In today’s consumer-centric world, each customer should be treated as an individual. And the same can be said for travellers.
In fact, 72% of consumers claim they will only engage with personalised messaging, and 63% see personalisation as a standard of service. As a result, personalisation has become a key differentiator for travel agencies striving to stand out from the crowd, increase bookings, and enhance customer experience. But as with many marketing tactics, personalisation is advancing at a rapid rate. No more a ‘nice to have’, personalisation is making significant strides, and if travel agencies don’t keep up they risk being left behind.
In this guide, we explore the future of personalisation for travel industries. Covering why personalisation is essential, future trends, real-life campaigns, and what travel agencies need to do to prepare for a personalised future.
The benefits of personalisation for Travel Agencies
Within the travel industry, personalisation is now a crucial strategy for any agency looking to succeed. However, if your agency is behind the times when it comes to implementing personalised marketing, here are some benefits to encourage you to get started.
1. Better use of data
One of the overarching benefits of personalisation for travel agencies is that it maximises the use of data. Through the analysis of booking history, preferences, and browsing behaviour, agencies can execute a range of engaging campaigns, as well as gain invaluable insights to inform future marketing strategy.
2. Positive customer experience
McKinsey reports that 71% of consumers expect businesses to deliver personalised interactions, in fact, 76% would get frustrated if this does not happen.
Specifically to travel agencies, when customers receive personalised recommendations and offers that align with their passions, they are more likely to feel valued and understood by the agency. This in turn leads to repeat bookings and long-term, loyal customers.
3. Improved engagement rates
Personalised emails have been shown to generate 26% higher open rates compared to generic ones.
So, for travel agencies, it’s a no-brainer that sending targeted emails complete with personalised subject lines, destination recommendations, and tailored content will help to increase initial engagement, which leads on to an email click-through and a booking.
4. A competitive edge
Travellers have an increasing amount of options available for booking their trip, so in a saturated market, personalisation can act as a key differentiator.
Travel agencies that effectively personalise their communications to each recipient can stand out from competitors; attracting more customers, and capturing a larger market share.
The current state of personalisation for Travel Agencies
Currently, many travel agencies are leveraging personalisation to some extent, but there is still significant room for improvement. If you’re not sure where to begin, here’s an overview of the current landscape.
Use of customer data: Travel agencies are aware of the power of customer data to information personalisation efforts. Notably, data from past bookings, browsing behaviour, and demographic information is utilised for basic campaign segmentation.
Basic personalisation tactics: Many agencies use basic personalisation techniques such as addressing customers by their first names, and recommending destinations based on simple segmentation. Whilst these tactics are a good starting point, they often lack the depth and sophistication needed to truly engage customers.
Automation and AI: The adoption of automation and artificial intelligence (AI) is on the rise in many industries. Travel agencies are no exception, utilising AI-powered tools to analyse customer data, predict preferences, and automate personalised email campaigns. These technologies are helping to streamline processes alongside improving the accuracy of personalisation.
Omnichannel personalisation: Some travel agencies are beginning to implement omnichannel personalisation strategies, ensuring a consistent and personalised experience across various touchpoints, including email, landing pages, and SMS messaging. This holistic approach is still in its early stages, but shows great potential.
Future personalisation trends and predictions
The future of personalisation for travel agencies is on the cusp of significant advancement. Whilst this is exciting, it’s important to keep up with the latest trends. To help you out, here are our predictions.
Hyper-personalisation
The next evolution of personalisation is hyper-personalisation, which involves using real-time data and advanced analytics to deliver highly individual experiences for each and every recipient.
This is often achieved through the use of dynamic content in email marketing, enabling travel agencies to change the content and destinations based on each recipient’s profile or context. This could include their travel preferences and behaviour, through to their stage in the booking cycle.
AI and Machine Learning
We predict that AI and machine learning will play an increasingly important role in personalisation for travel agencies.
These technologies can analyse vast amounts of data to uncover patterns and predict customer preferences with greater accuracy than on a human level. Enabling travel agencies to deliver more relevant and timely offers that grab attention.
Voice and Chatbot integration
Voice assistants and Chatbots are fast becoming more sophisticated, and offer a unique way to provide personalised recommendations and assistance to travellers through the use of immediate, tailored support and advice.
By integrating these technologies into email marketing campaigns, travel agencies can enhance the customer experience and provide a more interactive and engaging way to communicate.
Virtual (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR)
Virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR) are exciting ways to provide immersive experiences that help travellers visualise their trips. Personalised VR and AR content in email campaigns can engage customers on a deeper level; inspiring them to book their next adventure.
Ethical personalisation
With growing concerns regarding data privacy, we predict that ethical personalisation will become a priority for many travel agencies.
Travel agencies need to be transparent regarding how they plan to use customer data; ensuring they have proper consent. Building trust through ethical practices will be essential to achieving this, as well as executing successful personalisation.
5 innovative personalisation campaigns for Travel Agencies
It’s all well and good to talk about the latest personalisation trends in theory, but what about in practice?
Here are some of our favourite examples of travel campaigns that are ahead when it comes to innovative personalisation.
1. Personalised destination suggestions
Destination suggestions are the bread and butter of travel agency marketing. However, we’ve found that traditionally agencies will send out fairly generic destination suggestions and deals, without utilising any information on the individual recipient.
And we are confident that travel agencies can do much better.
Data such as preferences, browsing behaviour, and past bookings can be used alongside dynamic content to compile customised email recommendations. These can include destinations that are most likely to be of interest or alternative locations available for selected dates.
2. Dynamic itineraries
If you’ve ever researched a holiday itinerary, you may have noticed that many results are one-size-fits-all. But not every traveller is the same, and fortunately, travel agencies have the ability to utilise customer data alongside dynamic content to personalise their itinerary suggestion to each individual.
Imagine an email which is automated post-browse or booking, combining data such as the specific destination, booking dates, browsing history, and travel preferences. This email can be dynamically populated with basic details alongside activities with availability on these specific dates, nearby cultural events that suit their preferences, or daily breakdowns based on how long their trip will be for.
3. Milestone campaigns
Travel agency marketing isn’t just about promoting destinations.
Celebrating important dates such as travel anniversaries or milestones can be a powerful way to engage with loyal customers. And with the right data, agencies can get really niche with their campaigns.
Simple birthday and anniversary celebrations are always popular, but also consider countries visited, miles travelled, or number of trips booked with the agency.
Source: ReallyGoodEmails
4. Dynamic pricing alerts
Dynamic pricing alerts provide personalised email notifications informing travellers about changes to destinations or packages that they have shown an interest in, in real-time.
Campaigns can be tailored to the individual based on their browsing behaviour or abandoned bookings. With alerts leveraging real-time data and algorithms to track and predict price fluctuations. All of which ensures travellers receive timely updates about the best deals available, and adds a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out) to book before prices go up.
5. Virtual destination previews
It’s easy to get caught up in pre-holiday excitement and want to explore your destination in more detail.
Virtual destination previews offer travellers an immersive, interactive glimpse into a destination they have booked, or have shown an interest in. These campaigns can incorporate virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and interactive videos to provide a rich and exciting preview of what their travel experience could be like.
Source: YouTube
How Travel Agencies can prepare for the future
We hope our examples offer some inspiration for your own travel agency personalisation. But before you get started, it’s important to prepare your business for your leap into innovative strategies.
Implement data privacy and security
As we have previously mentioned, data is essential for successful personalisation. However, collecting and using customer data for personalisation raises concerns about privacy and security.
Travel agencies must ensure they comply with data protection regulations such as GDPR, and implement robust security measures to protect customer information.
Integrate your data
As well as having data, travel agencies must ensure this data is of high quality and integrated effectively.
Ideally, data should be gathered from a range of trusted sources, including CRM, booking systems, and email analytics. All of this data must be integrated to ensure seamless and accurate personalisation campaigns.
Utilising a marketing automation platform can be the perfect solution to this challenge. Ideally, one that combines data to manage and send personalised campaigns, without having to navigate multiple systems.
Invest in technology
Implementing advanced personalisation strategies may require some investment in technology and expertise to streamline the process, which would be practically impossible on a manual basis.
We recommend travel agencies work with a leading marketing automation solution to combine their data and manage their campaigns. Bonus points if the supplier boasts travel marketing experts to provide support and assistance.
Don’t be intrusive
Striking the right balance between personalisation and intrusiveness is crucial to maintain engagement with recipients. Whilst travel customers will appreciate relevant recommendations, travel agencies must be mindful of how much personal data they collect, and ensure to respect customers’ boundaries.
Measure effectiveness
No matter how sophisticated your personalisation efforts are, you cannot assume that they are generating results. Measuring the effectiveness of these campaigns is essential to determine what is working and what isn’t, alongside making adjustments to campaigns for the best chance of success.
Using a marketing automation platform which boasts robust reporting can help to solve this challenge; providing travel agencies with analytics to help them refine their strategies and achieve better results over time.
Continuously innovate
The landscape of personalisation is constantly evolving. Therefore, travel agencies must stay abreast of the latest trends and practices to continuously innovate their strategies and stay ahead of competitive agencies.
Experimenting with new approaches, technologies, and campaigns will help agencies stay relevant and meet the changing needs of their customers. By offering personalised campaigns that are unique, agencies are more likely to catch recipients’ attention and encourage further engagement.
Collaborate with experts
Partnering with experts in travel marketing, personalisation, and data can provide travel agencies with the knowledge and resources needed to implement the most successful advanced personalisation strategies.
Furthermore, collaborating with external specialists can help to accelerate the adoption of new technologies, helping to train team members in best practice, and get the most from their personalisation efforts.
Next steps
The future of personalisation for travel agencies is both exciting and maybe a little daunting. As consumer expectations for tailored experiences continue to rise, agencies must leverage their data alongside leading marketing automation solutions to maintain a competitive edge, long-term.
And there’s so much to explore! From hyper-personalisation and AI, to immersive technologies such as VR and AR. So, if you’re as excited as us about the future of personalisation, then we’d love to help.
Our leading marketing automation platform alongside our team of travel marketing experts offers agencies the perfect solution to keeping ahead when it comes to personalisation.
Get in touch to find out more about what the future holds.
