Today’s travellers have access to a world of information at their fingertips, and travel and hospitality PR and marketing is becoming increasingly essential to providing greater understanding and engagement between operators and their potential customers. The aim is to attract, engage and entice consumers to travel to a particular location, hotel, city, state, consumer attraction or centre. With so many new and exciting opportunities available, providing clear information and
inspiration for consumers’ next adventure is essential. Gaining publicity and educating both business and leisure travellers, travel media and travel influencers about locations, properties and relevant tourism programmes is critical in this busy and growing sector.
Tourism PR and Marketing
What is it?
How does Travel and Hospitality PR work?
PR and marketing strategies can be used to launch a new promotion or property, introduce travellers to a new destination, or remind them of what’s currently on offer. The ultimate objective is to increase engagement and develop strategies to dominate the market. With travel and tourism brands vying to capture attention, a focused and comprehensive PR and marketing strategy that delivers on a brand’s business plans and objectives is key.
Strategies should look beyond travel media to platforms that cover lifestyle, digital and business, as well as social media and relevant influencers. This enables brands to increase awareness and engage with previously untapped potential consumers, with whom there is no current engagement. Delivering strategic, fully integrated PR and marketing campaigns to coincide with peak booking periods will have a measurable impact on sales.
Using both traditional and non-traditional approaches allows brands to reach consumers as they make choices about where to go and what activities they want to enjoy. Having a wide range of creative engagement tools and tactics, such as video marketing that can “go viral”, is essential. A convincing PR strategy allows consumers to discover opportunities and potential experiences that they may not have considered, or even been aware of – thus becoming more discerning customers.
How we can help
Sherlock Communications’ travel and hospitality team are marketing specialists, and experienced travellers ourselves. We are passionate about promoting destinations and the travel partners and organisations that help customers get there. Our team is based throughout Latin America, with unrivalled contacts across multiple platforms and sectors, so we understand the region’s media landscape in great detail. Our approach puts our clients’ brands in front of the right people, ensuring they get noticed. Our established relationships include leading travel bloggers, editors, influencers and freelance journalists. This network provides amazing opportunities to bring creative ideas to life, opening up new channels and platforms for meaningful and persuasive content that has an impact to deliver tangible results.
No two clients or projects are the same. We aim to work closely with our clients to fully understand their brand and business objectives. This enables us to create bespoke PR, brand communications and marketing campaigns that make an impact, meet our clients’ individual business objectives, and are tailored to their budget. Our aim is to drive our clients’ brand to the ultimate level on the main platforms covering travel and hospitality, and beyond – raising potential consumers’ awareness, increasing brand recognition and establishing our clients. We do this by using a number of tools including market research, web analytics, monitoring media and social media coverage.
What we do
We don’t make assumptions. We take the guesswork out of outreach by combining our PR and marketing expertise with creativity, data, logic and emotion, delivering creative and compelling campaigns that speak to the hearts and minds of travel and hospitality professionals and consumers alike. Our integrated PR and marketing campaigns use traditional and non-traditional tactics – such as influencers, social media and digital campaigns – for travel, transport, tourism and leisure brands alike. Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) are part of the well-defined tactical plan that helps deliver our clients’ clear results and get them to where they want to be.
Since situations that are out of our clients’ control can go wrong, we include crisis and reputation management as part of our strategy. This includes both a proactive and reactive media training programme. Working closely with our clients’ management team, in-house communication, press team and customer services teams, we consider protecting business and promoting a swift resolution as core elements of any communication project.
Our expertise means we can provide our clients with a complete package of marketing services. This integrated approach allows us to create a real buzz, increasing visitor numbers and brand recognition.
- Events and exhibitions – raising clients’ profiles among both targeted media outlets and consumers, and delivering maximum return on investment at trade and consumer shows
- Media hospitality – co-ordinating soft engagement with individuals and groups
- Media information – effective communications including press releases and newsletters
- Features – creating, shaping and promoting newsworthy content that the Latin American media will want to cover
- Multi-platform PR – campaigns including print, TV, radio, video and both social and digital media
- Celebrities and influencers – identifying the right partnerships to bring brands and personalities together
- Media monitoring – demonstrating a clear and measurable return on investment
- Market research – providing key insights to shape effective PR and marketing strategies
- Media buying – planning and implementing integrated advertising campaigns
- Creative design – working with the best creative design companies
- Promotions – placing creative competitions and promotions in selected media
- Sponsorship – aligning clients with relevant, high profile brands.