allow you to work with specific groups of clients.

Email and Messenger Marketing

These are mailings to the user base that inform about new products, special offers, and remind regular customers about the travel agency. They help increase the number of user contacts with the company and increase loyalty and trust. It is better to use legal methods to collect the user base, for example:

• CRM, where client data is entered when purchasing a tour;
• lead magnet on a website – a form that offers to receive some kind of bonus or special offer in exchange for contact;
• lead forms in social networks.

Sales funnels

These are chatbots on the website, in social networks, and messengers. They communicate with a potential client according to a pre-formed scenario. Bots help to choose a tour, remove typical objections and at the last stage transfer to the sales manager. 

The advantages of the auto funnel include the following features:

• Communicate with the buyer on a social network or messenger that is convenient for him.
• Collect interested users. Not just those who are subscribed to a public page on a social network, but those who are really interested in the offers.
• Warm up the visitor. A large number of touches increases the desire to buy this particular product.
• Collect statistics and customer data.
• See the user’s conversion path and barriers along the way.

Content Marketing

Posting content on a blog on your website and on third-party platforms allows you to inform and increase trust. Here, you can give useful recommendations, show expertise, review offers, and present successful cases. A large number of your own publications creates a positive information background and displaces negativity from search results.

Conclusions

Promoting travel agencies effectively requires a tailored approach due to the unique dynamics of the industry. Addressing both immediate and deferred demand, segmenting the audience, and expanding the product range can help mitigate seasonal declines and maintain year-round engagement. Conducting a thorough website audit ensures that your site meets search engine requirements and solves user problems, which is crucial for converting visits into leads.

To achieve successful search engine promotion, it’s essential to optimize your site, develop a well-organized semantic core, and target appropriate platforms. A well-planned advertising campaign with precise targeting and bidding strategies will further enhance your results. For comprehensive promotion that aligns with your business goals, partnering with the Best SEO Agency for Tourism can provide the specialized expertise needed to excel in this competitive field. Their insights and strategies will ensure your travel agency stands out and drives meaningful results.