Blog

As a speaker at the recent Tech & Tourism Conference in Johannesburg, I had the privilege of shedding light on a crucial aspect of modern tourism marketing: leveraging big data analytics to empower travel businesses. In an era where data reigns supreme, the key lies not only in the abundance of information but also in its interpretation.

In this month’s blog, we review the effectiveness of Reels as part of our social media marketing strategy for three different clients. This is how Facebook and Instagram Reels boost our clients’ brand visibility to increase their overall ROI—and how you can do it, too.

In our previous blog post, we covered 3 methods to optimise your marketing budget and increase ROI with a collective marketing strategy. Now, we delve deeper into how to make this work in practice with a case study on one of our agency’s most successful clients.

In a nutshell, a collective marketing strategy in tourism entails pooling your budget and resources to ensure both your umbrella brand and individual offerings gain mindshare with your target audiences.

When it comes to optimising your marketing budget to increase ROI, there is no shortage of DIY guides on the internet. The only catch? Most of them either offer generic one-size-fits-all approaches to marketing regardless of industry or get so technical that you need an MBA just to decipher the content. We’re here to help.

Read on for our definitive guide to increasing ROI through smart marketing, specifically made for the tourism industry and translated from jargon to real talk.

The Salene, nestled amidst Stellenbosch’s best wine farms in the heart of the Devon Valley, needed a brand refresh. Having recently changed owners and rebranded from Zarose, we knew it was important to differentiate this luxury accommodation offering from the many other options in the area. When your competitors all boast stunning scenery, luxurious stays, an incredible location and wedding venues to boot, standing out of the crowd can be a challenge. Our solution? Tell the best story.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the practice of optimising your website for search engines. It is important, because it lies at the bottom of every single successful tourism booking that will ever be made on your website. Why is SEO so important? Because a website that is optimized for the Google Search Engine, will help the search engine to index your website much easier. And when it is properly indexed according to your most relevant products, the search engine can successfully match it with your most suitable potential guests.

This indexing happens according to “key words” that describe the product you offer and which enables the search engine to match your website with a keyword entered in your potential guest’s search.

Whether you are the owner of a small boutique hotel, or the marketing manager for a large group of safari lodges, the main question around digital marketing strategy for tourism remains the same: Is my current marketing strategy optimised for the tourism industry, and do I have everything in place to drive as many as possible direct, online bookings via my website, at the highest possible ROI? To guide you through these questions, we've put together a checklist of best practices in digital marketing strategy.

With an office based in Stellenbosch, our team of digital marketers for tourism know the winelands, Garden Route and West Coast better than most, but when it comes to Northern KwaZulu-Natal they need 'refreshers' every then and now. Luckily, one of our clients, Isibindi Africa Lodges, invited us to experience their lodges stretching from the iSimangaliso Wetland Park to the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Park. Here's how it went:

We all became a bit too comfortable and let’s face it - lazy - before 2020. Fast forward to now, and your title has probably stretched from 'Guesthouse Owner' to include social media manager, content creator, photographer, and online community manager (to name just a few). So here are 4 simple tips on creating social media content for tourism that will make you look like a pro.

As leaders in African tourism marketing, Eco Africa Digital researched and compiled a document that highlights the most important travel trends for the African tourism industry for 2021.

These include:

1. Smaller Groups & Privacy
2. Regenerative Travel
3. Bye-Bye 9 to 5: Work Wherever You Want
4. Vital Value: Maximising Travel For Less
5. Flexible Cancellation Terms & Safety
6. Travel Bubbles
7. Preference for Outdoor Experiences
8. Rise in Popularity of Local Travel