Digital Marketing Trends for Hotel and Travel Industry

The scope of technology is consistently shaping hospitality sector, especially hotel and travel industries. In fact, technology is widely used for exploration, research, bookings, and travel planning. A recent rise in smartphone users has fueled the trend of offering seamless digital marketing services in this field. Businesses are using an Omni channel experience for the travelers using innovative technologies.

According to the latest statistics, young trippers prefer booking accommodations through digital means as compared to the earlier generation of travelers. Here are discussed the top trends of digital marketing for this industry:

A Healthy Competition:

Online Travel Agencies or Aggregator Travel Sites, all these digital platforms are driving accommodation bookings through competitive pricing. Also, these portals offer additional services like flight booking, car rental, restaurant reservation, or other bookings. Traditional players also face tough competition with regard to service quality owing to the search engines like Google.

Trends have changed drastically in hotel and travel industry. The concept of ‘travelling like local’ with apartment rentals or vacation rentals are getting popular among the new-age travelers. The competition in hotel accommodations is not restricted to commission sharing but experience and business model of service provider also matter. Other than hotel accommodations, short-term rentals of myriad properties like beach houses, cabins, farm stays, cottages, apartments, villas, or chalets are looked as potential staying options by travelers.

Nowadays, big players of the travel industry are offering these units on a weekly or monthly basis. In fact, this industry has stepped into apartment rental market and operating vacation rental business in a more organized way.

This new concept compromises more than half of properties offered by travel sites. Marketing companies like Expedia have acquired entities like Home Away to enter this category. Another hospitality service, Onefinestay offering temporary stays to the clients seeking a high-end luxury, has been acquired by AccorHotels. This concept is trending in hotel and travel industry and no one can swim against this wave.

The Course of Travel Journey:

The journey of travelers can be bifurcated in three stages, viz. pre-travel stage, during the trip, and post travel. All these phases are important for hotel and travel industry and digital marketing companies play an important role here.

Pre-Travel:

Pre-travel stage is when travelers search for travel options through ads, social media, or other sources. This is kind of stressful for consumers. They collect information or reviews on a destination and analyze services of various providers. Comparisons, reviews, and other sources of information are crucial at this stage.

Today, hotels and third-party portals offer reviews and comparisons to consumers for their inquisitiveness. Travel cost is one of the top parameters to evaluate a destination. Hence, they use tactics like low-price guarantee, last-minute deal, and price alerts to force consumers to click on a link.

At this stage, online travel agencies are important for consumers to review accommodations and other services. It is assumed as a trusted source for them to get valuable opportunities and drive reservations. Therefore, adding content or reviews that influence decision of consumers should be provided by hotels to increase their sales.

During Trip:

During the trip, travelers need various services and products like entertainment, dining, shopping, event tickets, etc. Players in the travel industry have responded to such demands by offering services like restaurant reservation, entrance tickets, and booking rides. Concierge service through apps offering self-service mobile solutions is becoming extremely important in hotel and travel industry.

Post Travel:

Encouraging travelers to leave feedbacks and reviews is the biggest drive initiated by the digital marketers. To attract repeated purchases, they use email marketing, referral programs, and other loyalty programs. They share these feedbacks at their platform to inspire other travelers.

At Infognana, we track all these trends and integrate them into our working model. This facilitates in offering comprehensive digital marketing services to our clients from this industry.