How social media is helping with the tourist trade
Long gone are the days when you would have to wait in a long and expensive phone queue to speak to a travel advisor about a problem with your holiday.
Over the past decade, social media has completely transformed the way in which companies communicate with their potential customers, and as traditional advertising and marketing methods decline, social media is only on the rise. In the tourist trade, social media has had a massive impact on how holidays are marketed as there is so much extra information out there now for customers to access. Here, we take you through the different ways in which social media is helping the tourist trade and how it has influenced tourism marketing.
The rise of online reviews
One of the biggest impacts that social media has had on the tourist trade is the ability to comment online and leave reviews. Just ask yourself, the last time you booked a holiday, did you go online and check out the destination, area and hotel first? For most people, the answer is yes, and this showcases how much of an impact social media reviews have had on the tourism trade. Most hotels will now have their own social media channels, and when these are filled with positive reviews, it can be the deciding factor in choosing which hotel to stay in. However, it is important to remember that this can also go the other way, and so it is important that you engage with customers online when bad reviews are left.
Social sharing
A recent study carried out found that a whopping 89% of millennials would plan their travel activities on content that their peers have posted online. This can be in the form of seeing what your friends have been up to on their latest holiday, to travel bloggers and vloggers posting on social media about their most recent amazing trip. The images on sites such as Instagram are extremely influential and can convince someone of where their next holiday destination should be. Over 97% of millennials share their photos and videos online, and this has not gone unnoticed in the tourist trade. Many hotels and resorts are now creating social media contests to piggyback off this exposure. With free video maker tools easily accessible to everyone, it is now easier than ever to create a short video about your stay at a gorgeous hotel or to film any local activities that you did and then post these videos online. What’s more, local businesses can use these free tools to promote their services cost-effectively on social media, bringing in more business and building awareness and a reputation for their company.
Better customer service
Long gone are the days when you would have to wait in a long and expensive phone queue to speak to a travel advisor about a problem with your holiday. Now, with the rise of social media, and in particular platforms such as Twitter, you can have complaints responded to in a quick and timely fashion. This builds trust between travel companies and the customer and helps companies to humanise their brand.
