Whether you sell fish and chips on the seafront or you run a theme park in the middle of the countryside, youâll know that the tourism sector can be tough.
Whilst the industry is set to be worth ÂŁ257 billion by 2025, finding new ways to get customers to keep coming back to your business is hard work – especially if youâre a seasonal business and only operate at certain times of the year.
So, for tour companies, escape rooms, theme parks, restaurants, hotels, souvenir shops, rental companies, and other tourism-related businesses, hereâs the deal: social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram can help you to boost your brand awareness and get more bums on seats.
Below, weâve put together some awesome social media post ideas to give you a helping hand and transform your social networking presence.
Promote your special offers
Everyone loves a bargain, so whether youâre promoting your services to tourists or locals, spread the word about your limited time discounts and special offers on social media.
If you can, create a fancy graphic or two, and pay for your posts to be boosted to extend their reach.
If youâre strategic, you can plan these promotions around busy events, like Easter, the Summer Holidays, and Christmas, or use them during quieter times of the year to keep your cash flow ticking over.
Experiment with different options to see what works, and if you want your tourism offers to travel even further, speak with local tourist boards who can promote your deals on their own website and social media channels – even if it means they take a cut.
Blackpool Pleasure Beach offers an annual pass in December, allowing riders to gain unlimited access to the park for the entire following year. Offering something similar, and shouting about it on your social media feeds, is a great idea for a social media post.
Show off with behind the scenes content
People like people, and whilst itâs good to act professional and keep your tourism business faceless, pulling back the curtain from time to time to show off the staff who work for your organisation is good fun.
You can show your staff preparing for a busy day, take a picture of your team at the Christmas party, or even post âday in the lifeâ style posts, which will attract lots of engagement and encourage people to buy your products or services.
This afternoon tea bus tour company posts regular images of their staff having fun. Not only does it add more personality to the brand, but it creates great-looking content for social.
Get behind upcoming events
Working in the tourism sector, youâll know how important it can be to piggyback off of big events in your local area.
Whether there are Halloween celebrations, Elton John is performing in your city, or theyâre turning on the Illuminations in Blackpool, thereâs always an event on the go, so plan ahead and prepare content that you can tie into your business.
It may be that you liaise with your local council or tourism board to get a list of everything thatâs planned for the following year, or if you live in a quiet town, organise your own events.
Remember to use the relevant hashtags and tag any businesses, community groups, city guide pages and tourism boards to your posts, as theyâll likely promote your content for free.
Following your local tourism board on social media means youâll always be in the know about upcoming events and celebrations in your city. Preparing content in advance will allow you to get ahead and capitalise on any increased footfall in your area, either through offering limited time promotions or putting up your prices to maximise on an event.
Run a competition
Competitions always go down well on social media, so consider offering a prize package to a tourist who likes your page.
Facebook is the best platform for giveaways, as people are more likely to share and like your page there than they would be on Twitter or Instagram, and you can use Facebook Ads to boost your posts for a head start.
If youâre in London and you want to encourage tourists to like your page, then run a sponsored post using Facebook Ads and add a ÂŁ50 budget – youâll quickly find lots of people who want to enter your competition and win a free nightâs stay at your hotel or an afternoon tea in your local English tearoom.
This hotel received hundreds of entries to its competition, and everyone who entered had to like their page. Moving forward, the business can post more relevant content, share deals, and increase their brand awareness – and find new hotel guests along the way.
Share user-generated content
User-generated content – that is, social media posts, images and videos created by your customers – always goes down well on social media.
Whether you own an âexperience dayâ business or an establishment in hospitality, encourage customers to share images of their day on social media with a relevant hashtag.
You could encourage more people to get involved by offering a prize every month (i.e. âTag us in a selfie on Instagram for the chance to win an annual pass to our venueâ), and you can then use their content on your account.
Not only does this save you time, as youâll have lots of fresh material to share, but itâll act as âsocial proofâ (i.e. show potential customers that youâre popular and offer a good experience) and youâll also pick up likes and interest from the followers of those who post about you.
This escape rooms business share selfies with their customers. Those who took part will want to share their post with their friends, and those thinking about booking an escape room experience will see that others have enjoyed themselves and will be more likely to book.
Ask some questions
Social media is all about engagement, so finding new ways to get your followers interacting with you on Twitter and Facebook is key.
If youâve got hundreds or even thousands of people who like your page (perhaps previous guests), then asking questions on your accounts will encourage them to comment and retweet, which will increase the reach of your posts.
This post on Alton Towersâ Twitter received hundreds of likes, responses and retweets.
Work with influencers
Finally, if you want to encourage more people to visit you and spend their hard earned cash, then you could consider influencer marketing.
Indeed, itâs a growing trend in tourism and involves you offering a free day out to a social media or YouTube star who has lots of followers.
And itâs a win-win situation; they get paid and a day having fun, and you get some exposure and content to share on social media.
Weigh up the pros and cons before spending money on influencer marketing, though, as itâs not always worth it.
Ask whether youâre going to get a return on your investment, check to see if thereâs an overlap between your audiences, and test with smaller influencers (those who have a couple of thousand followers and are happy to post about your business in exchange for a voucher or freebie) before moving on to the big guns, whoâll likely expect hundreds or even thousands of pounds for a spot on their YouTube video.
Blackpool Dungeon used influencer marketing to promote their new dungeon attractions, working with a local footballer to attract more teenagers to their premises.
Wrapping up
Tourism is all about making your offering as attractive as possible, and social media can go a long way to doing that.
If you havenât updated your Facebook account in months, people will assume youâre no longer in business or look elsewhere for something thatâs more engaging.
If youâre too busy to worry about tweeting, Facebooking and Instagramming, fear not. We offer affordable social media management in the UK from as little as ÂŁ99 per month, which will save you time and help you find hundreds of new customers.
Get in touch with the team today to find out more, and we can get you up and running in less than 24 hours. Brilliant!