There is not a single industry that has remained unaffected by the dawn of social media, and the travel and tourism industry is no different. Before social media came into the picture, peer reviews and photos of your dream destination weren’t as easy to access. Today, the ease of accessibility to destination information has put the spotlight on why the industry must leverage new media tools to benefit themselves.

During the recently concluded Beijing International Travel Mart (BITM) 2017, Daksh Sharma, Founding Partner at TravHQ, conducted a workshop on ‘Going Global Instantly – Leveraging New Media Tools’ and how the travel industry can adapt to the rapidly changing needs of its audience.

Here are some key highlights from the session:

Pictures speak a thousand words
Social media is the best way to show off any destination, and also boost engagement on your profile at the same time.When choosing a destination, visitors want to take a visual tour of their potential destination; images give guests the liberty to interpret the destination, and social media gives them the opportunity to share their travel itinerary visually. Social media platforms like Instagram, allow people to do exactly that and with travel brands promoting their destinations through peppy contests, the trend helps them engage their followers by encouraging them to share their opinions. Hence, many hotel and homestay owners are tapping into the pool of travellers via Instagram. Take a cue from Eco Habitat in Coorg:

Video testimonials are like 22 carat gold

Video content is booming in China, with 41.5% of the country forecast to be digital video watchers. The most popular apps include Miaopai, Toutiao Video, Kuaishou and Meipai, and even the posts from the most popular destination marketing organizations have visually pleasing, photo-rich content, alongside practical travel information. From boutique hotels to homestays in far-flung areas of the world, everyone is jumping on the video bandwagon.

For instance, the Mount Lavinia Hotel in Sri Lanka made a promotional video for its hotel in the Mandarin language to be able to attract Chinese audience through its video content. Watch the video here:

The Travel Influencer connect

Close to a quarter of Chinese travellers are independent travellers, aged between 20 and 25. This Millennial group looks for inspiration for their next travel by visiting their favourite bloggers, Instagrammers and YouTubers, rather than relying on traditional advertising mediums such as TV, newspapers and banners. This is where travel influencers step in. With followers running into hundreds of thousands (and even millions sometimes), they enable travel brands to reach audiences worldwide. With their unique storytelling through visual content and first-hand experiences of travelling, they are able to influence people in a way like no other. Today, a brand recommendation from an influencer carries more weight than any other endorsement, and many travel properties are vying for the attention of top influencers to boost their destinations’ allure.

Responsibility towards responses

According to travel site TripAdvisor, as much as 93 percent of executives consider the improvement and management of their online reviews as the most important factor to the future of their business. By taking out time to listen to, and respond to guest feedback, travel brands can strengthen their reputation, improve social media performance, and even boost financial outcomes. On the other hand, failure to respond to reviews, especially the negative ones, can cost companies dearly, in the form of lower review scores and overall ratings.

Top DIY tools for social media marketing

While the Internet is awash with new social media management tools, the right ones can definitely make social media content easy to create, curate, manage, schedule and finally, analyze the effectiveness of campaigns. From the most popular image editing app Snapseed, to Canva, the free, graphic-design tool website that lets you create beautiful social media content, and video editor app Quik, these new media tools are beneficial to brands in more ways than one.

Image source: Android Community

The post Highlights from workshop on leveraging new media tools – BITM 2017 appeared first on TravHQ.

Destination Marketers are coming up with innumerous efforts constantly to reach out to the travelers. The listed downs are making news. Let’s have a look.

Nepal Tourism Board

Nepal Tourism Board revived there one of the successful campaigns earlier this week entitled “Garmi se Behal, Chalo Nepal” in major Indian cities. This initiative was first taken in 2010 as a part of pre-Nepal Tourism Year 2011 national campaign. According to NTP, the campaign has been launched on Monday. The campaign generated a lot of interest on social media by Tuesday day end with 80,000 likes.

Source: Kathmandu Post

Tourism Western Australia

“Just Another Day” campaign for Tourism Western Australia was developed in association with Cummins and Partner about a month ago. These videos focused on the near developments of Perth as the destination has gone through some dramatic changes. The tourism office plans to distribute the content across globe through cooperative advertising campaigns with airlines, travel agents and tour operators as quoted by the CEO Stephanie Buckland.

Source: TTG

Tourism New Zealand

Tourism New Zealand’s integrated campaign “Everyday a different journey” has been recognized by 2016 SABRE South Asia Awards. The campaign has been made to create awareness for the destination and to develop a strong bond with Indian travelers. The brand engaged with a bollywood actor Sidharth Malhotra as the brand ambassador of Tourism New Zealand for India.

Source: TravelBizMonitor

The post Tourism campaigns that are making rounds recently appeared first on TravHQ.

The world’s leading travel trade show – ITB Berlin – is a unique B2B platform for cities, regions, tour operators, online booking portals and hotels, and many other service providers from over 180 countries present their products and services. This event will take place from 9^th March to 13^th March next year.

With the brand’s core value of ‘Experience and Experts’, ITB Berlin seeks to enrich the travel experience of the participants by giving them an opportunity to interact with the marketers and receive valuable first-hand knowledge through face-to-face interactions with international professionals. The marketers will obtain relevant information about important travel topics and the latest trends, establish business contacts and close global deals. The general public that can be avid travellers will get a unique chance to explore the different segments of the travel market in just a few hours.

Associated with this event, ITB Academy with Tourismuszukunft, the Institute for e-Tourism is providing tourism professionals with a multi-session, free Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on ‘Social Media in Tourism’. This online course in English will offer fundamental information about the Internet and social media while giving an overview of the different platforms and important tips about proper social media conduct. It’ll be in the form of interesting lecture videos, informative study documents and inspiring best practice examples.

The online course on ‘Social Media in Tourism’ is available till 1^st March next year. There are 8 modules like Social Media Fundamentals, Social Commerce, Social Media Law and Storytelling. The interested participants can complete each module at their own pace.

The ‘Social Media in Tourism’ online course provides up-to-date information on the social media with a focus on the travel industry. Social media has a very important role to play at all stages of travel. Travellers get inspired to travel on social media and after travelling, inspire others to travel by sharing their experiences. According to a surveys by sources, 52% of the Facebook users admitted that photos posted by their friends helped them formulate their travel plans and 51% of the people said that Twitter content influenced consideration of a travel brand. This proves that social media plays an important role in influencing the travel market.

Participants do not need any preliminary knowledge as the modules build one upon other. To receive the certificate, participants need to pass progress test after each module as well as a final examination.

For more details about this online course, click here.

To register for this ‘Social Media in Tourism’, please go through this webpage.

You can also check out our guides for Instagram and Twitter with inputs from expert marketers if you need some quick tips on how to use social media for your travel brand.

The post ITB Berlin offers ‘Social Media in Tourism’ – an exclusive online course for the travel marketers appeared first on TravHQ.