Strategies to Reach Pre-Trip Travelers

I grew an email list from 0 to 500K subscribers in just 10 months for a weekly travel email series. Here’s exactly how we did it: First, nail your strategy. → Identify scalable acquisition channels (cold email, giveaways, social media). → Focus on creating top-notch content that people love. Second, here’s a list of do’s and don’ts based on our success: 1. COLD EMAIL: DON’T: Treat cold email like spam. DO: Use data to personalize at scale. We built a tool that searched Instagram for public data: - Hashtags (like #travel or #wanderlust). - Geotags (places they visited). - Followed accounts (@natgeo, etc.). This allowed us to write hyper-personalized emails with subject lines like: - “Your #hashtag photo” - “Came across your Instagram” Results: 45-50% open rates, 10-15% CTRs, and 200K subscribers from this channel alone. Pro Tip: Warm up your email servers before scaling. Platforms like Gmass + SendGrid worked wonders for us. 2. GIVEAWAYS: DON’T: Run generic giveaways that only attract freebie hunters. DO: Offer niche rewards your audience actually wants. We gave away free flights and hotel stays (funded by rewards miles) and incentivized sharing. Every referral earned bonus entries, creating a viral loop. Results: 5K-15K new subscribers per giveaway, with tools like Gleam and ViralLoops doing the heavy lifting. 3. SOCIAL MEDIA: DON’T: Spend months building social accounts from scratch. DO: Buy and rebrand existing accounts in your niche. We acquired travel-themed Instagram accounts with 700K followers for $10K, then grew the network to 2.2M followers. Here’s how we used them: - Drove traffic to our website, giveaways, and landing pages. - Automated email collection through DMs using tools like MassPlanner. - Created Facebook Groups (30K members), collecting emails via sign-up questions. 4. AMBASSADOR PROGRAM: DON’T: Waste money on influencers who don’t convert. DO: Partner with micro-influencers and reward them based on performance. We recruited 100s of travel influencers from our email data and incentivized them with swag and free travel. Results: Tens of thousands of new subscribers at a cost of just a few cents per email. --- To recap: 1. Personalize cold emails with data. 2. Use giveaways and social proof to fuel virality. 3. Build or buy niche audiences and grow from there. These strategies helped us scale fast. Your email list is one of the best assets you can build. Start experimenting and watch it grow.

I was recently asked at a conference about an immediate action tourism professionals could put into play right away when it comes to communicating with travelers. One area I see as being overlooked is taking advantage of anticipated questions. If you've led the same tour more than once, guided the same experience multiple times, or worked with travelers in any consistent capacity, you already know that their questions are predictable. Too many professionals act as if these are random moments of curiosity, but they are actually patterns you can anticipate and prepare for. The difference between reactive communication and intentional storytelling often comes down to anticipation. When you know the questions before they're asked, you have the opportunity to craft responses that do more than simply answer. These are the questions that open doors to deeper understanding. They are invitations to help travelers see the multidimensional reality of a place rather than just its surface appearance. And what can you do with this information? A few examples: On food tours, travelers will ask about ingredients or preparation methods. Be ready to share: > Where ingredients come from and who grows them. > What this dish means in local celebrations or daily life. > How climate or geography influences what grows here. For adventure activities, people often ask about the landscape or environment. Be prepared with: > Geological or ecological stories about how this place formed. > How local communities have adapted to this environment. > Changes happening due to climate or development. > Why protecting these spaces matters beyond just beauty. If you interact with travelers in any capacity -- from answering questions during the fact-finding part of the buying journey to on-the-ground guiding moments -- here are a few questions you can use to take better advantage of anticipated questions: > What are the three most common questions travelers ask during your tours, experiences, or interactions? How do you currently answer them? > Are there moments when travelers seem curious but don’t ask questions? What might they be wondering about, and how could you address those unspoken curiosities? > Consider the “surface-level” attractions of your destination — the things tourists come to see. What deeper stories or contexts could help transform these from pretty backdrops into meaningful experiences? #TravelStorytelling #TourGuide #

I asked hotel managers to show me their most successful revenue initiative from the past year. The top performers all pointed to something their competitors completely overlooked... While most properties are locked in endless price wars and OTA battles, a select group of hotels has quietly shifted their focus to an untapped revenue multiplier: the pre-arrival window. Through my strategic assessments of properties across various segments, I've found that the most successful hotels are mastering three pre-arrival opportunities: • The critical engagement period between booking confirmation and check-in • The personalization touchpoints that drive ancillary revenue before the guest arrives • The strategic upsell moments that most properties completely miss Hotels implementing a structured pre-arrival strategy are seeing substantial increases in total guest spend and dramatically improved satisfaction scores. Perhaps most compelling? These initiatives require minimal additional resources but deliver outsized returns compared to traditional marketing efforts. Is your property capitalizing on the pre-arrival revenue window, or are you still waiting until check-in to create value? #HotelRevenue #GuestJourney #AncillaryRevenue #HospitalityStrategy

We have worked on tourism campaigns across Oklahoma for years, from Chickasaw Country to the Route 66 Centennial, and one thing is clear: destinations that win are the ones telling real, specific stories. Generic "come visit us" messaging does not move people anymore. What does? Authentic content that makes someone feel the experience before they ever book a trip. Right now, three things are consistently driving results for destinations: First, local creator partnerships. People with genuine ties to the destination who speak to a real audience. Second, video that captures feeling over features. Travelers want to know what it feels like to be there, not a checklist of attractions. Third, targeted digital campaigns built around intent signals. People researching travel destinations give you real data. Use it. Summer is when destination decisions get made. If your marketing is not firing on all cylinders right now, that is worth fixing today. #TheFreestyleAgency #TourismMarketing #DestinationMarketing #TravelMarketing

Airlines update their routes, hotels update their rates. Are you connecting the two? This summer alone, Europe saw over 400 new international routes launch, with Italy, Spain and Germany leading route growth. Delta Air Lines launched Seattle to Barcelona. Seattle to Rome. Boston to Madrid. Boston to Nice. JFK to Sardinia. Alaska Airlines entered the transatlantic market for the first time with Seattle to London, Rome and Reykjavík. Every single one of those routes opened up a new feeder market. Guests who couldn't justify the journey before, now can. But most hotels find out when the guests start arriving. Not when the route is announced. That gap is your window. Here are three ways to start tracking it today. Set up a Google Alert at google.com/alerts for "new direct flight [your destination]" and you will get an email when it appears in Google search results. Follow Simple Flying or Aviation Week, both publish rolling daily coverage of new route announcements. And follow OAG's free blog at oag.com, which publishes route analysis and capacity data throughout the year. Your media campaigns should be evolving with every announcement. New route drops, are you updating your geo-targeting? Testing creative for that city? Running A/B tests, multivariate campaigns? Or is your strategy still fixed around the same feeder markets it was built on 12 months ago? Flight routes change every season. Your campaigns should too, if they're not maybe whip your media agencies into shape ;) Are you tracking this?

Before they fly, Gen Alpha already explored , inside a game. That single shift exposes a growing problem many leaders don’t want to admit yet. Most destination strategies are still built around arrival moments. But for the next generation, the decision is already made before arrival even becomes possible. #GenAlpha doesn’t discover destinations through ads, brochures, or even websites. They discover them inside digital worlds, where exploration feels natural, social, and self-directed. Platforms like Roblox now see 70M+ daily active users. For many young audiences, that’s where their first relationship with a place begins. Here’s the uncomfortable reality: By the time a physical visit is being planned, brand preference is already formed. If your destination, development, or cultural experience:  • Can’t be explored digitally  • Doesn’t adapt to user behavior  • Doesn’t capture intelligence from interaction …then you’re invisible at the most critical decision point. This isn’t a marketing issue. It’s a strategic infrastructure gap. The winners over the next decade won’t be the destinations with the loudest campaigns. They’ll be the ones that:  • Let audiences experience the place before arrival  • Build emotional familiarity through play and interaction  • Turn early digital engagement into long-term preference and data In a world where discovery happens years before travel, the real risk isn’t being late to the trend. It’s being absent from the decision entirely. #NarsunStudios #FutureOfTourism #ImmersiveExperiences #AIinTourism