People are just as interested in travel as ever, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic.
A 2024 survey conducted by McKinsey found that 66% of travelers surveyed note that travel is a top priority. Both Gen Z and Millennials, in particular, spend a higher share of their income on travel than older generations, and they are especially keen to travel abroad. However, even with consumers being very interested in travel, the travel industry itself is a crowded space with brands working to put together effective PR strategies that will allow them to stand out from the competition.
The travel industry is a vibrant space with brands across several sectors, including transportation, accommodation, food, entertainment, and tourism. With so many brands vying for customer attention, putting together successful PR campaigns in the travel industry is imperative for PR professionals who need to craft compelling narratives that capture the essence of a brand. Read on for top tips from one of our favorite PR professionals, Emily Reynolds Bergh, Founder of R Public Relations Firm.
Tips for Travel Industry PR Professionals
Understand Your Audience:
When working on PR strategies in the travel space, you’ll need to speak directly to a brand’s target audience. Understanding your audience’s expectations, values, and pain points will go a long way to allowing you to create a targeted campaign and messaging that addresses their specific needs—such as looking for an authentic travel accommodations brand that offers transparency and aligns with what they’d like out of their next trip. With diverse brands in the travel industry, you’ll want to conduct market research, analyze social media data, conduct audience surveys, and look at direct competitors’ actions to understand your audience.
Consistent Messaging:
Consumers face an overwhelming choice of brands when it comes to the travel industry, making the need to stand out necessary. This can be achieved with authentic, consistent brand messaging across all platforms—website, social media, press releases, etc. To create and maintain consistent messaging, develop a voice and tone that fits with your brand, and be sure to use that developed voice across all channels. Remain clear and transparent in brand voice and create a toolkit that can be shared across all departments.
Embrace Storytelling:
Referring back to the McKinsey survey, 92% of younger travelers surveyed noted that social media inspired them in some way for their last trip. Travelers are interested in sharing their own stories and hearing from other travelers, which is where an authentic approach to storytelling through PR can pay off. To show off a brand’s human side, sharing real stories from real people will highlight the lasting impact a brand can have on someone—whether sharing a user’s story that they’ve already shared online or connecting directly with customers to learn more about their experiences.
Leverage Social Media:
In a national survey commissioned by justfly.com, 2,000 American travelers were surveyed about how they perceive and value social media platforms. The survey found that multiple generations consider social media to be a key element in their overall travel decision process—with 81% of Gen Z and 75% of Millennials surveyed noting that they take social media into consideration. With that kind of influence over travel decision-making, leveraging social media is a crucial part of any travel PR strategy. Determine the best approach to your PR strategies using social media, such as highlighting customer posts, sharing curated photos and videos, and engaging directly with your customers in real time.
Micro-Influencer Partnerships:
Authenticity is more important in travel PR than ever before, and partnering with micro-influencers is a prime way to help display a brand’s authenticity and extend its reach to a unique, niche audience. While collaborating with larger influencers is still an excellent strategy for PR professionals in the travel industry who want a larger reach, micro-influencers have significant influence over their specific niches. Even though they do have smaller followings, their true power comes in their authenticity and high engagement rates—making them a genuinely invaluable partner for brands who want to foster lasting relationships with influencers and who are looking to target specific demographics, like affluent men and interests, like luxury travel.
Measure Your Impact:
Creating a strong PR strategy in the travel industry won’t mean much in the long term for the brands you’re working with if you have no way to see the success and impact of campaigns. Measure PR impact by taking note of what customers are saying through direct customer feedback, reviews, and social media engagement. Positive feedback and social engagement will come from customers who feel strongly about a brand and their travel experience. PR professionals can also track key performance indicators (KPIs) that will display the effectiveness of PR strategies, like brand mentions and customer satisfaction scores, and conduct surveys focused on brand awareness. To help effectively track, analyze, and report these KPIs, consider using PR tools like Google Analytics, Semrush, and Path Social to gain a comprehensive view of campaign efforts.
Final Thoughts
Creating an effective PR strategy in the travel industry requires PR professionals to approach each campaign with a careful eye and a willingness to use all of the tools at their disposal—from data analytic tools that provide a measure of your PR effort’s impact to establishing collaborative partnerships with influencers that align with your brand’s values. Approaching your PR from all angles and focusing on meeting your customers with authenticity and consistent messaging where they’re at will make all the difference in your travel PR.
