One of the worst-hit industries in the pandemic was the travel and tourism industry. Millions of jobs were lost, businesses shut down and trillions of tourist dollars were wiped out. This was roughly a year ago. Nowadays, hotels and other tourism-based industries are looking towards reaching their pre-pandemic business levels.
With cases on the decline worldwide, many tourist spots have gradually opened up and are ready to welcome tourists. Hotels, resorts, and other hospitality businesses are doing all they can to reach the pre-pandemic levels.
Hospitality businesses are running paid PPC ads, sponsoring events, and encouraging people to travel through various means. One way they can do it in the best way is through influencer marketing.
Here, hospitality businesses can expect high brand awareness and help motivate people to travel. People generally do not take explicit paid ads as seriously as they used to. The good old way of word-of-mouth marketing is a genuine and resource-effective way to spread the word.
The best way to do this is by collaborating with travel industry influencers. They are the ones who’ll encourage and reassure people that traveling is now safe. Here are some ways travel influencers can help hospitality brands increase footfalls.
Boost credibility and brand awareness
Many hotels and resorts hire well-known travel influencers to promote their properties. Travel influencers can post genuine unbiased reviews of the property to give people an idea of what they can expect. This could include YouTube video recommendations, Instagram posts/reels, or any other type of interactive content. In fact, many hospitality brands also repurpose influencer content to post on their own Instagram handles. This helps both the influencer and the brand to co-promote each other.
Increase bookings
When you get a well-known travel influencer to stay at your property, his followers are sure to drop in. The influencers’ reviews, recommendations, and experiences posted via his content motivate his followers to do the same.
To further sweeten the deal, you can-
Offer discounts:
You can offer limited period discounts motivating people to take advantage of it. This could include discounts for the influencers themselves or their followers. This is an old trick to shore up hotel bookings.
Get your influencer to add a link to his post:
With the help of a link, you get more traffic to your website, and, in turn, more chances of bookings. It makes sense to get your influencer to review his stay and suggest the same to his followers with the help of a link.
Feature your property in travel guides:
Many hardcore influencers go out of their way to write detailed travelogues of their visits. They review everything- from what they ate to where they stayed in these travel guides. You can contact these travel influencers to stay and review your property. Their recommendations will surely get you bookings from all over the world.
Promote events
Hotels and resorts can sponsor or host summits, seminars, or other events to promote the brand. Many hotels create sponsored hashtags that influencers can use for promoting the event. This helps increase brand awareness and increase the number of followers on the hotels’ social media pages.
Help Influencers in Content Marketing
Content marketing is the most cost-effective way to spread the word. Influencers, too, are always on the lookout to post interesting and engaging content that would get them more followers. Hospitality businesses can invite influencers to stay at their properties, review them and do things in the region that most people would usually do.
Though some influencers may charge for their services, this is a great way to get to the target audience through user-generated content (UGC). In fact, many hospitality brands also post influencer content on their social media pages.
Considerable Factors While Hiring an Influencer
Always focus on your target audience
Your hotel brand is targeted towards a set audience. For this, you need to hire a travel influencer that posts about this audience. For example, a budget hotel can hire a backpacking influencer who helps his followers save the most on their trips. The best place to find such influencers? An influencer marketplace. Here, you would get influencers that match your requirements and fit with your brand’s identity.
Remember, you do not want to waste time on getting inquiries that do not convert. Your influencer should lead you to the right target audience. Using an influencer marketplace can help you choose the right influencer in a short time.
Respect the influencer’s choices
Well-respected influencers get a lot of partnership requests. Most influencers are extremely choosy when it comes to partnering and endorsing a brand. After all, they have worked hard to get where they are, they need to be sure the brands they partner with fit their brand personality.
To approach such influencers, you need to interact with them in a personal and friendly manner. You need to show them how your brand can help their followers. Also, let them know what is in store for them, what you are trying to achieve with your influencer campaign.
Allow creative freedom
Influencers have amassed their large followings organically with their engaging content. They know what’s best for their followers. You should not dictate terms to them- you should give them creative freedom to maximize engagement and bookings for your hospitality brand. In fact, most influencers would not partner with a brand that doesn’t allow them the creative freedom to work independently.
Wrapping up
It will take some time for tourist footfalls to stabilize to pre-pandemic levels. To get there, hospitality brands have to run sustained influencer marketing campaigns to motivate people to travel. This will take time, but things will fall into place gradually.
