There’s a reason why firm owners and executives in the travel and leisure industry are smiling these days -- and no, it’s not because they often enjoy incredibly good deals! It’s because the industry is BOOMING as more people book an excursion for business, pleasure, or sometimes a nice blend of both.
In fact, the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) has projected that the travel and leisure industry will continue growing over the next 20 years; which is even more astonishing given that the industry already generates a whopping $7.6 trillion in annual revenues, or 9.8 percent of the world’s (yes, the world’s) gross domestic product.
However, as we all know: more revenues, profits and growth means more competition, too. That means firms in the travel and leisure industry are feeling the pressure to “do more with less”, and especially to avoid getting lost in the crowd. And that’s why they’re turning to inbound marketing – and they aren’t looking back! For example, Massachusetts-based Tenon Tours leveraged HubSpot’s inbound marketing platform to increase:
- Site visitors by 54%
- Lead conversation rates by 285%
- Sales revenues by 129%
- Overall lead volume by 504%
Inspired by these impressive results – which by the way are typical and realistic, not outliers or exceptions – below we highlight the 4 reasons why inbound marketing is ideal and essential for the travel and leisure industry:
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It Aligns with Google’s 5 Stages of Travel
Inbound marketing aligns perfectly with all 5 “stages of travel” as identified by Google research:
- DREAMING: prospects are imagining a trip, and can be engaged with blog content, social media content, email marketing, infographics, etc.
- PLANNING: prospects are more focused marketing qualified leads (MQL), and can be engaged with ebooks, whitepapers, checklists, etc.
- BOOKING: prospects are ready to convert into customers, and naturally they’ll be loyal to firms they know and trust – i.e. those that have set the groundwork and built a relationship through the Dreaming/Planning stage.
- EXPERIENCE: customers have booked their trip – but the inbound marketing process doesn’t stop! Instead, it shifts into another gear as customers are given tools or other assets to enhance their experience (e.g. Infographics on how they can avoid currency conversion fees, advice on calling home or work and avoiding roaming or long distance costs, and so on).
- SHARE: through the processing stages, customers have developed into brand ambassadors, and are inspired to share their positive experience by leaving feedback, being featured in a case study, uploading photos of their trip to Facebook (either their own and tagging the business, or sending photos in that the business uploads to their page), and so on.
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Segmented Lead Generation
Firms in the travel and leisure industry usually have a huge list of leads. That’s the good news. The bad news is that not all of the leads “are created equal”, in the sense that some may be personal or recreational travelers, others may be business travelers, some may be looking at domestic travel, others looking for international travel, some may prefer the “DIY tour” experience, while others want an all-inclusive guided tour…and the list goes on.
With inbound marketing, firms can efficiently segment their leads and target the right people with the right messages, and through the right channels as well (e.g. social media, email, etc.). What’s more, this information can be pushed out automatically through customized workflows, which saves time and money.
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Track Partner Value
Many firms in the travel and leisure industry establish referral partnerships (often through subscriptions). With inbound marketing, firms can use customized URLs and analytics to track the effectiveness of these partnerships, and justify whether they should continue or be cancelled.
For example, firms may discover that while they’re getting a significant amount of site traffic from a partner, the majority of hits aren’t converting into qualified leads. Or on the other hand, they might identify that a referral source is even more valuable than expected, and enhance the partnership accordingly.
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Consolidate Tools
Last but not least: firms in the travel and leisure industry are often managing leads and marketing efforts with spreadsheets, Google Drive documents, and other tools that are highly inefficient and trigger version control nightmares (i.e. different people working on different versions of the same document).
Inbound marketing with HubSpot brings everything together in a single, centralized and easy-to-use platform. And since everything is organized and stored in the cloud, team members can access the information they need wherever they are and whenever they’re working, and automatically sync data so that version control nightmares are a thing of the past.
Learn More
To learn more about the advantages of inbound marketing in the travel and leisure industry, contact the Leap Clixx team today. We’ll help your firm put systems, processes and automated workflows in place so that you’re on-track for substantial, measurable growth – not just now or next year, but as the World Travel & Tourism Council suggests, for decades to come!
For more on Inbound Marketing for your business, check out our FREE downloadable "A Guide to Inbound Marketing Best Practices":
Topics: Inbound Marketing
