The Marketer’s Guide to Travel Content

by Aaron Taube

Copyright © 2016 Contently. All rights reserved. contently.com Table of 2 Contents

I. Introduction 3

II. Best Practices: Content Creation 4

III. Best Practices: Distribution 7

IV. Best Practices: Measurement and 10 Optimization

V. Emerging Trends: Virtual Reality 13

VI. Emerging Trends: Locally Sourced Content 14

VII: Emerging Trends: Print 15

VIII: Emerging Trends: Personalization 16

IX. Conclusion 17

The Marketer’s Guide to Travel Content I. 3 Introduction

Five years ago, if you wanted to travel to Thailand, you’d probably start with a Google search and a quick glance at a site like TripAdvisor. Today, however, the process of researching a trip has drastically changed.

When it comes to travel, it’s hard to overstate the importance of convenience and trust. Rather than putting your faith in brands and people you don’t know, now you might check out Instagram posts of beaches in Pattaya from your friends, or reviews of Bangkok restaurants on Facebook. You can do all your research without leaving your newsfeed until it’s time to book a flight.

For something that’s designed to make us happy, vacationing is still extremely expensive and full of problems, whether you’re stuck waiting in an airport or struggling to find a good hotel. Sometimes a good travel experience just comes down to not having to deal with any headaches. Certain travel brands have recognized that by making a concerted and creative effort to actually help their customers with useful content.

In this report, we’ll highlight the unique ways travel brands create, distribute, and measure their content marketing, and look ahead at the emerging trends brands are exploring to influence the customer journey.

The Marketer’s Guide to Travel Content II. 4 Best Practices: Content Creation

One of the hardest parts of content marketing is creating work that resonates with a wide audience and stays true to your brand. Producing a viral hit is nice, but it won’t do much good if it’s totally irrelevant or, worse, antithetical to what your company stands for.

Perhaps no piece of content marketing did a better job of combining resonance and relevance in 2015 than “HumanKinda,” a 16-minute documentary JetBlue released in October to draw people’s attention “HumanKinda” by JetBlue to the growing epidemic of “busyness” in American culture. In addition to being a playful look at why we never seem to have enough time for ourselves, the short film tied in perfectly with JetBlue’s mantra of “bringing humanity back to air travel.”

“It was really about addressing something that we’ve seen as a societal endemic,” said Morgan Johnston, JetBlue’s corporate communications manager. “I think we felt JetBlue is an airline whose focus is on inspiring humanity. We were the only ones who could really tell this story among our set.”

The documentary, hosted by comedian and Veep actor Sam Richardson, follows a single mother and a man working eight jobs. Throughout the film, Richardson tries to

The Marketer’s Guide to Travel Content Best Practices: Content Creation: JetBlue 5

help them find more time to relax. By including both a the opportunity to fly to Puerto Rico for free, on the serious interview with a sociology expert and a scene in condition that they leave that day. Otherwise, though, which one of the subjects comically dumps his phone the company’s logo and name are absent, save for into a kiddie pool, “HumanKinda” does a great job of “Presented by” tags at the beginning and end of the film. keeping viewers laughing while forcing them to consider how they can make their own lives less busy. This hands-off approach to branding was bolstered by the fact that JetBlue worked with relevant influencers to What’s also notable about this project is the medium create and promote the documentary. While the idea for JetBlue used to convey its message: a short film. The the project was conceived by the company’s ad agency, airline was one of several travel brands, along with MullenLowe, JetBlue chose to take it to Bianca Giaever, Marriott and Airbnb, that relied on longer videos this a director with a strong track record of telling people’s past year as a way to connect with its audience. Phillip personal stories in a humanizing manner for outlets Ma, JetBlue’s manager of brand advertising and content, like The New York Times, NPR, and BuzzFeed. After told Digiday, “A regular campaign with shortform the film was complete, the company screened it at an content would not have been able to spark conversation event moderated by media mogul Arianna Huffington, on the scale we wanted.” who has spoken passionately about how important it is for people to take time away from their work to restore In addition to sparking a conversation, the depth of themselves. more abitious pieces of content like “HumanKinda” gives travel companies the opportunity to weave While other travel brands have approached the their brands into the story without being intrusive. relentless work culture, few have done so as For instance, JetBlue tickets are shown on-screen as thoughtfully and thoroughly as JetBlue. Costa Rica’s Richardson offers passersby in Midtown Manhattan tourism board, for instance, made a music video in

The Marketer’s Guide to Travel Content Best Practices: Content Creation: JetBlue 6

which singing animals attempt to “save the Americans” by imploring them to take a break from their long office hours. The U.K.’s Ethos Travel produced print ads with overloaded schedules that spelled out messages like “Help me God” and “Make it stop.” In both cases, the message was humorous but a little more self-serving: You’re working too much, so you should give us your money to take a trip.

By contrast, JetBlue’s documentary on “busyness” shed light on a very “Flight Etiquette” by JetBlue human story, providing entertainment and educational value to people even if they couldn’t book a vacation. In doing so, the brand furthered its reputation as a company that cares about consumers, which fits in with prior projects, like when JetBlue gave free flights to altruistic social media users and offered humorous tips for how customers could be more considerate of their fellow passengers.

“We wanted the film to be able to stand up on its own merits without a lot of JetBlue branding,” Johnston said. “We didn’t want it to be a commercial, we wanted it to be a commentary.”

To date, the video has been viewed more than 100,000 times on YouTube. More importantly, Johnston said JetBlue has been happy to see people on social media using the documentary exactly as it was intended: as a means to start a conversation with their friends and family about whether our commitment to work is really helping us get the most out of our time.

The Marketer’s Guide to Travel Content III. 7 Best Practices: Distribution

Travel is a highly visual experience, one that encourages people to use photographs to preserve cherished memories, document stunning locations around the world, and share their vacations with their friends. As a result, visual social media platforms like Instagram and Tumblr have become hotbeds of user-created travel content, creating a major opportunity for brands to show people exactly how spectacular their next vacation could look.

Of course, even if you’re active on these platforms and post great images, you still need a strategy that gets people to pay attention to your content in crowded social feeds—an issue that was of particular importance to HotelTonight, which provides last-minute hotel deals, as it sought to revamp its Instagram feed last year. Instead of using the account just to promote the places people can book through the company’s app, HotelTonight was looking to build an audience by refashioning the channel as a lifestyle travel brand with broader appeal.

“Travel is so sexy. It’s the thing we all want to be doing,” said Janet Gardner, HotelTonight’s head of editorial. “People are looking at [Instagram] to look at beautiful photos and kind of imagine themselves doing the things all these other people on Instagram are doing.”

The Marketer’s Guide to Travel Content Best Practices: Distribution: HotelTonight 8

To hook viewers, HotelTonight made a simple but crucial move: partnering with social influencers. The brand paid popular Instagrammers and designers to use its app to book trips to destinations ranging from Scottsdale, Arizona to Edinburgh, Scotland. Then, with the #ByTheBookers hashtag, the influencers post the same photos they’d normally take while vacationing.

This arrangement allows HotelTonight to populate its feed with high- quality photos from around the world that have a personal touch. But more than that, the campaign exposes the HotelTonight Instagram Scottsdale, Arizona Instagram page account to the travel-loving audiences of its partners, some of whom have more than 100,000 followers. Since May, the company has doubled its own follower count to almost 50,000. According to a spokesperson, HotelTonight’s user-generated photos receive 100 more likes, on average, than its other Instagram content.

In addition to growing its Instagram audience, HotelTonight has been smart about getting the most out of its content by repurposing it on other platforms. The caption on an Instagram photo taken by style photographer Leslie Schneider directs people to HotelTonight’s Tumblr account, where they can find additional photos and a first- person write-up of Schneider’s trip to New York City. Every Tumblr post contains a link to download the HotelTonight app. HotelTonight’s Tumblr page

The Marketer’s Guide to Travel Content Best Practices: Distribution: HotelTonight 9

Further down the marketing funnel, HotelTonight takes its most popular photos and captions to craft the user-acquisition campaigns it runs on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The company targets frequent travelers and takes advantage of lookalike modeling to identify users who are similar to its most profitable customers. By creating sponsored posts that mimic the look and feel of its high-performing social content, HotelTonight has been able to double the ROI of these ads.

If there’s one thing marketers can learn from HotelTonight, it’s that no matter what channel you’re using, today’s consumers expect you to share content that feels organic to the setting where they find it.

“The ROI has gone up because it doesn’t feel so jarring; it doesn’t feel as much like an ad,” Gardner said. “It feels like something you would actually discover in your feed.”

The Marketer’s Guide to Travel Content IV. 10 Best Practices: Measurement and Optimization

You might have great content and a dynamic distribution plan, but there’s no way you’ll ever know for sure unless you’re properly measuring the impact of your work. Marketers now have a number of tools at their disposal that allow them to track everything from how many people shared a piece of content to how far down the page each visitor scrolled. The challenge, then, lies not in the measurement itself, but in choosing metrics that accurately reflect how your content is influencing business results.

At Marriott’s expansive content studio, every piece of content is conceived with a clear idea of what it’s supposed to accomplish and how the company will measure those accomplishments. For the company’s “Do Not Disturb” series of interviews with popular YouTube creators, the objective is to drive brand awareness for Moxy, a line of millennial- focused hotels. Meanwhile, the online magazine Marriott Traveler aims to draw the attention of people searching for information about the various cities with Marriott properties. “Do Not Distturb” series by Moxy Hotels

Full Disclosure: Marriott is a Contently client, and Marriott Traveler was created with Contently.

The Marketer’s Guide to Travel Content Best Practices: Measurement: Marriott 11

At the center of this operation is M Live, the social command center that Marriott introduced in October. As Contently’s editor-in-chief, Joe Lazauskas, reported last year, M Live “has nine screens, showing everything from the social media campaigns of Marriott’s 19 brands to real-time booking information to Marriott’s editorial calendar.”

“There’s so many different purposes in the content that we do,” said David Beebe, Marriott’s vice president of global creative and content marketing. “How we’re going to measure the success, that strategy, the distribution—that’s all planned from the very beginning. It’s not ‘Let’s “French Kiss” by Marriot go make something and then figure out what to do with it.’”

One of the most fascinating examples of this approach is how the company gauges the success of its popular short films, like the Paris-based love story “French Kiss” or the dance-infused dramedy “Business Unusual.”

For these short films, Marriott puts an emphasis on two factors: enjoyment and recognition. To measure viewer satisfaction, the company focuses on a mixture of traditional engagement statistics (views, likes, shares) and newer metrics like completion rate to determine how much time people are spending with the content. Additionally, Marriott looks at YouTube comments to see if viewers talk about how much they loved the short films (and the brand that produced it).

The Marketer’s Guide to Travel Content Best Practices: Measurement: Marriott 12

Take “French Kiss,” which has more than 6 million In terms of ROI, Marriott has creatively developed sales YouTube views, an impressive number for any packages for the short films that directly tie content digital video, let alone a brand film. Instead of just to revenue. For example, the “French Kiss” microsite being complacent with that stat, Marriott mined gave people an opportunity to book vacation packages the comments section for more insight, where users that came with competitive room rate, chocolates, shared what they got out of the film and complimented champagne, and a tour of the iconic Paris locations Marriott on its work. featured in the film. According to Beebe, this offer generated more than $500,000 over a two-month span. In order to determine whether the short films are effectively building relationships, Marriott also runs With a strong system in place, Marriott’s data analytics brand-lift and recall studies on YouTube and brand- now inform the content it creates. For Marriott perception polls on the brand sites that host the films. Traveler, the company chose to make city guides for three destinations that were popular searches on “We’re trying to build loyalty with next-gen consumers Marriott.com and relatively undercovered by existing by being where they are and giving them content that travel publications. Soon, Marriott will have guides for entertains and informs them,” Beebe said. “If you do more than 50 cities across the U.S., with plans to expand that at scale, then they’ll remember that and they’ll globally in the near future. have that positive association with the brand. I wasn’t hammering them over the head talking about myself or saying, ‘Look at our pools, look at our restaurants.’”

The Marketer’s Guide to Travel Content V. 13 Emerging Trends: Virtual Reality

Why use a commercial to sell customers on the beauty of the Amazon rainforest or the luxuriousness of a five-star hotel when you can take them directly to the place instead?

“Virtual reality is the most realistic experience you can have of a place without being there,” YouVisit CEO Abi Mandelbaum told the Associated Press in December. “It’s powerful. It gets people excited and engaged and interested in having that experience in real life.”

Over the past year, travel brands have started to get comfortable diving into VR. Shangri-La Hotel equipped its sales teams with Samsung Gear VR headsets, Visit St. Petersburg/Clearwater produced in-house VR content, and Qantas offered first-class passengers in-flight VR entertainment.

In the coming year, we expect travel brands to continue developing new ways to capitalize on the experiential potential of virtual reality. Once VR can bring people up close and personal with spider monkeys and toucans from the comfort of their own home, it’s only a matter of time before they’ll be eager to see the real thing.

The Marketer’s Guide to Travel Content VI. 14 Emerging Trends: Locally Sourced Content

The success of travel content largely hinges on trust. Consumers want to know that they’re getting accurate information from reliable sources, not secondhand PR embellishments. That’s why so many brands are using freelancers who live and work in destinations around the world to help them create content with a dependable local perspective.

Visitors to Kansas City’s tourism website can read about where the city’s top local chefs like to eat, which is something you wouldn’t find “The Secret of Belfast” by KLM in a generic guide book. Similarly, Royal Dutch Airlines (KLM) and its multimedia travel magazine worked with Belfast native Jamie Stinson to produce a captivating video guide to his favorite spots in the city, and Marriott uses local freelancers via Contently to fill the pages of Marriott Traveler.

“Sometimes locals tell the best stories,” said Allison Way, director of content strategy at MMGY Global, a travel and hospitality marketing firm. “They know those hidden gems and those hidden secrets about the destination that sometimes our copywriters or even the destination marketing organizations don’t know about.”

The Marketer’s Guide to Travel Content VII. 15 Emerging Trends: Print

With the unprecedented abundance of content available online, print has become an exclusive medium. And in the travel industry, holding a magazine in your hands still has plenty of appeal.

While airlines have been publishing in-flight magazines for years, some companies have transformed the concept of thinly veiled brochures into ambitious publications capable of rivaling traditional editorial outlets.

At the top of this list is Rhapsody, a high-end literary magazine from “Rhapsody” magazine by United Airlines United Airlines that includes contributors like Joyce Carol Oates and Karen Russell, and gets distributed to first- and business-class passengers. Elsewhere, Airbnb’s 2014 Pineapple told travel stories from London, San Francisco, and Seoul, and the company is now considering creating a new magazine with Hearst. In 2015, Lonely Planet and the Smithsonian also debuted new publications.

In 2016, print is thriving—not dying—thanks to the influx of high-quality brand magazines.

The Marketer’s Guide to Travel Content VIII. 16 Emerging Trends: Personalization

According to Allison Way, 2016 will be the year personalization goes from a perk to a necessity. Why? Because the more personalized you can make an experience, the more people will feel connected to your brand.

For marketers in the travel industry, this presents an imperative to show people content that is relevant to their individual interests and circumstances. KLM’s magazine, iFly, shows different stories to different users based on where they’re traveling and the level they’ve reached in the company’s rewards program. Travel South Dakota, meanwhile, serves custom family-friendly content to homepage “iFky” magazine by KLM visitors identified as parents.

As consumers have grown accustomed to receiving tailored recommendations through platforms like Netflix and Facebook, it’s imperative for brands to offer personalized content in a way that the user finds organic.

“The amazing thing about personalization is that we have the ability to track what an audience is viewing online, what they like on social media, and what they have clicked on before,” Way said. “We can actually serve up content on a brand’s website based on those features.”

The Marketer’s Guide to Travel Content IX. 17 Conclusion

Over the last few years, travel companies have had to rethink the entire customer journey. Travelers aren’t just basing their decisions based on standard guides—they’re looking for trusted sources that relate to them on a personal level. As a result, airlines, hotels, and tourism companies have produced some of the most ambitious and successful content marketing projects of any industry.

“I think you can spend a million dollars or whatever you’re going to spend on a thirty- second ad that eighty-two percent of people are going to skip over,” Beebe said, “or you’re going to put money into something where people are actually engaging with it, having a two-way conversation, and taking the time to talk about it with their friends.”

As brands get more ambitious with their content marketing, fostering these conversations will only get more important in the coming years. And the films, magazines, and social posts these brands produce will become increasingly popular destinations in their own right.

The Marketer’s Guide to Travel Content Thank 18 you.

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The Marketer’s Guide to Travel Content