What is destination marketing? Is it the end of tourism as we know it? If we believe the tagline for Copenhagen’s 4 year strategic plan regarding tourism, it is. To not look at tourists as tourists anymore, but to respect them like they are temporary residents. A different approach.
Destination marketing is a type of marketing that promotes a destination (town, city, region, country) with a purpose to increase the number of visitors. With destination marketing, you try to move the customer. This is a big difference and requires another approach than product marketing.
By identifying which content categories are most interesting to Millennials, you can maximize your content efforts. To know which categories are most popular is to know what to actually create content about. And that’s extremely helpful. Now don’t start thinking ‘I’m a hotel, so my content should be about my hotel’. That’s passé. In today’s media landscape you ought to think broad.
To reach Millennials, a strong content strategy is essential. Generator, the fastest growing hostel channel in Europe, has got this all figured out. With their high-end design, active social media channels and events they manage to create engagement and thus generate bookings for their hostels.
One of the easier categories of content you can share as a hotel is destination trivia. Fun facts and knowledge about your hotel’s area. The more surprising, the better. Trivia is the perfect type of content to regularly update your website and social media channels. This benefits your SEO ranking + it creates consistency in your content stream, which then improves your brand’s status.
Some restaurants have mastered the game of digital marketing. They’ve found a way to motivate their customers to not only take beautiful pictures of their food, but also to share them on all social media available. Their following grows on the daily. And there you are, breaking your head on how to achieve the same.
Think about the questions you regularly get in your hotel’s inbox. These questions form perfect input for social media content. Turn your answers into good-looking visuals and you got yourself a stream of posts for your Instagram, Facebook or other platforms. Double win!
Buyer personas. You may have heard of them. They are incredibly valuable and can benefit your restaurant, café, bar or likewise business enormously. But how do you create one? And what information should a buyer persona tell you?
One of the best things you can do through your social media is to help your visitors in their travel-preparations. This is a great way to get them even more excited for their upcoming trip while at the same time showing your best, genuine interest in them. It gives you the opportunity to show your guests that you know them, their struggles and their doubts.
As the new year has just started I decided to share my thoughts on the trends we’ll see in hospitality social media in 2018. This list is based upon the many articles I’ve read online, videos I’ve seen and so on.
