Bye bye 2016! It has been a heck of a year, hasn’t it? 2017 is about to start, full of promises, but also full of challenges to be taken up.

The digital acceleration we are witnessing is more accurate than ever, PED-addict travelers are still soaring, and, as a result, becoming a top-of-mind interest for this mercurial target requires from you, as tourism marketing professional, a high rate of creativity, effectiveness and relentless agility.

2017: 3 marketing challenges

Target

At the digital age, do you still accept to pay for a large share of audience that is not only formed of potential customers? Your customer’s journey is a long path, from at-home inspiration to in-destination information gathering. Throughout this path, you’ll find many digital touchpoints, and for each of them, a solution to target and retarget your future customer.
Yet, you must keep an eye on an emerging issue: the invalid traffic, also called IVT. Read our dedicated article on that digital-specific hazard.

Reach

Once you’ve got a 20 on the target, you must concentrate your efforts on reaching it in the most effective way. Among all the issues that have to be solved at this stage, two of them stand out.
First of all, ensure your message is in the right format. Static items belong to history. Jump into Native Fluid Items (check IAB recommendations), in order to ensure a full compliance regardless of the device (laptop, tablet, smartphone and…IFE systems)
Then, your next big challenge is ad-blocking behaviors: IAB predicts 50% of ad-blockers-equipped devices in the near future. Solutions exist, among them the “Acceptable Ads Program (AAP)” from IAB.
When it comes to digital inflight advertising, PXCom’s solutions guarantee that your message won’t be blocked. Read more about ad-blockers.

Engage

Where micro-moments are king, personalization is queen.

It’s all about delivering the right content at the right time. Google names that “Micro-moments” (More information here). As written above, an inbound tourist journey is full of touchpoints. This future customer’s expectations vary according to the stage of the journey.
Your challenge is to produce the right contents to be sent at the right touchpoints.
To add value to your content, and maximize your engagement rate, you also need to consider a growing expectation from the tech-savvy travelers: personalization.

This year, and more than ever, Digital Tourism Marketers can be compare to the marketing super-heroes! But triumph without peril brings no glory, isn’t it? 

Let this Top 3 Tourism Marketing Challenges help your digital strategy.