To understand how to sell your tourism product you need to understand the psychology of a prospective guest and the buying process they go through when putting together their itinerary. This is easier said than done though as technology has changed the face of tourism industry for both the traveller and industry supplier and will continue to do so going forward! Travel has also become much more personalised, making the understanding of the user journey incredibly important for you, the supplier, when executing your content marketing strategy.

1. Inspiration stage

This stage can either be planned or spontaneous, for millennials spontaneous travel has become a common occurrence and we owe this mainly to social media and the beautiful travel content that is generated daily. Although spontaneous travel is less common for inbound African itineraries for logistical and price reasons, decisions are still easily made when exposed to content online.

• Googling destinations (According to Skift, Travel Trends Company, 80% of travel searches start on search engines)
• Social media Searches & Inspirations

This is where your tourism brand can deliver quickly through powerful content. Short videos and beautiful photos are key to capturing your future guests’ attention in the inspiration stage.

Content marketing feeds into the process by providing strategic answers to search queries. At this stage your future guest is not only interested in your establishment but rather the destination as whole so make sure your content is relevant to your product as well as your destination.

2. Planning Stage

By this stage the guest has made up their mind about where they are going to stay. If they have chosen your establishment as their destination of choice, then it means they will engage further with your website before making a booking. This means that the digital assets on the website need to be as informative as possible without over-whelming the consumer. By digital assets we mean…

• An up-to-date photo and video gallery
• Activities information
• An informative blog
• Fact Sheets
• Location and getting there
• Information on the different seasons, packing lists and relevant FYIs
• Contact Form or contact details which are easily reachable

At this stage travellers will also turn to Online Reputation Management platforms like TripAdvisor. They will compare your establishment’s reviews to others, look at the ranking of places in the area and take part in discussion forums. It’s important to make sure your content on sites such as TripAdvisor is updated and your responses to guests is friendly and professional

3. Booking

It’s a known fact that shopping carts in the tourism industry have an abandonment rate of over 75% so its important that the customer journey is fine-tuned at this point.

• Mobile optimised website
• Easily accessible availability calendar
• Pricing options
• Simple and fast payment methods

If your customer is booking through an online platform like booking.com then make use of a channel manager which will seamlessly integrate this process into a central booking function.

4. Experiencing

The guest experiencing moment provides you with the perfect opportunity to drive guest satisfaction through the roof, that is, if there is a well-thought strategy in place.

As a tourism product owner, you should always bear in mind that a guest who is impressed by a great experience shares it with his peers on social networks and the proceed to enter positive reviews on sites like TripAdvisor. This is not a small thing. 84% of social media users agree their friends’ and family’s vacations inspire them and reviews have a 95% influence on bookings.

Keep Guest feedback forms and contact cards in the room and encourage guests to complete these, follow your social platforms and share any content they captured during their stay! Listen closely to their experiences and embrace feedback which can be used to consistently improve customer experience!