Thrilling locations. Luxurious lodging. Friction-free coordination. Reminiscence-making experiences.
For shoppers, these are the issues journey desires are fabricated from.
For content material entrepreneurs, empowering aspiring vacationers to understand these desires is their job.
“Job” is the operative phrase, as storytelling on this crowded house takes greater than associating the model with a nice and purposeful journey. To affect vacationers’ decisions, entrepreneurs should stroll the additional mile of their clients’ sneakers.
The next manufacturers might share a vertical business, however all of them handle the common problem of connecting with shoppers distinctly. Their work, which earned 2024 Content material Advertising Awards, illustrates some finest practices entrepreneurs can apply.
Assist your companions in enterprise success
One of many largest cities in the US, Chicago is dwelling to many world-renowned vacationer locations. Enterprise vacationers and vacationers doubtless know its greatest points of interest, just like the Magnificent Mile and Millennium Park. Nonetheless, they could not find out about its 77 neighborhoods.
Select Chicago — The 77: A Metropolis of Neighborhoods
To place Chicago’s lesser-known communities as premier locations, the town’s tourism board, Select Chicago, developed The 77: A Metropolis of Neighborhoods.
The centerpiece of this content material initiative is a video journey sequence showcasing 5 of Chicago’s most culturally and geographically numerous neighborhoods: Uptown, Little Village, Bronzeville, Humboldt Park, and Pullman and Roseland. (A sixth neighborhood, La Villita, was added later.)
Every episode dives right into a neighborhood’s tradition and historical past by private tales shared by residents and small-business house owners. However the sequence doesn’t shrink back from addressing modern challenges. For instance, the phase centered on Uptown (above) notes its historical past as a refuge for immigrants and LGBTQ+ communities, mentioning the affect of this cross-cultural enclave’s reputation — a scarcity of inexpensive housing and ongoing gentrification.
After all, consciousness is barely half the battle, so Select Chicago straight supported the neighborhood companies and their house owners. A number of content material creators from its ongoing resident influencer program interviewed the enterprise house owners, and over half of the initiative’s manufacturing price range went to girls and minority-owned contractors. A few of the spotlighted companies catered a red-carpet premiere screening of the docuseries. Select Chicago additionally hosted screenings in every featured group.
The 77: A Metropolis of Neighborhoods gained the Greatest in Journey and Tourism class on the 2024 Content material Advertising Awards.
Take shoppers inside your distinctive choices
Cruises are perfect for vacationers trying to discover a number of locations whereas having all their wants catered to alongside the journey. Highlighting what it takes to make each buyer really feel at dwelling whereas away can assist create a definite expertise — and enhance affinity for the model delivering it.
Norwegian Cruise Traces — Embark
Vacationers usually need loads of info to assist them select the perfect cruise line operator and ship providing for his or her pursuits. However poring by detailed reserving brochures is tedious and doesn’t at all times make for straightforward distinctions.
With its EMBARK With NCL travelogue sequence, Norwegian Cruise Traces units itself aside by giving cruisers a uniquely interesting and insightful model expertise earlier than they set sail.
EMBARK takes audiences on an all-access tour of NCL’s Visitor F1rst Expertise, together with the meticulously deliberate operational particulars executed for every cruise to achieve success. It tells tales concerning the individuals who work beneath deck, and glad passengers present testimonials.
EMBARK vividly showcases the model’s breathtaking locations and signature experiences. For instance, within the video above, host Zay Harding takes viewers on a tour of Hawaii’s espresso and cacao farms and a fast hula lesson. Afterward, he hits the island of Kaua’i to catch some waves and rides a UTV throughout its lush mountainous terrain.
However the wind actually hits the sails when the sequence brings viewers again on board for glimpses into the lives of crew members. Within the video above, Zay additionally talks with basic supervisor Kai Turuneu about why he’s labored at NCL for over 16 years.
The EMBARK marketing campaign was a finalist within the Greatest Journey and Tourism class on this 12 months’s Content material Advertising Awards.
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Allow equitable enjoyment
Touring can broaden horizons and shift views. However for folks with disabilities, it may well additionally current surprising obstacles that forestall them from accessing points of interest or taking full benefit of the facilities.
Irrespective of whether or not you’re employed in a tourism enterprise or one other business, creating detailed guides, checklists, and assessments can go a great distance towards incomes shoppers’ belief, appreciation, and booked enterprise.
Go to Lauderdale — Wheel the World
Florida won’t leap to thoughts as a beacon of inclusivity. Nonetheless, Go to Lauderdale goals to alter that by highlighting Higher Fort Lauderdale as an accessible vacation spot for vacationers with disabilities.
For its Wheel the World content material initiative, Go to Lauderdale partnered with Aqua Advertising and Communications to conduct detailed accessibility assessments of 70 accommodations, eating places, and points of interest.
The verified particulars had been compiled right into a complete on-line information and shared by way of a co-branded web site that includes weblog posts, FAQs, journey ideas, and e-learning coaching. A sequence of sizzle reels and social media movies bolstered the marketing campaign’s attain.
For instance, the video above reveals vacationers having fun with wheelchair-friendly actions like feeding the birds at Flamingo Gardens, touring the Florida Everglades in an airboat, and cruising the Jungle Queen Riverboat.
By showcasing Fort Lauderdale’s inclusive nature by compelling storytelling and detailed steerage, the marketing campaign strengthened the world’s fame as a welcoming place for all vacationers. It enabled shoppers to decide on appropriate actions and lodging with better confidence.
The additional effort taken by Go to Lauderdale to assist specialised wants additionally proved it worthy of recognition as a finalist for Greatest Use of Social Media within the Content material Advertising Awards.
Exhibit massive advantages in smaller packages
Summer time would be the excessive season for prolonged holidays. However with the precise content material, journey manufacturers can tempt shoppers into taking shorter however equally interesting journeys at any time of 12 months.
Connecticut Workplace of Tourism — Discover Your Vibe
Although Connecticut affords the identical quaint attraction and multi-seasonal actions as different New England states, it’s recognized extra for its rich suburban neighborhoods and traffic-filled roads on the way in which to extra thrilling locations.
Nonetheless, this compact state has many extra traveler-friendly choices than meets the attention, even when the identical can’t be mentioned about its tourism price range. So, the Connecticut Workplace of Tourism partnered with advertising company Adams & Knight to emphasise the previous whereas working inside the confines of the latter.
It resulted in Discover Your Vibe, a sequence of articles, directories, and brief movies constructed round a central message: Connecticut’s compact geography means guests can pack loads of leisure actions into a fast getaway any time of 12 months.
For instance, a video highlighting autumn enjoyable (above) previews out of doors actions like climbing with llamas and horseback using, plus alternatives to buy at native boutiques, attend arts performances, and go to animals on the state’s aquarium and zoo.
Discover Your Vibe can be half of a bigger initiative — CTVisit — that features a dynamic content material hub and weekly broadcast applications in partnership with information stations in Connecticut’s tri-state space. It permits the tourism board to advertise many extra experiences and companies and frequently replace locals and vacationers alike on new experiences they will discover within the upcoming season.
The trouble has helped assist tourism in Connecticut and achieved finalist standing within the Journey and Tourism class on the Content material Advertising Awards.
Serve up a gen-ex(perience) to attach with youthful audiences
Youthful-generation shoppers can have vastly completely different expectations than their older or family-focused counterparts. For them, “catching a tour” is probably going extra about music than museums.
Content material will get and stays on their radar when it fuels their curiosity in immersive experiences and makes private connections to their passions.
Marriott Bonvoy — The Highway to Stunning with Rolling Stone
Marriott Bonvoy needed to reinforce the notion of its portfolio amongst next-generation expertise seekers. The model discovered the right alternative in a partnership with Rolling Stone — the journal with a storied historical past for partaking younger music lovers and competition goers.
Prematurely of the Life is Stunning competition in Las Vegas in 2023, Rolling Stone and Marriott Bonvoy teamed as much as be a part of three of the competition’s performers on their excursions and created The Highway to Stunning, a sequence of up-close interviews captured at Marriott properties reflecting every artist’s distinctive type.
The interviews had been shared by articles and pictures printed on Rolling Stone and briefly clips posted on YouTube and TikTok. However the conversations go deeper than the common band promotion by digging into the non-public connections these artists really feel for the interview setting.
For instance, in a clip filmed at The Blackstone lodge in Chicago (above), the members of musical collective Franc Moody take a look at a neighborhood music retailer, discuss to native DJs, and focus on how the town’s eclectic musical influences impressed their signature sound.
The Highway to Stunning additionally led to a further achievement for Marriott Worldwide: being named a Content material Advertising Award finalist for Greatest Use of Native Promoting/Sponsored Content material.
Attain for the skies
These manufacturers present the ability of storytelling in all codecs, from behind the scenes to deep immersions. It doesn’t matter what shoppers need to obtain by journey, your model’s strong content material efforts can join them to their passions, ease the trail to experiencing them, and encourage them to convey your model alongside for the trip.
Tell us on social with #CMWorld if these efforts have sparked new content material concepts to assist what you are promoting attain its desired advertising locations.
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Cowl picture by Joseph Kalinowski/Content material Advertising Institute
