Passport. Wallet. Google.

Throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. – Mark Twain

Travel can be an emotive decision.

You’ve worked hard, and you want the best value for your savings and your precious time.

If you’re a marketer in the travel industry, you’re probably familiar with the three stage “Dream, Plan, Book” model representing the travel decision process. A traveller dreams about a destination. Over time the dream becomes a decision, and the traveller starts to research and plan their adventure. Eventually, they book their trip. Destinations have used this model to successfully shape their sales process.

Today, we live in an increasingly mobile world. Forward planning and booking is less important. We don’t need to plan ahead. We literally have all the information we need in the palm of our hands. This change in behaviour has resulted in what Google calls micro-moments1. Rather than spending long periods of time researching, we snack frequently on chunks of content.

This change in browsing behaviour can affect your site’s KPIs. If your mobile traffic is rising and your visitors’ time on site and page views per visit are tanking, you may be seeing snacking in action. The upside is that you may also be seeing more return visits, which opens up new opportunities.

The mobile revolution has also prompted an evolution of the “Dream, Plan, Book” model. Research from Google2 indicates that two new stages have emerged in the travel journey: experience and share. Travellers experiencing your destination typically have high expectations around ease of mobile bookings, access to information, and personal service.

Research also suggests 16% of travellers are sharing their experiences in real time with their social network3. Those shared experiences are powerfully influential. In 2014, Facebook surveyed users and concluded that 84% agreed that friends’ and family’s vacations inspire them. 58% said friends’ and family’s experiences encouraged them to visit a place they had never considered before4.

Not so long ago, we considered the travel purchase decision a linear process. Your visitor started with a dream, ended up booking, and ultimately shared their experiences with friends and family. But mobile has disrupted this process, allowing people to move back and forth between these stages at any time. Pre-mobile, a traveller was likely to arrive in their destination well informed, after extensive planning, usually with accommodation booked, and often with transport and activities sorted. These days, not so much. Now they might book accommodation for their first few nights at their destination and plan the rest of their stay on the hoof. They arrive and immediately start planning tomorrow’s experiences. The next day they share those experiences, while planning the following day.

So what does this shift mean for destination marketers?

Your role as a destination marketer may shift from inspiring visitors, to ensuring that your visitors have a fantastic experience and encouraging them to spread the word. You may be less focused on selling accommodation and activities, because those sales are more likely to happen on one of the many travel deal sites around the web. You may decide to invest in trialling new ways to add value to your visitors at every stage of their journey, so that they consider your website a valuable tool. You may dedicate more resource to curating your digital footprint, which extends far beyond your website.

We have three key recommendations to help you evolve your marketing…

1. PERSONALISE
2. MENTOR
3. INSPIRE

Personalise your website experience to your visitors’ needs

Your visitors expect to be able to plan and book using their mobiles while in your destination. This may influence the information, functionality and messaging that you deliver. To give your visitors a better website experience, consider delivering information that’s more relevant to their actual situation. Where are they? What time of day is it? What’s the weather doing?

If it’s evening and they’re on the ground in your destination, they’re probably looking for somewhere to eat, so you could serve up restaurant reviews and listings. Say the weather’s looking great the next day, you could suggest activities for a sunny day. Personalisation enables you to make your website increasingly intelligent and relevant to your users’ needs

Mentor your Members

Your accommodation providers, hospitality businesses, and activity operators have the strongest influence over the experience your visitors have. Your role may become increasingly educating and collaborating with your members, empowering them to exceed your visitors’ expectations at the experience and share stages of their journey.

How can you collaborate more closely with your members? Is there an opportunity to put together a working party of your most savvy members to focus on ways to improve your visitor experience? What opportunities exist to educate them?

Inspire Your Visitors to Share Socially

In 2014, Google researched the top online sources of travel inspiration5:

• 83% Social networking
• 61% Search engines
• 42% Travel review sites/apps
• 42% YouTube
• 31% Destination-specific sites/apps

With social networks now the most important source of travel inspiration, you have an opportunity to encourage your visitors to act as a catalyst to inspire a whole new wave of travellers to your destination.

Every visitor is now a potential social influencer, who can create the next generation of dreamers. Deliver a great experience and facilitate the sharing of those stories and pictures, and your delighted visitors will be your strongest advocates.

For more go to: timezoneone.com