How to achieve positive ROI with digital in tourism

We implemented the practice of cycle in digital advertising for tourism in order to achieve campaign goals and positive ROI (return of investment).

The island of Pag holds many secrets – like Pag lace and famous Pag cheese, great natural beauty and unforgettable nightlife, but the best kept secret is Camping Village Šimuni. We had a mission to promote this beautiful camping site, as well as keep old and win over new guests. To do that, we implemented the practice of cycle in digital in tourism.

The cycle in digital advertising for tourism

You can apply this graph to almost every tourist destination. The flow is always the same, but it’s up to you to pick the right channels in accordance with your target audience and campaign goals.

1. Creating the demand

The first phase of the cycle is introducing the world with your destination and everything you offer to your visitors. In the case of Camping Village Šimuni, we used a Facebook page and an Instagram channel to show all the beauties and goodies Šimuni has to offer.

These channels are great for creating a desire for a vacation because there are plenty of functionalities that allow you to post beautiful images of beaches, clean sea, golden sand… whatever your touristic destination has! They are also great for creating interaction, or conversation between family members or friends about their next vacation.

2. Satisfying the demand

In the second phase of the cycle, our potential guests already know about Šimuni, their interest is sparked and they want to show it to their vacation companions. During this phase we want to keep their interest high, so we use Google Search as the most potent channel for direct demand satisfaction. We amplified that channel with image Ads on Google Display Network which were placed through remarketing in order to remind interested users about our offer.

3. Booking

Now, users have already been attracted and interested by our Facebook page and Instagram, and they used Google Search or some other channel to land on the website. Now the booking process should start and it must be as simple and easy as possible. Camping Village Šimuni stands out with its one-on-one approach, so we guide users to an inquiry for a custom vacation plan created just for them!

4. The experience

This is the phase in which the users have already become guests. But that doesn’t mean that the process is over! Camping Village Šimuni offers its guests the best possible vacation. Their amazing staff, as well as a large list of activities and surprises, make their visitors’ experience pleasant and worth recommending. If you add the beautiful coast and crystal clear sea, the perfect vacation is no longer a dream.

5. Sharing the experience

For this phase, it’s essential that the accommodation has free wi-fi so the guests can share their vacation photos on social media channels like Instagram and Facebook. This way, the guests are basically doing the entire first phase work for you, but in a more impactful way because users still have more trust in word-of-mouth than self-promotion.

If you can create the whole process as we have with Camping Village Simuni, results will come naturally!

Setting up digital advertising goals and ROI

I have already described the process of defining the goal value in the case of Camping Village Šimuni in previous blog posts, but let’s have a brief description here as well.

For the purpose of the campaign, we analyzed all available data for average booking value per type of accommodation and the number of inquiries converted into the bookings. Based on the analysis, we developed values for each type of inquiry which allowed us to calculate ROI.

The next step was setting up Google Analytics on the website that allowed us to track and measure ROI for inquiries.

During the entire campaign, we have used Facebook page, Facebook advertising, and Facebook apps in order to ensure the visibility of Camping Village Šimuni. Also, we recently started using Instagram with the same purpose.

But, the most important was setting up and regularly optimizing Google Search and Google remarketing. Our main target markets were Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Italy, Netherlands, and Croatia, but we also tested other markets in order to have the highest ROI possible.

The results of this campaign are amazing, especially for campaigns on the Google platform:

• 1,574,756 ad impressions
• 17,353 clicks on ads
• 49.03% new visitors on the website
• ROI (direct conversions) – 496.81%
• ROI (direct and assisted conversions) – 898,24%

The results show that almost 50% of the website’s visitors were people who have never heard of Camping Village Šimuni and that the branding part of the campaign (Facebook and Instagram) was very successful. Also, these results mean that on 1€ invested, the client got 4,96€ back on direct conversions and 8,98€ on direct and assisted conversions!

These results show a very lucrative campaign for the client! Also, it is impressive to know that more than 90% of all bookings for the 2014 tourist season came from the website.

Conclusion

If you follow the cycle of advertising in tourism as we did in the case of Camping Village Šimuni, results will come. It is very important to optimize the campaign regularly because in digital you need to be fast and flexible if you wish to produce the best results. All the results can be measured so your involvement makes the difference regarding the money earned for the client.

To find out more about digital in tourism or to find out how ROI could be created for your business, feel free to contact us at info@degordian.com.