Adventure travel is undeniably one of the most popular trends all over the world and growing by leaps and bounds. Social media and PR are a vital way to highlight your property’s involvement to reap more reservations from this category. Although studies indicate that adventure enthusiasts read online magazines like National Geographic Traveler and Outside Magazine, they also follow their extremely popular Instagram and Pinterest feeds. Therefore, your destination should aim to gain coverage in these kinds of mainstream media outlets as part of a comprehensive PR program.
While there are many travelers that enjoy a tranquil, white beach with turquoise waters for a calming vacation, the thirst for adrenaline filled and thrilling activities you offer has tremendous promotional opportunities. Finding those influencers who have huge followings on Instagram, in particular, will attract guests to your property.
Quick facts
The global adventure market has a total value of $89 billion.
Adventurers have higher levels of household income and therefore feel more comfortable spending more money on a trip.
70 per centÊof hard adventurers and 63 per centÊof soft adventurers have post-secondary education, compared to 47 per centÊof other travelers who have a two year degree or higher.
Social media should be one of your key tools to attract this market, as it reaches all the target generations from Baby Boomers to Millennials to Gen-Xers and Gen-Yers. A social media PR agency savvy in this arena recommends that you post strong images regularly on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and if possible, Pinterest. Building an image library for this campaign is vital. Using popular hashtags is a key tactic to get noticed on these platforms. In addition, it is crucial to respond to comments on your posts and engender lively and positive interaction.
Building your community
The beauty of social media is that is provides the opportunity to build an online community of like-minded individuals, which is instrumental in today’s online sphere. While you should use popular hashtags to reach this audience, try focusing your hashtags on your location in the world and the variety of activities and features of your property. This article gets into specific hashtags for soft and hard adventure, which will garner specific audiences.ÊSince Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook are image-centric platforms, powerful visuals are paramount. Make sure to have shots of people enjoying themselves, exquisite nature, and delicious dishes served at your property in your arsenal, and don’t forget the chef!
Make sure you emphasize luxurious, natural spa treatments that can only be found at your hotel to the adventurer. These guests will want to relax and recharge after their activities so it’s useful to gain exposure in the media for your spa treatments. This will allow you to capture additional revenues from this fruitful market.
Winning social media approaches
Top public relations agencies advise using Facebook and Instagram as the priority channels to attract this group by posting high-resolution videos and juicy images of people enjoying themselves in the outdoors and at your hotel. Using pictures to highlight invigorating activities that you offer is a highly effective way to generate excitement about what’s going on to the adventure target guest.ÊÊ
An aggressive program would recommend posting on Instagram and Facebook four to five times a week because these are the most community based social media platforms. Pinterest, an often underutilized tool, is a visual resource where you can create boards to show off your hotel. You’ll want to lure the adventure traveler through images showing people of all ages active in activities available in and around your hotel. On Twitter, public relations experts recommend posting at least three tweets per week sharing relevant content about packages you are offering and engaging this lively audience in adventure related conversations. You can also share articles your agency secures in the press on Twitter.
The secret to a successful social media strategy is consistency. Make sure that your social media posts are fresh and alive. Clever captions are just as important as great photos. Always look for ways to engage your adventurer seekers. A simple, yet effective comment can make someone on Facebook feel as though they have a personal connection with your hotel. That’s how you turn social media visitors into guests.
Useful travel-oriented hashtags:
#travelgram
#travelthursday
#wanderlust
#travelpics
#ilovetravel
#liveauthentic
The soft adventurer and useful hashtags
Research shows that soft adventure is the fasted growing segment in the travel industry, which is why travel PR firms recommend also focusing a large part of your social media campaign here. Soft adventure activities require little to no experience, making it much more accessible to the majority of people no matter their age or fitness level. These travelers are looking for a variety of ways to broaden their horizons.
Exploring cultures and natural wonders is another facet of interest. Use alluring visuals on social media to showcase your property as a top choice for families, couples, and solo travelers. Activities in this category include anything from biking tours in France to snorkeling in the Caribbean. The dive market runs from the early adapter to the hard core. Adjust your targeting accordingly.
Since anyone can participate in soft adventure pursuits, there are ways to capture enthusiasts for these activities using hashtags like the following:
#hiking
#underwater
#adventuretraveling
#passionpassport
#explore
As the largest category of adventure travelers across all regions, it is pivotal to understand the demographics of this group. Researchers have found that 25 per centÊof all international trips taken to Latin America, North America, and Europe are soft adventure trips. These globetrotters put a priority on energetic experiences revolving around natural environments, whether they are in the canyons of Arizona or rainforests of Costa Rica. Of particular note is the fact that the soft adventurer spends the most per trip of any category.
The hard adventurer and hashtags to grab attention
Those seeking more high adrenaline activities have exploded in numbers in recent years. They’re big with solo travelers and groups of friends who love to explore the limits together. Caving, mountain biking, repelling and high intensity ziplining are just a few examples of the kinds of experiences that turn the hard core on. They seek to test themselves physically and mentally in breathtaking settings and on unfamiliar terrain they’ve seen on Instagram and other visually rich social media channels. A high element of challenge is what attracts this type of traveler to a destination, which is why it is crucial to show any adrenaline packed activities through potent visual images, both photos and videos.
To target this market, you should task your PR agency with finding the influencers with huge followings on Instagram to highlight the activities you offer. Featuring a specific guest at your hotel and their epic adventures and telling their story through great photographs will grab the attention of future visitors.
Eye-catching hashtags for this category include:
#challenge
#adventure
#bucketlist
#keepitwild
#lifeofadventure
The adventurous foodie and food that is #Yummy!
Food is more than just a necessity for many travelers today because it is often what drives their curiosity. These enthusiasts want to experience local cultures through cuisine. For them, the taste sensation is what moves them. If you offer tours of sweeping vineyards or blissful mango groves, mine these in social media to attract this clientele.
Since foodies are fanatical about cuisine, there has been an explosion of activity on social media in this category. Scrumptious pictures of your tasty dishes on Instagram will undoubtedly attract the foodies. It may come to you as a surprise that many passionate diners base their selection of where they are going to stay from the menu offerings. Instagram is the most important social media tool in your arsenal to entice this group. Make sure to display the menu items and ingredients that set your hotel apart.
Here are some of the most popular hashtags in this category:
#cook
#localcuisine
#cleaneating
#farmtotable
#yummy
A huge trend on Facebook, and a prime way to reach food lovers, is to use quick and vibrant videos to show how meals are prepared step-by-step. Gaining exposure on the Instagram accounts of magazines like Saveur and Food & Wine, read religiously by this sector, is a sure way to lure attention. Once you’ve secured mainstream coverage on an outlet like the Food Network, create buzz on Twitter and Facebook to gain more followers, and ultimately guests. This will bring media interest and public attention to your dining venues. Try to find high exposure platforms like this to highlight the creative cuisine at your hotel stand out from the crowd.
Social listening
Listening in on the conversations on your social media channels is an important monitoring device to keep the chatter going. This way you can choose which subject matter to emphasize as it pertains to your particular property. Since eco-tourism has over 30,000 tweets, it is important to weed out the content that is important to you. If environmentally conscious trips is what you are promoting, find ways through hashtags to hone in on that audience. This kind of industry eavesdropping can yield instrumental results in your strategy adjustment.
By paying attention to people’s conversations, you can tweak and refine your tactics to impact your bookings by carefully analyzing your potential customers and highlighting exactly what they’re getting excited about.
Adventurers are thoroughly educated and wish to see the places they read about in every form of media that’s out there today. They are looking for hotels that facilitate the trip that satisfies their dreams. Highlighting your treasures in social media will put you at the top of the list and ultimately get you more reservations from this exploding market.
By Lorraine Abelow
Lorraine Abelow has had a 30-year, award-winning, boutique travel PR firm in New York City and is at the forefront of trends affecting traditional and digital media.ÊHer firm has represented such blue-chip names as Four Seasons and Hilton Hotels, as well as boutique properties across the globe and island destinations including St Barth’s and Necker. The agency’s affordable hotel PR campaigns are designed to move the needle regularly gaining eye-catching feature exposure in such top outlets as The New York Times, Travel and Leisure and Conde Nast Traveler. It’s the long-standing relationships the Abelow PR team has with high-level editors that insures coverage in A list media in every campaign. Coverage in influential blogs and social media campaigns round out Abelow PR’s expertise. Lorraine serves as an honorary judge for the Hotels Sales and Marketing International Association, from which she has won awards for her outstanding achievement over her illustrious career. For more information about this boutique New York City PR firm visit www.AbelowPR.com. You can contact her at Lorraine@AbelowPR.com or 203-226-9247.
