In the past two years, the tourism market has been booming again. The rapid development of the tourism industry has spawned the rise of emerging tourism service platforms, and also made many old scenic spots “glow with new spring”. Tourists are no longer content with “getting on the bus, sleeping on the bus, getting off the bus, taking pictures”, and integrating their interests in music, food and culture into their travel plans. In the face of more and more personalized and diversified needs of consumers, how should tourism marketing impress them?
Tourism industry continues to be hot, the industry shows a trend of fragmentation, but the pain point still exists
According to the 360MASTER2017 annual list – tourism industry insights recently released by 360 promotion, both the number of tourists and consumption increased year by year from 1996 to 2016. The increase of per capita income has driven the recovery of the entire tourism market, and tourism has entered a new stage of experience consumption.
(photo taken from 360MASTER2017 list – travel industry insights)
With the further improvement of domestic and foreign tourism destination services, a variety of preferential policies for tourists continue to be issued, which further stimulates the tourism industry continues to climb. Nowadays, traveling abroad is commonplace, and the whole world is ready to welcome Chinese tourists during holidays. Scenic spots have long been unable to satisfy the appetite of tourists. Local cuisine, extreme experience, shopping, folk culture and other peripheral interests have become travel demands, which also promotes the tourism industry to develop into a segmented field centering on tourist interests.
However, behind the rapid development of tourism industry, there are also the “sequela” of “rough development” and “copy promotion” in order to pursue the maximization of interests. The first is the asymmetry of tourism information. Due to the rapid development, there are many intermediate levels in scenic spots, OTA platforms and so on, which are prone to the problem of information interruption between each other. In particular, it is difficult for tourists to find effective information because information from various channels is covered by each other in the process of information retrieval.
At the same time, the homogeneity of tourism products has also been criticized, and some scenic spots even have extensive business model and backward service. These concerns have fueled the demand for travel information and the rise of “buyer’s testimony” travel communities. In the 360MASTER2017 annual list promoted and released by 360 recently, we can see that mafengwo, ctrip, qunar, lvmama and other well-known OTA platforms are listed in the “top 10 most concerned travel service platforms”, which is a side evidence of this pain point.
Tourism marketing brings forth the new, backed by big data, deep cultivation of the scene
Summarizing the above opportunities and challenges, we can find that the core of restricting the development of the tourism industry at present lies in the transmission of information, and this is the tourism marketing needs to solve the problem. How should the tourism industry use marketing to open the situation and create a new high?
A, tourism marketing to cross the screen: PC search strategy, mobile orders busy
Indeed, for a tourism enterprise, mastering the real demand of consumers for tourism is the key to ensure the long-term survival of the enterprise. On the one hand, in-depth insight and analysis of consumer behavior is crucial to promoting the development of the tourism industry. On the other hand, a full understanding of consumers’ real demand for tourism can be of great help to enterprises in carrying out targeted services or tourism marketing.
From the 360MASTER2017 list – travel industry insights, it is clear that activity time on PC is significantly ahead of peak activity on mobile, which coincides with the holiday season. People are usually used to using PC search strategy, check machine wine, for travel decision-making reference; Use mobile phones to check traffic and search surrounding areas during travel, and make secondary consumption decisions in scenic spots. This also gives tourism marketing a wake up, PC and mobile to grasp both hands, both hands should be hard, in the PC end pay attention to line information, travel guides, machine wine discounts and other content to attract interest; Pay attention to LBS peripheral recommendation in mobile terminal and win the second consumption opportunity with personalized push.
Two, tourism marketing to have fan: you have spokesmen, I tied big IP
For people with clear travel plans, we can use the means of scene coverage to reach the information. For those who have not yet decided their travel plans or just have simple interests, we also need other means to attract their attention. Endorsement or IP marketing is a good way.
Take lvmama’s summer vacation marketing plan jointly promoted by 360 as an example. Based on 360’s insight into the “entertainment first” label of tourists, The star enthusiasm of Lvmama brand spokesperson Jing Boran is fully released and fans’ interest in tourism is triggered. The brand attention of lvmama tourism network has been rapidly promoted, and the number of lvmama summer vacation bookings has doubled.
In addition, OTA platform’s love for variety shows is also obvious to all. Tuniu invested in Running Man and Lvmama invested in Happy Comedians, etc., relying on large traffic variety shows to enhance brand awareness and stimulate potential consumer groups to pay attention to their own brands, which also achieved good results.
In general, channels and content are indispensable for marketing, but the key is to understand consumers, so that marketing is really based on in-depth consumer insight, based on the accurate judgment of the industry, so that marketing really “effective”.
The increase of tourist consumption in China is inseparable from the development of the Internet, the more convenient means of transportation, the increase of consumer per capita income and other factors. If tourism enterprises want to achieve a high degree of integration with consumers and provide help to improve their performance and services, they must fully understand the changes and development trends of the tourism industry as well as the travel needs of consumers at different stages.
I believe that the tourism industry will break through the existing pain points and hit a new high, which will not be without the credit of Internet big data, but also without the help of creative tourism marketing that forms efficient interaction with consumers. With the rapid change of tourism marketing trends, the power of digital marketing has become more and more important, and become the best assistant for tourism enterprises to transform.
Liu Kuang, meditation on the Internet, wechat official account: Liukuang110