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'It's the Personal, Stupid': Travel Advertising Still Full of Challenges
Thursday, 7th March 2019
Source : Jabeen Bhatti - Exclusive at ITB Berlin

More data to close gaps, more visual storytelling and more social media – those are the top trends in travel advertising, said Matthieu Betton, general manager Europe of Sojern, a global travel consultancy.

Explaining Sojern’s State of the Industry: The 2019 Report on Travel Advertising's key findings at the ITB convention in Berlin this week, he noted that the biggest challenge for travel marketing folks is delivering personalized advertisements and offers in real time, he added.

“If you don’t personalize, you are losing," Betton said. "The single difference between a one-time customer and long-time loyal customers is how personalized you can offer a product, a service, or a promotional message over time.”

According to the report, 46 percent of 600 travel marketing personnel from 46 countries said their biggest challenge was offering personalized ads and offers in real time.

According to Betton, the second biggest challenge for marketers – particularly in Europe – is how to figure out how to use customer data more effectively:

The report also noted that a key hurdle for travel marketing officials was achieving ROI and profitability targets for their investments. Another top issue was targeting travelers at specific points during their steps toward making a purchase. Finally, keeping up with the fast-paced advertising and technology landscape – especially for companies in the Middle East, Africa and North America was a real challenge.

Meanwhile, the report also found that marketers around the world allocated a majority of their advertising budget to digital in 2018. Most intend to increase that budget this year, with the biggest chunk already going to social networking platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.

Still, almost half say they intend to spend more on video this year, as well as Facebook and Instagram, just as those two platforms have rolled out new advertising formats.

Sojern officials say that the medium to watch is connected television, currently only used by one-fifth of marketers worldwide in 2018 but expected to increase 70 percent this year.

And while most don't plan to invest in new technologies over the next two years, one-third of respondents said they wanted to use streaming audio, chatbots and voice search for promotion.

And the biggest disrupters of the future? Besides Facebook, Instagram, Amazon and Google, respondents said they believe AR and VR as well as smart speakers or voice search will fit that bill.

“How we buy travel products has changed in the last few years,” Betton said, expecting that transformation to continue.

Photo: Eros Banaj

This is strictly an exclusive feature, reprints of this article in any shape or form without prior written approval from 4Hoteliers.com is not permitted. Jabeen Bhatti is reporting exclusively for 4Hoteliers.com at ITB Berlin 2019 - www.4Hoteliers.com/itb.

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