Marketing strategy of travel agencies

Thousands of travel agencies exist in the world and the USA. What do they provide for us?The answer is “it depends”. Some people need a calm and exotic holiday in Bali. Others need to travel in the mountains or great European vacations, visiting famous cities like Rome and Paris. Travel agencies suggest many solutions depending on who is their target market, in the blog post we will discuss many examples of successful advertising of famous travel agencies.

What type of people do they target?

What is the reason they advertise in a specific way? Let’s discuss a commercial example and see what is hidden beneath an advertising.

Here is a funny travel agency commercial.

The commercial shows us many aspects of the marketing of travel agencies.

In the commercial people are taking a plane and going on their vacation. And on the plane, something strange is happening. A strange pilot comes and tells the security rules. Also, they give them childish balloons in case the plane crashes. The funny commercial gives us interesting information to discuss.

1st. Let’s discuss the branding of the commercial.

We see that all kind of stuff is present here which is connected to an island, where people stay in a little house, where there is no progress in technology like smartphones and wifi. And the house is on the shore full of exotic stuff like a birdcage, an old teapot and so on. The pilot himself speaks funnily and he is a little drunk, like old movies and he is from the 50s.

So what type of branding is done in the commercial? For the answer, we refer to 12 brand personalities (archetypes) to find out what type of archetype do the commercial have. There are different archetype like Hero (the archetype that uses Nike), Explorer (the archetype that uses Starbucks).

We have an answer for the commercial and its archetype is Explorer brand archetype. What does the Explorer brand personality present?

The desire of the brand personality (archetype) is to find out who you are through exploring the world. The goal of the archetype is to experience a better, more fulfilling life. And the brand personality also has a strategy, and it is seeking out new things, escaping from entrapment and boredom. Many brands have the following brand archetype (Starbucks, Jeep, and Amazon). The commercial suggests we to find out our individuality and have a more fulfilling life.

2nd. let’s discuss the target market of the commercial.

We see here middle-aged people from 28 to an old man sitting in front of the plane. It is obvious that people who like to go to agencies are not young, they are more than 30, and do not like to use technologies, like searching for their solution on the web and need help for their vacations. 

In the commercial, we see a couple who is very surprised by the behaviors taking place in the plane. One of the targeted people are newly married couples, who like to go for journeys to a beach and having a honeymoon.

Garrison group gives us a description of customer characters and there are more than 20 customer characters. Which customer character has, for example, the husband?

Garrison group calls them Sharers, who like to share their moments and stuff with others.

So let’s discuss a little bit the Sharers.

Sharers are people who would like to find enjoyment in every little moment of life. They like challenges and risks, novelties that’s why sharers are a perfect target for agencies who provide tours where adventures and novelties are present.

Sharers like shopping a lot, it is their main way of making their moments interesting. They think that money is one of the main ways of measuring success. Cooking is the main way of time spent at home and the kitchen is their favorite room at home. They like using high-class brands, though their living standards are not so high, always seeking new brands. They like exploring magazines and websites where new products and services are suggested. This means that they would gladly look for new opportunities for traveling, it depends on how premium and how interesting is your offer.

Overall description. 

The funny style of advertising makes people to watch and to be interested in the commercial. The key is the surprise of people, who would see what is going on in the plane and afterward they begin to laugh and make jokes on that.

2 brilliant examples of marekting campaigns.

Just 2 simple ways to grow your business.

Now let’s look at the tactics of a famous travel agency worldexpeditions.com based in the USA. Let’s discuss their website and see how it is done.

The following company is an old living, a veteran company who knows its customers very well and have created different offers to satisfy clients and we see here.

The first part of the website is suggestions of interesting tours like this expedition to Antarctica and there are also a few other suggestions like adventures to central Asia, where the silk road is. Here we also see menu sections like destinations, activities, last-minute trips, private groups, thoughtful travel, and charity. These are 6 different kinds of travel suggestions prepared by the marketers of the company. Each of them is a different kind of holidaymaker. Let’s discuss some of them.

1.Destinations.

their destination section we see suggestions to travel all over the world, from Tibet to Antarctica, there are full of suggestion of services and with different prices.

2. Activities section.

The following section perfectly distinguishes the traveling activities. They are divided into 8 big sections which you cand see on the screenshot. All type of adventures is present here. From culinary tours to family adventures and wildlife safaris. All of these adventures have a specific type of approach and the company provides all the measures to spend fantastic tours and having a great time.

3.Last-minute trips.

The section is made for people want to travel at the moment and the decision is made just at a moment and searching for appealing and life-changing challenges. And the marketing team of the company has acknowledged that there are tones of people who would like to take a trip in a few days after their decision. There are destinations like Jordan, Zambia, and Everest.

4.Charity.

This is another great segment targeting, people who like supporting others and being a part of charity programs, and the website suggests different kind of solutions to this kind of people. They do not charge people who would like to support charities. One of the charity directions is the Himalayas. here children are suffering from blindness and any type of help is very appreciated.

Let’s look at what travel agencies post on social media and what kind of commercials they create.

I visited the Instagram page of Topdecktravel and wanted to see the type of advertising. I found a little magic in every photo and here is an example of Pisa tower in Italy.

Whoever goes to this special place, likes to take a tricky photo with this interesting building and the girl did it perfectly. There are other tones of beautiful places in the world and in every photo there is magically inserted with al title glamour elements, this is how the agency is working on Instagram.

World expeditions does the contrary style of posting on facebook. Here is a post which speaks about the challenges that our planet is facing every day, we need to care about our planet.

The whole family stands for the planet and ask the world to save the planet.

Their Facebook page is full of pictures from counties that we have never been to Tibet and so on. Their main point is to make us interested in different cultures, they work on our curiosity to find out new borders.

Here is another post of the Instagram page of Authentic London Walks.

This is George inn marked in 1543map of London. The company manages authentic walks in London, not the places that are familiar to everybody, but some places where tourists do not visit but have great value.

Let’s take a look at another commercial that Expedia has created.

An old woman is having a little trip to Paris and is remembering her first love and how she lost him. She sits in a coffeeshop and goes back in tens of years and recalls the beautiful times. Then she crosses the lover’s bridge and looks at a couple with a happy face.

In the end, it is found out that she was never been there as she never traveled to Paris and met her love.

Then Expedia tells us that “the trips we never make, we never will…..” will never meet our 2nd parts, we will never have an unforgettable time that will be remembered throughout all our lives. The nostalgic way of advertising tells us different things.

Archetypal branding of the commercial is made uniquely. The old woman loved somebody, but it is imagined, love. The perfect love which was magical. So the personality (archetype) of the Commercial is Magician.

What does Magician archetype represent?

The goal of the Magician archetype is to make dreams come true. The strategy is to make a vision and live it. The hero of the commercial makes her vision and lives it as if it was real. Much traveling agency brands chose magician brand archetype as their basics of branding.

The magician brand archetype shows magical moments as well as miracles made in a moment.

Every successful brand has implemented the strategy of 12 brand archetypes. We need to take just 8 steps for completing archetypal branding with the following book.
1. Find out your brand archetype.
2. Create a logo.
3. Do the packaging.

Now let’s see who Expedia marketing team targets. The following characteristic segment is called Independents named by Garrison group. Aged 60+.

Who are they?

Independents like to have a life with full enjoyment. They live for themselves, seeking adventures and excitements, also like visiting cultural places like art galleries museums and so on.

Independents like to be very independent and are so not spend, much time with their families and do or help them. Instead, they have a vast community of friends, like spending them a lot of time. Independents are people who had success in career and they look at work as a mean of control and power.

The following segment adores traveling, that’s why they are at the center of attention of all travel agencies. They like visiting new places as it makes them more intelligent. Independents like doing shopping, especially like buying clothes, and they rarely plan their shopping trips. They like the premium brand but do not stay loyal to the same brand for a long time. They like surfing on the web and finding out information about entertainment, business and so on.

Overall we see here the Magnifique city Paris. Everybody would like to see the city very much, even 2nd and 3rd time. There is always something new in the city. They target also younger generation, couples as well as loners who may meet their 2nd part here.

Easy Buyer Persona Creation by Me.

Here are some tips that travel agencies may use to succeed.

I looked through famous travel agency websites and social media platforms and found out some things.

1st. There must be a section on the website which helps us to connect with an expert, which will listen to us and give perfect solutions to our needs.

2nd. Here we should be careful about what is shown on the media, on Tv. A lot of traveling channels show us travelers who go to an unknown world, visit crazy places in Asia, see the unseen. People watching this may want to visit the following places. The company World Expeditions suggests us to win a Silk road expedition tour. Silk road is very discussed by tv channels.

3rd. The travel agencies should either show the exploring power of their tours or the magical moments their customers would have if they chose the travel agency as the customer wants to fulfill either their exploring ambitions or feel the magic of places and the moments.