5 reasons why mobile is critical to tourism marketing success

It was in 2014 that mobile marketing became a mainstream marketing tactic. In 2015, it consolidated its position and started getting more preference (and advertising money). However, it is only in 2016 that mobile marketing has firmly come into its own. Nowhere is this more evident than in the tourism and destination marketing category.

In this post, we will attempt to understand how the humble mobile has come to become ubiquitous in the tourism marketing industry.

The possibilities of personalization

No other device is as personal as the mobile. For the majority of us, it is the first device we look at when we wake up and the last device we use before we go to bed. Through the day it dominates our life with constant updates, calls, messages, chats etc. It would not be an understatement to say that very few people can live without their mobile devices.

However, if you look beyond the near complete domination of our lives, you will notice that no other device is as personalized as your mobile. You have the ability to customize the home screen, add caller tunes to distinguish your callers, store your photos and videos, use apps that are meaningful to you and even link all your social media accounts to it all the time! What this personalization means for marketers is that it gives them a closest-to-reality picture of the real you. One peek into your mobile will help them identify and present options that resonate with you. And guess what happens when you get such options time and gain? Of course you succumb!

The rise of the ‘moment’

Mobile is truly instant. When you look for directions, or a restaurant, or even your friends, you are looking for them near wherever you happen to be at that point in time. Most searches have moved from generic queries to instant queries about the next few minutes. Most activity searches have moved from generic activities to activities near you. Because of the immense convenience it offers, users are more than happy to share their personal information in exchange for immediately useful information. Marketers can harness this to deliver custom services at specific moments in time.

Location, location, location

Think of the number of apps on your mobile device that ask for your location information in order to offer you the best results. The taxi apps need that information to find and send you cabs nearest to you. The food apps ask for that information to identify specific restaurants or cuisines closest to you. Even e-commerce apps ask for your address or location information in order to estimate the time to delivery! When consumer behavior is moving in this direction, should marketers be far behind?

Tourism marketers should include location information in every aspect of their online and mobile communications. With the right kind of tagging, it becomes easier for consumers to find and use that information – leading to greater visits and increased spends.

New lease of life for email marketing

There once was a time when every digital campaign worth its salt included an email marketing campaign. But as social channels arrived and people started spending more time on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the like, email became less dominant. But does it have to be that way? Consider this: Nearly everyone who owns a smart phone has an email app enabled on it. This makes reaching out to them over email as instantaneous as say any other social channel. The mobile has actually resurrected email marketing by putting it right in the pocket of the consumer, 24/7. Use it wisely and you can gain incremental returns from it over time.

Free Wifi – the Holy Grail

Probably the one time consumers miss their internet connectivity is when they are travelling. The prohibitive roaming charges by telecom operators are just one reason. However, savvy marketers who are able to offer free Wifi can actually earn the gratitude and loyalty of these internet-starved travelers resulting in greater usage and repeated usage of their destination. Consumers will happily trade their email address, phone number and even a pay-with-a-tweet/post in return for temporary or longer term access to Wifi. And if your destination includes cafes, restaurants, libraries, museums etc, offering free Wifi should necessarily be a part of your digital strategy.

So there you have it. Just 5 of the many reasons why mobile marketing is critical for tourism marketers. Use these wisely and you will earn the gratitude and interest (not to mention business) of travelers to your destination.

The four essentials of Tourism Marketing

In all tourism marketing, whether destination based or otherwise, your audience is primarily seeking answers to the following questions:

• What to see and do?
• Where to stay?
• Where to eat?
• Where to shop?

If you can answer these four questions effectively, you are well on your way to helping them get started on the experience of a lifetime. Of course a whole lot depends on whether your destination has any of these to offer! But then, if it doesn’t fulfill these basic criteria, it has no business being a destination worth considering does it?

What to see and do?

If your destination is blessed with natural beauty or even man-made wonders, congratulations! You have a highly-marketable aspect already in place. Even if nothing obvious throws itself up immediately, take some time to research what you have that can be positioned uniquely. Do you have a golf course that can compete with some of the best internationally? Or maybe you have some walking trails that will blow the minds of your visitors! Or better still, a tucked-away secret beach that is great simply because it is isolated! Do your research and find out what will attract your visitors to your destination. And allow them to have a great time while they are there!

Where to stay?

This one is more important. While all visitors want the best experience when it comes to things they can see and do, there are several other criteria that determine where they can stay. Price is a big factor. In a beach location, a sea-view bungalow often commands a premium. In high-altitude locations, rooms with scenic views command a premium. As they both rightly should! But it is not enough to cater to the well-heeled or luxury traveler. The bulk of your visitors are likely to be seeking something equally good but at a more affordable price range. And the biggest volume visitors are likely to be on a shoestring budget.

Ensure that you have a range of accommodation options to cater to every budget and requirement. All the way from backpacker hostels through motels and budget rooms to luxury suites and villas. You will attract the all kinds of visitors and there will be something to cater to everyone’s needs.

Where to eat?

This can be a tricky one. If your destination is famous for a particular type of cuisine, great! Ensure that you have a couple of options for people to sample the local cuisine. But depending on your visitor geography, you may need to make allowances for their local cuisine as well. Foreign tourists, on budget vacations, often opt for all-expenses-paid packages that offer them two meals, preferably of their local cuisine. This still allows them to sample the tourist cuisine without losing out on the familiarity of their own. Ensure that you have some options for them too. It also helps to have a couple of cover-all-your-bases options. Good, wholesome food that is not identified with any specific cuisine options. Fast food joints are also welcome although too many may give you the wrong kind of positioning. Play to your strengths and brand identifiers but also keep in mind your audience preferences and tastes.

Where to shop?

This is easy if your destination has something culturally or historically unique to offer. Ideally, your destination should have a main shopping area (either a souk or a cultural shopping district). Rather than remind them of supermarkets back home, this should have a distinctly destination-themed feel to it. Think of the Gold Souk in Dubai or the Strip in Las Vegas.

As regards what to offer, this is simpler still! All shoppers to destinations with famous landmarks want some memento of their time there. Replicas of man-made monuments or natural landscapes are always a big hit. Hookah apparatus from the Middle East, Lamps & Carpets from the Orient, Spices from Kerala or Sri Lanka, Clogs from the Netherlands and Matrioshka dolls from Russia are never going to get passé. 

However, ensure that you stay away from becoming a tourist trap. No visitor, irrespective of their financial status or affordability likes being harassed or taken for a ride. This is precisely what has given some otherwise beautiful tourist destinations in Asia and the Mediterranean a seedy reputation. As ALWAYS, the rule of thumb is to offer something for everyone. Switzerland may have a glorious tradition of watch-making. However they too offer a budget line that allows budget travelers to own a piece of Swiss watch-making history!

That’s it! Get these four things in order and your visitors will go back raving about what a great destination you have on offer. Naturally this post simplifies it more than a little bit. But if you offer these things, across a variety of budgets, you will never suffer from a lack of visitors.

5 steps to creating a compelling positioning for your destination

Creating and sustaining a great positioning is one of the most crucial aspects of effective destination marketing. In this post, we will take a look at 5 things you need to do in order to create a compelling positioning for your destination.

1. Identify your differentiator

Coming up with and executing a great destination campaign means a lot of the hard work will need to happen way before you unleash your creative team on your brief. First and foremost you need to determine how your destination is different from similar destinations. Remember that on the Internet, your competition is just one click away. And most people start planning their travel through research on the Internet.

Not only do you need to be found, you also need to be memorable to make it to their consideration set. If you are able to differentiate yourself well, it is one step in the right direction.

2. Conduct a tourism audit

What is marketable about your destination? What is unique or different? Do you have several attractions near one another or are you a single-option destination. Identify your strengths and weaknesses and pick the one thing that will help differentiate you in the minds of your target audience.

When you have identified your key selling point, figure out how it caters to the wants and needs of your audience. It is one thing to be different. It is an altogether different thing to be popular because of that difference!

3. Develop a positioning statement

Great destination marketing requires a great positioning. How many of us can fail to identify the destinations connected with the following:

• God’s own country
• _________, Truly Asia!
• It’s more fun in the ___________
• Incredible _________
• 100% Pure ________ ___________

To develop a great positioning statement, you need to ask the following questions:

• What is important to your target audience?
• How do they perceive your destination?
• How do they perceive other similar destinations?

Remember that positioning needs to resonate with the audience. If your target audience doesn’t perceive the image, the image doesn’t exist!

4. Target your audience

No matter what you do, you can’t appeal to everybody. There are those who prefer beaches and those who prefer mountains. Some travelers are looking for all modern day conveniences while others are willing to go back to basics or rough it out. Just as there are all sorts of destinations, there are all sorts of travelers. Your task is to conduct research to identify the right kind of audience for your destination.

In all likelihood this will not be one homogeneous group. There are likely to be several sub-divisions within your overall audience. We will dive deeper into ways of segmenting your target audience in another post.

5. Communicate the right message, consistently

One cannot stress the importance of have a communication strategy in place in order to communicate with your identified target audience. Rather than using a singular message for the overall audience, you need to consider structuring the message to appeal to the specific sub-groups within the target audience. It is also important to be consistent in your communication. Whether it is offline or online your audience should get the same message. Especially online, remember that social channels give you the ability of two-way communication. So use this to secure feedback from your audience as well. Monitoring your communication as well as your reputation is of crucial importance.

That’s it! If done in this manner, you will be well on your way to developing an effective destination marketing plan! In another post, we will look at the elements of a good destination marketing plan.

P.S: In case you were unable to guess the destinations in the short quiz above, the destinations in order are: Kerala, Malaysia, Philippines, India and New Zealand.