4 reasons why you can’t avoid social media if you work in a tourism

Facebook has roughly 3 billion active users, YouTube almost 3 billion and Instagram over 2 billion monthly active users. Part of those users may come to your country or town as tourists this year. Are you ready for them? Biggest tourist brands take their presence on social media very seriously and are very aware of the effects it has on their business. Some researchers show that over 70% of brands researched said that social media had a positive impact on their business. Moreover, 50% of travel brands proved direct bookings through social media.

Communication – a key to success!

One thing that every tourist employee needs to know and accept is the fact that communication on social media, unlike traditional media, will always be directed in two-ways. Social media allows you to communicate with those who you are selling your service to, in real-time. A quick reaction to their questions can mean the difference between booking or sale and them going to your competition.

Social media is much cheaper for advertising than traditional media like newspapers, radio or TV but it is not free and it also asks for investing a lot of energy into building an online community and then maintaining it. People nowadays use social media throughout the whole day, especially while on vacation. You have to have in mind that now your potential clients are able to ask questions and seek new places to visit or fun things to do in the area, 24 hours a day. If you are present on social media and visible to your potential customers you will for sure only benefit from it. Especially if your competition doesn’t use social media in the right way or even at all.

Communicate with your potential customers.

Why social media?

Did you know that 75% of travelers update their social media profiles while traveling?  Your goal is to become topic number one in their posts. Attract guests with quality content and make them wish to visit your place or book their accommodation with you while on vacation. The chances are that they will share it on their social media with their friends. People like to share where they’ve been, what they have eaten or how many fun activities they did while on their vacation. Use that fact and always encourage your customers to share photos and experiences with other users on their social media. They will feel happy and content with showing their friends how much they are enjoying their vacation and in return, you will have amazing and current content to publish on your page. Make sure to tell them that they always tag your location in their pictures or create a fun hashtag for all your guests to use. This way you will also create a stronger bond with them.

Encourage your guests to share photos on social media.

Good review means more than booking

Whether you like it or not, users today love to hear first-hand impressions of other users that have already visited locations, restaurants or accommodations that they are interested in now. Some researchers show that reviews have a crucial influence on over 88% of travelers when deciding where to go on vacation or what accommodation to book. TripAdvisor is the king of this field to set up your profile, connect it with your social media accounts and always answer comments and emails as quickly as you can. Your future guests will reward it, for sure.

Blogging

As we already said, creating quality content is the key to achieving better results in any business and the same applies to tourism. Great travel-friendly blogs are an amazing way of raising awareness among your potential customers about your brand, whether it is a restaurant, hotel or travel agency. It will also help you raise your position on Google search which will also eventually bring you new bookings. This is an amazing way to tell a story about yourself and spark an interest with your potential customers by showing them what they can see and experience in your town or area.

The perfect example of a blog with stories told from the perspective of locals is Love Zagreb, a blog written by Zagreb tourist board (Kontra is in charge of content production, too). Love Zagreb is not your normal tourist board web page which only informs visitors about current events in town or historic and cultural landmarks. The main idea of this blog is to tell a story about the city through interesting blog posts and share information about Zagreb that you wouldn’t find in traditional city guides. There are also pretty big chances that some of the visitors to the blog will share this content with their friends and also on social media which is always a plus.

Create quality content.

In the end, whatever you do, always be consistent, creative and accessible because that will guarantee you guests that are happy and content with your service. Focus on little things and quality which will always overpower simple quantity. And remember, clients should always be first on your list of priorities.

If you decide to include experts in planning your marketing activities, feel free to get in touch with us.

We will turn things around.