Content Marketing in Travel and Tourism industry

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                                  Source: https://bit.ly/3iTXR7R With consumers becoming savvier the competition is getting fierce in the travel industry. There is a plethora of websites to look upon and blogs to pour-over. So, the next obvious question that’s gonna pop in your business mind is how do you stand out from the crowd and your company wins the business. Well to quote from an essay “Future of the Internet” by Bill Gates where he stated “Content is king”, yes, we completely agree with him as content marketing is a very broad aspect of digital marketing and everything fits in this term; product, branding, communication, and service, etc. It is one of the easiest ways to reach your target audience and increase their interest in your brand. Traditional marketing techniques like post-mails and TV ads push-out a message out to the audience who may or may not be interested in trying out your brand. Content marketing pulls an already interested sect of the audience to your platfor

Influencer Marketing and It's Impact On Travel Agency


“To be an influencer, you have to love people before you can try to lead them.”- John Maxwell


Image source: https://talkcmo.com/featured/influencer-marketing-fatigue-are-brands-done-with-it/\

 

INFLUENCER MARKETING

Ever since the invention of technology people have been in a virtual world getting impacted by the changes around them. It’s always been the nature of humans to imitate others or change their customer purchasing decision depending on others. This idea and thought became a marketing strategy about 15 years ago to influence people and produce a drastic change in the market. This strategy is called influencer marketing. It has been an important as well as a successful marketing model in the promotion and sales of the products and services while the influencers get paid for the outcome. The first influencer marketing was done by posting a blog in PayPerPost.



Image source: https://neilpatel.com/blog/make-influencer-marketing-work/

 

Literally, everything can be influenced nowadays. While scrolling down through a social media platform we come across various products, services, amenities that have been recommended to us by others. To automatically change our decision of purchase from seeing a post, story, or video by the person we admire. Thus, whoever the influencer is based on his influencing capacity many brands, agencies, commercial and so on an ally with them to promote the sales of their services, and eventually it is the best cost affecting sales promotion ever existed. All to be done is everything should sound real and authentic.

 

SHIFT OF INFLUENCER MARKETING INTO TRAVEL AGENCY



Image source:https://www.marketing360.in/impact-of-social-media-influencers-on-travel-decisions-of-consumers/

 

Digitalization and social media have also influenced the travel and tourism industry to a great extent. In this era of influencers and imitation, influencer marketing has started agitating the travel industry thus making a boom for the agency. Counties, small towns, random places, Hotels, Restaurants visited by famous personalities started influencing the visitation over the places, and thus travel industry started adopting this strategy. All they did was:

·    Started a social media account like Facebook or Instagram (these two are the most influential social media platform).

·       Set up a budget for marketing.

·       Partner up with the right influencer.

·     Make a perfect campaign (like whether it is a collaboration or making them an ambassador or giving offers for a particular period and promoting their services etc.)

With this right calculation, many travel agencies have made a considerable profit from this model of marketing. Now people with this influencer marketing started visiting places to have new experiences. All thanks to the advent of social media and marketing.

 

IMPACT OF INFLUENCER MARKETING ON TRAVEL AGENCIES

POSITIVE IMPACT



Image source: https://blog.buzzoole.com/social-media-2/how-does-social-media-influence-our-travel-choices/

 

To mention the impacts, the pros are more highlighting than its cons.

  • Ever since influencer marketing people have started visiting many places and started availing themselves of those services mentioned by their admiring influencer. Because they too need to enjoy their influencers’ lifestyle. This boosted the travel industry.
  • There has been a boom in adventure tourism like paragliding, snorkeling, skydiving, scuba diving. This shows the shift of cultural tourism to adventurous tourism. Thus travel agencies have been preparing better packages and taking safety measures for those who enjoy these. Thus, the number of accidents has been diminished in a while. Thanks to influencer marketing.
  • Another positive impact is that transportation services have been improved. Airlines have started to give offers and tour packages to certain popular destinations.
  • Lesser-known places have gained attraction because of the strategical editing, posting, and videos of the influencers. Local tourism agencies have flourished in many areas and contributed to economic growth as well.
  • With the flourishing of travel agencies, the hospitality industry is positively affected by this influence. Hotels, food, and beverages services, etc. have been increasing lately and attracting more people.

 

NEGATIVE IMPACT

  • Fake influencers have been the greatest counterpart now. Some fraudulent people use apps and other devices to increase their followers on social media and falsely promote certain low-quality goods and services.
  • This can be seen in the Travel industry too. People have been manipulated by fake photos and services and thus affected major hotels, restaurants, and famous companies offering many types of tourism facilities. Even many influencers have been badly affected and have damaged their reputations 
  • It is found in the recent study conducted by the UK that about 15 percent of global influencer–marketing spending is from Influencer fraud which almost cost the businesses up to $1.3 billion.
  • Virtual influencers also affect the industry like Lil Miquela a realistic virtual influencer. People can be easily deceived by fake pictures. This virtual influencer can post pictures about services without even availing them because they have not experienced them. Thus, people get manipulated just by the post and videos, and this can badly affect the travel agency.


HOW NOMADS CAN HELP YOU UNDERSTAND THIS BETTER

There has been a tremendous increase in the collaboration of tourist companies and social media. People like to get online comments rather than offline comments. Facebook, YouTube. Twitter. Instagram is actively responsible for this influencer and lifestyle marketing. With this mode of marketing, we as NOMADS can change people’s perception of traveling and can encourage them by the aesthetic content created by our influencers. Also, the problem of uncertainty is resolved as more and more information is available at hand. Thus, influencer marketing is an endorser which affects the individual decision, consumer choice, attitude, and perception of a tourist destination just through word of mouth.

 

REFERENCES

https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/influencer-marketing/#how-to-build-an-influencer-marketing-strategy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influencer_marketing

https://blog.hootsuite.com/influencer-marketing/

https://sproutsocial.com/insights/influencer-marketing/

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-work-with-influencers

https://www.sideqik.com/influencer-marketing/travel-influencers

http://ijariie.com/AdminUploadPdf/IMPACT_OF_INFLUENCER_MARKETING_ON_TRAVEL_AND__TOURISM_ijariie13643.pdf

https://pro.regiondo.com/influencer-marketing-tourism/


Author - Jacques Jude Gerald

 

Comments

  1. Kashyap Srinivas31 March 2022 at 13:26

    We are surrounded by social media, and we get easily influenced by what we see on social media. Choosing the right social media platform, budget and influencers can turn out to be a fruitful business for any brand. Many travel agencies were able to generate good profit by implementing influence marketing while keeping the above-mentioned points in consideration.

    There are a few disadvantages as well like fake influencers, Fake brands promoting, Higher bounce rates, degradation in the influencer's image due to controversies, and many more. These factors are the main reasons why many brands refrain from investing a lot of money and time into influence marketing.

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  3. I completely agree with each and every point of this blog as in today’s time hiring a social media influencer to promote your business or brand will not only help you to expand your reach but it’s an easy way to convert a follower to customer because you are just a post or reels away from achieving this. As these influencers share your product and brand with their own audience, it grants immediate exposure for your business on a larger scale.

    -Prateek

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  4. excellent article, very well explained the subject, influencer marketing is very profitable, without a doubt many companies today have decided to use influencers in their marketing campaigns, and this opens a window of infinite possibilities of growth and exponentiation for the brand, but at the same time, the companies take into account what type of influencer they do business with and campaigns with, since due to the reputation of the influencer, this can make the campaign successful or, on many occasions, it fails, and not only does this affect the campaign itself. course, if not also on many occasions directly affecting the brand, since audiences today tend to link the values of the company with the values of the influencer.

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