With increased mobile browsing, every business has begun to realize that their web presence needs to be optimized for multiple formats. The impact of this digital moment is especially relevant for businesses serving tourists, as tourists are more likely to seek access to your site from a mobile device and what they find there can determine your success.
If you want to attract the most business from a tourist perspective, it’s time to reevaluate how you’ve formatted your mobile web presence. Here are five key strategies that can help set your tourism marketing apart from the competition.
Diversify Your Offerings
The primary goal of mobile optimization for the average website is to make the mobile page an easily navigable, scaled-down version of the desktop site. This may not be the best strategy for companies with a tourism focus, however.
For example, a travel planning company might structure their desktop homepage to include a coupon code for booking travel alongside testimonials from happy travelers and would frontload the links to booking options. Their mobile homepage, on the other hand, would display redirect links to the booking regions or events, suggesting must-see destinations or recommended restaurants.
What a travel planner on their home computer wants and what someone who recently arrived in a new city is looking for are two different things, so why should their web experiences be the same?
Focus On Apps
For a tourism company, a great alternative to breaking up your desktop and mobile webpage structures is to position your website for planning and your app for travel. This can strongly be to your customers’ benefit because cell reception and internet service may not be reliable on the road. Having all of the important information built into your app, then, offers your users the advantage of having everything they need at hand, regardless of connectivity. This is a great way to help your business stand out.
Be Passbook Compatible
Travelers love coupons, but they hate having to fumble through guidebooks or remember to print them in advance. This is why it’s important to make your coupons compatible with common passbook or wallet apps. This allows travelers to keep the deals that matter well organized. What’s more, given the choice between a coupon you need to print and one they can carry on their phone, they’ll choose the business that gives them digital access.
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Get Personal
Unlike community businesses that primarily serve people they know well, tourism-focused companies sometimes know very little about who exactly their target audience is. One way to combat this is by building account information into your app. Desktop and mobile websites generally only require accounts for those engaging in a transaction of using a message board, but apps can make account data a basic use requirement. Use this structure wisely.
When users download your app, include demographic information and other useful facts in the form. It shouldn’t be so detailed that it prevents people from signing up, but it should give you more information than a standard webpage would otherwise collect. You can then use the data gathered by your app to hone other advertising and outreach approaches.
Connect With The Big Names
Don’t forget to line up your mobile tech experience with the big names in social media. Set up a Twitter account, provide a button to check-in on Swarm, and make sure your Facebook page is prominently displayed. Remember that these sites are almost always connected to easy-to-use analytics programs that will tell you more about your audience. Don’t be too cool to join the mainstream – these guys are the trendsetters for a reason.
Mobile consumers have different wants and needs than desktop users, and this is especially true in the travel & tourism sector. By critiquing your website from the perspective of both of these types of customers, you’ll start to notice the subtle nuances between the mobile and desktops experiences that could make or break their loyalty to your organization. Start with these five tips today.
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