Travel is not exactly the first that comes to mind these days, especially with the widespread of COVID-19 cases, asymptomatic carriers and deaths around the world, yet the tourism industry has to stand pat till the situation improves. That’s where campaigns developed by creative agencies can really come in handy to engage the people for the time being.
From sustaining engagement to getting early buy-ins, the tourism industry has options on how to move forward amidst the worldwide travel restrictions. Even though social distancing has influenced creative campaigns, we highly recommend organisations involved in tourism to actively plan and prepare itself ahead of time during this lull period.
As a creative agency ourselves, we’re not going to leave you high and dry. We love creative works and ideas, which is why we’re sharing them with you! Here are the 6 creative campaign ideas for the tourism industry we’ve got up our sleeves that are perfect in the current situation:
The World Awaits
It’s a pretty commonly used angle for those within the tourism industry now, but for a good reason. Every tourism brand is playing it safe and encouraging people to stay home instead of travelling in the unsafe situation today.
‘The World Awaits’ serves as a message of hope and something for people to look forward in the face of the depressing coronavirus circumstances. The idea of things returning back to normal in the (hopefully) near future and being able to do the things that we love (in this case: travel).
Campaigns positioned around hope are effective in selling positivity and optimistic imagery, which is perfect for a world that is feeling down and out. Accompanied by ambient visuals, a creative campaign as such could serve to raise engagement within the audience.
A COVID-19 Twist
Besides messages of hope, humour is also a great way to raise the morale and spirits of the travelling community. There’s a lot of trending behaviours and activities that are very adaptable for the travel scene.
When you think of COVID-19, you’ll associate it with keeping a safe distance, hoarding of daily essentials (please don’t do this), masks wearing and staying home. All of which can be applied to a witty or comically-worded social media campaign. You could put a mask on an iconic statue, put distance between landmarks or any suitable COVID-19 related behaviours as part of a ‘Taking A Break’ kind of series.
Using humour in your campaigns is a surefire way to engage the travel community and besides, entertaining content is a great way to kill time for those that are stuck at home (like us) and waiting for the movement restrictions to end.
Tell Your Story
For most brands and organisations, you’re usually constantly busy with managing operations and sustaining businesses or leads. It’s rare that you have the time to work on internal workflows and even existing assets.
Well, you’ve got all the time in the world now so make use of it. A lot of brands often get lost in acquiring sales and businesses at the start and neglect the process of defining their brands or creating a story.
The current inactivity is a perfect opportunity for brand storytelling to take place — create/reinforce your brand identity and conjure your story to depict what makes your brand unique and different from your competitors. By creating and controlling your narrative now, you’re in a better position to engage and convert potential leads when things return to normal.
Branding can be hard, which is why a creative agency like ourselves offer branding services to help create one that stands out. Come on, don’t be shy, let us take your brand to the next level with our branding services today!
Plan It Now
Many people often put off the planning of their trips citing work or lack of time as an excuse and end up rushing the planning process. Given the wide implementation of Work-From-Home (WFH) measures, more and more people have the space to spend more time on personal things with the saved travelling time.
That’s your cue: get your target audience to prepare and organise their trip for when these travel restrictions lift. It is a great way for getting engagement and increasing potential leads for your brand by obtaining their buy-in early.
Whether it’s through a unique itinerary planner or articles on tips and tricks of travelling, a long-term campaign like this is perfect for the tourism industry right now that is playing the waiting game. Once you execute this campaign idea, we won’t be hearing any more “I was too busy to plan this trip” (BECAUSE YOU HAD 6 MONTHS TO PLAN THIS SUSIE. Sorry, we digress).
The Open Ticket
Most tourism brands are probably struggling with obtaining revenue during this lull period. So, if ‘Plan It Now’ focuses on the long game, then this creative campaign idea is all about the short-term benefits.
Taking reference from the airline industry, tourism brands can look to offer open tickets for when the travel restrictions have eased up, where customers can choose to use the ticket for any date in the future.
This campaign serves as a stop-gap measure for the existing lack of revenue and gets your potential customers’ early buy-in. Even though it’s a short-term campaign, achieving long-term goals is not out of the question with its potential for a new business model and overall brand awareness.
Virtual Tours
Not a new idea per se but an underused innovative practice by all accounts, virtual tours are a great tool for existing tourism brands to utilise within restrictions of the social distancing measures.
By creating a virtual tour based on your brand, you can treat your audience to the same unique experience that your brand offers within a (relatively) safe digital sphere. Whether you choose to charge them for the cost or not, that’s something for you to decide on your own.
We highly recommend for tourism brand to embrace experiential campaigns like virtual tours, as offering new experiences are more or less the cornerstone for creative campaigns. Looking at the current speed of technological advancements, virtual experiences might be the main aspect of marketing in the years to come.
Experience: The Creative Agency Way
Tourism is all about experience and so are creative campaigns. With the parallels between the two industries, approaching a creative agency might be tourism brands best shot at sustaining or preparing itself for the distant and uncertain future. Our team has been in the thick of helping different brands stand out with unique creative campaigns, and we’re confident in doing more of the same for you.
Approach our team for a tour of the various creative services we offer to brands such as yours. We’ll wow you like we’ll wow your target audience! 😉
