There are undoubtedly major challenges the travel industry across the globe is facing in these troubled times. But, with every challenge we encounter there are always opportunities. Now more than ever as travel companies, in particular, will commonly struggle to stay afloat is the time to focus your efforts on these opportunities.
At the time of writing COVID-19 is predicted to be responsible for 75.2 million job losses in the travel industry across the globe.
Not only this but revenue is also predicted to fall by at least 37% from the original 2020 forecast and that’s an optimistic projection.
Source: Statista, 2020
But, it’s not all doom and gloom.
Yes, the travel industry, as well as many others, are treading water in uncharted territory and it’s more important than ever to start focusing your efforts on the right things.
No businesses can afford wasted energy, overly expensive projects, or frankly speaking, spending much more money.
I’ve discussed SEO opportunities during COVID-19 previously, but it’s in situations like this that branding also becomes that extra more important.
Now, what do I mean by this?
It’s simple. Businesses in the travel industry who fail to position their brand as responsible, enticing and, where relevant, reactive to changing conditions are going to struggle to re-engage with travellers when restrictions on movement are reduced.
Let me break down these core parts to make it simpler.
- Introduce Responsible Marketing to your Brand
- Build & Sustain Customer Enticement
- Build a Reactive Brand to Get the Balance Right
Introduce Responsible Marketing to your Brand
Responsible marketing is all about building trust between a company and it’s customers.
In these troubled times trust is going to be a major aspect of a brand’s currency that travel companies will need to start creating.
What this means is that developing your brand to include responsibility as a core value to customers will help you drive greater consumer trust over the longer-term.
The value of this to businesses in the travel industry is to create a brand that focuses on, and communicates, the importance of putting customers safety first.
By encouraging responsible tourism, informing your customers about restrictions, local laws and changes to the domestic environments in which you operate your brand becomes a source of reassurance and trust for your customers.
Think of it this way. If you naively try and promote tourism irrespective of the safety and experience of your customers, you may drive some minor short-term revenue, but the long-term reputational damage to your travel brand could be catastrophic.
My suggested approach of brand management is thus a long-term gain, short-term pain strategy.
So, what do you need to do?
Well, it’s simple. First, map out every touchpoint your brand has with your customers, which will look something like the following:
- Website
- Online Advertising
- Offline Advertising
- Sponsorships
- Social Media
- Blogs & Articles
- Press Releases
- Customer Service
- Sales Staff
- Supply Chain
- Tour Providers
- Logistics Providers
- Emails
Once you’ve done this, use your CRM database and Google Analytics to map out your key customer personas if you haven’t already done so.
Next, you’ll want to identify the key messages which are most relevant to the main customer subsets you want to drive the most impact with. You can prioritise these in order of which persona groupings have consistently driven your company the most revenue.
After this you’ll want to understand what is the responsible messaging and positioning you would like to achieve with your brand? This should include the following:
- Informing customers of the domestic travel situation in which you operate (e.g. restrictions, changing regulations etc)
- Reaffirming customer safety as your main focus
- Domestic information regarding openings/future possibilities
- Understanding the stresses of your customers and empathising
- Enticing customer interests with the main attributes of your travel agency (e.g. excitement, wonder, curiosity, relaxation) – reaffirms your offerings without promoting products directly
- Transparency on your operations – e.g. are you operating? If so, what does this include?
- Offering credit solutions to refund requests
Adding new brand attributes, shifting your brands positioning or strategy, or even rebranding altogether requires careful alignment and consistent coordination of all your customer touchpoints to deliver effective messaging in a timely fashion.
It’s also worth noting that it’s incredibly unwise to step outside of your sphere of expertise.
For example, you shouldn’t be shovelling political, economic and medical advice to customers when you are an unqualified source.
This will look like a man on the street diagnosing you with cancer, which can massively impact your credibility and disillusion your customer base.
Don’t tell your customers you’ve conquered the virus!
Share information where relevant but stay within your area of expertise. Let the medics be medics, you should stay as the experts of travel.
Build & Sustain Customer Enticement
I’m suggesting you reposition your brand to be responsible, but I’m not suggesting you lose your brand’s appeal from better times.
If you are an adventure brand, keep your adventurous positioning and messaging, likewise if you focus on relaxation and tranquility, luxury or budget.
Let me be clear, if you’re a travel company you don’t entice customers, sell tours and experiences through purely factual marketing. All of your customers should be led to purchase by emotional triggers along the way.
For example, I don’t want to go and stand under the Northern Lights because of the number of electrons that might enter the atmosphere on a day with likely low wind and cloud conditions.
Instead, I’m allured by the feeling of seeing nature’s greatest wonder. To stand under the Aurora Borealis is to see a sight few get the privilege of witnessing and evokes feelings of excitement, intrigue and wonder.
Travelling is always going to be a leisure activity (unless travelling on business) and leisure activities are fundamentally emotional purchases.
Your brand needs to understand the emotions your target customer persona’s have when they make a purchase just like my example with the Northern Lights.
Source: Frozenbritabroad
You can then position your offerings to evoke these feelings, which are a way more powerful way to convert a user than otherwise.
In the current situation you don’t want to lose the core feelings your brand has successfully been evoking to drive business revenue. You just have to realise instead of driving regular revenue you are driving enticement.
Let me use an Icelandic analogy here having worked in the industry myself. Think of this aspect of your messaging as a volcano.
Now, by reaffirming the brand values of excitement, relaxation or adventure of your tours, experiences or destinations you are building the enticement of your prospective customer base by showing them what they could experience when travel restrictions open up.
Sadly, at present you can’t instantly capitalise on this enticement. However, with regular emotive messaging you are building that enticement like an expanding magma chamber, ready to explode with purchases once restrictions have died down.
You want to be the brand who is driving the enticement of your customer base to derive enhanced value when your customers can travel again.
Build a Reactive Brand to Get the Balance Right
It’s crucial for travel companies to get the balance of building trust and sustaining enticement just right.
Venturing too far to one path will leave your business as either simply another source of travel information or irresponsible to the current predicament.
For instance, by only focusing your brand on responsible marketing you lose the emotional triggers that build customer enticement for when the travel doors do open – e.g. why would they book with you?
Whereas, if you only focus on building and sustaining customer enticement, you can be perceived as failing to acknowledge your customers’ concerns of travel and be seen as ignorant of the current situation facing your customers.
This is why now more than ever being reactive is incredibly important.
The global conditions are going to continue to change and fluctuate on a daily basis which means the travel industry will have to keep customers informed and up to date to sustain and build brand credibility.
Now, I don’t mean you should suddenly become a news outlet and spam users with optimistic daily projections or send emails out about a cure. Instead, focus on being timely and responsive to updates that affect your customers with respect to travel.
For example, if travel restrictions are being lifted, ask yourself what does this mean for my main customers? How can I explain this update and also give confidence to minimise their anxiety of travelling?
Carrying out timely communication on the latest updates to affect your travellers whilst remaining cognisant of the emotions they’re experiencing (e.g. travel anxieties) is a great way to be relevant, useful and understanding.
Combining this level of customer awareness with the sights and sounds your prospective customers could see or experience when they’re able to, and have confidence to travel, is a winning combination to strategically position your brand for long-term success.
This will help nurture your prospect base of customers by designated yourself as the brand of choice in the market.
Conclusion
There’s no doubt we’re all living in troublesome times. No more is this apparent than the travel industry which is directly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a result, it’s more important now than ever that we look at aligning our resources to take advantage of the opportunities this presents.
In this article I’ve focused majorly on the branding opportunities of striking the right balance between bolstering the long-term value currencies of customer trust and enticement.
This type of positioning and implementation takes time to identify, map out and build, but the long-term benefits to your business’s bottom line could be what sets apart your travel business from your competitors to survive and rebound stronger in the coming months.
I’d love to hear and respond to your thoughts and views of this blog on how the travel industry should respond to COVID-19 in the comments section below. Look after yourselves and focus your work on the highest value actions.
