After a few pandemic years, international travel began to flourish again in 2022, with the World Tourism Organization noting a “stronger than expected recovery.” More than twice as many people traveled in 2022 as in 2021, and the industry is quickly getting back to pre-pandemic visitor numbers.
Honestly? We’re not surprised. Eventually, it was inevitable that people would get back to what they love: travel, adventure, and the thrill of new experiences.
As people think about which museums and attractions to visit, how to ensure that your travel content marketing attracts as many folks as possible? After all, yours isn’t the only destination on their bucket lists.
Why travel content marketing matters so much
Travel content marketing is key for museums and attractions seeking to get on the radar of eager travelers and culture lovers. The original content you create and share on your website attracts “organic traffic” – people searching for cool things to do via a web search. Sharing your travel marketing content via social media and email also reminds your existing fans that you’re still there.
The more content you make and share, the more content search engines, like Google, can find and index.
Travel content marketing isn’t just about volume, of course. Like in most areas of excellence, success comes from quality, not quantity. For your content marketing to be effective, it requires a hefty dose of thought and a degree of imagination – not to mention talent. But don’t worry, you probably already have a lot of that talent in-house.
What sort of content are we talking about? Read on for some ideas and real-world examples of effective and eye-catching travel content marketing.
1. An inquisitive blog
The British Museum’s blog is a sleek sneak peek at upcoming special exhibitions as well as a modern take on art history. History buffs who wonder “Did Nero really ‘fiddle while Rome burned’?” and “Why did they move Thomas Becket’s bones?” find answers here in wittily written dispatches. The museum’s blog missives are a scintillating glance back at history and forward at upcoming museum experiences.
The blog model works for other kinds of attractions and experiences, too.
The New England Aquarium’s popular blog publishes regularly about subjects from the serious (conservation efforts) to the whimsical (like this Podcast Playlist). ARTIS, Amsterdam’s Royal Zoo, has a blog that features stories about all the curious creatures that inhabit the zoo, the stunning botanical life on view there, and the legends behind the medieval fortress at the heart of the venue. These stories give rich historical and natural context to a modern-day zoo experience.
A blog can easily be integrated into your website, and you already have the content makers you need to whip up informative, insightful posts: curators, scientists, animal wranglers, botanists, art history academics, and other types of subject-matter experts on your staff. Ask them what they’d like to share with a wider audience, and remember, no idea is too “out there” to consider.
If publishing your own blog posts feels like too much, or if you just want to take advantage of another travel content marketing option, look to partners like your online travel agency (OTA) who may be willing to feature your museum or attraction on their own blog. Tiqets, for example, has a popular consumer-facing blog that gives travelers ideas for where to visit, along with direct links to tickets and special promotions.
Whatever marketing and ticketing partner you work with, chances are they have a built-in audience for their own social and content marketing that you could take advantage of.
2. A cool print magazine
Remember print? Airbnb does. Interestingly, this born-digital brand was a retro innovator with its 2016 Airbnb Magazine, launched in partnership with publishing bigwig Hearst. First debuted at an Airbnb open event in Los Angeles, it was eventually sent to all Airbnb hosts with multiple listings, and made available by subscription to anyone else.
Another high-profile example of a tourism industry print publication, of course, is Smithsonian Magazine. With subject matter covering “history and archaeology from the Sphinx to Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War,” the content of the magazine mirrors the content of the Washington D.C. museum, but also stands alone as a highly regarded publication. Over its 50+ years in publication, Smithsonian Magazine has grown into a highly respected brand that attracts notable contributors and pays homage to select individuals with its annual American Ingenuity Awards. And, of course, the magazine attracts attention back to the Smithsonian itself.
On a smaller scale, in NYC, the Children’s Museum of the Arts helped launch Mishou Magazine to highlight the creative work of young artists. During the pandemic, the magazine sprung up to give artistic kids a break from screens, offering accessible household art activities such as “create art prints with food scraps.” The digital magazine is still sponsored by the museum’s partner on that project, Dizzy Books.
Print publishing is expensive, and not for every brand. But if you have the resources or the connections to partner with a publisher, it can be well worth the effort. As a less lofty option, pitch a guest article to an existing travel-based publication, of which there are no shortage: airline magazines, global travel publications, local magazines, hotel publications, destination guides.
To get your foot in the door of the bigger-name magazines, a PR professional can be helpful, but for publications with a smaller circulation, or those just getting off the ground, a direct pitch is often more successful.
3. An intriguing podcast
In addition to the print magazine, the Smithsonian has plenty of other high-caliber approaches to travel content marketing. The museum’s podcasts (yes, plural) are popular resources. As just one example, the podcast Sidedoor tells stories from the Smithsonian’s rich trove of antiquities and objets d’art – consider ”Bloodsuckers!” (why leeches deserve more love) and “The Battle of Blair Mountain” (the story of a 1921 coal miner immigrant labor uprising).
At Centre Pompidou, in Paris, the podcast aptly titled One Podcast for One Artwork dives into specific themes surrounding the museum’s flagship pieces. Each episode hones in on a specific work of art, such as Frida Kahlo’s The Frame or Piet Mondrian’s Composition en Rouge, bleu et blanc II, 1937. For hardcore art fans, this is an incredible treasure trove of insight into the minds and intentions of famous artists.
Like a blog, a podcast has rich potential to showcase the knowledge and information your staff and stakeholders possess. But podcasts allow you to go into even more detail and showcase the personality of your professionals on staff. For this reason, podcasts are most successful when they deliver insight and stories beyond “the latest news” of your venue. Use this format to dive into narratives and cast intrigue about your attraction’s subject matter.
4. Downloadable educational or interactive content
One hard lesson a lot of museums and attractions endured during the pandemic: When in-person tourism comes to a slamming halt, you must have virtual options to keep the magic alive. Attractions that pivoted to digital experiences during lockdowns stayed in the minds of visitors the entire time, and a lot of those venues have opted to continue offering digital content.
The Roald Dahl Museum, physically located in Buckinghamshire, makes it a part of their museum marketing practice to offer on-brand educational content for teachers and families that can be experienced from anywhere. Currently, this includes classroom lesson plans focused on Roald Dahl’’s popular children's books and aligned with the UK’s educational standards. Building on the buzz the recent movie Matilda the Musical created, the Roald Dahl Museum also offers a webpage-worth of Matilda-specific content designed to inspire the author’s fans to read more and share the books they love.
Other museums pair up with marketing partners to create impressive, imaginative interactive materials. The Met, the Getty Museum, and the Cincinnati Art Museum, for instance, all made parts of their collections available via the Nintendo game Animal Crossing in 2020.
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam allows online visitors to explore its collections virtually with a gamification element that makes the digital experience more enticing. The museum also takes advantage of the visual potential of digital media with its Stories series, an interactive website feature that allows online visitors to explore artworks in great detail. Click on Remember Me: Stories about portraiture in the Renaissance, and you’re transported to a sequence of portraits you can explore with your mouse. Insight into the style of portraiture of that era, as well as the mindset behind both the artists and the subjects, brings these 2D paintings to life.
An OTA like Tiqets can be very helpful in this pursuit as well. During the pandemic, Tiqets made a list of 90+ Virtual Museum Tours You Can Enjoy from Your Couch, and many of these experiences are still available. For Earth Day in April 2021, Tiqets launched Great Explorations, a virtual celebration with a series of free, virtual, nature-themed activities. Venues around the world got a marketing boost from this event simply by being a Tiqets partner.
You may have ideas of your own for interactive travel marketing content. Let your imagination lead, because original and unique initiatives are always ideal ways to grab your audience’s attention.
5. Elevated video experiences
Video is one of the most effective types of content marketing, particularly in the travel industry, where a preview of the experience can mean the difference between booking tickets or not. According to Google, “video plays a big role in the dreaming stage” of making travel plans. The search site claims that 64% of people who watch travel-related videos do it because they’re thinking of planning a trip, and 60% of people use online videos to help them make the final decision.
On the very cool website Future World: Where Art Meets Science, the ArtScience Museum in Singapore showcases a library of videos that offer a tempting taste of the experience before visitors come to the actual museum. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video with incredible sound effects and background music is priceless.
The San Diego Zoo takes video marketing even further with live cams installed in many of its exhibits. Tune in any time of day to spy on the condors, pandas, tigers, burrowing owls, and more. Live cams are brilliant for zoos and amusement parks where the action can be exciting, or at least, very cute. But for museums, a more curated approach is often best.
When you’re reviewing your travel content marketing options, consider the wealth of user-generated content, or UGC, you have access to. That refers to videos your visitors film at your venue – often worth a retweet or Facebook share.
And on the OTA note, if you work with one, note that they probably have a video channel you could angle to be invited to guest star in.
6. Influencer marketing in the travel realm
One of the most potent types of digital travel marketing is to team up with an influencer on social media. These are “everyday people” who form a business partnership with brands to promote products and experiences.
Jack Morris has become an Instagram star with 2.6M followers after quitting his carpet-cleaning gig to travel the world at the age of 21. When he recently posted from the debut of Atlantis the Royal, an ultra-luxury retreat in Dubai, you can be sure he wasn’t doing it out of the kindness of his vagabond heart. His “photo dumps” consisted of dozens of professionally shot images dining at the onsite Nobu, overlooking a breathtaking infinity pool, and taking in a private Beyonce concert.
There are plenty of other travel influencers out there, and while some may charge Dubai-worthy prices for their services, others could be in your museum’s marketing budget – particularly if you find niche local influencers to partner with. To get inside the mind of one influencer and travel blogger, read Wonder What the Life of a Travel Blogger Looks Like? Meet Emily at Wander-Lush.
As you’re doing your diligence on possible partnerships, note that social media influencers get a bad rap if they’re not sincere and honest in their approach. Find someone who genuinely loves your museum or attraction and already has the audience you’re hoping to reach. A less well-known influencer with a sincere fanbase aligned with your demographics is going to be more effective than a mega-social-superstar whose attempts to promote your business are expensive and unconvincing.
7. The power of TikTok
Some of the influencers you find will no doubt have a strong presence on TikTok, the social media platform of choice for younger generations. While some museums and attractions are still trying to master Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, others have quietly taken over TikTok and made it their own. You can become a master of TikTok without enlisting a brand influencer.
@blackcountrylivingmuseum ‘Allo ‘Allo ‘Allo bab 👮♀️ #fyp #fypシ #foryou #police #museumtok #history #learnontiktok ♬ FEEL THE GROOVE - Queens Road, Fabian Graetz
The Museum of Neon Art in California is a lesser-known museum that’s managed to gather an enormous TikTok audience with its eye-catching imagery and fascinating science content. The Black Country Living Museum in the UK is another master of the TikTok genre, bringing history to life with actors hamming it up on camera.
If TikTok is your content marketing mode of choice, keep in mind that the type of travel content that does well on this platform is humorous, playful, irreverent, and, often, unpolished. Save your expensive professional videos for other social media platforms. For TikTok, content that feels amateur-made is ironically often more successful.
Make travel content marketing your own
Imaginative digital storytelling doesn’t have to fit neatly into any particular category! Not all travel content marketing comes in a recognizable format like a blog post, a podcast, or a magazine. In fact, when it comes to museums and attractions, your imagination is always your best strategy.
What new ideas could you concoct for content? We look forward to seeing what you come up with.
