What Should You Look for In a Travel Marketing Consultant
With the travel pauses caused by COVID coming to an end and people gearing up to let their pent-up wanderlust explode, you are thinking of new ways to secure some of that business and help your travel brand grow. One great avenue for doing that is hiring a travel marketing consultant, but since that isn’t something you’ve done before, you don’t know where to start. What are the indicators of a great travel marketing consultant? What can they do for you? How can you prepare yourself to deal with one? This blog will answer these questions and more. Here’s everything you need to know about working with a travel marketing consultant.
What Does a Travel Marketing Consultant Do?
Not to be confused with a travel consultant, a travel marketing consultant is a type of travel consultant that focuses on aiding travel companies with their marketing. Whereas some travel consultants concentrate on assisting consumers in making travel decisions, travel marketing consultants work on a business-to-business (B2B) basis and help travel companies acquire more customers, build their brand, and reach the right market segments.
What is Marketing in the Travel Industry
Travel marketing is a collection of strategies and tactics used by businesses in the travel industry. It encompasses any research, promotion, or communication efforts a hotel, resort, airline (or any travel-related entity) uses to achieve its business goals.
Whenever marketing is mentioned, what usually comes to mind is the end step of reaching and acquiring new customers. However, what’s seldom discussed is the branding and research elements that happen behind the scenes which are especially vital in the travel industry.
What Degree Do You Need To Be A Travel Marketing Consultant?
Not all travel consultants have a tourism-related degree, but ones that do would have usually studied things related to tourism and hospitality management, marketing, communications and media. But essentially, those with travel marketing experience become travel consultants; the degree they carry doesn’t carry that much weight in the world of travel.
What Should You Look For in A Travel Marketing Consultant?
- A well travelled individual.
- A consultant that sets clear and measurable goals.
- A consultant with a solid portfolio of known brands.
- A well-connected individual.
- A preference for an individual with experience working in your niche.
Choose A Well Traveleld Consultant
A consultant that can back up their strategies with theories and academic grit is excellent, but nothing beats the cold hard experience and insight that a seasoned traveller provides. They are familiar with standard travel procedures and behaviours and see things from a customer’s point of view. Furthermore, it just happens to be a fact that travel marketing consultants usually began their journey into the world of consulting as travel bloggers. So by definition, they would have travelled a good amount before reaching the position they’re at now.
Choose A Consultant Who Will Provide Clear Measurable Targets
Once again, it’s one thing to theorize and have a plan on paper, and it’s absolutely another to execute those plans and manifest actual tangible results. Select a travel marketing consultant who will provide you with clear KPIs and a timeframe through which they aim to achieve those indicators.
Closely Examine the Consultants Portfolio
One way to ensure that you’re dealing with a travel marketing consultant who will produce actual results is by choosing someone who has worked with influential brands and ones that are similar to yours. Don’t be fooled by portfolios that simply display logos of famous brands without details of what was completed. It is possible that the consultant you are dealing with simply completed a minuscule task for that brand and nothing more. Make sure you always ask for details.
Choose A Well Connected Individual
More often than not, travel marketing is about relationships. The saying “your network is your net worth” is very much a reality in the travel industry. So make sure you contract someone who has a comprehensive network through which they can make the needle move for you through.
Make Sure Your Travel Consultant Has Experience in Your Niche
Some travel marketing consultants may be well versed in the wellness tourism world and know the wellness tourist like the back of their hand. But if your brand revolves around family trips, then that travel consultant may not be the best fit for you. It is also worth noting that most successful travel marketers focus on one niche.
Choose A Travel Marketing Consultancy Instead of an Individual
Instead of opting for a single individual who can only do so much, relying on an organization or consultancy will yield many benefits. Aside from having the cumulative experience of all the professionals in the consultancy and the many hands to produce way more impact for you, choosing a travel marketing consultancy with all of the above-mentioned characteristics is a guaranteed way of ensuring the marketing success of your travel brand. Furthermore, your continued success won’t depend on the flaws, fluctuations, and sometimes the unavailability of a single person.
With organizations come brand names, and often times a whole network or allegiance to back them. For example, Gulf Reps belongs to the International Tourism Consultancy Network (ITCN). This is a unique alliance of the worlds leading travel marketing, PR, and travel representation companies who share the single goal of delivering stellar cross-border travel marketing campaigns. The collective is currently spread over 19 countries and can reach over 3 billion people worldwide.
A famous African proverb states: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” In the tourism industry, that couldn’t be more true.
Gulf Reps
Gulf Reps is the leading travel and tourism representation company in the Middle East, with over 60 years of regional and industry experience. Specializing in directing the Arab traveler segment to your region or destination, we have served clients on six continents, delivering transformative results to everyone from hoteliers to tourism boards.
Our mix of world-class marketing expertise, PR specialists, unparalleled connections and relationships, plus our eclectic mix of marketing channels makes working with Gulf Reps the only sure way to drive Middle Eastern tourists to your destination.
To find out more about our services, you can call us at +971 (0)4 703 6333 or write to us at sammy@gulfreps.com
