Millennials today love to travel to exotic places. And there is one place they go for new places to add to their bucket list…social media.
Many millennials confess that they dream about vacations while scrolling through Facebook and Instagram, some even start the initial stages of planning and research due to FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). There is nothing worse than spending the winter hauled up next to a heater while your friends are off island hopping the Greek Islands. And it’s like they say, it didn’t really happen if you didn’t post it online.
Surprisingly, millennials indicate that social media has a bigger influence in travel choices than travel agents themselves. This presents great opportunity to utilise social media to attract leisure travellers into the travelling industry. Approximately one-fifth of travellers globally used social media platforms for inspirations with 80% cited using Facebook in planning their holiday, these inspirations include:
The five stages which travellers go through before planning a trip involve, dreaming, planning, booking, experiencing and sharing.
Marketers can use social media to encourage posts about their travels and engage with the community. This encourages audiences to start planning. Marketers now have the ability to target travellers at each stage by distributing special offers such as cheaper flights, accommodation, products, and updates and so on without putting too much investment in resources in order to enhance the travel company’s outreach.
The influence of social media on the travel industry has left travel companies with no choice but to revaluate their strategies on engagement with their customers, partners and others.
Successful travel companies are those who are meeting the demands and needs of their audience with a well-considered social media strategy.
Need some guidance on using social media to expand your strategy? Xpand Online can help!
