Foolproof strategies to bring in more bookings 

Whether you’re running a hotel, a restaurant or a tour operation, there are lots of ways you can improve your brand's visibility and attract more tourist bookings. There's no one-size-fits-all solution to improve visibility. But here are some tried and tested tourism marketing strategies to help boost your booking numbers. 

Tell stories in social media

Social media is an essential tool for tourism businesses. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram serve as a perfect platform to share stories about your business. When you share stories, you're showing people what you have to offer. You're giving them a glimpse of what they can expect should they choose to book with you. 

Stories connect you to your target audience better than any traditional marketing materials. Storytelling taps into the emotional side of your audience.  Stories generate empathy and interest, and with social media, they have never been so easy to share. 

When using storytelling to promote your business, look for ways to relate it to your brand and/or services. Keep it subtle. And be sure to repurpose your content across all your social media platforms. 

Optimise your website and create valuable content

Where do you rank on Google? Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of growing the quality and quantity of website traffic to your site from search engines. The best way to optimise your website for Google is to hire an SEO specialist to help you. They know the ins and outs optimisation and will save you having to learn how to do it yourself.

That being said, there are lots of ways to help your website’s optimisation. Below are some of those you can try.   

Write a blog 

This is probably the most popular and easiest way to boost your website’s optimisation. Search engine love blogs, as they want to provide people with relevant content. According to Hubspot, 82% of marketers who blog see positive ROI from their inbound marketing.

Provide readers with high-quality content relevant to your industry and company. Topics can range from sample itineraries, travel tips, restaurant recommendations, or other information customers need to know. Not only will high-quality content rank you better in Google’s search engine, but you will also be seen as an authority in your industry. Share your blog posts in social media, too, to generate more inbound links.   

Target long keywords

According to WordStream, about 50% of internet searches are four or more words. Thus, invest in your keyword research and use those keywords properly in your content. You can use Google AdWords, Moz, or SEMrush for this. 

Practice good on-site SEO habits

SEO demands you use your keywords properly. For your content, this means your title, subtitles, first paragraph, the body, the URL, “Alt” tag images, and meta tags should include the keywords. Create internal links for your pages. You can also add external links to third-party websites (authority ones).  

And make sure your website is responsive to mobile devices. Google has actually penalised non-mobile responsive websites since 2015.  

Take control of your TripAdvisor

It's a fact: people will do their research on your business before making their final booking. This is likely to be via Google reviews, TripAdvisor, and even Facebook.

A recent PhoCusWright survey found that 70% of travellers read TripAdvisor reviews when choosing a hotel. Further, 53% of people don’t make decisions unless they read the reviews first. 

While reviews can help your business, these platforms can be harmful too. It’s almost impossible to avoid bad reviews completely. But 87% of users believe that a good response to negative comments improves their impression of the company.  

Here are some tips for managing your TripAdvisor: 

• Respond as soon as possible 
• Always respond politely 
• Thank reviewers for sharing their opinion/experience 
• Apologise (if needed) 
• Show that you value their feedback 
• Tell them that you will use their feedback to improve your service 
• Offer a solution (if possible) 

Attracting more bookings is the ultimate goal for tourism businesses. By incorporating the strategies above, over time you are sure to see growth and better booking numbers!