January 16, 2018 TnH Global 0

Top Business Practices of Big Brands That Every Travel Company Should Adopt

The best brand strategies are ones that are unique, get users involved directly, and remain true to the brand. Travel companies can learn, apply and adopt business lessons and best practices from big brands. They can start by prioritizing their customers’ wants and needs, studying the competition, and carving a niche for themselves in a crowded market. We did some research and found the top business practices of big brands that travel companies can adopt and practice.

Make search engine optimization (SEO) work: SEO is quite the buzzword when it comes to the travel business. More and more consumers turn to the internet to find travel information and make travel decisions. Online search is a huge part of looking for travel ideas and planning trips. Travel companies can benefit by making SEO an integral part of their online marketing strategy. By focusing on digital marketing, improving their search performance and optimizing quality web content, travel websites and brands can attract more travellers and engage their target audience.

Content curation: Content curation is a combination of keywords, web analytics and social media. A travel company can work on keeping its content indexable by search engines, and by making its website design and structure userfriendly. The company can optimize for the right search keywords by targeting low-competition and highvolume long-tail keywords that are relevant to a company’s customers’ search intents. Some of the most successful brands use web analytics to monitor, track and grow their business. Travel companies should measure and monitor their search performance, and make smart decisions based on website traffic and conversion data. Social activities send strong signals to search engines and reinforce a travel company’s authority and credibility. Finally, reaching out to high-value corporate clients and influencers is another critical component. Having professional or emerging travel bloggers write about a travel brand contributes to its overall digital storytelling, enhancing efforts made on owned, paid and earned media altogether.

Blogging: Blogging is one of the rare tools that best serves both B2B and B2C purposes, as it is core to any content marketing strategy. In the travel and hospitality vertical, blogging is particularly useful as storytelling tool, creating content that can then be shared through various social networks such as Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter or LinkedIn. Experts believe that in order to get traction, a blog should publish on a daily basis, or at least 2–3 times per week. Travel companies should ensure that the niche or specialty they seek to share aligns with their brand’s overarching goals and objectives. It’s important for a company to know how its audience fits in with its other social networks and digital tactics.

The Standard Hotel is one of the few that has a great presence on Tumblr, where photos are shared regularly, aligned with the brand and customer interests. Their site is all about storytelling, lifestyle, culture, galleries, celebrities and so on. Further, the award-winning blog of Tourisme Montreal employs five bloggers, writing regularly about arts & culture, festival & events, attractions, fashion, family, gastronomy, gay life, outdoor activities and nightlife. Since 2013, Tourisme Montreal also has a destination blog for its business clientele, with articles focusing on meeting & events, conferences and logistics.

Get a LinkedIn page: There are over 3 million company pages on LinkedIn but very few travel brands efficiently manage their corporate presence on this platform. A good example to follow is Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts that manages its company page well. But company pages are not just for big hotel brands, cruise lines or airlines. Whether a catering business, a tour operator or travel agency—positioning one’s brand and its services on LinkedIn increases its chances of being found by decision makers.

Using Instagram to your advantage: Instagram is one of the hottest social media platforms available right now, due to its youthful demographics and sharp upward growth trajectory. Owned by Facebook, it has more than 400 million monthly visitors, and brands everywhere are looking to jump into the platform to earn more brand engagements and inbound traffic. Posting unique, emotionally captivating, functionally useful content, responding to users, and engaging with influencers apply here. If there was ever a perfect brand for Instagram, it’s National Geographic. With contributors all over the world posting engaging, intriguing images, the company has built up a host of 53 million followers.