Tourism Digital Marketing

A lot of destinations are spending big money on marketing and still blending into the background. Not because the places aren’t incredible, but because the content feels completely lifeless. I visit roughly 15 countries per year, I see it every single day, drives me crazy. Every destination says the same things. Hidden gem. Authentic culture. World class hospitality. Breathtaking views...blah blah blah. Once you’ve seen it a thousand times, it all becomes wallpaper. The problem is that most destination marketing is built around what executives want to approve instead of what travelers actually connect with emotionally. Real travel is messy, emotional, funny, loud, human, spontaneous, cultural, and personal. But most tourism content feels like it was written by committee inside a boardroom. Here’s the tactical part that DMOs seriously need to understand: 1. Stop marketing your destination like a brochure. Nobody opens social media hoping to read tourism slogans. 2. Put real people at the center of the content. Chefs, taxi drivers, bartenders, musicians, fishermen, hotel staff, street vendors, grandmothers cooking local food. That’s the soul of a destination. 3. Show movement and energy. Too much destination content feels static. Travel is emotion in motion. 4. Create content around moments, not landmarks. A place becomes memorable because of how it made someone feel. 5. Stop trying to make every post look luxury. Some of the best performing travel content online feels raw and immediate. 6. Think platform first. A LinkedIn audience, Instagram audience, TikTok audience, and YouTube audience consume content completely differently. Most DMOs still post the exact same thing everywhere. 7. Build long-term creator relationships. One influencer trip and 12 Instagram Stories is not a strategy. 8. Start creating content for AI discovery now. The destinations that tell deeper stories online today are going to dominate search visibility tomorrow. Tourism marketing has changed. Attention spans changed. Consumer behavior changed. The algorithm changed. AI changed discovery. But a huge part of the tourism world is still marketing destinations like it’s a printed magazine ad from the good old days. And then they wonder why engagement is flat. 🙄🙄🙄 --- If you like the way I look at the world of hospitality, let’s chat: scott@mrscotteddy.com

While the travel industry races to dominate Instagram and TikTok, many sustainable travel brands, especially those who are unbranded, local or community-driven are missing out on a quieter but incredibly powerful platform: 𝐏𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭. Unlike traditional social media, Pinterest isn’t designed for likes or virality. It’s a visual search engine where users go to plan their lives, not scroll through them. And that’s precisely why it’s one of the most aligned platforms for sustainable tourism. Pinterest is where people search for how they want to travel, not who they want to travel with. And here’s where it gets interesting: as of now, 96% of all searches on Pinterest are unbranded. That means users are typing in things like “eco retreats in Latin America”, “cultural trips for women”, or “offbeat travel experiences” not company names. This creates a rare opportunity for grassroots, regenerative, and offbeat tour operators to be discovered without needing global recognition or massive ad budgets. 𝟏. 𝐏𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐔𝐧𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 In a space where big OTAs (online travel agencies) dominate Google and social algorithms, Pinterest flips the script. The fact that almost every search is unbranded makes it the perfect discovery tool for small, community-rooted experiences from a women-led trek in Morocco to a seaweed-foraging tour in Chile. If your brand centers around values instead of volume, Pinterest is your space. 𝟐. 𝐈𝐭 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐀𝐠𝐞 𝐆𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐩 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐒𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐥 Pinterest’s core users are women aged 25-44, many of whom are sustainability-conscious, wellness-driven, and in a phase of life where they’re actively planning meaningful travel solo retreats, family holidays, cultural immersions or low-impact honeymoons. These women are not just dreaming, they’re deciding. This demographic is increasingly steering tourism demand toward slower, greener, and more inclusive experiences. 𝟑. 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐕𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐘𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 One of Pinterest’s biggest advantages is how content remains evergreen. A post today about “regenerative farming stays in Portugal” can resurface six months or even six years later and still drive traffic. This is vastly different from platforms where visibility dies within hours. Plus, Pinterest doesn’t rely on followers. It's driven by visual design and keyword search, meaning anyone can get visibility with the right content strategy. If you're a sustainable travel brand or tour operator especially one focused on authenticity, culture, and community. Pinterest could be your most impactful channel. The conscious traveler is already out there, searching. Pinterest is where many of them begin that journey.

❗Google Makes Dramatic Change To "Things To Do" Searches.❗ I've noticed a major shift in the search results recently for anyone doing searches for "things to do" in a destination. This is the most significant change I've seen in a long time, but confirms my suspicion that Google is moving to a more curated experience, and a focus on local businesses. The results feature a curated list of local businesses (via GMB) classified by category. I had to scroll for quite a bit to find the #1 organic result, which was TripAdvisor. So what does this mean for operators? 1. You NEED a GMB (Google My Business) profile if you want to stay relevant. Also, you need to send your review invites to Google and nowhere else. I've been saying this on the podcast quite a bit. It appears that Google's curation is favoring operators with a lot of reviews and high ratings. 2. Popular POIs (Points of interest) in your destination are becoming more authoritative. I've seen this trend the past few years. If you have a resort or entertainment district in your town with a GMB, it's wise to partner with them. 3. OTAs and resellers are going to be forced to pay a lot more to acquire bookings. OTAs receive a substantial amount of sales through organic traffic sources. With Google pushing their users directly to the business, OTAs will see their organic traffic sharply decline. Commissions could increase, or other fees imposed to justify the loss of bookings. 4. Larger and more distinguished operators may see more direct bookings, but it could also mean that smaller operators are harder to find due to the curation. 5. Google TTD (Things To Do) feeds are going to become even more important than ever in this new ecosystem. These feeds are more widely distributed throughout different searches. It's not just "things to do" searches, but I've seen them display in longtail as well (i.e. miami dolphin tours). 6. Make sure you are relevant on discussion boards. Even though there was some indication recently that Google was putting less emphasis on Reddit results, it's clear that Google wants some form of discussion boards in their new Things To Do ecosystem. 7. It is my belief that Google will eventually charge for GMB. Back in 2019 they tried to roll this out, but I believe they pulled back due to Covid. However, if they are going to cut out OTAs and Resellers, they will need to compensate themselves for pushing all this traffic direct. Or maybe they charge per booking as an affiliate. They have a lot of options. If you still intend on creating local content for your website for SEO benefits, there is opportunity! Focus on long tail topics where there isn't a lot of competition. Google doesn't seem to mess with results when there isn't a lot of searches.

Your biggest tourism asset might not be a landmark, but a local icon and a flagship live event? This summer, Bad Bunny is expected to generate nearly $200 million in economic impact for Puerto Rico. Over 600,000 people will travel to San Juan for his residency, the first of its kind on the island. Hotel occupancy is already up 70% compared to last year, and Glorianna Yamín from Discover Puerto Rico confirmed a major spike in travel interest. This kind of economic impact isn’t new, we saw it with Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour which grossed over $2 billion in ticket sales and poured millions into local economies. We’re seeing a shift: travel marketing shouldn’t just sell a destination, it should tap into live moments people already care about. That’s where cultural relevance meets business impact. Rafat Ali has coined a phrase that I think captures this perfectly “Live Tourism”... but how do you market it? The smartest destinations will start creating content well ahead of the event. They know that when people are planning to visit, they are going on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube searching for videos of what to do. They know that if they want visitors to stay for longer and spend more money when they arrive, they need to make it easy to discover what’s on offer. Short video itineraries of what to do, where to stay, where to eat, drink and relax in Puerto Rico should be all over social media right now, building value for the future guest, not around a generic campaign but around actionable insights tied to these live cultural moments.

85% direct sales. 15% OTAs. That's the distribution split I heard from an expedition company last week, and it stopped me mid-conversation. In an industry where most activity providers feel chained to Viator and GetYourGuide, this felt almost rebellious. But here's what I've learned working with 85+ tourism clients: the operators who thrive aren't the ones avoiding OTAs entirely. They're the ones who've figured out the right relationship with them. The split shouldn't be ideological. It should be mathematical. Your direct channels should be where you're actively driving down customer acquisition costs. Building email lists. Refining your paid strategy. Creating content that ranks. That's your foundation. OTAs? They fill gaps. They capture demand you'd otherwise miss. They introduce your product to travelers who weren't searching for you specifically. The trouble starts when that relationship flips. When 65, 75, 85% of your bookings flow through third parties, you've handed over your customer relationships, your margins, and your ability to build a brand. I've seen operators refuse to work with OTAs on principle. That's fine, but it's leaving money on the table. Others lean so heavily on distribution partners that they couldn't survive a commission increase or algorithm change. Neither extreme serves you well. The question isn't OTAs or not. It's this: Are you building a business where direct is your engine and distribution is your supplement? Or are you renting your customer base from someone else? That operator with 85% direct didn't get there by accident. They invested in German-language campaigns targeting a highly specific demographic. They built a bespoke pre-arrival planning sequence that created word-of-mouth. They treated direct acquisition as their core competency. OTAs weren't the enemy. They just weren't the strategy. ------- For more travel marketing insights, subscribe to our bi-weekly deep dive, the NavLog. You can find it at propellic[dot]com/navlog #travelmarketing #touroperators #directbookings #tourismbusiness #distributionsstrategy

How we discover what to do and where to go is rapidly changing. AI-driven generative search overlays have revolutionized how people seek instant answers, rendering traditional SEO strategies inadequate. To stay visible and competitive, destinations must adapt their information for conversational AI interfaces. Here's how integrating a Conversational AI Chat Platform can elevate your visibility and engagement: - Structure Your Content for AI: Ensure your content is real-time, well-organized, and optimized for AI retrieval. Dynamic FAQs, event schedules, and local tips should be tailored for AI compatibility. - Visibility Across Search Platforms: By leveraging a conversational chat platform, your destination becomes not only searchable but also responsive in AI-generated results on major search engines like Google, Bing, and various social media platforms. - Zero-Party Data: Each interaction presents an opportunity to gather valuable insights into visitor preferences, enabling you to refine marketing strategies and enrich visitor experiences. - Offer Instant, Tailored Responses: Use AI capabilities to provide immediate directions, ticketing information, event updates, and personalized recommendations, keeping potential visitors engaged. Embracing AI-driven conversations is pivotal for tourism companies aiming to excel in the evolving search environment. If you're still reliant on static web content for traditional search rankings, it's time to embrace this transformative shift. #TravelTech #AIChat #GenerativeSearch #DMO #TourismInnovation #SatisfiLabs #Destinations #Attractions #Touroperators

AEO Case Study: AI search engines are ignoring TripAdvisor, Yelp, and OTAs in this tourism vertical. First-party assets own 98% of citations. 🐳 🐋 🐳 🐋 🐳 🐋 I analyzed 10,000 AI search queries across the San Diego whale watching and maritime charter vertical. What I found breaks almost every assumption about how tourism businesses should approach visibility. Here's the data. First-party content dominates everything. In traditional search, aggregators and review platforms own tourism queries. TripAdvisor, Yelp, Viator, and OTAs sit between the operator and the customer. AI search flips that entirely for this niche. 98% of all AI citations in this vertical come directly from operator websites. Third-party reviews account for just 2% of source material. AI models are pulling answers from deep links on operator sites: things like private charter pages, dinner cruise details, and fleet specifications. If your business relies on third-party platforms to be found, AI search is already routing around you. Consumers use AI as a comparison engine, but product pages get cited more. Product and services pages actually get cited at a 35% rate, making detailed service pages the highest-value asset on your site. Meanwhile, customer experience queries pull only an 11% mention rate. AI engines are struggling to extract experiential data because that content historically lives on the third-party platforms AI is bypassing. The takeaway: your product pages matter more than your reviews right now. Also, the competitive landscape is tiered and sentiment is neutral. One operator leads the market with 760 AI mentions, nearly 50% more visibility than its closest competitor. Below the top two, visibility fragments into a tightly grouped secondary tier. Sentiment across the entire vertical is notably neutral. Zero negative sentiment detected, which is really nice for travelers. Outputs split almost evenly between neutral (51%) and positive (47%). That means you cannot win by exploiting competitor weaknesses. Differentiation has to come from clearly articulated, detailed service offerings on your own domain. What operators in this space should do: • Build comparison guides directly on your site. Position your fleet and services against generic market alternatives so AI has first-party comparison content to pull from. • Migrate your best customer testimonials onto your primary domain pages. AI is ignoring the platforms where reviews traditionally live. • Create deep-dive pages for specific use cases. Private charters, sunset cruises, corporate events. AI citations reward granular, specific content. • Structure your pricing with clean, machine-readable tables. Pricing and value queries show a 30% citation rate, so make it easy for AI to parse. The tourism industry still treats aggregators as the front door. In AI search, your own website is the only door that matters when it comes to whale watching in sunny San Diego.

Content built for everyone gets booked by no one. And for years, that's exactly what we wrote. "Escape and unwind." "Your home away from home." Lines that could sit under any property in the feed. It reads fine. It just doesn't stop anyone. The Modern Traveler is scrolling fast. If the words don't feel like they were written for them, they keep going. Most operator copy is a mirror for the operator, not the guest. Written around what they're proud of instead of what the guest is already searching for. The fix is simpler than it sounds: Write like the local friend that guest wishes they had. When someone you know books a trip near you, you don't send them a brochure. You text them the good stuff. The spot worth the drive, the table to ask for, the thing every first-timer misses. That voice knows one person. And it talks straight to them. Here's how to run it: Pick one archetype you already host. Couples, families, hikers. Whoever comes through your door most. Get inside their trip. A couple escaping the city for quiet is a completely different guest than a couple who wants a rooftop bar and a late night out. Then write every hook for that one guest and the trip they're planning. Their time constraints, their first-timer questions, the thing they're quietly worried about getting wrong. One of our clients runs a luxury stay just outside Zion National Park. Beautiful content. Soft reach. No bookings following. The shots looked the part. The words underneath spoke to anyone who likes a nice view. So we rewrote the hooks for the guest actually planning the trip: "If you only have time for one Zion hike, make it this one." "4 things we wish all of our guests knew before hiking the Narrows." "If you want to enjoy Zion but worry about the crowds..." One speaks to the planner short on time. One to the first-timer. One to the guest quietly worried about the crowds. Same property, same amenities, same person filming. The words just started doing the targeting. Views went from under 1,000 a month to 750,000. Social-driven web traffic jumped 37x. Bookings up 40% year over year in the first 90 days. This week's newsletter breaks down the full play step by step. Plus we're including our Educational Content Hook Vault free for subscribers: plug-and-play hooks and call-outs ready to drop into your next post. Link to subscribe in the comments 👇

Search engine marketing is changing faster than a TikTok trend — Can you keep up? Travel businesses need to adapt! In the past, search engines operated like simple lists. Travelers typed in basic searches like "hotels in Rome" or "flights to Tokyo" to get results. They kept their searches basic to get good answers. Now, with artificial intelligence (AI) in search engines, people are asking more complicated questions. Travelers want detailed answers, like "What are the best boutique hotels in Paris with a gym and that are kid-friendly?" or "Find me a flight to Los Angeles with in-flight Wi-Fi and vegetarian meal options." Travel businesses need to use detailed information, called structured data, to keep up with these new types of searches. Make Your Ads Better Using structured data helps travel marketers add extra details to their ads that search engines understand better. This makes it easier to match ads with what people are looking for. Detailed Information: Include lots of details about travel packages, like destinations, amenities, prices, and reviews. This helps match specific searches and makes ads look better. Customized Ads: AI tools can help create ads that fit the user’s search. For example, if someone searches for a family-friendly vacation in Italy with museum tours, structured data can show the most relevant options. Keep Data Updated: Continuously updating structured data ensures that new services or changes in travel packages show up in search results, helping travel companies stay competitive. Types of Structured Data Website Content Markup: Helps search engines understand what’s on a webpage. Useful for features like Dynamic Search Ads that use webpage info to match searches. Business Data: Helps target and personalize ads. This data can include product info, inventory, customer info, or performance data. As search engines move from simple catalogues to handling complex questions, using structured data is key for success in travel marketing. Embrace detailed, structured data to cover all user preferences and make your paid search campaigns more accurate and relevant. This is crucial for meeting the rising expectations for precise, personalized search experiences. By using AI and structured data, travel marketers can meet the changing demands of search engines and customers. #AI #TravelMarketing #SearchEngineMarketing #StructuredData #DigitalMarketing #PaidSearch #AIInTravel

Recently, CausalFunnel had the opportunity to work with Exploring Amalfi Coast, a travel brand offering tours in one of Italy’s most beautiful regions. When they came to us, their domain rating (DR) started at a low of 8, making it difficult to compete with bigger players in the travel space. Here’s what we did to turn things around. Backlink Strategy: We identified high‑quality, relevant backlinks from trusted domains in the travel and tourism space. By strategically acquiring links from reputable sources (including authoritative travel blogs and local tourism websites), we were able to boost their credibility and online visibility. On-Page Optimization: In addition to focusing on backlinks, we took time to fine‑tune their on‑page content. We optimized their metadata, improved internal linking, and ensured their pages were structured for both human and search engine clarity. Content Expansion: We also worked to expand the site’s content, ensuring it aligned with the interests of their audience while staying highly relevant to the search terms that mattered most to their business. The Results: After several months of consistent efforts, we saw a significant jump in domain authority, from DR 8 to DR 19. This increase in authority was a crucial factor in boosting their organic search performance and positioning them as a stronger competitor in the highly competitive travel niche. Read more here : https://lnkd.in/gAiSRRHw Key Takeaways: Backlink quality really matters: A few high‑quality, contextually relevant links can make a bigger impact than numerous low‑quality ones. Consistency is key: Achieving lasting results requires ongoing optimization, not just one‑time fixes. Strategic content and link-building approaches can lead to measurable growth in a relatively short period. This experience has been a reminder of how powerful a strategic, data-driven approach can be for brand growth. If you’re interested in discussing how backlinks and content optimization can elevate your own brand, let’s chat!