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The travel, tourism, and hotel industries make up a huge proportion of the global economy where bookings alone approach a whopping $1.6 trillion. In such a vast industry where competition is fierce, market leaders must protect one of their acquisition channels – organic search – from small disruptors.
It has been witnessed that the best tourism brands are reaching consumers with engaging content through organic search.
How do they do so?
Let’s look at how leading brands are tackling organic reach on Google, and how that process looks like from both a large and small company point of view.
Market Leaders: Leading Brands Target Multiple Stages
Have you heard of the traveler’s customer journey?
It showcases all the different activities traveler’s perform while making travel-related purchases.
Many market leaders expand their service offerings to remain competitive in the market and maximise profit and brand value. This type of expansion is called multi-stage brand strategy.
An example of a major market leader who has an effective multi-stage brand strategy is Expedia. Expedia started out as a booking site but now offers airfare to hotels to cruises and lots more.
Smaller Players: Using Focused Targets
Did you know that 56% of the total market share in the travel, tourism and hotel industry is not consistently held by any one brand?
Market leaders aren’t just competing with each other, they are competing with local competition, also known as the smaller players.
One of the advantages of local travel, tourism and hotel brands is that they can create highly focused sites specifically for their markets. For example, if a consumer is searching for hotels in Rome, one of the first local results they see is a boutique Italian hotel that offers low prices and an authentic cultural experience. That is a major advantage for that local business as there are many searches for hotels in Rome every day.
Smaller players should be aware that Google prefers focused sites, so they should regularly update any unfocused pages to boost their organic search results.
What are your thoughts on digital marketing in the travel, tourism, and hotel industries?