Lessons from The Best Practices Assessment

The results reported here point to three key takeaways about the state of marketing in the travel and tourism industry:

Marketers still rely on high cost, underperforming media

While the industry has seen increased adoption of social media channels, respondents are still investing in media of questionable and declining values, especially print advertising and email marketing. Travel marketers need to reexamine their media plans to respond to usage trends and ROI opportunities.

Customer insight is sorely underutilized

There is a wealth of demographic, psychographic and geographic insights available from our customer databases that can help drive strategy, promotion and messaging, yet only about 20% of respondents are exploiting their visitor data to drive business. This is a huge opportunity that's being missed.

Marketers fail to execute on brand positioning

A high percentage of our respondents have gone through the effort of competitive positioning and creating a brand identity, yet a surprising number fail to execute or follow through on this investment. Can this be explained by staff turn over, dissatisfaction with the results, or just Attention Deficit Disorder?

Where do you fit in the Best Practices continuum?

If you took the Wanderlust Travel Marketing Best Practices Self Assessment, you probably already know how you measure up to the industry’s top brands. Maybe you recognize your organization’s marketing style from the responses presented here. But whether you’re a top performer or an also-ran, one thing holds true: there is always room for improvement.

We're currently collecting data for the 2012 Travel Marketing Trends Report. If you'd like to participate by completing the Best Practices Assessment, please click here.

Additional Reading:

Need Help?

If you could use help developing or refining marketing strategies for travel and tourism destinations, please email us or give us a ring at 888-754-3210.

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