ALL ABOUT YOU — BUSINESS ADVICE
MOVERS & SHAKERS
Holiday Extras has appointed Peter Smith in the new role of head of airline business development.
Formerly head of sales UK at CarTrawler, Smith has more than 18 years’ experience in travel, across tour operations, technology and tourism. Prior to CarTrawler, Smith worked for
Travelsupermarket.com as head of flights and car hire.
Freya McCann has joined SuperBreak as sales executive, northwest and Yorkshire. She forms part of the operator’s six-strong team of sales executives who cover the whole of the UK to maintain and grow trade sales. She previously worked at Garstang Travel, most recently as a senior travel advisor.
Adam Walsh has been appointed commercial manager for the UK and Ireland for Interhome. Walsh
joins from JacTravel where he was integrations manager and prior to that worked for Hotels4U. com and
lastminute.com.
Paul Bugeja has been named as the new chief executive of the Malta Tourism Authority. He succeeds outgoing chief executive Josef Formosa Gauci on September 16. Bugeja is former president of the Malta Hotels & Restaurants Association and worked for the Corinthia Group for 35 years.
As traditional marketing methods lose their impact, travel content marketing is becoming more important.
In the second of our five- part
cut-out-and-keep monthly series, Melt Content’s Dan Hart guides you through the process of travel content marketing, from devising plans to assessing results. Last month he defined
a blog
about ‘my best holiday experience’ and you’ll end up with
TRAVEL CONTENT MARKETING
travel content marketing and explained its benefits; this month he discusses how to make the most of your assets.
What is an asset?
By definition, an asset is a useful or valuable thing or person. When it comes to content marketing, that means anything that can help you achieve your content production goals. It can be an item of property, for
ready-made content.
It doesn’t always need to be perfectly polished, as long as it is genuine and honest.
Keep it topical
Content around trends and current affairs can also help drive website traffic by scoring highly in search results. ‘Peace of mind’
Advice from Dan Hart
example, a camcorder for making viral videos; a facility, such as an idyllic sandy beach for taking photos; or simple brand-name recognition. The greatest assets of all are people. Your satisfied customers, who can provide reviews and case studies, and your staff, with a wealth of specialist skills and knowledge.
Assess your assets
Take account of how you can create original travel content that will entertain, engage and enlighten your customer base. If you own a hotel, why not send your
knowledgeable concierge out to take photos of his favourite sights in the local area? If you sell winter holiday packages, why not get your ski staff to produce daily snow reports? Or if you’re a travel agent, why not ask a sales team member to write about that time they helped a customer fulfil their lifelong dream of visiting an exotic destination? It’s easy and cheap for staff to produce content. You could run an in-house competition to write
managing director, Melt Content
content around issues such as social unrest may be picked up by concerned consumers searching the web, while timely destination content can piggyback spikes in search traffic around popular destination TV shows such as The Only Way is Essex in Marbella. You can also use customer sales data as content inspiration, as this can reveal trends as simple as Apple Mac users booking more expensive holidays than Android users.
Follow the lead
Look at the success of others. The Glacier Skywalk in the Canadian Rockies has a professional website full of slick photos and blogs, but perhaps its savviest content is an Instagram video of blogger Mike Morrison walking across the glass-floored Skywalk. Although filmed on his own iPhone, and just 15 seconds long, it went viral. Meanwhile, Monarch Airlines has launched a map of flight destinations accompanied by insider travel advice by its own cabin crew. Creating travel content doesn’t have to be expensive or extensive. Look around – you might find many of the assets you need already at your fingertips.
Next time...
In part three of this series, find out how to devise a plan for your travel content
21 August 2014 —
travelweekly.co.uk • 35
MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!
YOUR CUT-OUT-AND-KEEP GUIDE PART TWO
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